Kingbridge Centre

When the Grunion disappeared, Lt. Commander Abele was survived by his wife and three sons, Bruce, Brad, and John. John Abele, the youngest of the three brothers, was five when he lost his father. Under the guidance and care of a “tough lady” who supported her family as a violin teacher, the “classically macho” boys grew up to become successful men. Questions relating to the disappearance of the Grunion remained unanswered. Where did she sink? How did she sink? “As far as my family was concerned, it was an impossible mystery,” explains Abele.

Fragmented childhood memories of John Abele’s father were reignited when his middle brother Brad began a curious – and seemingly unfeasible – quest for details surrounding the sinking of the Grunion. He talked to a number of people who had known our dad as well as a number of veterans who had served in the Aleutians during WW II, but wasn’t able to find any useful clues on its fate. It was the early 1990s. John Abele was a successful entrepreneur and businessman who co-founded Boston Scientific Corporation, a pioneer in the field of “less invasive medicine.” (Today, Boston Scientific is a 23,000 employee, $8 billion global medical device company.)

At the turn of the 21^st century, technology finally caught up with Abele when he and his brothers began steadily communicating online with other people who also shared an interest in World War II submarines. In 2002 he connected with a Japanese man, Yutaka Iwasaki, who had found an obscure Japanese merchant marine journal article related to the Grunion. Serendipity met social networking that day. “It was an incredible collection of coincidences,” says Abele.

Armed with new information (and a good deal of money), Abele and his brothers launched a hunt for the Grunion and in August, 2006, armed with heavy duty side scan sonar, about a mile down in the Aleutian chain, the team located an object that appeared to be the right size and shape for the vessel. According to the Grunion’s website, “they were also able to locate three Japanese wrecks in the area so it seems unlikely that there is confusion between wrecks.” Then in August of 2007, armed with an ROV containing many cameras and lights they went back and on August 17 found the wreck of the Grunion at a depth of a little over 1000 meters.

So, many generations later, the violence of World War II relinquished itself to global kinship of a shared experience. “We couldn’t have made this discovery without the collaboration of a number of Japanese individuals as well as numerous other technical collaborators,” says Abele. “It took some extraordinary personalities to accomplish our mission.”

The power of the Grunion story is more than just following dreams or finding resolution or discovering a needle in a haystack. “This story is just getting started,” explains Abele. “We’ve got this collection of people from all over the world forming communities around the Grunion. There’s a group trying to learn technically what happened to the vessel. There’s a group of World War II history buffs. Then there are the ‘sub-ladies’ – a group of women who have spent the past few years tracking down families of all 70 members of the Grunion crew. One of the group’s goals is to have a story written in the hometown newspaper of every crewman or their next of kin. Over 80 newspaper stories have been printed so far. “The community they’ve created ensures that the individual memories of those lost soldiers will endure,” says Abele.

Abele too has been given the chance to get to know his father in a way he’d never imagined as a kid. “I’ve learned so much about my father through truly independent, third-party means,” he says. “The community has revealed letters written by the sailors to their families. They describe life on the ship and what they thought of my dad as a leader and as a decision-maker.”

While the social networking phenomena sweeping the globe remains one giant experiment, Abele believes its collective capability will help solve many of our major societal problems. “We have experts all over the place, both officially and unofficially, who are rewriting history,” he says.

The Grunion communities have taken on lives of their own and Abele admits that today, he’s just along for the ride, helping to provide the conditions where people can work together on the project. As the collective intelligence is harnessed and new understandings are produced, Abele will continue his role as impresario although many times, he says he’s just a “mindful bystander.”

Social networking however has become his passion. As the owner of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a 124-room conference center in Ontario, Abele is researching how collective intelligence can give way to collective capability. He calls it the ‘collaboration paradox.’ “Someone asked me recently what the most important tool is to get people to collaborate better. It’s not technology, it’s leadership,” he says. “To create an environment where people like to collaborate, you literally have to understand every single member of the group. It’s a fascinating flock of birds phenomena that makes this whole experience rewarding.”