Former Marines Dan Carrison and Rod Walsh have co-authored Semper Fi (published by AMACOM) in which they suggest what the business world can learn from the United States Marine Corps. That is, “Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way”: 

• How to attract a greater number of candidates to identify “the few” to hire
• How to use your own “best and brightest” to conduct interviews
• How to determine which candidates are most compatible with your organization’s core values
• How to accelerate the orientation of “recruits” (e.g. use of a “boot camp”)
• How to measure performance of everyone accurately
• How to provide on-going training for personal as well as professional growth
• How to devise and then implement an “up or out” program 
• How to maximize and then sustain morale (“top to bottom”)
• How to develop mental and physical “fitness”
• How to maximize leadership at the senior-level 
• How to make effective use of “small”
• Ten strategies for “victory” in any competitive marketplace 

1. Rotate the company’s top performers through a tour of “recruiting duty”.
2. Reward them with a “tour of duty” as a company trainer.
3. Constantly remind all employees that they are “the best”.
4. Cultivation of leadership within each individual begins from Day One and is an investment of time and resources that does not immediately bear fruit.
5. Standardize the promotional requirements so that all supervisors have the credibility and respect of the rank and file.
6. Employees who feel cared for will care about the company.
7. Keep your people fully informed.
8. Always lead by personal example.
9. Make use of peer evaluations at all levels of the organization.
10. Issue a corporate Core Values Card (or have those values printed on the backside of each business card.)

In the final chapter, they discuss ten “winning strategies”: Instill Courage, Study the Past, Create a Sense of Mission, Keep Goals Realistic, Sustain a Competitive Culture, There Is No “Peacetime”, Know Your Enemy, Command from a Forward Position, Expect Victory, and Convince Everyone “You Must Not Fail.” Lest these strategies seem simplistic, consider how powerful their implications can be. For example, moral courage simply will not tolerate inappropriate behavior. Only with employees possessed of intellectual courage will an organization have the innovative thinking, prudent risk-taking, and breakthrough achievements it must have to prosper. 

Executives who “command from a forward position” get out from behind a desk and leave the office to walk the shop floor. They visit other facilities, meet with small groups of employees to brief them on company news, attend initial meetings with prospects, call on customers, attend tradeshows, and in countless other ways “fight side-by-side with the troops” there in the “trenches”...whatever and wherever those trenches may be. Carrison and Walsh conclude: “Imagine an organization in which the majority of its creative and intelligent people walked around all day with the thought ‘I must not fail’ in the back of their minds. Such an organization would be formidable indeed.”

It remains for each reader of Semper Fi to determine what is most relevant to her or his own organization. Whenever groups of people are assembled with a common purpose, there will always be a need for leadership. With more than 200 years of experience developing leaders “throughout the ranks”, the Marine Corps has suggestions worthy of consideration.

Order Semper Fi here. 

Find the full list of Robert Morris's Business Nuggets featured by Eastbook.com here.

Semper Fi 1998 Hardcover Edition	Semper Fi 1998 Hardcover Edition

 

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