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Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines

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Corps Business
The 30 management principles of the US Marine Corps

David H. Freedman

Freedman firmly believes Marine methodology creates a strong and effective organization. For those who read this book, you will probably agree. As you might expect from a book that parallels the military and business management, there are many references to training, discipline, order, and sacrifice.

However, a vast majority of the book gives a perspective of the US Marine Corps which is radically different than most people would expect.

Provided that Freedman is correct in his analysis, the US Marine Corps is an extremely focused group which is both fast, versatile, and effective in complex situations.

1) Marines aim for the 70% solution because in the battlefield, speed and boldness is more important than perfection. Put another way, indecisiveness is a fatal flaw. It is better to make small, frequent, and rapid decisions.

2) Marines find the essence of any mission. It should be made very clear. In the process, all the assumptions, boundaries (what shall we NOT do) should be questioned and explored. Dissension is invited prior to the final decision.

3) Marines are a capability based organization. They are defined by what they are able to do, and how they do it.

4) Marines push decision making to very low levels in the organization. Bureaucracy does not work in the battlefield. To quote. "The best soldiers are ones who follow orders from above, but do not depend on them."

5) The Marines are very competitive. Marines hire through trial by fire. Boot camp is a form of Darwinian natural selection. The best and fittest survive. Even after boot camp, many officers leave the Corps because they cannot be promoted, because they are not the best.

6) Leadership is defined as the ability to have others follow you. If a Marine does not follow an legitimate order, he / she can face disciplinary action, but the superior who gave the order will often find their career stop too. (It demonstrates a break in their leadership ability.)

7) Marines glorify the lower levels of the organization. The most training is at the lowest level of Marine leadership - Corporal. Even in the dress, there is little difference in dress from the officers and the privates.

8) Marines focus on the end statement. Marine leadership focus on WHAT TO DO (Mission), not HOW to DO (Details).

9) Marines reward failure. The best way to learn is through experience, and if someone does not fail from time to time, they are not pushing the envelope. Marines are focused on continuous improvement, and that requires temporary failure.

10) The Marines have passion for what they do. The Marines have an expression to describe people who just go through the motions of their job: "Going Admin"

Until now, I've had only one book to recommend on change management, the excellent, Managing at the Speed of Change by Conner. With Corps Business, a wonderfully practical book, I have two recommendations. As a human resources professional working in the education industry, I was especially struck by the practicality of how the Marines plan, manage and lead change (especially when you have to change course, turn on a dime, and move in a new direction), develop decision making ability in Marines by making every decision making experience a learning experience, and by the leaders' commitment to leading, not managing. If only I could clone Colonel Davis! I have given copies of this book to people who direct business components -- from IT to R&D to Sales. It's a quick read, but the principles linger; I've found myself thinking of ways to apply the principles outlined in this book. It's also a chastening read for any manager whose staff is choking on management and starving for leadership. Well done!

If you're like most people when you hear military and leadership in the same sentence, you conjure up an image of a ramrod-straight, gray-haired senior officer, the very epitome of command-and-control. Or perhaps a drill instructor wearing a smokey-bear hat with his nose just millimeters away from the nose of a fear-stricken recruit.

Based on the reports of David Freedman in Corps Business, perhaps we civilians need to re-think our images. From beginning -- an introduction by former Marine Corps commandant Charles Krulak -- to end, this book tells the story of an organization which could surely set an example for most American business. Says Krulak, "The hallmark of this fertile environment for personal and professional development is pervasive, clearly defined, and universally respected standards of conduct. These standards stress personal accountability, and our faithful adherence to them has distinguished the Corps for more than two centuries. Their influence is escapable and shapes our every action."

Here is how this unfolds through the course of the book: Marine units have always gotten and will continue to get wide-ranging assignments. They will be asked to perform critical missions in complex and confusing circumstances. But whatever the mission, the Marine Corps' values as reflected in their standards of conduct will remain constant. Mistakes will be made along the way in dealing with situations involving tension and hostility, but if you fail to meet the standards of conduct you can expect serious consequences.

Over the course of two hundred pages, Freedman offers a host of stories and points out incidents which illustrate key lessons. He has distilled these into 30 "principles" such as: PRINCIPLE #1: AIM FOR THE 70 PERCENT SOLUTION which he defines as going for the best possible decision right now given the information at hand rather than waiting for perfect information and forfeiting an opportunity to go forward toward achieving the goals.

Here's another principle: PRINCIPLE #13: MANAGE BY END STATE AND INTENT The leaders in the Marines do not want to engage in what we commonly call micro-management (and which is some cases in my experience descends even to nano-management!) Instead they focus on two things. Freedman writes that the commanders endeavor to make clear "first, how they would like the situation to end up, what the Marines refer to as 'the end state'; and second, the broader goals that they would like to achieve through the entire unit's actions, information that Marines call 'the commander's intent.'" How refreshing it would be to work for someone who trusted you and had justifiable confidence in your ability to get the job done within the context of a clear mission!

Does the Marine Corps therefore encourage blind adherence by mindless drones? Hardly. Freedman writes, "It's probably not surprising to hear that a Marine who refuses to obey a clear and legitimate order can face severe disciplinary action. What may be surprising is the fact that the officer who gave the order may find his or her own career stopped short over that same incident -- even if the order was perfectly well advised. That's because the Marines have emphasized a simple, Darwinian test as part of determining an officers? suitability for promotion: Is he or she someone who inspires people to follow?" In a civilian world where many employees are essentially volunteers (who can leave for another job at any time, and probably get a pay increase for doing just that), this is a critical test: how can you call yourself a leader if no one will follow you?

What about building those leaders who can inspire that sort of loyalty? How do you identify them and recruit them? The Marines believe that the process of selecting and grooming the next generation of leaders is a critical function. Indeed working in a recruiting role or serving as an instructor in one of their schools is a key stepping stone on the way to the senior ranks. It's not something sloughed off onto merely average people, but a reward that offers the clearest chance to help create the future of the Corps.

Entry into the Corps for commissioned officers is based on The Basic School, where the development of skills is accomplished in situations which are as nearly real as they can create. Leadership development is not however, reserved for commissioned officers. Freedman points out that most of the leadership development work is done at the lowest level of leadership -- the enlisted (or non-commissioned) officer, the corporal who leads a fire team. This is about building leadership from the ground up, in order that even the smallest units become proving grounds with the intended result that in complex and changing circumstances the leaders even at that level are already seasoned performers.

Is there a lesson for the business world in here? ...certainly ideas such as developing leadership ability at the lowest levels of the hierarchy or basing leadership on a solid set of central values or decentralizing control while centralizing command -- these seem just as applicable in the business world.

As a civilian, and not a former marine, I would like to say a few words of praise for this exceptionally wise and well-done book. First off, I would respectfully suggest that readers (whether marines past or present-or not) who are seeking a book whose sole focus is the marine corps will obviously find fault with Freedman's effort. There's a simple reason why: this book seeks to find managerial lessons from the Marine Corps. It's not an exhaustive history or study of these soldiers. Big difference. Second, I particularly enjoyed this book because it so successfully meets its core objective. In fact, I would venture to guess that a true marine would admire how well the book adheres to the principles it outlines (primary among them being "Establish a core identity.") The 30 managerial principles are sharply drawn and eminently useful. The book is lively and instructive. I enjoyed learning about the Marine Corps from a veteran journalist who knows how to distill a complex story into useful managerial reading, and recommend this title to others who are looking for insight from surprising sources.

Now retired after 30 years and three combat tours and serving as a management consultant with an emphasis on organizational integrity, it is a real joy to see works such as this one and a related book, "Semper Fi: Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way," attempt to distill the Marine Corps leadership experience.

Though it is tempting to read the books for the principles and practices they disclose, the real value, in my view, resides in seeing the Marine Corps model as a metaphor for an organization adept at preserving its purpose and core values while consciously evolving to meet the challenges of dealing with a complex, often chaoic environment.

In my experience over the last few years, I am only now beginning to realize how unique the Marine leadership experience is. The notions of leadership at all levels, end state and commander's intent-based mission orders, and task organization are conspicuous by their absence in many organizations. Hopefully these works will serve to enter the notions into the common organizational vocabulary.

As checklists, both books distill basic principles and describe practices that will be of great use to leaders and managers for organizations of all stripes. "Corps Business" does an excellent job of setting forth principles. It does make a number of inaccurate statements, none of which strikes to the core of its principles. For example, lawyers in the Marine Corps are not called Judge Advocate Generals, but Judge Advocates. The discussion of task organization is very weak, unfortunately. This is not surprising for one who hasn't lived the structure of the Marine Corps and how it organizes. For example, a MAGTF would not draw on "infantry, logistics, and air support groups" to form a "minature version of a regiment" or "combine groups from several regiments to form a division-size unit." A Marine Division Commanding General would be surprised to learn this. The division commander owns the regiments. Other generals own the air and logistics units. The division is one of the principal sources from which units are drawn to form a MAGTF. The other two principal sources are the Marine Air Wing and the Force Service Support Group. They together source the four elements of a MAGTF (below the level of a MEF): Command Element, Ground Combat Element, Air Combat Element, Combat Service Support Element.

Despite such shortcomings, "Corps Business" is a very valuable work. It captured a number of concepts that I had never stopped to think of consciously. They were just the way we did things. I recommend both books highly. Semper fi......

Kenneth W. Johnson Colonel USMCR-Ret.

Great book on management; I highly recommend it. It shows that the principles of leading in the military are applicable to the civilian sector. The text is engaging, with vivid examples and lots of documented research with marines.

Also recommend a book that approaches the subject of management and leadership in a straightforward and down-to-earth way; we use this book in our company: "The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills."

As a U.S. citizen with no armed service background, it is easy to appreciate the value, but sometimes difficult to understand the nature of, the U.S. Armed Forces. From the outside, they appear to contain overlap in capabilities, particular with regard to the U.S. Marines. The author quickly dispels that myth as well as others, illustrating subtle differences that distinguish the Marine Corps from other services. Today, its importance as an agile force mirrors the modern threat facing the world, and perhaps represents our best model for success in future conflicts.

As a profile of the Marine Corps organization, the book is a great read, but as an organizational study, the viewpoint feels compromised and devoid of any real analysis. Eventually objective criticism is introduced but even then it is relatively mild; on discussing the subject of the Marines offering a cult-like or street gang experience to its members, the author chooses to dismiss what would appear to be a central aspect of their organization out of hand - and conveniently the one aspect that would be difficult to repeat in a lawful business setting. In the final paragraphs of the book, we discover how wide the gulf is between the two worlds. The author discusses a Marine visit on Wall Street to help them better understand how financial traders deal with the fast flow of information through monitors in a scenario similar to that of future battlefield engagements. To quote from the book: "The traders are happy as long as they win more than they lose... When losing means you bring home bodies, that's not good enough". This aspect - how little was gained by the Marines from the experience because of the differences in organizational objectives - illustrates what was generally left out of the book: the challenge of applying these structures to the business world.

The meaningful insight the book does succeed in driving home is this: the U.S. Marine Corps is not a business, and if it is, it is like no other; its economy consists of life and death; its objective is not profitability but rather avoiding any loss. It is necessarily a risk-averse activity, quite different from the risk-seeking challenge of capitalism.

No doubt, some organizational aspects mentioned are worth attempting, if only because they run against the grain of conventional business wisdom. Others, such as managing by intent and end state rather than through detailed planning and micromanagement, open up bigger issues related to corporate liability given the litigious business climate today, and this is acknowledged by the author. Many examples of these techniques applied in the business world are dubiously weak - can Webvan (now out of business) and the others mentioned here be considered successful and good application of Marine-style management techniques? What are the long-term benefits of such an approach in business? Does organizational scale have an impact on the success of these principles?

The book is most successful and insightful when it sticks to the topic of how the U.S. Marine Corps operates, and for that it is a great book that I highly recommend, but it is not necessarily a great business book.

If you buy-in to the premise that the modern business environment is fast-paced, dynamic, and very highly competitive, then I strongly recommend this outstanding book.

This book is about a world-renowned organization's management and leadership principles throughout its 225+ year legacy of effectiveness in the same type of operating environment. As Freedman noted in his introduction, "...the Marines have specialized in operating under chaotic, fast-changing, high-intensity conditions that provide not only little way of knowing what the opposition is going to throw at you but perhaps no way of knowing exactly who the opposition is going to be... Everything about the Marines--their culture, their organizational structure, their management style, their logistics, their decisionmaking process--is geared toward high-speed, high-complexity environments. It's Darwinian...."

As a career Marine officer, I found Freedman's descriptions and explanations of Marine practices and thought processes about 95% accurate. The book is filled with many quotes by and references to many Marines I know directly, know of indirectly, or know by reputation, that brought the principles to life. In short, he captured the true essence of what makes the Marine Corps a good source of ideas and philosophies about leadership and management, in both the military and the civilian business worlds.

Effectively applying these Marine principles to the business environment requires judgment and understanding, and should be expected to vary from organization to organization. The Marines' military model will not fit every situation for every organization, but I believe most organizations would serve themselves and their customers well by learning how and why the Marines have been so successful in a very similar operating environment.

Let me share with you four of the best principles, in Freedman's words, that I have personally seen work time and time again throughout my career:

*Aim for the 70-percent solution: It's better to decide quickly on an imperfect plan than to roll out a perfect plan when it's too late.
*Task organize: The size and make-up of groups within the organization should be changed according to the needs of each specific mission.
*Manage by end state and intent: Tell people what needs to be accomplished and why, and leave the details to them.
*Demand to be questioned: Subordinates should feel free to openly disagree with their managers, up until it comes time to carry out a final and legitimate decision.

The Marines and business? I was intrigued because I know a lot about small business, but almost nothing about the Marines (except that a cousin of mine just joined). I came away from this fascinating read with a new respect for the Marine's smart business sense. The vivid stories illustrate the power of pushing authority down the chain of command; making fast, aggressive decisions and managing diverse teams. The descriptions of working Marines sound like the inside of a fast-growth company. Very impressive.

This book is great for someone trying to transition from the Marines to the business world. As a former Marine NCO, I learned many of these principles in my career but had difficulty applying them effectively to the civilian world. This book gives excellent advice on how to do so effectively and efficiently. More importantly, I gave copies to my staff so they know how I operate and manage. It has cleared up misconceptions and opened new channels of communication and understanding.
Buy it and buy copies for your boss and your employees. It's worth it.