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Rating:  -
For the record, I am a veterinarian looking to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of my hospital. It is a very small business with only 5 employees. There are many very excellent ideas presented here, such as the rule of three, pushing the information down to the lowest level possible, finding a core value that all employees from top to bottom have in common and are capable of perfoming, allowing and ecouraging subordinates to question the higher ups when they are not in agreement with the plan. Some of the principles do not translate to my business as well as other ones, such as the ideas dealing with how to combat and take advantage of competitors.
I also read Semper Fi, and that had good ideas as well, but I prefer this book over Semper Fi. Read both if you can. I have ordered but not yet read the book called "The Marine Corps Way: Leading a winning organization.
Overall, anyone in any business can benefit from the ideas presented here
Rating: -
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.
Rating:  -
This book is presented as an almost magical recipe that can make a "great leader" out of any John Doe. When you have read the book, you have got confirmed what you always knew: Only good craftsmen can become good leaders.
The Marines do not employ some sort of voodoo to make a Leader for any guy recruited at the street. They invest a very meticulos attention to who they recruit in the first place. Then, they put accepted Marines throu very dedicated training and development programs, to hone the Marines' skilles and develop them to their full potentials.
The Marines are craftsmen in Warfare. They are trained as grunts. Every marine is expected to perform as riflemen at Marine standards at any time need may come. Being a Marine means that one has gone through extensive warfare training in live-fire exersises. More than a few Marines do also have combat experience. The leaders are expected to have an as full understanding at all aspects of warfare (armoured warfare, air warfare, littoral marine warfare, logistics, planning) in addition to their grunt experience.
The book pais little or no attention to this basis. That is, it does not sufficiently acknowledge the importance of having well trained, skilled, talented and knowledgeable people that understand their business at all levels in the organization. This, more than anything, is what makes the Marines stand out from other organizations. Contrary to popular belief, one can not put anyone on top of an organization and expect them perform. It takes skill. It takes experience. It takes insight.
When, on the other hand, one have the right person in the right position, some value could be added by reading this book. The management principles are mostly trivialities, like letting the people who are faced with a problem judge what it takes to solve it, and then let them have a go at solving it, without time-wasting undue interference from higher levels in the organization.
Those who want a magic formula to become a Great Leader will be disapointed. There are no way avoiding the needs to learn your business and undersand your organization. Those who already understand what it takes to get an organization to run smoothly and efficiently, may find that little word of wisdom that smooths out those last few details.
Rating: -
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"
Rating:  -
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.
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