Marine Corps

"Gary Klein, in his seminal work, Sources of Power (another book, which along with his next, Intuition at Work, should be in every manager’s and strategist’s desk drawer), illustrates the intuitive / implicit nature of a business contract (drawing on Karl Weick’s version of a conversation between a boss and a team member): •   Here’s what I think we face •   Here’s what I think we should do, and why •   Here’s what we should keep our eye on •   Now, talk to me132   The only thing needed to make this into a mission order is to look your subordinate right in the eyes and say, •   Here’s what I want you and your team to accomplish. Will you do it? Bill Lind, who played a key role in introducing maneuver warfare into the Marine Corps, and whom we met in chapter III, suggests that every mission order actually contains an explicit or implied “in order to.” In a business setting, this might look like: Susan, I need you to go down and take charge of sales in the Northeast and increase revenue by at least 25% in order to avoid factory shut downs that could start as early as July."

"Focus and direction mean more than “major effort.” Can you have more than one focus of effort? In the military, most authors on maneuver warfare agree that you cannot. In fact, in the Marine Corps, the commander designates one unit and its mission as the Schwerpunkt. As we have seen, all of the other units in that command must support the Schwerpunkt."

"Marine Corps Doctrine Publication (MCDP) 1, Warfighting. Despite its formidable title, it spends most of its space on issues like harmonizing efforts, making decisions in the face of uncertainty, and always keeping the initiative,176 things that apply to business as much as they do to war."

"Boyd described “maneuvering in time” as jerking the enemy between menacing dilemmas until he comes unglued. As Marine Corps doctrine states (see the excerpt at the end of chapter III), the goal is to create confusion and panic and thereby collapse the enemy’s will to resist."