Several business bestsellers in recent years have been books about warfare strategy and tactics. Sun Tsu's Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings are titles widely recommended for insight and inspiration preparatory to corporate battle. In Corps Business, author David Freedman examines the organization and culture of the United States Marine Corps and sees "the best management training program in America."

For this book Freedman, a senior editor at Forbes ASAP and author of Brainmakers, trained with the Corps and interviewed scores of marines of every rank to discover 31 management principles "built around simple truths about human nature and the uncertainties of dynamic environments.... The Marines are used to facing entrenched enemies, short time-frames, chaotic conflicts, and unfavorable terrain --all of which have come to be hallmarks of the New Economy." Some of the ideas that Freedman encountered include Principle No. 1: "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"; Principle No. 13: "Manage by end state and intent. Tell people what needs to be accomplished and why, and leave the details to them"; and Principle No. 21: "Establish a core identity. Everyone in the organization should feel they're performing an aspect of the same job." It's hard to argue with two centuries of battlefield success, and the wisdom and time-tested management philosophy dissected here should be a valuable prescriptive for any organization hell-bent on winning. --Scott Harrison


Frederick W. Smith, founder and chairman, Federal Express
"An excellent book...David Freedman's analysis of the management principles of the U.S. Marine Corps offers a compelling guide...Reading it reminded me how much I have relied upon what I learned in the Marine Corps to build FedEx."


Robert A. Lutz, CEO, Exide Corp., and former president, Chrysler Corp.
"This outstanding work reveals the leadership secrets that make the Marine Corps the world's most motivated and successful organization. The lessons are universally applicable."


General Charles C. Krulak, 31st Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps
"On the complex, asymmetrical battlefields of the 21st Century, effective decentralized control and execution will be essential to mission success. The Corps has acknowledged this reality and has reinvigorated its efforts to prepare Marines with the leadership skills needed to deal with the high-stake challenges of the three block war...Mr. Freedman accurately captures the essence of Marine Corps leadership and thoroughly describes our unique approach to leadership training. Clearly, there is common ground between Marine leadership and business management."


The Wall Street Journal, 01/31/2000
David Freedman would like to see some martial virtue enter the equation. In "Corps Business," he writes about a young Marine sergeant on leave visiting a friend at his workplace. "I met a manager there who didn't know the names of all his employees," the astonished Marine told him. In the Marines, immediate superiors know not only the names of their subordinates but the names of their subordinates' family members as well. Mr. Freedman -- who interviewed more than 100 Marines of all ranks and observed them in training -- believes that business enterprises could benefit from Marine values. These include sacrifice, perseverance, integrity, commitment and loyalty. For the current business world -- where a firm's loyalty extends to only the next downsizing effort and an employee's to only the next vesting date -- it would seem as if the Marines do indeed have a better idea. One of the strategies the Marines use is called "authority on demand." That is: allowing someone at the lowest ranks to make decisions under critical circumstances. Mr. Freedman cites an example from the Gulf War, where a corporal's squad was pinned down by an Iraqi machine-gunner. Without checking with higher-ups, he took half his squad around the gunner's side and took him out by surprise. It was a kind of "drive-by shooting," the corporal (a native of East Los Angeles) explained later, triumphantly. Certain firms could benefit from initiative like that.


Book Description
What's the best-run enterprise in the world? It just may be the Marine Corps.Far from being the hidebound, autocratic entity that most people imagine, the Corps has created a stunningly nimble, almost freewheelingly adaptive organization. The result: Though often faced with extraordinarily dynamic and complex challenges, the Marines get the job done every time.Their secret? Don't think boot camp. Instead, the Marines have refined a wide-ranging system of management practices that have undergone continuous evolution under the most demanding conditions conceivable. Armed with these straightforward principles, any organization can achieve the high-impact responsiveness demanded by today's ultra-competitive, fast-changing business environments.In Corps Business, author David H. Freedman brings these principles--and their application to the business world--to light in clear, fascinating form. Freedman brings you along to observe, firsthand the high-speed Marine environment, where you'll take part in urban combat practice maneuvers, sit in on mission planning sessions, spend time on a "floating invasion party," and participate in a live-fire combat exercise. Along the way, you'll tap the wisdom of scores of Marines from three-star generals to grunts. Here are some examples:Managing by end-state--Tell people what needs to be accomplished and why, and leave the details to them.The 70-percent solution--It's better to decide quickly on an imperfect plan than to spend time considering every angle and roll out a perfect plan when it's too late.Authority on demand--While retaining a strong management pyramid, encourage people even at the lowest levels to make any and all decisions necessary to accomplish the mission when management guidance isn't at hand.Anyone facing entrenched or predatory competitors, short time frames, chaotic markets, and obstacles in every direction, has a simple choice: Learn to move fast, change on the fly, and inspire employees--or die. The Marines are here to help.With a foreword by Gen. Charles C. Krulak, Thirty-first Commandant of the United States Marine Corps.


Book Info
Presents thirty management principles of the U.S. Marines that can be applied to any business in the corporate sector.


About the Author
DavidH. Freedman is a journalist specializing in business and technology. He is a senior editor at Forbes ASAP, and his work has appeared in Inc., the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, Wired, Science, and the Harvard Business Review. He is the author of two critically acclaimed books on artificial intelligence and (with Charles C. Mann) on computer hacking.


Excerpted from Corps Business : The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines by David H. Freedman, Charles C. Krulak. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
1. Planning and Decision-MakingHope is not a course of action.--USMC Colonel Michael O'NealThe airstream rips through the open bays of the CH-53 Superstal-lion, extorting a layer of tears through which to regard the crumpled-tin-foil ocean, burnished by cloud shadows, streaking by below. Conversation is impossible over the thunderous drone of the convenience-store-sized helicopter, and it's beside the point anyway. Seated shoulder to shoulder in two facing rows are fifteen mostly young people in casually neat dress, as if on a trip to a museum, though that wouldn't explain the several duffel bags stuffed with assault rifles. The job in front of them is a delicate one: upon landing, they will have to thread their way to the U.S. embassy, without attracting the attention of unruly mobs or roving bands of thugs, and set up a communications center that will support the deployment of a few hundred of their colleagues.At this moment many of those colleagues are just below decks from the helicopter's departure point on the USS Tarawa. Some are trying on the black ski masks they will wear when they storm a terrorist weapons cache. Others are checking the mortars they will use, if necessary, to defend a food supply intended for the starving locals. Still others are going over the maps that will help them locate and rescue the pilot of a downed jet.The Marines are coming.It's only an exercise--these Marines are invading a portion of the vast tracts of Camp Pendleton just north of San Diego. But no one is taking the missions lightly. For one thing, many of them have been up half the night making plans and preparations because the mission orders didn't even arrive until late the previous evening. For another, this exercise will provide the challenges of a real mission down to the smallest detail, including the thudding of real bullets into the ground around them. They don't know what awaits them onshore, but they are confident that six hours of planning and preparing have left them better equipped to face whatever it is than most military units would be with six months to get ready. If past experience is any guide, they are right.Altogether, these Marines will carry out twenty-seven missions during the exercise; each assignment is not only plausible but in fact similar to an actual assignment taken on by the Corps in recent years. The missions run the gamut from large-scale combat, surgical strikes, and police actions to search-and-destroy operations, evacuations, and humanitarian assistance.Anyone who wants to get a sense of the extent to which Marines have injected extraordinary levels of velocity, flexibility, and competence into their management practices could hardly do better than to observe a pre-mission planning session. We observe such a session in this chapter, gaining along the way an orientation to the basic Marine operating environment and mindset. The unlit cigar bobs and jerks in Colonel Thomas Moore's mouth as he surveys the cramped and visibly rocking room. When he finally removes the cigar for a moment, the end is seen to have been ground to the flatness of cardboard. "The fight's on," he rumbles heartily. "How're y'all doin'?" The responses, and Moore's responses to the responses, vary from sounds that approximate a seal bark, a warthog growl, and a foghorn to, most frequently, the sound "oo-rah." Apparently the meeting is in order.We are in the bowels of the Tarawa, the evening before the helicopter journey. Many of the Marines' theories on decentralization and decisionmaking are about to be put to the test. The players are the members of the Eleventh MEU, or Marine Expeditionary Unit, under Moore's command. ("MEU" is pronounced, deceptively, the way a kitten would say it.) A MEU generally consists of about three ships' worth of Marines, jets, helicopters, artillery, tanks, amphibious and ground vehicles, weapons, and supplies. All Marines consider themselves part of a rapid deployment force. But a MEU is yet another level of rapid response. They are floating invasion parties.Three 2,000-person MEUs are constantly springing in and out of existence from the pool of Marines at Camp Pendleton, another three out of Camp Lejeune, and three more out of Okinawa. Of the three MEUs associated with each location, one is deployed at sea, one is preparing to relieve it, and one is being taken apart. Of the three MEUs that are deployed, one is ordinarily stationed in the West Pacific, one in the Mediterranean, and one in the Persian Gulf.Typically the MEUs just float around for most of their six-month deployments while the Marines on board do their best to keep themselves occupied--they don't have many duties, since the ships are run by the Navy, and there isn't enough room for training exercises. So they read, lift weights, and occasionally, as a treat, get to practice their riflery skills on deck. It's a little like prison, except for the riflery part. But the Marines also know that if there's a summons for help, they could be landing on a beach under a hail of machine-gun fire in a matter of hours. Because they're typically the first ones to arrive at the scene of a military intervention, Marines in MEUs like to call themselves "the pointy tip of the spear" (though the term isn't exclusively reserved for MEUs).Moore's MEU is finishing the end of its training cycle. But before it is allowed to deploy to the Persian Gulf or elsewhere, it has to get through two days of evaluation exercises, during which it will carry out the twenty-seven missions--a seemingly overwhelming number of assignments. At any one time as many as four missions will be under way simultaneously. The goal is to make the exercises more demanding than anything these Marines are likely to see in a real crisis.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

What's the best-run enterprise in the world? It just may be the Marine Corps. Far from being the hidebound, autocratic entity that most people imagine, the Corps has created a stunningly nimble, almost freewheelingly adaptive organization. The result: Though often faced with extraordinarily dynamic and complex challenges, the Marines get the job done every time.

Their secret? Don't think boot camp. Instead, the Marines have refined a wide-ranging system of management practices that have undergone continuous evolution under the most demanding conditions conceivable. Armed with these straightforward principles, any organization can achieve the high-impact responsiveness demanded by today's ultra-competitive, fast-changing business environments.

In Corps Business, author David H. Freedman brings these principles--and their application to the business world--to light in clear, fascinating form. Freedman brings you along to observe, firsthand the high-speed Marine environment, where you'll take part in urban combat practice maneuvers, sit in on mission planning sessions, spend time on a "floating invasion party," and participate in a live-fire combat exercise. Along the way, you'll tap the wisdom of scores of Marines from three-star generals to grunts. Here are some examples: Managing by end-state--Tell people what needs to be accomplished and why, and leave the details to them.

The 70-percent solution--It's better to decide quickly on an imperfect plan than to spend time considering every angle and roll out a perfect plan when it's too late. Authority on demand--While retaining a strong management pyramid, encourage people even at the lowest levels to make any and all decisions necessary to accomplish the mission when management guidance isn't at hand. Anyone facing entrenched or predatory competitors, short time frames, chaotic markets, and obstacles in every direction, has a simple choice: Learn to move fast, change on the fly, and inspire employees--or die. The Marines are here to help.

With a foreword by Gen. Charles C. Krulak, Thirty-first Commandant of the United States Marine Corps.

FROM THE CRITICS

David Lazarus

Freedman has hit upon a novel approach to management guidance. By examining the techniques of one of the most tightly run organizations on the planet, he is able to highlight universal truths about leadership while at the same time offering some unique tips about motivating underlings and boosting morale. —San Francisco Chronicle

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

How can you make your office more flexible, more adaptable to new situations and quicker to react with a higher level of performance? Think and act like the Marines, for one thing.

Charles C. Krulak

Mr. Freedman accurately captures the essence of Marine Corps leadership and thoroughly describes our unique approach to leadership training. Clearly, there is common ground between Marine leadership and business management.

Frederick W. Smith

An excellent book...David Freedman's analysis of the management principles of the U.S. Marine Corps offers a compelling guide...Reading it reminded me how much I have relied upon what I learned in the Marine Corps to build FedEx.

Wall Street Journal

For the current business world ... the Marines do indeed have a better idea. Read all 7 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

An excellent book...David Freedman's analysis of the management principles of the U.S. Marine Corps offers a compelling guide...Reading it reminded me how much I have relied upon what I learned in the Marine Corps to build FedEx. — (Frederick W. Smith, founder and chairman, Federal Express)

This outstanding work reveals the leadership secrets that make the Marine Corps the world's most motivated and successful organization. The lessons are universally applicable. — (Robert A. Lutz, CEO, Exide Corp., and former president, Chrysler Corp.)