The Marine Corps Way

December 1, 2003
Business professor Clemons and ex-marines Martino and Santamaria argue in this strident treatise that what works for the Marines--"maneuver warfare"--should work for business. They define maneuver warfare as"the use of speed, surprise and concentrated forces against an opponents weakness" for the purpose of"shattering the enemy morally and physically by paralyzing and confounding him." If this doctrine doesn't sound entirely appropriate for your organization, rest assured: it's a heroic gloss on some familiar management nostrums. The book's argument proceeds by drawing historical comparisons between warfare and commerce; thus, Hitler achieved"focus" by massing his tanks in the Ardennes, while Toyota achieved"focus" by spending a lot of money designing the Lexus. These analogies work at all only because the principles elucidated are too vague to be a guide for action. And readers may wonder: why use battlefield case studies to illustrate business principles when more relevant business case studies are at hand? For while the authors extol leathernecks as pioneers of cutting-edge management, the Marine Corps precepts they spotlights--decentralized decision making, tolerating dissent in the ranks,"leadership by walking around"--will be familiar to anyone who read Tom Peters in the 1980s. Moreover, the maneuver-warfare perspective gives a rather exotic and distorted view of business realities, one that emphasizes"surprise" and"deception" but disparages cost-cutting and price wars--the meat and potatoes of business strategy--as"attrition." The authors' tacit message that corporate success is a matter of boldness and courage rather than efficiency and expertise is a popular one among boardroom warriors, but some readers may remain unconvinced.