The Strategic Corporal

There was this concept in the Marines called the strategic corporal.

Corporal is the lowest non-commissioned officer possible. An E4. Corporals are like 19, 20, 21 years old. Relatively junior.

And they gave us an immense amount of responsibility. Like, no responsibility a 21 year old should have. The ability to call in bombs. The ability to make command decisions. Decisions that could affect international relations.

Why did they do that?

Because they trained us. We had the right culture. We had the right ethos. We understood the mission.

That last part is everything. We understood the mission.

The Marine Corps has this adage: every Marine a rifleman. That’s not just infantry. It’s the cooks. It’s everybody. At your core principle, you know your weapon and you shoot it. If your job is to be a cook, that’s secondary. Everybody has the mission in their head. We’re here to shoot things and accomplish the objective.

When you understand the mission, you don’t need to wait for orders. You don’t need to radio back to headquarters and ask permission. By the time you do that, the situation has changed. People are dead.

We had the worst gear. We had three pairs of night vision goggles spread across a 12 man squad. The Army, each person would have their own. There were days we didn’t have food for a week. Our job was just to scrounge and figure it out.

The Marine Corps has less money and worse equipment than the Army. But they punch above their weight. Culture. Mission. Every Marine, no matter how junior, knows what we’re trying to accomplish and knows they’re empowered to make it happen.

When I started my company, I thought about this a lot. How do I create a strategic corporal? How do I cover a huge amount of geography with a small unit and still be effective?

So I went and analyzed what project managers actually need. And it sounds so simplistic, but here’s what I did:

Pay for an iPhone. Give them a credit card with an unlimited limit and no rules. They can spend whatever they want, even if they make mistakes or do something stupid. Make sure they have a vehicle. 100% gas covered. Nothing comes back where they’re financially on the hook for it.

And then you tell them the mission: get this house done right, on time, make the customer happy.

Then you tell them: go make aggressive decisions. You’re in charge. You’re going to be supported even during your screw ups, as long as it’s for the right reasons.

That’s the strategic corporal applied to business. You give them the tools. You give them the mission. You give them the authority. Then you trust them to act.

This only works if they understand the mission. Not just the task. The mission. Why we’re doing this. What we’re building. What matters.