Warrior Knowhow in Business

[keithlester]

Lest any of you think that the only marketable skills that an infantry warrior posseses are blowing things up and shooting people, let me set the record straight. In today's business environment, former infantrymen are singularly possesed of the strategic mindset necessary to bring the fight to the enemy (the competition) in ways that civilians can never grasp. Dr. Clayton Christiensen of the Harvard school of business says that the competition and the market leaders have to be viewed as the enemy, and that the only way to compete in modern markets is by bringing down the market leaders.
He says:
Never attack market leaders head on, pin them down and go around and attack them where they are vunerable (He calls this disruptive innovation). Choose the times and places for your battles, never fight the enemy on his own terms. Be pro-active, not reactive, beat him to the punch. Let him think he is winning while you take ground (market share) that he didn't even know about. Use his own technologies and innovations against him.
Does any of this sound familiar to you guys? Of course it does, we all started learning this stuff in basic.
Col. David Hackworth (Christensen's military equivalent) has always said that the only way to beat a guerilla is to be a better guerilla. All the modern weapons, nifty technologies, and money in the world (civilian mindset) won't help you defeat a determined, ideologically-motivated insurgent. Neither will going through the motions and using all the right buzzwords (civilian mindset) when in the market battlefield. Every enlisted infantry soldier knows this to be true. Civilians will never understand the realities of the battlefield, the futility of linear thinking. But we understand it.
If you think that your training and experience only qualifies you to be a cop or security consultant, then you are thinking small (of course if that's the kind of career you would like, then go for it, just don't limit yourself).
Disclipline, aggressiveness, the ability to think outside the box, tenacity, strategic mindedness, and just plain ruthlessness are all qualities of succesful business leaders. And qualities that you all possess.