THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE CEOS

 By Karen Dillon and Joshua Macht

Former grunts on the Marine Corps way of doing business

Nothing can quite compare with Marine Corps training and combat service to stretch your leadership skills in bringing people together to accomplish a mission," says Phillip Rooney, vice-chairman of the ServiceMaster Co., a building-maintenance-and-service company based in Downers Grove, Ill. Rooney, whose company employs 50,000, not only endured Officer Candidate School but was one of the select few who returned to teach there. For him and countless other ex-Marines, there is no better preparation for the rigors of running a business than the intense training of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Douglas Peterson, the CEO and founder of Pete's Lights, in Elk Grove, Ill., can quickly rattle off the 11 leadership principles he had to memorize as a new Marine recruit. He goes so far as to distribute old leadership manuals from his boot camp to the crew chiefs of his 15-employee, $2-million company, which stages lighting shows for concerts and corporate events. "When one of the chiefs complains that something isn't getting done, I will say, 'The private's ninth leadership principle is to ensure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished.' Did you do that?" explains former sergeant Peterson.

"The Marines Corps allowed us to make sure we could understand the worst- and best-case scenarios, take care of everyone else first, and accomplish the mission with minimum casualties," says James Warren, founder of the Warren Financial Group, an investment-advisory firm in Kansas City, Mo. "Those are the same principles we consider when doing investment planning: How can we accomplish what we want to do with minimum risk in relationship to the return?" As a Marine reconnaissance officer in Vietnam, Warren also learned the value of leadership by persuasion, not dictatorship. "There's a real power of presence when you can influence people not by order but by saying, 'Join me now. We're stronger together than if we stand on our own.' That sense of commitment can't be learned in a textbook."

Ex-Marine and Quaker Oats CEO Robert Morrison recalls, "There were clear parameters that were instilled in everybody's mind, but in an actual battle situation, within those parameters, people had incredible freedom to act." Morrison, who earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart in Vietnam, has found the Marines' principle of decentralization "tremendously important in business. Senior management can instill principles and guidelines, but you can't do people's jobs for them."

Dan Caulfield, founder of Hire Quality Inc., a $2.3-million Chicago job-placement company for honorably discharged military personnel, embraces the Marines' "rule of three" to run his company. "I have a chief operating officer reporting to me, he has three people reporting to him, and so on down the line," he says. But the battle-plan mentality the Marines taught him has made the most difference in his business. "Whatever your environment is, it will change. In business it will change fast. You learn to make quick decisions without all the information; you're tolerant of those who make mistakes but intolerant of those who can't act fast."