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This unique leadership program, Useem and Major Kelleher believe, will build
confidence and give students the tools to make rapid decisions. "We screen for
people that have the ability to quickly assess the situation and make the appropriate
decision to ensure the firefight, to capture the battle, or win the firefight during
a time when decisions are often made in an information vacuum," says
Kelleher. "We look for people that have inherent moral, physical and intellectual
capability. Leadership potential means confidence and willingness to take charge.
Once we make that selection, we give them the tools to enhance their decision-making
ability issuing orders or communicating a plan."
The course has quickly developed a following. A host of other non-Marine
groups have signed up and completed the boot camp program, including the
Notre Dame men's soccer team, U.S. Congressional staffers and a national youth
leadership forum. Safety is always a consideration, Kelleher says. "We know they
haven't had the physical training and we'll approach at a slower pace. We understand
they're coming from a different background. We've tailor-made the course
for Wharton. One of the great things about this course is that the Marine Corps
has not changed for 50 years. The techniques and mechanics may evolve, but the
overarching principals have not changed."
Useem's goal was "total immersion" for the students.
"Wharton students have a remarkable capacity to learn," he says. "The essence
of our program with the Marine Corps is that the learning curve becomes much
steeper. Students are thrust into fast-action real problem solving in the Marines'
world famous combat and leadership reaction courses. I believe that many of our
students learned more about leadership and teamwork in the 24 hours on these
two courses than they might during a whole year inside a classroom. A key ingredient
is the intensity of the experience, first introduced by the drill instructors and
later by the officers on the course. I think many of the students underestimated
the Marines' ability to influence their psyche. An experience like this goes beyond
intellectual stimulation. This was a tremendous way to mobilize."
Late into the night, the "candidates" (they are no longer business students,
but officer candidates) form up in ranks and march from the barracks, across the
parking lot and through the night to the mess hall, where they sit waiting in
wooden chairs.
The sergeants, including those from the women's barracks, file to the back
of the room behind them. Colonel George Flynn, commanding officer of the
Officer Candidate School, takes the floor. Flynn speaks softly and smiles, and the
tension begins to ease. Could the evening's discipline finally have ended, the candidates
wonder?
"I want you to know," Flynn laughs, pointing to members of the Wharton
Veterans Club sitting in back "that this drilling was their idea. We wanted to be
nice to you."
"The students collectively slumped in their seats," Useem recalls later. "But
many of the students told me when we arrived back to campus that they wished
the Marines had kept that pressure going."
Flynn spent the rest of the evening explaining the mission of the Marines.
"Most of the business world looks at leadership as a soft skill," Flynn tells the
room. "But the Marines call it a hard skill. Ductus Exemplo, 'leadership by
example.' If you believe in yourself, you can lead. By the time you leave here,
we expect to see that you have progressed from self to team. We expect to see
honor, courage and commitment."
And, he tells the group, they are also expected to wake-up at 5 a.m. the
next morning.
The drill sergeants return the next day, the same men and women the candidates
met on their arrival, but in very different roles. Still in scrubs, they don't bark now.
They have gone into "mentor mode," as Flynn called it last night. They explain
and encourage. They speak softly and joke, explaining the necessity of harshness,
of creating what they call a system of progressive failure. At training there's always
a good sergeant, a bad sergeant, they explain, and a platoon commander who's a
father figure.
After breakfast, the candidates divide into several groups, each with a Marine
guide, and take a tour of the OCS grounds. Captain Larry Colby, a congenial
blonde helicopter pilot and academics officer for OCS, leads a group of four
students through the Combat Course, a long sequence of stations designed to
simulate various conditions of combat. Set in the woods about a quarter mile
from the barracks, the course includes places where candidates shimmy over a
gorge on a rope, cross another gorge on a bridge made of two hawsers and a steel
cable, burrow through a muddy passage, and swim through a muddy pond with
obstacles in it.
The once-clean business students now show little scruple about jumping into
frigid water, nor about burrowing through muddy defiles among concrete blocks.
They emerge cold, muddy, and wet.
Useem was pleased with his students' hardiness. "They became aggressive in
helping one another," he says, days after arriving home. "And that will be an
important lesson to take back to their jobs when they leave Wharton."
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