Warfighter Skills

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22083
• Author: Peter O. Morrill
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Published date: 01 September 2015

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© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22083

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Warfighter Skills

Peter O. Morrill

BEDFORD FALLS

George Bailey,

the iconic character

from the film It’s a

Wonderful Life,1 had

a critical choice to

make in the blink

of an eye. En route

to his honeymoon,

George saw a run on

the bank. Deposi-

tors, fearing that

their bank would be

unable to repay their

deposits in full and on time,

simultaneously tried to with-

draw their funds immediately.

Events like this were prevalent

during the depression era.

George quickly reacted to the

situation without a moment of

hesitation. George and his new

wife, Mary, gave the townspeo-

ple, the depositors, their honey-

moon money to tide them over

until the bank business settled.

Because of their fast and

timely action, the building and

loan remained solvent and the

depositors had cash in hand.

George exercised the skills we

are about to discuss. He impro-

vised, adapted, and overcame a

situation.

Today, like never before,

we have options and choices

to make. The international

landscape makes for somewhat

daunting choices and deci-

sions to make. At the time of

the film It’s a Wonderful Life,

the average workaday person

could not travel globally, sail

the seas, taste exotic foods, or

witness unique and colorful

cultures as we have the ability

today. Life did not move fast

then, nor did information or

ideas. Today, we see ironic pic-

tures of third‐world‐country

inhabitants riding a farm ani-

mal while sending a text mes-

sage or reading e‐mail. This is

how far we have come, and the

skills needed to compete and

win today have also changed

dramatically. As discussed in

“The Executive Warfighter”

(published in the July/August

2015 issue of the Journal of

Corporate Accounting

and Finance), the

rules have changed

and we must change

with them. Those

who hold on to old,

tired ideas are the

ones who will face

the greatest chal-

lenges and hardships.

The skills we need

today are not so

unlike the necessary

tools of days gone

by. But the field is so

vast now that these skills need

honing, discipline of execu-

tion, and constant attention.

The changes I speak of can be

found in the mission statement

from the powerhouse search

engine Google. Google’s mis-

sion statement is “to organize

the world’s information and

make it universally accessible

and useful.”2 Let that one sink

in for a while.

The first of these skills we

call agility. You may hear this

described as problem solving,

thinking out of the box, push-

ing the envelope, and many

other corporate buzzwords that

sound tidy and intelligent in

our reports and during inter-

views. All of these words come

back to the very heart, the very

soul, of the warfighter and

In this article, the author identifies skills that are

needed for coping with sudden decisions that

must be made in an ever‐changing world that we

all live in. This veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps

shares skill sets that he learned while serving in

the Corps. He uses a lively approach to stimulate

those responsible for dynamic management lead-

ership. The key ideas come from the battlefields

faced in every life arena. They are: improvise,

adapt, and overcome. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.