General Wisdom
Mission Advantage Recruiting, and its parent company The Oxenham Group, was privileged this past week to have a private session and counsel with General Joseph Dunford, US Marine Corps four-star general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under two US presidents.
To list the career accomplishments of General Dunford would be an undertaking in itself. Suffice it to say, his leadership, drive, military prowess, and personal character led him to the heights of leadership in the US Marine Corps. Our team sat with him for an afternoon to discuss how to optimize leadership and personnel within an organization. The time was a tremendous gift for which we were all grateful. Some topics that impacted me are ones I would like to highlight here on this page, namely: the job of the leader, the secret to hiring, and a fresh look at compensation.
General Joseph Dunford is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, who served as the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2015 - 2019.
When it comes to leading people, the General has shouldered the responsibility for tens of thousands of individuals in complex situations with high stakes. Yet the same principles from his experience apply to what we do at Mission Advantage, or what you do at your job for that matter. Namely: It is the leader’s job to manage how the mission, operations and people are valued and respected. The leader balances his or her priorities amongst those three areas with a slightly greater attention paid to the people. And the leader models the strength and excellence of his team in the way that he or she shows up. General Dunford also remarked that, whether innate or learned, a leader must possess a bias for action, simple and clear communication with the team, trust for the team, and commitment to the mission.
Next: Hiring. We were surprised to know that General Dunford spent so much time in recruitment for the Marine Corps. He remarked that, however difficult the work of a modern recruiter may be, it will never compare to the challenge of military recruitment in its popularity low-point post-Vietnam. The General’s point with recruitment was simple and powerful: Never overlook the raw material in any new hire. He went so far as to suggest that a hiring manager iron out the four to five characteristics essential to a position, ensure that they are present, and then form the rest of the raw material to become what the position needs to be. “You will always go farther with people if you can see what they could be.”
Lastly, a word he shared regarding compensation. Any employment is transactional in its makeup—you do work, and you are compensated for it. General Dunford’s suggested paradigm-shift is as follows: Consider everything when considering compensation. Consider the financial compensation, but also consider the people you work with, the purpose of what you do, the time you are able to spend with your family and what you’re able to do with them because of your job. This might be met with a head nod and seen as cliché. But look at your life and wonder if you have lived this concept and not just acknowledged it. You may be surprised at your own answer.