How far can you bend?

Are you bendable? 

The Marine Corps has an official motto:  Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful.  Marines have an unofficial motto: Semper Gumby - Always Flexible.  (If you are under 30 and do not know who Gumby is, his picture is over there ===>, or you can ask your parents about him!)

This unofficial motto is a sarcastic take on the fact that things are constantly changing in the Marine Corps - formation is here, not it's there, it is a this time, nope we moved it to that time.  Marines could allow these types of changes to drive them crazy, or they can learn to roll with the punches -- hence, Semper Gumby.

However, in the big picture, learning to be flexible in the small things allows you to be flexible in the big things.  When you learn to roll with it, you learn to not panic when plans have to change.

I thought about the great lesson in flexibility and adaptability I receive in the Marine Corps when I had to make an audible to my plans this morning.  I was driving into D.C. for a 9:00 meeting that I could not be late for.  Those of you who know D.C. traffic know that that is a bad time.  Traffic was horrible and I was not going to make my meeting.  Instead of panicking, I looked at my options, realized I could park near the Pentagon, hop on the Metro and make head to my meeting.  I walked into my meeting at 9:01 - not ideal, but a lot better than if I had stayed with my original plan.

Now, this story is not about how smart and savvy I am, it is about how when I was faced with the fact that my plan was blowing up, I stayed calm, considered my options, and made an informed decision.  The Marine Corps taught me that skill.

In the Marines, you train your leaders to be flexible on the battlefield - often, if you stay married to a plan, people will die and other bad things with happen.  You need to be able to be adaptable and flexible and willing to change your plan as required.

This often requires you to look at the problem and the solution from different angles.  For instance, when I was driving in to D.C. today, I realize that my plan would not work, so I had to consider another angle - the Metro.

Similarly, when you are a Leader and you come up with a plan, you have to be flexible enough to adjust when things are not working.


Click through for a discussion on some tools that will help you stay flexible in your decision-making and execution.