What Does Pepsi Know, That You Don’t?

You’ve heard this one before. One does well in school. One goes on to a top college. One lands elite career opportunity, and then goes on to become a top executive. This is a story that is portrayed often, both in fact and fiction. So much so, that if you listen very closely you can even hear the cheering voices rising up from Phillips Exeter Academy right now.

What about this story…one joins the Marine Corps after school. One goes off to war. One leaves a part of oneself on the battlefield, and then spends the rest of one’s life looking for what one lost.

Like the opening bars to a familiar song, with each of these two stories you can tell me the ending before I’ve even had a chance to finish the beginning. With a snap judgement, you let the fog of bias and your own assumptions fill in the the gaps. But, where did these biases come from? And how do you apply them?

Donovan Campbell details his experiences as a Marine Corps Infantry Platoon Commander in Ramadi during 2004, with his memoir, Joker One. In his book, Donovan speaks directly to the core differences between the characters of our two stories:

“In school you’re rewarded for not making mistakes. And then you get out and get a job, and a lot of times you get promoted because you make very few mistakes. And so what you do is you develop a mindset that mistakes are to be avoided at all costs. What you learn in the military is that it doesn’t matter how hard you try or how good you are. One, you will make mistakes: and two, sometimes events or the enemy or a changing situation will mean that you do not succeed, in fact you fail. And you become comfortable with that idea.”

Marines are taught from day one that no plan ever survives past first contact with the enemy. This level of mental flexibility allows Marines to run towards to sound of gunfire, with a level of confidence that comes from a knowledge they they will always be able to make the best decisions with the information they have available to them at any moment. And then, it is just a matter of iterating towards the objective.

So what does Pepsi know that you don’t? When Campbell completed his tour with the Marine Corps, he found an opportunity to jumpstart his post-military professional career with the elite PepsiCo Leadership Development Program. This fast tracked training program is designed to propel those within the company that demonstrate a high level of potential for senior leadership positions. Pepsi understands that Marines and other members of the military have a valuable asset that is not found with in such great abundance with those that come from the more traditional paths— resilience.

When most of those who are outside of the military think about those who have worn the uniform, the words that often enter the mind will normally fit with that familiar song, easy to anger, PTSD, aggressive, stubborn, and difficult to work with. But, Pepsi hears another word when they read USMC, USA, USN, or USAF, and that’s resiliency. When you have a culture that is comfortable with failure, then you have a culture that is going to achieve success at a higher rate than those that avoid potential failure.

We can even observe this phenomenon from a purely probabilistic viewpoint, as Wayne Gretzky said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Once you remove the fear of failure from the equation, the only thing that remains in your way is your ability to crack the code and solve the puzzle in front of you.

That’s what you get when you and your organization chooses to invest in a Marine or other member of the military. You get a dedicated professional who was comfortable with the heat, because they have been there before and they have the confidence to find the way out.