How to Become the Best in the World
The following is adapted from Risk. Reward. Repeat. by Eric Gleacher.
I walked into the National Airport terminal off the flight from Chicago and immediately saw a man in military fatigues. I approached and stated my name. He told me to board a green bus outside the main exit and remain silent. The bus was almost full and completely quiet. We pulled out and drove to Quantico, VA. Not a sound during the thirty-six-mile trip. Quantico is the home of the FBI Academy and the Marine Corps’ Training and Test Regiment. The name is certainly apropos for what the next thirteen weeks would hold for me and 319 other Marine officer candidates: some training and a lot of testing. We were assembled alphabetically and led to a squad bay where we were to sleep in bunk beds until graduation or expulsion from officer candidate school. Everyone was savvy enough not to break the silence, and we all knew the real “fun” would start in the morning.
The following morning we formed long lines. We started our day with an array of unidentified inoculations shot into our right arms all at once by pistol-looking devices that had been designed for speed with no concern for pain experienced by the recipient. Next, we were marched to a large barbershop, where our heads were shaved. We were actually charged fifty cents for this “service,” and believe me, there was no tipping. Next, all 320 candidates marched into an auditorium. A distinguished-looking older man (probably age forty-five or so) wearing a uniform with three stars on the epaulets and many medals on the left breast walked out onto the stage. The candidates were standing at rigid attention, and he did not offer to put us at ease. He welcomed us to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and told us he was in command of all USMC operations at Quantico. Then he dropped the hammer. He said, “Look to your left and look to your right — one of those two men will not be here when this officer candidate course is completed,” and turned and walked off the stage. You may have seen something similar in the movies and think the general’s remarks sound cliché. I can assure you that in 1963, every wide-eyed candidate standing at attention in that auditorium thought his words predicted a brutal experience to come at OCS.
The general’s comments were the equivalent of a torpedo penetrating the side of a ship and exploding; no one knows at that instant whether the ship will sink or float. The odds of graduating from OCS had just been set at 50:50, making the chance of becoming a Marine officer a much riskier proposition than advertised by the recruiters who had signed up all 320 candidates. Believe me, the recruiters did not explain those odds.
There was no alternative. The officer candidates had volunteered because they wanted to earn the prestige of being a Marine officer for the rest of their lives. If one quit or was forced to leave OCS, one had to serve two years as a private and go through boot camp at Parris Island, SC with a bunch of seventeen-year-old high school drop-out recruits, carrying forever the stigma of one who could not cut it at OCS. I committed to myself to keep trying until death rather than conceding to the physical safety of failure. This attitude (I was 100 percent serious) would serve me well when the pressure was applied during training.
I survived the gauntlet of OCS with 159 other candidates, exactly half of the 320 who began the program. Each of the eight platoons, which started with forty candidates, graduated exactly twenty brand new 2d lieutenants! USMC officers do not lie to the troops, and in this instance, the odds quoted by the general were realized with military precision.
After six months at Officers Basic School at Quantico, I received orders to report to the 2d Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, NC. I drove down from Quantico and found a room in a BOQ (bachelor officer quarters). I had orders to report to G Company, 2d Battalion, Eighth Marines, and I found my way to its headquarters the next morning.
I arrived at G Company and learned the unit was out in the field training and would not return to company headquarters for a couple of days. I was a brand new second lieutenant rifle platoon leader, the classic starting job for Marine officers. The first sergeant was the only person at HQ and suggested I use the time to review the service records of the members of my platoon. He was very southern, had gray hair in a tight crew cut, and a slight potbelly. Time would prove him to be the indispensable member of G Company. Each platoon had three rifle squads, each headed by a sergeant, and a weapons platoon carrying machine guns and other weapons more lethal than the M14s the riflemen in the rifle squads carried.
I do not recall a single class at OCS or Officers Basic School about leadership. I think the Marine Corps is comfortable dealing in facts, military tactics, and weapons. How to be a leader of men doesn’t fit comfortably in that format. There are plenty of stories of troops shooting incompetent lieutenants in the back in combat situations, allowing experienced sergeants to take command and save the platoon from disastrous consequences. So, if you are a twenty-three-year-old second lieutenant, green as green can be, poised to take command of an experienced rifle platoon, you best figure out your situation quickly.
The first folder I chose was Staff Sergeant James Dixon’s, my platoon sergeant. He was a square-jawed, somewhat grizzled Northern Californian who was parsimonious with his words. He was an incredibly competent infantry Marine. Sergeant Dixon had fought in the Korean War, where he established a distinguished combat record. Later, he had an altercation in a noncommissioned officers club, which escalated dangerously. Sergeant Dixon attacked his adversary with an ice pick and fortunately did not kill him. He was court-martialed and demoted to private but was not sent to prison, probably because of his meritorious combat record. He had worked himself back up to staff sergeant, and in a couple of days, I would become his “superior officer!” Winning Sergeant Dixon’s respect seemed even more intimidating than the general saying, “Look to the left…look to the right.” Moreover, half of the platoon’s troops had been deployed in the Cuban Missile Crisis a year earlier, poised aboard a ship offshore to make an amphibious landing, and were highly trained infantry Marines. I was sure they did not suffer fools!
Over time, James Dixon and I became friends, albeit with a respectful amount of distance between us, as was appropriate between officers and enlisted men. He always called me lieutenant, never Eric, and almost never Lieutenant Gleacher, just lieutenant. I always referred to him as Sergeant Dixon, “Sarndixen” pronounced as a single word, and I never once called him James. When we were deployed in Panama, we would sleep side-by-side on our air mattresses outside on the Cristobal Pier after many Heinekens, twenty-five cents a bottle in the Canal Zone. Sarndixen would tell me stories about his experiences in the historic Chosin Reservoir Campaign in North Korea, legendary in the annals of Marine Corps history, until one of us fell asleep.
Making my way through OCS, taking charge of the platoon of forty-five men, and earning their respect as well as James Dixon’s, had an immensely positive effect on my self-image, self-confidence, and future behavior. I learned I had to be myself; there was no other choice. I learned flawless integrity was a must, no space for anything less. I learned the pursuit of excellence was a critical attitude in any endeavor. I learned there were plenty of smart, capable people of all shapes and colors — many of whom never finished high school — who one could influence and motivate and who could achieve amazing results. I learned to delegate and trust and discovered that most of the time, people exceed expectations. All this from a standing start wondering if James Dixon could ever accept me as his superior officer. This was part of what being a Marine infantry officer would give back to me, affecting the rest of my life. And all of these experiences proved to be as applicable in business as they were in the USMC.
Of all the lessons of leadership learned in the Marines, perhaps the most impactful was not to ask anyone to do something you couldn’t do as well or better — leading by example. In weapons qualification, I went from being an average marksman to shooting high expert with both the M14 and 45-caliber pistol. I am absolutely convinced the improvement was due to my motivation to score higher than anyone else in my platoon. I carried over that philosophy into my business career, and it served me well. I wanted to know as much about accounting as the CFO, so I wasn’t vulnerable to negative surprises or dishonesty in the process of working on a merger or securities offering. If we were working on a deal, it was not unusual for the team to have so much to do that the workday would stretch well into the night. Sometimes we would work until 4 am for a week or more. I made sure I was the last to leave and the first one back in the office the following morning. And I never lost motivation on my most serious, privately kept quest: to be regarded as the best in the world at mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The will to win is a powerful force if one can harness it.
My decision to volunteer for service in the Marine Corps rather than one of the six-month reserve programs readily available at the time proved brilliant. That decision was straightforward for me. I wanted the toughest possible challenge, not the easy way out. The confidence I gained from this experience was more valuable and important to the way I conducted myself in future years than anything else I had ever done. Finally, I had earned a positive self-image, a critical factor that had been previously absent. The world belongs to the aggressive. Don’t underestimate that assertion.
To learn more about to become the best in the world, Risk. Reward.Repeat. is available on Amazon.
Eric Gleacher founded the M&A business at Lehman Brothers, ran the Global M&A operation at Morgan Stanley, and founded one of the first successful M&A boutiques, which he managed for twenty-three years. He is widely recognized as one of a handful of investors and financiers who launched M&A into the global industry it is today.
Gleacher was a US Marine infantry officer in the ’60s and is a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. An only child, he now has six children, a stepson and stepdaughter, and eight grandchildren. He is married to Paula Gleacher, an artist and avid golfer.
