From industries as varied as investment banking, real estate development, consulting, and manufacturing, CEOs running large, complicated, and extremely valuable firms are all but backing up their trucks to Special Forces bases around the country and loading up on members. (For practical purposes, Special Forces and Green Berets refer to the same soldier.)
Why are they so keen to hire these ex-soldiers? Todd Koetje, who oversees business development and finance at Cable ONE, the massive broadband communications provider, has a theory: “Every high-performing organization realizes its most important mission is investing in its people and developing a strong leadership bench; filling that key need is what keeps the best C-suite executives up at night.” Green Berets, explained Koetje, have earned “advanced leadership degrees as a result of their extensive, mission-driven experience.”
“Green Berets,” Koetje continued, “have a humble confidence in their ability to accomplish objectives in difficult and stressful environments, a unique drive to learn, a solution-oriented, outside-the-box problem-solving style. They are self-starters. They know how to build and motivate a high-performing team. Perhaps most importantly, Special Forces operators know they have to learn it before they can lead it. Self-promotion is not in their DNA.”
