What can we learn from Marine Officers? Here’s one thing.

Know yourself, know your people, know your job.

Although I wasn’t in the Marines (Army), I’m familiar with this maxim they teach their officers. But it isn’t just applicable to Marine Core officers. It can make any individual more effective within any people-driven organization.

1. Know Yourself

Self-awareness is as valuable as it is rare (in abundance, at least). Yet, self-awareness is crucial to personal and professional development and growth. As Dirty Harry said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Self-awareness is in part about knowing your strengths and weaknesses. People tend to see admission of their weaknesses as a bad thing (I see a lot of reluctance in this regard when I’m interviewing people) — but even more often I run into people who simply don’t know what their weaknesses are. Yet everyone has weaknesses and blind spots. So if I ask people in an interview to tell me their weaknesses, I am impressed by people who can quickly and succinctly tell me what their weaknesses are, if they are working on fixing any of them, and how the others can be mitigated.

A key part of developing good self-awareness is to look for as much feedback as possible from people you interact with frequently. Don’t be too selective in what you look for — you may want to hear only the positive stuff. But if you want to be your best, you have to seek out criticism.

Tip: There are many great texts that help understand competencies and how to evaluate them – one of my favorites is a classic, Topgrading by Bradford Smart. All organizations would do well to increase their commitment to learning and growth.

2. Know Your People

I enjoy environments that are driven by people because it’s fun to see a team achieve something together. It’s one of my greatest joys to see a group of people overcome adversity to reach a goal. In a team context, you need to know how your team’s skills, strengths, and motivations align. This requires observation. Not just of skill levels, but personal competencies: is this person a decisive or contemplative decision maker? How tenacious? How pragmatic? Really, to be effective in managing teams of people you have to be both a coach and a psychologist.

Trust plays a key role, too. If your team trusts you, they’ll go above and beyond — might even jump on a grenade for you. So build their trust by stepping up for them and having their backs — and they’ll have yours.

Tip: when you bring someone on your team, focus on the relational piece of onboarding (getting to know people) at least as much as the information piece (learning the ropes).

3. Know Your Job

People at all levels of organizations benefit from clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and success criteria. This should be a best practice for all employers.

To be truly effective, you have to understand the organization’s goals and how you as an individual fit in beyond the literal job description. This is because we often have to be so improvisational in our jobs, especially in leadership positions. There needs to be regular communication from the leadership about how it all fits.

Tip: structure regular feedback for all people in your organization, make delivering it effectively a competency of your firm.

“Know yourself, know your people, know your job.” Words to live by.