I’ve mentioned before that I love stories. Stories help us transmit knowledge and are generally awesome. Those of you who have hung out with the regular MBM bloggers know we all pretty much love the book Corps Business (the stories and lessons in it are fantastic). Corps Business describes one way Marines transmit knowledge: sea stories. Sea stories are real stories about Marines who take action. The Marine Corps trainers view sea stories as a serious knowledge transmission mechanism. On pages 74-75 of Corps Business, the author describes how sea stories are part of the training agenda.

At The Basic School nearly three hundred hours over the six months are set aside for captain-instructors to break off with small groups of second lieutenants specifically for the purpose of sharing such stories. ‘The captains here tell stories about Liberia, the majors about Desert Storm,’ says Lee. ‘Put something in a lecture or a handout or a book, and the student might or might not remember it. But put it in the context of the U.S. embassy burning down in Pakistan, and he’ll remember.’ Call it an oral, informal case study method in which people’s lives are staked on the outcome.

With the Marine Corps sea stories as inspiration, I am calling for your sea stories that can help us learn about MBM. They can be tales from every day life. I have a feeling many of us can learn from stories of sports teams and other non-work situations. Later today, I’ll feature a sea story from a time before the person even knew what MBM was, but upon reflection can see lessons learned that help him apply MBM now.

Be on the look out for the title “Sea Stories” in the coming weeks and send me your sea stories for potential posting (ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org).

Corps Business