A Message to Garcia

I Chose this book for the simple reason that it was listed as one of the required books for me to read and it so happens to be the first book listed. Its also a fairly small book and I knew that I would be able to just read it quickly move on the other books on the list.

Give a brief description about this book:
This book gave a brief synopsis of the good traits that most people nowadays lack. The book began by explaining a situation where a Military Commander needed to get a message out to a Soldier named Garcia. The only issue that they had was that they did not know the exact location of Garcia and they found a guy that had the reputation to get all and any task done without questioning who, what, when, where or why. The messenger overcame all difficulties and accomplished the overall mission which was to deliver a message to Garcia. Throughout the book they compared different characteristic held by many people nowadays and kept asking if they would be able to deliver the message to Garcia. Some of the characteristics that was told was traits that are needed in order to deliver the message to Garcia were selflessness, strive, courage, commitment, goodwill, and radiant.

Tactical lesson learned from this book:
Tactical lessons that was learned from this book is that no matter what the mission is that is was given to you for a specific reason and it might be a timed manner and for you to sit there questioning everything asking the 5Ws its only going to increase the chances of mission failure. Also that every military personnel should use any of their past experience only when its necessary and to make sure that you remember the overall mission in the event that you have to deviate from the mission plan that you still know what the commanders content is to ensure the fullest safety and mission accomplishment.

Leadership lessons learned from this book:
A few leadership lessons that I’ve learned from reading this book is to learn and know what to look for in people to see if they will be able to send a message to Garcia. To weed out all of the Incompetent, impatient, lazy people that may be either working or trying to work for you to improve your mission success. A few more attributes found in humans that would be able to deliver a message to Garcia are Successful against great odds, does the work when the boss if away, uplift and inspire by example.

How can the lessons learned be used today:
The Marine Corps incorporates all of the lessons learned in this book in their Core Values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment. The book talked about how humans need to complete work when the manager is away and when he is home. This is a perfect example of the first Core Value; Honor, knowing that the job has to get done and his selfless dedication to the mission’s success the Soldier successfully delivered the message to Garcia. Humans also needed to be able to be successful against all odds. This can be used as both Courage and Commitment. The Soldier knowliny going into enemy area still had the courage to overcome all of the difficulties that he will face and still committed to the missions accomplishment and delivering the message to Garcia he continued and fought through and at the end his dedication led to accomplish the mission. So to say how can the lessons be used today, i think with the Marine Corps and all other branches of the Military are doing a good job in instilling these traits into their troops.

I would or would not recommend this book to my peers, and why: I would recommend this book to my peers because of the fact that it explains not only what the military is looking for successful troops but even in the civilian sector, managers are also looking for those rare and special traits and characteristics needed to send a message to Garcia.