Never Outmatched
Military Strategies to Lead, Innovate, and Win in the Modern Marketing Battlefield
The tactics used toward success in historical military battles are translated into leadership lessons in the business guide Never Outmatched.
Army officer and business executive Lee Pepper’s tactical business book Never Outmatched is about addressing common marketing challenges like tight budgets using military methods.
Military history, the book suggests, has much to teach businesspeople, including about how to lead their staff, get the most out of their resources, and outflank their competitors. Sweeping in scope, it draws lessons from notable military leaders including Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joan of Arc, and George Patton on topics like forging alliances, preparing teams to maximize performance, and outmaneuvering larger and better-equipped competitors. Its pages are also informed by military thinkers including Carl von Clausewitz, providing an intellectual framework for its notion that the boardroom is like a command center for the “battlefield” of business.
Informative historical stories on subjects like Portugal partnering with England during the Napoleonic Wars make the book engaging, as do Pepper’s personal insights into topics including reading Department of Defense documents and how military badges work. But too many of the book’s stories are military focused, as when it discusses how Welsh longbowmen helped the English defeat French forces during the Hundred Years’ War, taking it afield of its business advice to a distracting degree. More immediately applicable are anecdotes as of how Red Bull created the entire energy drink market segment and how 3M invented the Post-it note.
Still, the book’s conceit is consistent throughout. Its organization focuses on military topics, too, including force multiplication, war-gaming, and the anvil and hammer maneuver. The latter is touted as a template for marketing. Each chapter explains ideas like operational readiness in detail, showing how they can be applied in a marketing context. For example, the book draws an analogy between the Roman army staggering under the weight of its own mass and Blockbuster collapsing after its size became a financial albatross.
The book’s examples help bridge the gap between worlds, as with Pepper’s stories of mentoring young leaders and building a digital marketing firm on a scant budget. Case studies broaden the book’s scope, as with a reference to Elizabeth Holmes misleading her employees, operating in secrecy at Theranos before it collapsed. Its survey of a wide range of approaches that can be used under different circumstances is edifying and illustrative, supporting its notion that businesspeople need to lead from the front, build esprit de corps, and realize their potential. The afterword, though, lacks substance as a sendoff, giving the impression of the book’s points fizzling out.
A strategy-minded leadership guide, Never Outmatched suggests applying military lessons to marketing.
Reviewed by
Joseph S. Pete
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
