For four years in the early 1980s, John Meyer spent most of his time in an underground bunker with only one other person, 150 nuclear warheads, and an enormous amount of responsibility. He's now the CEO of Acxiom, a marketing services and technology company. HBR asked him about how his early career in the Air Force prepared him to lead a company.
What did you learn as a missile launch officer that you found useful later in your career?
Attention to detail and how to solve problems under extreme pressure. Before video games were popular, I lived in a video game. It was a big computer room 80 feet underground, with shock absorbers, air conditioning systems, life support systems, and 20- or 30-ton blast doors, all kinds of crazy things. Because it was just me and another individual down there, we had to know how to make everything work and how to repair it. We could not afford for things to go wrong and so we'd practice every part of the process of launching a warhead, every possible scenario, over and over on the simulator.
The artificial pressure that ensures that you're always on the top of your game was built into the system. If we had to launch missiles, we had only three minutes from the time we acknowledged the order, because within three minutes, the submarine-launched missiles from the Russians would have blown us out of the water. We had three minutes to do a bunch of different stuff to make sure the right thing happened, with no mistakes, and we could be called to do it—either on the simulator or for real—at any time. That's a sense of urgency.
That training still affects how I approach problems. I often do pert charts to prepare. When I'm negotiating a contract with someone, for example, I try to anticipate what they'll say. If they say this, I'll say this. If they say this, I'll say this. I actually chart it out.
Do you find yourself creating that artificial sense of urgency for other people as CEO?
Yes, I'm very task-oriented. Creating a sense of urgency and demand in the organization is an important part of leadership; as CEO I see myself as the engine for the company. And why do something tomorrow if you could do it today? If you're not excited, you're not communicating, and you're not leading by example, then everything goes down to the lowest common denominator eventually.
Does the fact that it isn't a life-or-death situation make creating urgency a lot harder?
Well, there's a business life and death, right?
Did your military experience accelerate your early career?
I went from the military to Ross Perot's EDS, which was not a far step; it was somewhat of a paramilitary organization. They were looking for somebody who understood computers, and I had experience there. But they were also looking for people with a military background because they knew what kind of training and commitment that pushes into you. When I was 26, I was a flight commander with 150 people working for me. Getting that kind of leadership and responsibility at a young age, both with people and projects, gives you a head start as long as you take it and build on it. I was an individual performer when I went into EDS, but eight months later, I had six people working for me, because people could see I had maturity, I had the dings. I'd made the mistakes someplace else.
Was there anything else you took from the military that you found useful in your work as a civilian?
I think professionalism and professional appearance is pretty important because it gives you the first impression, the benefit of the doubt. If you look the part, you get the opportunity to show whether you're competent or not.
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