A little over a week ago, my wife and I drove to Parris Island, SC for our son's graduation from Marine boot camp. It was a two day event. Thursday was Family Day. Friday was Graduation Day.
During the three months of boot camp we had only traditional hand-written letters from our son once a week at most. Family Day was the first time since before boot camp we saw our son. We were filled with anticipation and excitement.
Family Day started with a ceremony in the All Weather Training Facility which began with a video that gave us an overview of all our son and the other 700+ recruits did in boot camp. At one point in the presentation the narrator said that one purpose of the training was to create "esprit de corps" among the recruits. Because I am mindful of spirit, as soon as I heard the phrase "esprit de corps" I was aroused and began wondering what exactly "esprit de corps" is. I've heard the phrase many times throughout my life but never looked into it to learn more about it. My investigation began with some on-line dictionaries.
According to the The Free Dictionary esprit de corp is "a common spirit of comradeship, enthusiasm, and devotion to a cause among the members of a group." According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it is "the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring enthusiasm, devotion, and strong regard for the honor of the group."
Note that both definitions use the words "common spirit" and "group". The idea is that a group can have a single spirit.
Esprit de corps is a French phrase used first in 1780. Esprit is the French word for spirit or breath. Corps is the French word for body. Related words are corporeal, corporation, corpse, Translated literally it is "spirit of the body." The body in esprit de corps is a corporate body, a unified group that acts as a whole.
After the video the Company First Sargent marched out and addressed the crowd. When he finished, the music started, the large hanger-like door at the far end of the building began to rise, and the new Marines marched into the building. There were over seven hundred young men and women grouped into nine platoons. Each platoon marched as one multi-legged and armed body. Its head was the Drill Instructor shouting the orders. Each platoon marched as a segment of the entire multi-platooned company. I could feel the common spirit shared by the entire multi-platooned company.
Our son's platoon halted directly in front us and the thrill of our hearts came out in the applause of our hands and shouts of our voices. We joined the chorus of thousands of other parents, siblings, girlfriends, boyfriends, and others who were clapping and cheering the new Marines.
The day we spent together touring the Recruit Training Depot, shopping and sharing meals was a day spirited with pride, relief, love and joy. Family Day was topped only by Graduation Day where we again watched the new Marines march as a single-spirited body, cheered, loaded up, and drove home.
Today, a week and a day after graduation, my son and I walked with our dog through the woods behind our house. I asked him about esprit de corps and he talked about how no one except another Marine could really understand the connection Marines have. Boot camp is an initiation. It is an initiation into the entire corporate body of the Marines. Boot camp is the crucible of the esprit de corps. It animates and binds together everyone who gets through it into a single-spirited corporate body, the Marine Corps.
The esprit de corps of the Marine Corps is one example of how a group can be animated by a single spirit. Other examples include flocks, packs, herds, schools, sports teams, business corporations, marching bands, symphony orchestras, riotous mobs, and tribes or clans.
That a group can be animated by a single spirit raises some questions:
What is the origin of an esprit de corps? From where does it come?
Does an esprit de corps vary in strength? Can it be weak, moderately strong, or very strong? If so, what determines how weak or strong it is?
What sustains an esprit de corps? How long does it last?
Does the spirit of a corporate body remain even after the corporate body dissipates? For example, if a business corporation goes out of business or an entire tribe of people dies does its spirit live on in any sense at all? If so, what sustains it? If not, where does it go?
If anyone has investigated esprit de corps in depth I am not yet aware of it and would welcome information from my readers.
Good article, but answer some of those questions already!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm glad you liked it! As for answering those questions, I have far more questions than answers. I enjoy wondering and not knowing. LOL.
DeleteI usually think of esprit de corps as a term applied to the military, and linked to activities and ceremonies such as you describe with your son’s boot camp experiences. I never thought very much about it in the context of other organizations, though I certainly am familiar with another form it assumes—that of a “corporate culture”.
ReplyDeleteI worked for two high tech companies, both now absorbed by other major corporations, who epitomized the concept of corporate culture. One was immortalized in a Tracy Kidder book, “Soul of a New Machine.” The two companies were 180 degrees apart in their view of the world—one hard-driving, cold, and proud of it; the other much more of a large, friendly corporate family that claimed to love everyone. Each worked hard to foster its “brand” with those who worked there.
I think the kind of esprit de corps that any military organization builds is very different and much stronger than that of a corporation. Lives depend upon that esprit in a way that they do not in a corporate setting.
There is a certain camaraderie that accompanies the development and launch of a new product; a sense that everyone is in this together, fostered by beer and all manner of trinkets. Employees are proud to work for a “hot” company, and work hard to keep it that way. Unfortunately, such esprit de corps is a fragile thing, and the teams are often broken up and moved on to new projects. And with lay-offs a way of life in the corporate world, loyalty is mostly a one way street.
It used to be in our parents’ generation that one went to work for a company, and worked there for decades, until retirement or death. There are ample statistics these days to show that today, the average person stays with a company less than 5 years, and will likely switch careers several times before finally calling it quits. It’s hard to develop long-lasting esprit de corps with statistics like that.
I’ve heard it said that “once a Marine, always a Marine”. That same spirit doesn’t exist in the corporate world. You’re a member of the team as long as you work there, and when you don’t, you join another team and become a cheerleader for that organization, until you’re not. A sort of shifting esprit de corps that’s hard to integrate and maintain in your personal life. It’s a very different world, and I’m hard pressed to make a comparison to a tribe, clan, family, or even the military.
Now, I will say, that former employees of both of these high tech companies have formed an alumni association, featured on sites like LinkedIn. It’s the sort of connection that makes for good networking when looking for that next job opportunity. Otherwise, there’s not much to it at all.
So what does all this say regarding your questions? It comes from a group of people who band together toward a common goal. Yes, esprit de corps can be weak and fleeting. Yes, there is some sort of “tribal memory” that remains, however that memory has limited usage. Or so it seems to me.
Sara, thanks for your thoughtful comment and sharing your experience with esprit de corps in the corporate world. Your comments illustrate my main point about groups being spirited and each having their own unique spirit. You also expand on my main point and give details about how esprit de corps differs between the military and business corporations.
DeleteI'm not sure that a corporation's culture is the same as its spirit. I think that it's possible that the corporation's spirit makes its culture possible: no spirit, no corporate culture. I also think that the corporation's culture, like an individual's personality, is the social manifestation of its spirit. Having said that, I reserve the right to change my mind. This is a work in process rather than final conclusions.
I'd like to dig down deeper on the notion of a corporation, or indeed any entity including branches of the military, having a spirit. I'm curious as to how you came to a perspective that suggests they do?
ReplyDeleteIf in your definition spirit is that which animates, from where does that which animates come? You suggest in another of your posts that it comes from breath--did I understand correctly? I'm struggling with how a legal entity is animated; from where its breath comes? Is it the spirit of the founder that animates her corporate creation? An external breath that breathes life into dry legal papers of incorporation?
I wonder whether or not organizations of any kind are spirited in the way you've defined. Or are they rather comprised of the spirits of all who are a part of them and who infuse them with culture/personality?
This begs another question for me--is spirit, any spirit, static, or does spirit shift and change?
There certainly are more questions than answers. I'll be chewing on this for a little while.
Great questions, Sara! I'm not sure I have satisfying answers to your questions but I will share some thoughts.
DeletePut briefly, my perspective that groups are spirited is currently based on my own experience, informal conversations with others, and our language.
Just as I experience individuals as having a spirit or being spirited, so I experience groups as having spirit. On the day of my son's graduation from Marine boot camp when the 700-plus Marine company marched onto the outdoor parade deck, my sense was that it was more than the sum of the individual Marines in it. The company had its own spirit or esprit de corps.
Yesterday, as I listened to my son talk about a recruit that was originally in another company but joined his company after getting pneumonia and having to drop back in his training, it was clear that the different companies perceived themselves as unified wholes with their own spirit (my description). They expressed their own spirit with their own name, mascot (totem) and colors. Their company was more than the sum of its members. It had its own spirit.
Years ago I had my own fundraising business. I worked mostly with high school football teams. Every school I went into had its own spirit. Every football with which I worked also had its own spirit. Each one was unique.
I think phrases like "esprit de corps", "school spirit", and "team spirit" put into words common experiences of groups being more than the sum of their individual members and having a single, unifying spirit.
The question about the etiology of a group's spirit is a wonderful question. It's wonderful in that it inspires me to wonder. At this point all I have is my wondering. I have no answer.
If anyone has investigated the etiology of, for example, the esprit de corps of a military group, I haven't found it yet. It seems to me that more energy has been invested in the actions that generate it than understanding what actually occurs. For example, the Marines know that drilling, eating, sleeping, shouting, chanting, learning, and facing challenges together builds esprit de corps but I don't think they know why or what exactly that esprit de corps is.
To clarify, I meant to suggest not that spirit comes from breath but that that spirit and breath might be the same. No spirit, no breath; no breath, no spirit. To be spirited is to breathe, to breathe is to be spirited. Perhaps sharing a common breath or breathing together has something to do esprit de corps.
In my current view "static spirit" is an oxymoron. Spirit is dynamic. It is life. It is animated and animating. It is always changing and on the move.
I'm interested in what your answers are to your questions. Do you doubt that groups are animated by a common spirit? Are you thinking instead that groups are the sum of their members and that if a group has spirit at all, it is the mix of its individual members? Do you question the existence of spirit in any form?
I appreciate your thoughtful response. I’ve given this additional consideration, and I’ll supply what answers I have to my own questions.
ReplyDeleteI don’t doubt that groups are, in your words, animated by a common spirit. What I’m not sure of is that this spirit is something more than the sum of its ever-changing parts, or that it exists as a separate entity.
I have a different sense of from where organizational spirit comes. I’m still thinking this through, however it seems to me that a group’s spirit comes from pieces of individual spirit being, in a sense, deeded to the group. We give up something of ourselves to each of the groups to which we belong.
This felt evident to me as you described how each company perceives itself somewhat separately (its own totem, e.g.), even while being a cohesive whole with the rest of the ideology of “Marine”. Each group has its own methods, within the overall framework, of integrating the parts into a unified whole. The concept of “team-building” in the corporate world comes to mind.
There are many tried and true methods of building a successful team, and there’s a fair amount of behavioral research on this. I’d have to dig out some references to demonstrate my point. Much has to do with shared experiences, and the passing on of a “group history”. I have less than fond memories of Outward Bound trust exercises involving falling backward into the arms of my colleagues, for example.
Still, each member has to, in a sense, “buy in” to that group spirit. And I can make an case that while the externals seem the same, the coming and going of team members subtly alters the spiritual dynamics of any group.
I’m still working through examples of how this surrendering of a piece of one’s own spirit to any group occurs. Let me unwind it a little bit—talking out loud, as it were. I contributed a piece of my heart and mind, my essence to each corporation of which I was a part. In turn, I bought into and internalized their “culture”, and acted accordingly. I do see culture/community as spirit, not as outgrowth of underlying spirit, BTW. Over time, I found my spirit at odds with the spirit of the group that I had become a part of, and I had to reclaim my spirit and separate from a spirit that did not match my sensibilities. My departure from any group, and the addition of others to it, did change group spirit, energy, and dynamics.
This needs more thought, however it represents working hypothesis for me.
What I do not question is the existence of spirit in any form. I find each person, tree, rock, animal and indeed all other parts of the natural world to each possess their own unique spirit. What I am unsure of is just where this spirit originates, or where it goes when the natural form transmutes. You raised these questions well in your parable of Freddy’s death.
What I am not yet convinced of is the imbuing of intangibles or inanimates with that same sense of spirit as its own, separate entity, distinct from all other spirits. In other words, I am not convinced of a separate spirit of an organization, or of a computer, or of a chair, beyond the spirits of the natural components that created it. To me, it argues that this spirit existed and would exist absent any of the moveable parts, and I don’t yet see that.
Sara, what a wonderful, well-thought out and articulated post. The main point that I wanted to raise in my original post was that the is such a thing as esprit de corps or spirit of a group. You raise several additional significant issues that I think are worthy of their own discussions. I'll go ahead and respond briefly now to the additional issues you raise and would like to explore these issues in more depth in future posts independent of this one.
DeleteSara, you wrote, "What I’m not sure of is that this spirit is something more than the sum of its ever-changing parts, or that it exists as a separate entity." Honestly, I'm not sure that the spirit of a group is more than the sum of its individual members or or not. I'm not at the point of being ready to commit to a position on this issue but can say at this point that I've been in groups, for example business companies, sports teams and faith communities, in which it felt to me that the group's spirit was more than the sum of its individual members. Different individuals came in and left during the time I was in those groups. Even though individuals came and went the spirit of the business, team, or faith community remained the same. These experiences lead me to think that some groups might have a spirit that is more than the sum of their individual members. But again, I'm still wondering at this point and not ready to commit to a conclusion.
Concerning the etiology of group spirit, you wrote that it seems to you that a group's spirit comes from pieces of the individuals' spirits in the group. I think that is a possibility. At this point, I do not know and am not ready to commit to one conclusion. It could be that different group spirits have different origins. I say this because it could be as you say, that we deed a piece of our own spirit to groups we join. However, I have been in groups where I experienced being infused by the group's spirit rather than deeding to it a piece of my own. Rather than deeding to the group a piece of my own spirit, I "caught" the spirit of the group so to speak or it possessed me. So, in my experience, it seems that in some instances I "buy in" to the group spirit that was there before I came and remained after I left.
DeleteAs for individuals changing the dynamics of the groups when they enter and leave, that has certainly been my experience. This raises some questions for me: Is a group's spirit the same thing as its dynamic or are they two different things? Could it be that spirit is what makes the dynamic possible rather than being the same thing as spirit? Do some members of a group have more influence than others with regard to the group's spirit? For example, does a change of CEOs have more influence on a group's spirit than a change of an assembly line worker? Also, what difference does the size of a group have with regard to its spirit? In large groups do the comings and goings of individuals have less influence than in small groups?
Yes, I think there is value in further exploring how esprit de corps is generated and whether or not it is the same thing as "team building". I'm not sure they're the same thing.
Could it be that a group spirit is generated not by the individuals deeding or giving up a portion if their own spirits but from the additional energy generated by the various group activities in which they engage? In other words, maybe in some instances a group spirit comes from additional energy generated by group activities.
Could it also be that when a group generates a certain amount of energy, that a group spirit is born that is both connected with and independent of the members of the group?
Right, like you, I have no experience of a chair or computer having a spirit that exists separate from its physicality. However, I think that it is possible that for example all Lazy Boy chairs share a common spirit as well as all Apple computers.
Again, you raise very interesting issues well worth further exploration. I would love to see in-depth exploration and investigation into these issues.
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DeleteIn some groups, we connect ourselves by extending into the group a filament of our own spirit - we "buy in" as Sara put it. In some instances, the group extends a filament of spirit to us, and we are "included in" but without that contribution from ourselves that would constitute "buying in." And sometimes, as in most mob scenes (and I've observed this as sporting events) we get "swept up together" into a temporary and often highly volatile group spirit, where we both buy in and are included in. The mob relationship is temporary and often leads to later regrets - mobs are often not very "nice" in the actions they commit.
ReplyDeleteLike any relationship, those we experience with a group can change, grow, mature, fade naturally, and be broken.
The esprit des corps of the US Marines is something I have experienced second-hand through my Marine or ex-Marine friends. All of them felt the bond strongly, whether they were on active duty or not, and would greet each other with certain words and gestures whenever they passed in the hall or met by accident - greetings that meant something profound to them.
I have also seen group bonds created through methods whose ethics I question, and alas, the Marines are one of those groups.
I first learned these methods and was trained to use them as a young adult belonging to a college youth organization via the Catholic Church. The term "brainwashing" has been egregiously overused, but it happens when a human being is isolated from other bonds, isolated in time and place, and put through an extremely fatiguing routine. When their bodies and minds are exhausted and their mental/emotional barriers low, the tracks of a new bonding are laid down upon them in a strong, positive and forceful manner by those already a part of the esprit des corps. The bond so created is very effective and strong for most people.
The good side of Marine methods is that their esprit des corps gives emphasis to honor, honesty, strength, loyalty and obedience to higher authorized authority. All the Marines or ex-Marines I've ever known are good people that I would feel quite comfortable trusting with my life. I honor the personal sacrifices they have made for the common good, and I feel gratitude that they are willing to make them. I try to find ways to let them know this whenever I see a Marine in uniform because I think it is all too common in our society to take such sacrifices too much for granted.
ReplyDeleteThat said, some people seem to have a natural resiliency and are either immune to this technique, or semi-immune. I find that I have a natural immunity. Put through such a program, I will be affected and will "feel" the bonding - but the effect is temporary on me and does not last. I have often wondered if such immunity is natural, or is a learned response to the fact that I used to be a part of a program that did this to other people.
My moral objections to the sort of group feeling that is generated using brainwashing techniques is that it does not respect the dignity and personal sovereignty of the individual. It is a way of forcing connection to esprit des corps, forcibly laying down a pattern. The consent that you give when you volunteer to join to the Marines is not, in my opinion, sufficient consent for being put through their spirit-changing program. I think that most volunteers have no real understanding when they give their consent as to just how much this program will change them for life.
And I believe that to properly respect spirit, one must acknowledge that every spirit deserves respect and dignity and personal sovereignty. This, in a nutshell, is why I am opposed to most forms of manipulation - from advertising campaigns to the Marine way of creating their tightly bonded esprit des corps. I'm defining manipulation as "forced buy-in" and clearly I favor only consenting by-in. Even when done for a person's own good or for the greater good, such manipulation is a violation of spirit. Too many arrogant people over the life of our human race have justified too many terrible things in such a way.