Highly skilled soldiers trekking through the pitch dark of night and a business creating better products and services for customers appear to be completely unrelated. Yet, when we look closer at the aptitudes that special operations forces (SOFs) personnel use to create mission success, we discover an amazing set of competences that can drive and inspire business innovation.

Although the U.S. military is known for being rigid, rank-oriented and historically bound, the branches frequently produce incredible innovation. Corporate America often struggles with innovation output. Companies can adopt a few tactics from military history to retarget their strategies.