“Tell me anywhere in the business world where a 22 or 23-year-old is responsible for 35 or 40 other individuals on missions that involve life and death. Their tactical actions can have strategic implications for the overall mission. And they’re under enormous scrutiny, on top of everything else. These are pretty formative experiences. It’s a bit of a crucible-like experience that they go through.”
-General David Petraeus
Companies (Re) Discover the Benefits of Recruiting Military Talent
When one of the leading business publications in the US, Fortune, has a soldier on the cover and its lead article is – Battle-Tested: From Soldier to Business Leader – you need to pay attention. I don’t want you to just read it and think, “Cool, the business world is talking positively about the military.” Although the audience for this story is the business leader and manager who subscribes to the magazine, there is lots of ammunition here to incorporate in your Heroic Journey.
Here are 5 ways to use this great Fortune article to turbo-charge your military transition plan.
1) Consider this a confirmation that there is growing “customer” demand for your brand.
I read this article as a marketer first. You should too. You see, Fortune has over 4.1 million readers, 874,000 of which are top management. The magazine also has a lot of influence in covering major trends in the business world. When a publication with this kind of clout with your future market puts a story on the cover, their editors are basically saying, “Corporate America needs to pay attention to this emerging trend”.
“For the first time in more than a generation, business is absorbing substantial numbers of combat veterans, young men and women tempered by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
-Brian O’Keefe
This is good news for you. In Heroic Journey Series, Part 3, I wrote that an important part of marketing is understanding the needs and wants of your customers. The need here is a “looming shortage of young talent in the…management ranks.”
2) A good inventory of your marketable skills and talents.
Sometimes it’s tough evaluating yourself. Looking impartially at what you do and determining what applies most to the business world takes practice. The article provides a good inventory of your marketable skills and talents. Read closely and you’ll find it mentioned that young military leaders have leadership as a core competency, take responsibility and can delegate, think independently and adaptively, are excellent listeners and are good at dealing with complexity. This is a great starting point for traits of the 21st century business leader.
“Not long ago, America’s elite probably wouldn’t have gone shopping for out-of-the-box thinkers from the military.”
-Brian O’Keefe
3) Get a sneak peak at some of the largest management development programs.
A few of America’s largest companies understand the value that military veterans can provide to their organizations. They’ve put their money where their mouth is and have developed management development programs:
- Wal-Mart turned to the military when they faced a crisis because of a lack of store managers. Now recruiting military is “ingrained” in their recruitment strategy.
- GE has a Junior Officer Leadership Program (JOLP) started in the late 1990s. Now they employ over 10,000 veterans throughout the company.
- PepsiCo has 7 of the 25 positions in its Leadership Development Program filled by junior officers.
4) The importance of continual education.
Most of the rising stars are products of continual education. Several of those profiled have attended MBA while one is in the process of attending an executive MBA. Several of the top graduate business programs have even created special programs tailored to junior officers. Whether full-time or part-time, during the military or after working, masters degree or college course, investing in your knowledge is a good career decision and makes business sense.
5) Translating your military experience: “flip” the perception of the military to your advantage.
Early in the article the writer is describing a former Army Captain, Steve Mumm, who now works for GE Energy. “[He] doesn’t come across as anything close to a drill sergeant type,” writes the author. Unfortunately, this is an example of some of the stereotypes that many in society and the business community have of the military.
It’s not surprising. Less and less CEOs have military experience. According to a 2009 academic paper by two economists, Military CEOs, “while 59% of the CEOs of large publicly-held corporations in 1980 had served in the military, only 8% of these firms are now run by CEOs with military background.” This is a difficult trend you need to face head on. With less military veterans in business leadership positions, managers and employees often rely on stereotypes to form their initial opinion of the military. Hence the perception of “drill sergeant types,” or “the military are only good at following orders.”
The Fortune article gives you some good ammunition to do what I call “verbal judo,” flipping the stereotype of the military to your advantage. Here is what you can mention the next time you come across resistance to hiring military:
- 82% approval of the military by American society. That’s much higher than the 20% of Americans expressing confidence in business.
- The military is an adaptive learning organization. Just look at all the changes in doctrine, tactics and the development of leaders that’s happened since the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq have begun.
- Entrepreneurial mindset. Doug Raymond, a former Army captain, explains how his military experience has helped to create a make-it-happen, entrepreneurial mindset. “I think the people who are doing interesting stuff in the military are very much entrepreneurial in mindset. And they don’t look up for approval and permission to do stuff. They are just doing it…And that’s exactly how a tech company works.”
Go ahead and (re)read the Fortune article, not as a soldier but as a marketer crafting your own brand, as I explained in Part 3 of the Heroic Journey Series. You’ll find there are great ideas for you to use to boost your transition plan.
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