What Does Military Experience Bring to the Table?

Comment: I recieve many expertise requests from many professionals, students, and CEO's via email, LinkedIn, and occassionally by phone. Recently, a graduate student asked me through LinkedIn, "How does your did military service influence your business mindsets? Or in other words: What useful mindsets, tools or tactics did you acquire during your military service that contribute today to your success in business/career?" Many folks talk about this but rarely are able to pin the transferable skills down.  I would like to share my response. 

What Does Military Experience Bring to the Table?

This is an interesting question posed. During my years of military service I attempted to apply business concepts to military operations which was often meet with utter resistance. The catch phrase, "You cannot put a value on a Soldier's or Sailor's life!" would frequently echo but more often "that does not apply" or "we are not going to do that" resounded with little or no reasoning.  However, on a small  level I was able to use business practices. For example, while performing humanitarian operations in Iraq I used private industry costing measures to value the work performed to dollars expended operationally. While employed in the private sector world, I attempted to take military tactics, techniques, and practices (TTPs) and apply them to private operations but was often met with resistance as well.  Some of the TTPs I have brought into the civilian work place were effects based operations, operational risk management practices, tiger teams, and modularization or componentization of activities discussed in the Operations Management Series post.  The underlying concept of these TTPs is a practical approach to the counterpart activity in the private sector.

Effect based operations is a common sense and practical approach to creating result oriented efforts.  The private sector practice is often a whimsical axiom not acted upon such as ‘meet or exceed customer satisfaction’ or 'world class operations'.  The effects based approach to this axiom is to identify the realistic and desired effect then assign measures of effectiveness, trigger points, and align it with the strategy and objectives.  Therefore, the desired effect may be rewritten as an increase/decrease in customer complaints. The measure of effectiveness may be the number of complaints. The upper trigger may be 30 complaints per month to act on the decision point to investigate the issues, allocate funding, and reduce complaints. The lower trigger point may be 5 complaints per month to redirect funding away from the effort and monitor.  This was demonstrated in more detail in my blog posting “ITIL Affects Measurable Organizational Value” which combines effects based operations with the ITIL standard.   This attracted nearly 300 readers and continues to be one of my top blog postings.

Another example is risk management. The PMI formal process is somewhat labor intensive and time consuming. When time is at a premium in high tempo situations or a risk event is emergent, operational risk management, ORM, techniques may be a better approach. The line officers in the field would use this to assess risk.  In this approach, the project manager huddles the subject matter experts quickly, they discuss the risk on-the fly taking notes. Using the organization’s acceptable risk impact matrix as a pocket card they assign probabilities of occurrence and the level of risk while in the huddle determining the impact. Referring to the chart they determine if the risk is worth addressing further.  It is quick, efficient, and conscious of time constraints.

Modularization and componentization is a survivability tactic used often in the military to limit and manage impacts from enemy efforts at attrition. The use of the technique in business can improve management of operations and focus efforts. For example, many civilians focus on the detail wanting people who are both technically and managerially proficient. Thinking this combination makes the person more versatile and helps identify problems.  By componentizing the work efforts, the manager is more concerned with the inputs and outputs as well as the relationships between them rather than focusing on the tradecraft of the artisans.  This empowers the artisans to perform their work in ways comfortable to them and achieve the outputs sought. Efficient, team building, and empowerment.

Some of the obstacles I have run into is that most civilians lack a fundamental understanding of the military. Therefore, they do not have a grasp regarding what it means to have been military. Many people say they like military but have no functional understanding of what that means. When companies hire a former military person  who brings to the table these skills and abilities, the civilian staff often react in negative ways. They think the former military person is trying to convert them to the military way or militarize them. They are not accustomed to the deliberate and result oriented approaches as well as the driven work ethic of most military. Civilians like to talk a lot, obtain reports, and are slow to make decisions which often occur out of default from inaction or are forced upon them by cicumstances. It is a fine line that must be walked and introduction of foreign concepts, if not managed carefully, can have negative impacts on the former military member in a private sector culture. Another concern that I have observed is civilians often view former military members who are calm, relaxed, and even paced as not engaged or lacking experience as opposed to thier civilian counter parts who are frantic and frazzled in the same situation. The difference is the level of experience military members have traditionally had as opposed to the civilian counterpart. 

Overall, the military affords the members practical skills and tools for accomplishing meaningful outcomes in efficient, deliberate, rapid, and productive manners.