Some years ago, you heard the call to serve your country, and you answered. However, as you complete your military service, you're answering a new call. America needs your talent in business so our economy can remain as strong as our military, and so our private industry can continue to fund the budgets our nation's freedom requires. Now, you generally won't find recruiting posters for corporate jobs, but companies do want you. They are realizing that the skills that veterans have are the very skills that built the U.S. economy after World War II. Veterans led the post-war boom that made modern America into the world's dominant economy.
With only about 1 percent of modern Americans having ever served in the military, our generation of veterans is much smaller than the World War II generation, of whom there were sixteen million, representing 33 percent of the male population over age fifteen. The valuable skills that military service provides are becoming an increasingly rare commodity for employers, and those skill sets are more valuable than ever before. Among them, one of the most valuable is leadership.
Businesses are beginning to recognize the leadership qualities veterans exhibit. In just the past few years, business magazines such as the Harvard Business Review and Fortune have showcased how the frontline leaders in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced the leadership qualities that businesses need to remain competitive in the modern environment. They've learned that frontline leaders can navigate teams through fast-paced, dangerous environments to accomplish a mission with little guidance and in the face of great ambiguity and uncertainty—the very same type of environment that businesses often face. Veterans know how to execute under rapidly changing and often treacherous circumstances.
In today's business environments, every good leader is concerned about how well his or her organization executes and adapts to change. Execution has been on the list of top concerns of CEOs for years now, but the turbulence of the past few years underscores the necessity for adaptability and execution to survive and prosper in the new economy.
What's the secret to executing and propelling an organization to the next level? We believe it's infusing an organization with military experience. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the positive results generated by the experiences of military veterans.
In 2006, Korn/Ferry International, in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, published an astonishing report that illustrated the extraordinary value of military leadership experience in the private sector. The report, “Military Experience & CEOs: Is There a Link?” demonstrates unequivocally that there is indeed a connection between business success and military leadership experience.1 The report showed that S&P 500 CEOs, as a demographic group, are nearly three times more likely to have served in one of the four U.S. military services than the general population of U.S. adult males. It also showed that companies led by these former military leaders outperformed, on average, other S&P 500 firms. These CEOs also lasted longer in their positions by nearly three years on average, so, not only did these leaders perform better, they were more committed to their companies over the long haul. These leaders could translate strategy into action, an imperative skill in today's environment.
The ability to make decisions and act when faced with new challenges and limited information is a key skill possessed by veterans. Whether you flew military aircraft, navigated ships, or led troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, your daily life depended upon solving problems and executing your decisions in a rapidly changing environment. Business leaders need those same skills.
Every business in America can benefit from the experience gained by leaders in the U.S. military. In light of the current economic turmoil and the proven capacity of military leaders to execute and excel in unstable business environments, companies need your talents. You possess abilities to plan, set goals, communicate, and motivate others that no business school can teach. You have practiced and honed your decision-making skills in life-and-death situations. Companies that stake a claim on you, a rare commodity, and actively recruit you will certainly position themselves to execute in the turbulent future ahead—but you must know how to articulate the assets you bring.
One of the reasons that you are so valuable is that there is an inevitable dearth of leaders, growing worse year after year. We have a baby-boom generation that has been leading companies for many years, but these experienced leaders are retiring in droves. Our generation of warriors is too few to fill their shoes. There is a leadership deficit on the horizon and companies are preparing for it. Your challenge as a veteran is to translate your experience into the very leadership qualities that employers need.
Have you ever heard the term GenFluxer? A GenFluxer is short for a member of “Generation Flux,” which is a term coined by Robert Safian, the editor of Fast Company magazine. The term expresses how young leaders in many cutting-edge companies are leading and succeeding in extremely turbulent environments. There are many very young CEOs who are harnessing the chaos of the markets and leading very successfully in that environment. Perhaps the poster child of the GenFluxers is Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Interestingly, though, Safian considers the former ISAF commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to be a sort of mentor to GenFluxers. Safian writes:
In today's chaos, leadership is more critical than ever—but a different kind of leadership. There is no single model of what it will take to succeed now. But drawing on examples from many different kinds of organizations—including the U.S. Army,…we can begin to define the qualities of successful GenFlux leaders.2
Safian and many others are speaking out on behalf of you and the value you bring to employers. You just have to take advantage of the groundswell of support.
The greatest challenge you may face is translating your leadership skills into a language that employers can understand. Except in the few uncommon instances in which a potential employer is a veteran, hiring managers don't understand military terminology, and, unfortunately, those potential employers that do understand a military resume will probably never see it if you apply for the job electronically. With an enormous volume of applicants for every posted job, companies have resorted to utilizing digital applicant tracking systems (ATSs). The ATS software scans for key words to match to a job description. So, if you are not using the right language, you're less likely to be matched to a particular job, regardless of your level of qualification. Automated systems are one of the greatest threats to your success in receiving a job offer. We will address the particulars of how to defeat the ATS threat later. For now, let's focus on translating your skills and experiences into assets employers will understand and value.
As a military veteran, you bring several unique qualities to any potential employer, qualities that distinguish you from your civilian peers. You bring experience in leadership, organization, communication, knowledge management, battlefield operations, and discipline. To keep our affinity to our military roots intact, we've developed the acronym LOCKED: leadership, organization, communication, knowledge, experience, and discipline.
Leadership deals with developing the team, aligning it toward the objective, and holding the individual members accountable for their commitments and responsibilities. Organization refers to defining the roles of all the team members and identifying the relevant processes and documents necessary to guide the team. Communication refers to the sharing, coordinating, and dissemination of relevant information. The next two characteristics, knowledge and experience, are closely related but not the same. Knowledge is the know what, and experience is the know how. Knowledge deals with acquisition, identification, and utilization of information, whereas battlefield experience helps bridge the gap between the known and the unknown; you know how to execute, even with imperfect information. Finally, discipline is about focusing the team on the right things and keeping progress on track.
Let's look at each category in a bit more detail. What follows is a brief overview of the qualities and activities that high-performing teams and their leaders exhibit. As you read through each, consider what skills you have developed in your military career that relate to each category.
Military leaders understand the importance of taking responsibility for mission accomplishment, a quality often less common in the business world, where flat organizations and ad hoc collaborative teams contribute to a dispersion of responsibility among a faceless them. Furthermore, some civilian managers are less adept at holding their subordinates responsible; sometimes policies or structures prevent them from doing so. Military leaders understand that authority may be delegated, but not responsibility. Leaders are constantly updating where they are and where they are going to increase situational awareness for themselves and their team.
Veterans also lead by example. They follow their own rules and view ethics as the foundation of their decision making. They not only listen to their subordinates, but they also actively seek their opinions and respond positively to constructive criticism. They treasure those who follow them for their contributions, and actively engage in their development, because someday those subordinates will take their place. Leadership means:
Veterans recognize the importance of standards, develop them when needed, and enforce them. Former military personnel are not only organized in a physical sense, but also in the way they think and solve problems. They plan according to an organized process; they communicate in an organized manner; they execute in a rhythmic, coordinated fashion; and they learn from mistakes and successes through a rigorous methodology (e.g., after-action reviews and debriefings). Veterans understand the value of habit and its role in effective execution. Organization means:
Veterans communicate with clarity, in spoken words and in writing. They understand the need to link today's activities with a strategy and a planned outcome. They arrange information in a coherent manner, and brief it to others to achieve high levels of comprehension. Communication means:
Veterans are not only well educated in the technical requirements of their areas of responsibility, but also in the limits of knowledge in ambiguous or changing circumstances. They are not paralyzed by insufficient information; they act. And, in so doing, they learn rapidly from their mistakes to improve and adapt. They incorporate a variety of opinions and experiences in planning and decision making, and train to close gaps in understanding and experience, while subjecting their plans to assessment and critique by others. Knowledge and experience means:
Veterans are not only disciplined to follow orders and adhere to rigorous standards, but they also are self-disciplined. They are able to focus intently upon their objective, prioritize activities, and hold the interests of their assigned objective and their team above their own self-interests without task-saturating their teams. They consider risk as a component of the planning process. Discipline means:
With these qualities—these assets—in mind, you can begin crafting your own individualized value proposition and planning to answer potential interview questions. As we move to the first step in career planning, you can incorporate many of the talent sets that you may not have realized you possess.
Your objective is to create your own unique recruiting poster in the form of a resume, a value proposition, and a virtual signature that points a finger directly at an employer and calmly, but sternly says, “You want me.”
Veterans reentering the civilian workforce are increasingly finding a warm welcome. That's especially true for young officers who have led combat units on the front lines. According to headhunters, human resources executives, and business school admissions officers, these candidates—most in their late 20s or early 30s, with a college degree and leadership experience far beyond that of their civilian peers—are stars waiting to happen.
—Brian O'Keefe, “Battle-Tested: How a Decade of War Has Created A New Generation of Elite Business Leaders.”
Fortune. March 22, 2010.
Military work is risky, pressured, and fast-changing. It calls for seemingly contradictory capabilities: absolute clarity about the mission at a high level, extraordinary adaptability on the ground, and a knack for managing complex, technically precise systems. These are the same skills that companies today need to prevail in a climate of intense economic uncertainty.
—“Leadership Lessons From the Military”
Harvard Business Review. November 2010.
The returning veterans are bringing skills that seem to be on the wane in American society, qualities we really need now: crisp decision making, rigor, optimism, entrepreneurial creativity, a larger sense of purpose and real patriotism.
—Joe Klein, “The New Greatest Generation.”
Time. August 29, 2011.
Dealing with ambiguity, that's something that I think the military is quite good at.
—Jeffrey Immelt, CEO, General Electric, quoted by Brian O'Keefe in “Battle-Tested: How a Decade of War Has Created A New Generation of Elite Business Leaders.”
Fortune. March 22, 2010.
Let's be clear: hiring a veteran can be one of the best decisions any of us can make. These are leaders with discipline, training and a passion for service.
—William S. Simon, CEO, Wal-Mart U.S., quoted by Brian O'Keefe in “Battle-Tested: How a Decade of War Has Created A New Generation of Elite Business Leaders.”
Fortune. March 22, 2010.
1 Korn/Ferry International. “Military Experience & CEOs: Is There a Link?,” 2006.
2 Safian, Robert. “Secrets of the Flux Leader,” Fast Company magazine, November 2012, p. 101.