A Time to Transition: Making Plans for the Future

So, you've decided it's time to hang it up, to leave or retire from the service and begin life in the private sector. As you travel this path, there is good news and some not-so-good news. The good news is that you have valuable skills, knowledge and ability that could benefit most civilian companies. The not-so-good news is that you've spent most of your life isolated from civilians in the private sector. They don't know much about the military and you don't know much about the business world. You need to approach this new challenge in much the same way as you have planned every major military operation in the past by assembling the right team, collecting information, developing and analyzing courses of action, deciding and then executing your action plan. Rest assured we all go through the transition but some manage the process better than others. In some ways it will be a culture shock so you need to be prepared. The bottom line is that you've never failed at anything you've done in the military and you are not likely to fail at this new challenge.

In spite of all the gloom and doom about unemployment and stagnation in the workplace, opportunities abound. According to a recent blog post "employers across the globe are concerned that they are faced with a workforce that is aging and a talent pool that is under-educated, or under-motivated and showing talent shortages in many critical areas." Some would argue that now is a great time to be entering the workforce as we begin to climb out of "The Great Recession."

I recently published a guest column in the Kansas City Star entitled, "Liberal arts, military experience offer preparation to adapt (and) lead." I commented that "the enemy in war is like the competition in the private sector that is always creating, innovating and adapting to changing consumer tastes, leading change and innovating to maintain their competitive advantage." After 13 years of war in two completely different environments, military leaders have been creative, innovative and adaptive in response to the constantly changing conditions on the ground. They have done so in an environment where the consequences of failure are often devastating. I believe that the skills, knowledge and abilities of mid to senior-grade leaders prepares them to assume leadership and management positions as managers, directors and vice presidents where their primary concern may be loss of market share, not loss of life. I know that military professionals have a great deal to offer a private sector employer.

Scott Samuelson writing in the Wall Street Journal notes that a study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, found that that "the overwhelming majority of employers are desperate to hire graduates who have a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems." These are exactly the skills possessed by nearly all senior military professionals.

While you are an accomplished leader, leadership in the civilian sector is different. It's really classic leadership because you have to use your communication skills to persuade others, not direct them to get things done. In the military you wear your authority on your shoulders and your accomplishments on your chest. In the military this "resume" may be impressive, but unless your can contribute meaningfully to a company's bottom line, they don't care who you are and what you have done in the past. The only thing that matters is what you can do for them and their company. Get used to the fact that the janitor will call you by your first name and your boss and the president of the company will expect you to call them by their first names. "Yes sir, no sir" makes them nervous and normally, it is neither required nor desired.

Job security?—only if you are making yourself indispensable by contributing to the mission and profitability of the company. Most employment is "at will." Unless you have a contract, you can walk anytime you want and the company can dismiss you anytime they want. The concept of lifetime employment is a thing of the past. While this may be a bit disconcerting, your peers in the civilian marketplace have operated in this environment for their entire working lives. Lifetime employment is a concept of a bygone era. In the information age, the pace of change, created by innovation, means that some employees are treated like commodities. Some companies recruit and hire teams to accomplish short-term tasks and when those tasks end, team members are rolled into a new task or let go. This is the model frequently used by the defense industry. In this "at will" era employees have come to think of themselves as free agents always looking for a better opportunity and the chance for upward mobility. Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric, was quoted as saying "Loyalty to a company? It's nonsense."

You will come to realize that companies will not retain non-productive employees. I remember a time when one of my colleagues came to work to find that he could not log in to the company network so he called the IT manager. The IT manager suggested that he speak with the Chief Operating Officer (COO). When my friend visited the COO, he was told to come in and shut the door. In this meeting he was told his services were no longer needed. Thirty minutes later, my friend emerged to find a security guard holding a cardboard box. The guard escorted him to his office and watched him clear out his desk. My friend was then escorted to the door. His job with that company had just ended. What he failed to realize is that it was about "the numbers."

You will learn there is a big difference between overhead and billable hours. Most senior people in companies are overhead. That means they are vulnerable to losing their job when revenues, "the numbers," go down. Employees who are generating revenue are usually secure during an economic downturn. Revenue is normally tracked quarterly with goals expected to be met. Those who fail to meet their numbers are at risk of losing their jobs. Some companies evaluate employees and expect to have a turnover based on a bell curve. This was popularized by Jack Welch who introduced forced ranking in the 1980s by requiring senior executives to decide every year which of their direct reports fell into each group, and then dismiss the bottom 10 per cent. This meant that to remain employed, you had to be at the very top of your game. This should be familiar to those who served in the military because of the evaluation process and forced attrition of the military's up-or-out policy. Another activity I have witnessed is a company re-organization where an entire department is declared redundant resulting in layoffs, including the manager, but not necessarily the executive because the executive may have broader responsibilities than just that one department. Whether in the military or business, performance matters. Those who perform keep their job while those who don't are let go.

In the military, we spend OPM (others people's money) whereas in the private sector you need to make money in order to spend it. Remember the year-end funds we all worked so hard to spend before the end of the fiscal year? This is not likely to happen in the private sector. You are rewarded for what you bring in, not what you spend.

So, how good of a salesman are you? A good salesman knows his product or service. He makes a pitch extolling the virtues of his product while overcoming objections and finally closes the sale. Your job hunt will be a lot like that. In the military we are conditioned to give the credit to the team and while teams matter, your prospective employer is hiring you, not the team. What do YOU know, what have YOU done, and what makes YOU the ideal candidate for the position? And yes, emphasize that while you have the right skills, knowledge and ability, you also know how to build, motivate and lead a winning team.

Most people recoil at the idea of selling anything. But nearly everybody sells something. Garage sales, eBay, home parties for a broad range of products and services are just some examples. Even military professionals are involved in sales. Each time you give a pitch to promote a concept, an idea, or a course of action, you are engaged in sales. And, as a job seeker, you are engaged in sales and YOU are the product.

As one might expect, a successful job hunt requires preparation. You don't plan a military operation without doing your IPB (intelligence preparation of the battlefield). Likewise, you don't start your job hunt without adequate preparation. Read the latest business books, refresh your education (a 20 year old business degree may not be much help). Learn to understand and speak the language of business. Sharpen your Word, PowerPoint and Excel skills. Obtain or update professional certifications: Project Management Professional (PMP). Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Professional Engineer (PE) or other professional certifications for the field that interests you. In my case, I had social science degrees that were good enough to teach at military colleges (Command and General Staff College and the Army War College) but, they were not good enough to teach at civilian colleges because they wanted a Ph.D.

Your preparation includes research about jobs, companies and people. The internet has a wealth of information about these subjects but you can save yourself a lot of time and anguish if you learn from the experience and mistakes of others who have gone before you; or, you can go-it-alone and learn all of this by yourself.

In Appendix 2, you will find a deliberate planning process familiar to many military professionals that has been adapted to the job hunting process. In Appendix 3, I've provided a "transition checklist" to help guide you towards obtaining a civilian sector job.

Goal Setting: Leaving your Comfort Zone

My friend Hyrum Smith, a former artillery officer who invented the Franklin Planner and became a highly successful entrepreneur following his time in the Army, wrote a very informative and helpful book, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace. In his book he writes, "It's a natural tendency for people to gravitate towards their comfort zones." Perhaps that explains why so many retired military personnel find jobs in the civil service or go to work for defense contractors. I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with these options but moving away from those familiar, highly-structured environments into the brave new world of private business, or becoming an entrepreneur, takes a great deal of thoughtful reflection, research, and some pretty serious goal setting. Hyrum notes that "a goal is a planned conflict with the status quo. By definition, then, reaching a goal means doing something new, leaving familiar, comfortable terrain of our comfort zone and exploring new frontiers." He goes on to outline a process for goal setting.

It begins with an appreciation of where you are on the timeline of life, from birth to death. As you retire from the military, you are likely to have another 30 plus years of life ahead of you. Hyrum suggests that if you want to become financially independent, you have some serious work ahead of you and that requires a plan. He says that your values explain why you wish to accomplish certain things in life while daily tasks explain what needs to be done to accomplish your long-range goals. But, he notes "you have to set SMART goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and Timely." He goes on to outline a process by which you can attain your goals.

Napoleon Hill's "whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve," is the perfect lead-in for the real life examples that follow.

One section of Hyrum Smith's chapter on goals is titled "Nothing Can Stop a Determined Soul." In this section of his book he tells a story of leading a group of skeptical Explorer Boy Scouts to earn $8,000 for a trip to Hawaii. All they had to do is memorize this poem:

    There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
    that can circumvent or hinder or control
    the firm resolve of a determined soul.

After some cajoling and serious coaching, Hyrum rallied his group of highly skeptical Explorer Scouts to achieve their goals. They had internalized their goal by memorizing and repeating the poem and it helped to motivate them to achieve success—as a consequence, they earned their way to Hawaii.

When Hyrum was the president of the CGSC Foundation, I must have heard him repeat that poem a hundred times at board meetings. He even had small wallet-sized plastic cards made for our trustees with our fundraising goal on one side and that poem on the other—I still have mine. We came to believe it and it guided us along the path of success. For most of you, your immediate short-term goal is to get a job. My advice is, "don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good." This aphorism, attributed to Voltaire, is something you want to keep in mind as you begin your journey in the private sector. I had one officer tell me, "I won't accept anything less than $130,000 because that's what I'm worth." "To whom," I asked. I then noted, "You're only worth what someone is willing to pay you. If you're really worth that much, whatever job you take, you will move up quickly in the organization as you demonstrate your value to your employer."

I've always counseled that when you leave the service, take any reasonable job that comes along and learn how to be a civilian. Once you gain private sector experience and start moving in circles of other business people you will be able to leverage your talents and find other more interesting, challenging and ultimately better paying employment. To that end, I'm reminded of a quote from management guru Marcus Buckingham who advises, "Holding out for that `perfect job we love' is a fool's game. Instead, we simply need to learn how to take our existing job and each week, reshape it around our strengths — even in the face of interference from the world around us."

As I conclude this chapter, I want to circle back to my discussion about Hyrum Smith. As the CEO of the Foundation, I worked closely with Hyrum and can say confidently that none of what we accomplished could have been done without his unceasing enthusiasm, drive and leadership. The principles he describes in his book were put into action as he guided the foundation board of trustees (at times 70 individuals from 16 states) from our initial stage of development into one of the most successful foundations supporting a military staff or war college. Our original goal was to raise $10 million, but Hyrum bumped that to $20 million as a stretch goal to ensure we would at least reach our original $10 million goal.

In the end, we raised more than $12 million for the Foundation with a combination of personal, corporate, and foundation gifts, a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and a Congressional commemorative coin program signed into law by the President of the United States (PL-111-262, dated 8 Oct 10). Clearly, we were "determined souls" who worked hard to achieve our goals—we were also the true believers and our conviction played to our advantage and helped us reach our objective. What we accomplished was the envy of the other military service college foundations. We willingly shared our lessons learned and best practices to help other service school foundations achieve their goals.

You too can reach your goals if you remember "there is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul." But, it will take careful planning, goal setting and work.

I strongly suggest that you buy and read, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace. It's a thoughtful piece, written in a lively and engaging style that will help you focus your mind on your objective and help ease your personal transition from the military to the private sector.