In Europe and the United States, the individualist culture that emphasizes achieving personal goals at the expense of group goals is prominent and is seen as a way to encourage completion. On the other hand, military veterans are trained and equipped with a collective culture that considers the success of a group or family as more important than personal achievements (Kranke, Gin, Saia, Heslin, & Dobalian, 2016). The ratio of soldiers to civilians remains very small in many countries around the world. The result of this is a misunderstanding of the experiences that are possessed by the military personnel other than what they hear about or watch in Hollywood movies that sometimes may depict the military in a negative way. All these skills are necessary for any corporation and that is why the CEOs of major organizations should always give the veterans a chance to prove they are up to the task. This review looks at a few of the reasons why an organization should fulfill the CEO directive of increasing the number of veterans within the company.
In the corporate world, the leaders and subordinate staff experience different scenarios which they are not prepared for in their career. Normally, that is not grounds for the demise of a business or any other related venture. However, the military prepares soldiers and sailors alike to carry out tasks and/or missions that they never would have imagined doing in their lifetime. A person can join the military because they want to be military police officer or a naval aviator, but they end up in completely new fields that they never expected. Not many people in the world are expected to make such drastic changes in their lives. Veterans have been tossed in different scenarios that help them to better adapt to different circumstances and come up with solutions to urgent issues. For instance, someone who joined the military with the intent and training to become a fighter pilot, might find him/herself being a clandestine human intelligence officer after a few years. This calls for more training and acceptance of the fact that they have to change their careers for the better. Our company has branches from all parts of the world. Leaders in those parts of the world will be exposed to different environments, many of which can be hard to work in. Take an example of our company opening a branch in a country like Yemen or Syria that has been in conflict for years. Locally trained executives might not be willing to work in such an environment that poses great risks to their lives. However, a veteran has been trained to work in any environment without complaint which is necessary for an effective manager and/or worker in our organization.
Also, these veterans can be easily trained for any situation. From the above argument, we have noticed that a soldier or sailor can be trained as a fighter pilot but later end up working in a different career. A good example is Dan Friend who is the current US Army Chief of Staff. He was trained as a pilot after he joined the Army but today is a Colonel heading logistics and personnel in the United States. The CEO, for the success and future of the company, needs to incorporate such minds of people who are willing to be trained for the betterment of our company. The veterans are very good at this since they are used to any number of trainings that is required for the success of the missions they are deployed to conduct. Our company will greatly benefit from minds who have been conditioned that military is a training institution that offers everyone an opportunity to excel.
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The type of leadership in a company determines whether it will succeed or fail. As a result, organizations are continuously searching for individuals who have leadership instincts and/or qualities. Leadership is not about how old one is, but rather more to do with personal capabilities to guide or train others on how to make the organization more successful. The military is such an organization that trains everyone to be a leader as a way of preparing a successful and formidable force. Soldiers and sailors in the mid-twenties are given responsibilities to train and guide other junior staff in various sectors. As a result, they become a cross-functional professional at a young age. The management of a corporation has a responsibility of making sure the management or junior staff is in a position to help their colleagues in fulfilling the goals of the organization and that can only be accomplished if the leadership is able to fulfill such obligations. In the military, the concept of cross training is achieved through training and the interacting with other soldiers and sailors working within the organization. That is why veterans, even those who leave active duty at an early age, are better skilled to take on corporate level positions.
Additionally, many veterans have a wealth of experience that is gained from developing and overseeing various projects and machinery. Consider a situation where a 20-year-old soldier or sailor has been trained in working with nuclear weapons and is tasked with making decisions that can either take or save the lives of many. Other military officers in other countries are conducting recruitments in their respective units. They employ experience and continue developing because of their exposure. Such minds know who to replace, recruit, or train and these are some of the responsibilities that any other manager in a corporation should be good at making in order to drive company success. The ability to select, train, and employ the best candidates is not only required in the military but also in the world of corporate and that why the CEO idea is welcome. Professors of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at the Northwestern University, Carola Frydman and Efraim Benmelech, conducted research and concluded that military veteran CEOs who run corporations are more successful when working under pressure than other management officials with no military background (Law & Mills, 2017). This is likely due to the ethics of discipline and honesty that are installed in military personnel during training and in the missions that they conduct.
Being willing to save a colleague or to protect an unknown person should not be taken lightly. Soldiers are willing to leave everything they love for the sake of the mission and success of the team. They leave their families and businesses and some lose their lives within a foreign country trying to fulfill the mission. They also leave the comfort of their beds to sleep in less comfortable military camps, where during the day the sun is soaring and at night the temperatures are unbearably low. Every company is looking forward to employing professionals whose set aside personal matters in order to fulfill the mission of the company (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2015). Therefore, military veterans are the best candidates to fulfill such obligations. They will do anything under the least favorable conditions to ensure they succeed in whatever they are doing. This alone is a reason why we should seek to employ veterans in the corporate world in order to ensure organizational success and the high quality of service.
Trust is also critical in the success of any corporation. Soldiers and sailors often act in selflessness, earning the respect and trust from their colleagues because they are trained to act and think with a bias toward making their teams better rather than looking or seeking personal praise. In major corporations, like the one we work for, trust is a critical part of teamwork. Also, trust must be earned. Promotions in the military are based on how best your teammates and leaders believe you can make decisions. Credibility can easily be lost if an individual is only thinking about the salary and other personal factors (Davis & Minnis, 2017). I strongly believe any CEO would like to have a pool of workers who are willing to do anything for the success of their teams and some of the candidates for the job are military veterans.
When things are not working correctly within an organization, management calls in those responsible, questions them seeking to establish the cause of the problem, and then the findings are discussed to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated. In the process, criticisms on how a project manager or the human resource officer did his job are likely to occur and taken differently depending on those involved. In the military, a small mistake might lead to death of soldiers or civilians, unlike corporations where mistakes lead to a loss of revenue. The After-Action Reviews (AAR) is part of the operations’ management where soldiers must be held accountable for what happened in the mission to help prevent damages, deaths, and future accidents. The process acts as an action-review and also as an opportunity to learn from mistakes and to look for ways to avoid making repetitive mistakes in the future. Veterans are thus exposed to the criticisms that come with the process and are trained to take them as positive or instructive criticism. This type of mentality is vital to any organization seeking to overcome and learn from challenges.
Moreover, such criticism also helps in building trust among colleagues whether in the military or corporate world. With veterans who are used to these action-reviews, the organization has an assurance that the workforce has professionals who are willing to do anything to make their peers better, and also helps in establishing and meeting the vision and mission of the organization. The CEO is looking forward to employing such individuals whom s/he can trust in taking care of the various interests of the organization and because of this, bringing in veterans into the organization family remains the best choice.
Many people still harbor concerns on why it might be difficult to integrate military veterans in the corporate world. For an organization that is operating in Europe and the United States, then it is a concern to critics who think military veterans will find it difficult to integrate into a more individualistic culture. When managers are competing for promotions by working hard trying to achieve personal success, a military veteran will be more concerned on how his/her colleagues are performing since that is what has been instilled in them since their first days in boot camp. This is a common barrier when employing veterans to work with other professionals in the corporate world.
Also, due to the small number of former military personnel in many corporations, it is not possible to understand whether a veteran has the prior knowledge and experience for the job that is vacant. For instance, when a veteran indicates in their resume the rank, or paygrade, they achieved prior to transitioning out of the military, many corporate professionals do not fully understand the knowledge and/or skills required to achieve that specific rank. This makes some believe that the veteran might not have the required management skills that would propel the institution to higher standard.
Military veteran integration to the public sector is vital to the success of any organization. The issue of collectivity and the individualistic mentality that seems to hinder veterans, can easily be solved through training. For instance, in the United States, which boasts the largest number of active duty military personnel in the world, the percentage of active duty personnel is less than 1% of the total number of civilians in the country. With such a small number of veterans to civilian personnel, many believe that the skills of the military veteran might not be applicable in the corporate world. However, this assumption is far from the truth. Leadership, teamwork, conducting work under extreme pressure, honesty, selflessness, and discipline are the core factors that make up the military fraternity. Sometimes we have seen civilian managers and other employees asking to be transferred to other departments within the organization and others who opt to resign when they are moved or transferred another state, or in some cases, another country. This is not a characteristic of a military veteran.
Military veterans can easily be trained or taught in differing areas since they have been exposed to numerous trainings or exercises since first arriving to boot camp and thus taking lessons on corporate issues shouldn’t be a concern. Also, the recruiting department should include a soldier or sailor who will explain what it means to have certain ranks in the military and that makes interviewing of veterans simple. Let the Human Resource department have at least one professional who has military background to better help gauge the capabilities or skills of those who seek employment within the organization.
