The following was shared with Tech Qualled from a 2024 U.S. Army Veteran, Graduate of our Launchpad Sales Academy training program. He received it from a U.S. Army SOF Veteran. While we do not have a name to properly credit our author, we do know so many men and women who have lived and experienced this all-too-familiar scenario, therefore we have given it a proper name, Jennifer’s Story: A Military Transition Parallel.
Jennifer’s Story is a powerful narrative that draws a compelling parallel between the experiences of a corporate consultant and those of a U.S. Army Special Forces Operator, highlighting the transferable skills and challenges faced during military transition to civilian careers.
Please indulge me a little thought experiment. Suppose you are in an airport waiting on your flight, and you run into Jennifer in the lounge. She’s a sharply dressed young professional, who looks like she’s traveling for business. You ask her what business she is traveling on, and you hear the following story:
Jennifer’s Story: A Military Transition Parallel
Jennifer is a manager at a reputable consultancy. Last year she got word that she was being pulled in on a project that would begin immediately to help one of her firm’s largest clients implement a large revision of operational processes in one of their major overseas business units. They had clearly defined success criteria, and were bringing in her firm because it was imperative that they did not fail to meet them within the next calendar year. She met the rest of the team, and discovered that they would be spending almost eight months embedded in the client’s overseas operation, and they’d be leaving in sixty days. Before then, they had to assess the current operation, propose a solution to the client’s management, obtain their buy in, and plan all the logistics and implementation for the major process overhaul.
Jennifer and the partner heading up the project team traveled to the site and conducted a two-week evaluation of the existing process, its strengths, its weaknesses, and the resources the client could devote to the change process. They quickly identified that implementing an improved process would primarily affect five disciplines in the client’s organization, and that any changes would likely meet with significant resistance given the organizational culture. While Jennifer and her team had worked on all sorts of reorganizations and operational improvement campaigns, the unique set of regulatory, cultural, and legal challenges embedded in this particular international project presented an unusually high level of uncertainty.
Returning to their home office, Jennifer and her project team got to work. They had a very limited budget for the project because of cost-cutting measures at their own firm, and had to get the job done on only about 70% of what they’d had available to spend on similar engagements in the past. They received a visit from a managing partner during one of their planning meetings. He let them know that success on this project was likely key to keeping the account, and if the account was lost it could present serious challenges for the firm. Success was critical.
Jennifer and her team spent long hours devising several versions of a change plan, challenging one another and the various scenarios until they settled on the best one. With only two weeks remaining before the team was due to embed in their client’s overseas operation, they presented the plan to the client’s executive management in a high profile meeting with senior members of both her firm’s and the client’s corporate leadership. After a grueling Q&A, their plan was approved and the project team prepared to depart.
Over the next nine months the project team embedded with the client’s operation overseas, socialized the new operating model, methodically engaged with key internal stakeholders to obtain their buy-in for the new model, implemented the change program over six months, and remained embedded in the client’s overseas operation for another two months while they ensured they had met or exceeded all the client’s success criteria for the project. At the conclusion, Jennifer’s team solidified a multi-year ongoing support contract with the client’s company that would result in a 25% increase in revenue from that account over previous years and beat expectations for the project. Jennifer herself participated in all phases of the project planning and execution, but in particular was responsible for internal stakeholder management and the supervision of one of the major disciplinary changes in the overall plan.
Despite significant challenges within the client’s corporate culture, Jennifer was able to obtain buy-in from all critical stakeholders ensuring that the project finished on time and within the client’s budget. Additionally, in the area where she had specific oversight of the disciplinary operational process revision, she shepherded 120 of the client’s local staff through education, training, and implementation of the new process resulting in an impressive and directly measurable 65% decrease in cost (about $2MM in annual cost savings). Add to this that Jennifer had to do most of the business at the client’s site in a foreign language.
Perhaps most importantly, the team’s hard work really paid off with the firm’s overall relationship with the client, laying the groundwork for a mutually beneficial relationship for years to come. Now, if you heard this story from Jennifer, would you be impressed? Would you see how a person like Jennifer might be an asset in your organization?
Here’s the thing – aside from the names and the jargon, this is what nearly every US Army Special Forces deployment looks like. There are a few exceptions: in the military case all of it is done in incredibly austere environments and very often under direct threat from hostile elements in the operating environment. Too often, people looking at the resume of a Special Forces veteran are caught up in a Hollywood version of special operations – the concept of a group of hyper-masculine jocks sitting around doing pull ups waiting to throw on their gear, go kill some people, and get back to the gym. Nothing could be further from the truth. The challenges described in Jennifer’s case are far closer to the reality.
Veterans face an incredible challenge in transitioning from the service back into the commercial sector, but it’s not the one stereotyped by Hollywood and other media. The primary struggle they face is most often a lack of imagination on the part of potential employers, perhaps very often human resources departments operating off a checklist, in considering how a resume that may look unfamiliar on the surface actually represents a candidate with an incredible skill set proven in the crucible of very challenging international environments. So, if Jennifer’s story impresses you, keep it in mind next time the resume of a Special Forces soldier crosses your desk.