Leverage It: The Corporate Experience You Didn’t Know You Already Had

Whether you have served for 30 days or 30 years, you have been a part of one of the world’s greatest corporate experiences. Service members receive focused training, frequent visits from the local administration, and are typically briefed on a commander’s “open door policy.” The one thing they don’t harp on is how this mirrors their civilian counterparts. Why should they?

The answer to that question is, again, regardless of your length of service, all service members need to reintegrate to civilian life eventually. Personally, I thought that the method behind the madness in the Marine Corps was contained to the Marine Corps. This is not true. If anything, the Marine Corps has taken every possible civilian advantage on force efficiency and made it their own. Heard of Lean Six Sigma? It is everywhere outside of the military. Safety and training stand downs? Get ready for more. Active duty members should realize that they have significant corporate experience. They also have been required to be more politically correct.
A major obstacle for me in civilian life has been my honesty. As service members, we are taught to say what we mean, mean what we say, and be direct. People appreciated my candor in the military. This doesn’t bode quite as well in civilian employment. Think of every time you saw a senior NCO or commander get riled up by a subordinate who stepped out of line. The military has wonderful ways of dealing with that, whether it is administrative discipline or just an extra day of duty. The civilian world works in terms of absolutes and paperwork.

So where do we go from here? The answer is simple: it’s a matter of professionalism, education, and dedication to duty. Service members obviously excel at this, but the civilian side means looking at it from a different approach. Instead of just being a professional lead-slinger, you need to be a professional communicator. When it comes to education, military education is great, but advanced certificates and degrees set you apart. Look into the types of certificates you may already have knowledge for, and degrees that you’re interested in and may also already have experience in. Finally, when it comes to dedication to duty...you need to know when to let go. Service members often take their work home with them, like many civilians do, but succeeding outside of the military means a healthy work-life balance. You are not always on the clock and when you get that late-night email about tomorrow’s work, remember that you can probably deal with it tomorrow.

To round everything up, if you have served a single day, active or reserve, you are already set up for success in the corporate world. The main difference is learning the nuances of office life and the language! So when it comes to utilizing your civilian commander’s “open door policy”, remember what you did in the service. They want to help and see you succeed, but the onus of effort is on you to make sure that meeting goes well.