YouTube has some great stuff….

Since I know the retired paycheck of a Navy Capt is not good enough to allow Neptunus Lex to have

an F/A-18 in his garage for weekend jaunts, maybe he’d be satisfied with doing what the guy in this video did….

And, oh, yeah…he already understands the management of powered flight systems, so he’ll pick it up in no time and can be down at Skydive San Diego real

soon now…

Part X – Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

At a mandatory briefing about getting out and working in the “real” world, the briefer said in many cases, you won’t know how to make money for you employer, but if you can show them how to save money, there is the same result on the bottom line: Financial increase.

It took the surge of the “Total Quality Leadership” (TQL) push under Admiral Kelso as Chief of Naval Operations to get me to see there was something we had already been doing for the same reason, but we didn’t know what to call it. We constantly did things with an eye towards spotting trends, so we could figure out how to do things better, or to see things coming off the tracks, by catching the trends early on. I was “exposed” to the formalized TQL methodology as a senior Lieutenant Commander, and then used the methods more effectively for the rest of my career. While getting my training in TQL, I realized processes carried out by those around me, most notably the engineers aboard ship, during my initial sea tours many years before were, in fact, the very methods discussed under TQL.

As time passed over the next several years, the culture of the Navy adopted more to the process control mentality, and much of it became almost subconscious. The great part, was even the skeptics, who thought the time involved in sitting down and looking at how things were done was a waste of time, were gradually converted, as improvements couldn’t be denied after a while.

In addition to the formal drive to make things more efficient, don’t forget the human condition of trying to get things done with the least amount of effort is a powerful force, especially in the enlisted ranks. I say that as a compliment, not in a derogatory manner, because it made the system work better. If the goal was to get it done, and the way there faster was to spend a few minutes gaming it out, so you could “hit the beach” earlier, then you could see that in action.

The fall out of all of this TQM/TQL/CI/Process Engineering experience, involving many levels of the pay structure, is it has become a way of routine business for many service members. This means you can reasonably expect these people to come to you, unafraid of figuring out how to look at systems and procedures and then consider how to make it work better. This means more efficient operations, and therefore, more $$$ in the bottom line.

Part IX – “Give a smart person with potential a chance”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

This post can be best categorized by calling it “Give a smart person with potential a chance.”

This part of the series is a little bit of the reverse side of the equation. It’s a topic that I think merits being brought forward and it’s about how the military’s hiring system has a specific method of recruiting to other major corporations. It might do well for the civilian sector to consider this.

My experience is that there are few places, outside of the military and military contractors, that take more than a passing consideration in hiring someone who doesn’t hold the specific “tickets” for a position. After leaving the military and working for a two contractors, I went out and tried to run my own business for a while. I realized I needed to head back into the work force, and as a result, I applied to many jobs that I had the hands on experience to fill. Since I had a degree in hard science, and not engineering or computers, I didn’t get the phone calls. Since then, I have found two good friends who have been recruiters for years and they confirmed my suspicions. If I didn’t have the degrees, I wasn’t going to get a call. I had lots of hands on, in and out of the military, but that didn’t count.

Consider this: The US Military is one of the few places that looks at the potential of people and, based on their aptitude at fundamental skills, they are then accepted and trained. In industry, it’s basically if you haven’t got the experience, you can’t play. It’s a catch 22 for people trying to enter a new field, either for a first time job, or to change career fields. I suspect a lot of great people never get where they can do the most good, because they didn’t have some diploma from a recognized school. I don’t mean employers should wantonly accept anyone, but it may be prudent to consider those who have spent the time doing the work, without the benefit of schooling, and who are successful, for filling some positions.

Another story from my effort at being a headhunter involves the story of a major bank, that relented and let a Marine Major join the company. In short order, they were amazed at how productive he was. In addition, his calm demeanor, in what was perceived as chaos to the bank employees, was noted. Think about it: After being trained as a Marine, what can possibly be a chaos anymore? They wanted more like him, having seen a glimpse of what an ex-service member could do, even without the “training.”

The ASVAB battery of tests, and the AFQT exams are some of the basic skills tests the military uses. The ASVAB is for general skills, and the AFQT is for fitness to be accepted into a flying billet. From tests like this, many people have successfully performed incredibly complex duties, under incredibly difficult circumstances. Granted, the military also has an extremely well developed training capability, in order that those with the aptitude can then be provided with the actual specific skills necessary. This overhead of the training commands is a large expense, but it is a proven process.

It boggles the mind to realize many of these young people who get through this would probably be rejected by major corporations, for a lack of capability, due to not having the experience.

Think about it, potential employer, can you ask some questions that prove a basic aptitude for the position, and also to assess the ability of that person to absorb the information? If you can do that, you may just find an enthusiastic employee, that a few years down the road, has proven themselves to be able to outperform that person who showed up with only the certificate saying they knew something, but had no other life experience.

Part VIII – Communications in the Workplace

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

Communications in the Workplace is the topic of this post. The military engenders a different sort of work communications ethic. In any service, in any place, there is an undercurrent, unspoken, yet allowed for, that at any moment, any one may not be there to pull their share of the work load. Most people will not leave a unit due to a medical casualty, but they all will leave. Whether it is at the end of active obligated service (EAOS), or to transfer to another unit, people will come and go. The reason this work ethic is different, is the essential need for the unit to continue its mission with greatest efficiency, regardless of who is there, or not.

Side note: At one level, it’s a pretty interesting system that can plan out a year or so in advance, as to who will be where, what training they may receive (or not) enroute to join a unit, and also, a similar time out, who is being replaced. More often than not, this is the normal cycle of events.

Subconsciously for many units, but most importantly the ones directly linked to potential combat service, the loss of a person, whether a leader or a junior team member, there is the understanding the change may take place in the blink of an eye. The people one step up and one step down from that person need to be able to fill the gap and make things happen.

What this does is give service members a work ethic of keeping things organized, and keeping the people around them “briefed in” as to what they do, where the files are, who to call in this and that situation, etc, etc, etc. This mindset, is very necessary for the survival of the unit. It differs from the civilian workplace. It keeps a unit up to speed, which translates into efficiency in pretty much anything they do.

But.it exposes to the people around you how you get the job done. In the outside world, this mode of operation seems that is a scary thing. If you let someone around you know the real detail of your job on the “outside,” you take the risk of them being able to show they can perform your job, and therefore, make a pitch to management to move you along the path, which may take you to the door. Personally, I don’t think that ends up being as fun in execution, as it sounds. You send a knowledgeable person packing, and guess who gets to take up the slack?

While your ex-military people may seem like they want to find out too much, its merely that defensive mechanism showing up, that allowed units to be so successful. Keeping your staff “briefed in” on the business of the business makes them more efficient.

The lessons of this was taught to me most clearly when I worked for Captain Pete Bulkeley. Pete was the son of Admiral Bulkeley, who, as a young Lieutenant, took General MacArthur out of the Philippines on his PT boat in 1942. His nickname was the Sea Wolf. Quite a man, who served the Navy for many years, even after retirement, but that’s another story for another post.

Anyhow, I was assigned to a mobile training team unit, and well we were pretty well staffed, and on shore duty, I might add, we mostly all lived out of a suitcase, traveling the east coast almost weekly to train the surface ships. It wasn’t unusual for one of the administrative staff to come down the hall, and say “The Captain is having a meeting” several times a week. I “disliked” those meeting, when we sat around the table, the senior representative from each department and he’d ask each one of us: “What’s going on?” We’d layout what our department was up to and he’d go to the next person. At the end, he might issue a few directions, but generally, that was all we did. I’d be happy to get back to the work at hand, but it wasn’t until after he transferred, and the new officer-in-charge came, that I captured the meaning of his many times a week interruption to our busy days, when we managed to get to the office. The next OIC wasn’t as communicative, but we still kept the organization going.

What Pete’s meetings did for us was to allow us to get on the phone, responding to a call from our “customers” (read ship commanding officers, department heads, and senior enlisted in most cases, or the staff personnel from the head of the surface forces for the Atlantic Fleet, whom we did our training and inspections for), and we could pretty well coherently answer their questions of scheduling and training initiatives in the works, because Pete had made us sit around the table and communicate that information to each other, when I assumed it was for him. It certainly was, but it had a broader audience.

That is a snap shot of what is bred into all levels of the chain of command, to one degree or another. I always despised the voice at the other end of the phone telling me “They aren’t here right now, but they’ll be back next week.” We didn’t try to assume the authority of the other departments, but since most of us were in and out, we certainly could represent them at a moderate level of detail, and then we could determine how important it may be that we tracked them down, if something was that important. I have come to gauge the organizational skills of a company by how well they can handle a call, when the specific person isn’t around to help you, viewed through the filter of the discussion above.

Part VII – “Total Care”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

“Total Care:” The concept is when you have a military unit, leadership at all levels requires “total care” of those assigned under you. Most every aspect of their lives are now a responsibility of the leaders. Whether it’s a fire team leader, a platoon leader, battalion commander, or the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, everyone in your “down line” is your responsibility.

I suspect the top level of this concept isn’t lost on most employers, but for those without any military experience, much of the subtlety can be missed. As a result of the need to have this person ready to work 24/7, the “system” has a complete care system that completely outclasses any human resources department you might imagine in the civilian sector. The difference is there are few dedicated “human resource” professionals in the loop. Much of what is required is part and parcel of what a military leader is required to do.

What this means if any service member who has had any responsibility, in combat or not, will have a broader view of what a managerial position requires. We ensured routine wellness checks were done, that teeth were cleaned, that training was scheduled and held, that administrative records, documenting professional performance were properly entered in formal records, the right gear was packed, that families were prepared legally and logistically, for time to be spent apart, that single members personal belongings were stowed safely away, that financial arrangements were completed to ensure money went to the right banks, that life insurance forms reflected the proper beneficiaries, etc, etc, etc.

On a daily basis, this may not have much effect, but you can bet these people, in management, will be more in tune with HR programs, which makes for a better cared for work force, and therefore happier employees.

Part VI – The “Git ‘er done!” Factor

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

This segment is what I can best describe using some blue collar comedy. Let’s call it the “Git ‘er done!” factor.

Well, it’s not a union shop and the following of orders is inbred, sometimes willingly, other times with a modicum of “persuasion.” Commanders, and other “line” supervisors get pretty used to slinging around direction to handle what ever comes up. I don’t say this in a negative way, just that it’s a fact. Since that’s the case, the majority of the troops will give a cheery “aye, aye!” and proceed to make things happen. The cheery is not required, and sometimes, the response from the newly assigned is not so cheery, but they manage to get it done anyhow.

What this breeds in the service members is highly refined process of expending the least amount of energy to achieve the required results. This is necessary, because there are already many more things to be done than there is time for, so this is necessary to retain sanity. Time constraints tend to be a factor, so that’s factored into the equation by the person doing the work.

The outgrowths of this are enhanced degrees of initiative, innovation and priority assignment, all great compliments to almost any job assignment. Also, I need to highlight that this may also allow the development of the Tom Sawyer like ability to informally delegate the newly acquired tasks to someone else.

Watching the youth of our country slice into the center of a major country in a few short weeks demonstrated this skill. They proved their problem solving ability, added to innovation, and being given the latitude by their commanders to exercise initiative is very must alive, well, and subconsciously exercised in extremely intense and time critical circumstances.

These young people have been on the news nightly for going on three years now. I submit they can quickly figure out most things and figure out how to “git ‘er done” for any employer, as well.

Part V – Collateral Duties

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

Military operations require many tasks, yet the luxury of bringing along the manpower “overhead” is not usually the case. To allow for that, the Navy gave the name of piling on assignments of “Collateral Duties” (yes, pretty close to the term “collateral damage”).

The particular purpose in bringing up this topic is general education for both potential employers, as well as ex-service members. Civilian employers don’t usually understand this concept, and service members don’t think to bring it up, since these collateral duties just become second nature, and they fail to highlight that they have, in many cases, significant experience in other professional areas, which would be excellent complimenting skills to their intended employment.

The range and scope of these extra assignments cover a broad swath of professional areas. Many are assigned to the service member because it needs to get done, and, in some cases, they have no experience in the area at all. They may be formal schools available, but not always accessible, the experience level of people who have held these duties, in addition to the main job they have had, is usually quite extensive in the “roll up your sleeves and go for it” arena. In almost every case, there is an instruction in a binder on the shelf that covers the requirements of the job, required reports, appropriate forms, and who to contact in the command structure for assistance.

A key feature of these collateral duties are that they serve the needs of the entire unit, not just the division or department the service member is assigned. A resulting management issue that arises is the unit commanders issue direction to an officer, or enlisted member several steps down the chain of command in many cases. As a junior officer (see duties listed below), I regularly interacted with the captain and executive officer, being tasked directly by them, and reporting back, around my department head. I was blessed with a good command climate, where this worked pretty well, with few conflicts in my tasking, and those were easily worked out. I mention this, because it was my first experience operating in a matrix style management scheme, which gave me an appreciation of the requirements to keep my direct boss informed of the direction I had received, and also to report status of jobs regularly to him, so he could answer the CO and XO, as well.

On my first assignment as an Ensign (O-1), I had a long list of collateral things to do. Besides being assigned to manage the Operations Specialists and Electronics Technicians, I had my shipboard watch assignments for underway and import conditions. Those were the top level, expected portions of the “position description.â” From here the list begins. I’ll list it just for illustrative purposes, as best I can recall:

Helicopter Control Officer
Landing Signal Officer
Legal Officer
Public Affairs Officer
Cruise Book Officer (published to document a 6 month overseas deployment, much like a yearbook from high school)
Alternate Communications Management Security Custodian
Collateral Duty Intelligence Officer (CDIO)
Intelligence Photography Officer
Intelligence Publication Custodian
Top Secret Material Custodian
Secret Material Custodian
Registered Mail Custodian
Navy Wide Exam Custodian

I know there were a few more, but those ones did require a significant amount of time to complete.

In other assignments, I was a Safety Officer, Electrical Safety Officer, Heat Stress and Hearing Protection Officer, Command Managed Equal Opportunity Officer, Classified Material Security Officer, and Physical Security Officer. There are laundry lists of many other “jobs” I either escaped, or I never was in a position to have to hold them. The number of added areas of responsibility was much longer for junior officers when I left the service. I knew I had plenty to do, and their lists by the mid-90s were much longer.

As you can see from the list of additional requirements I worked, they cover a rather eclectic span of disciplines. An experienced officer or senior enlisted person who comes to apply for a job with you will have a similar list of duties they fulfilled, while having their primary duties. Take a few minutes to ask them what collateral assignments they had, you may well find skills and knowledge in their backgrounds they would never have been able to fit one their resumes.

Part IV – “Point Papers”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

Communications skills. For all the words we have, and the many languages available, many problems seem to boil down to problems with getting our point across.

One thing I was called upon to do regularly when I was in the middle and upper ranks was to write “Point Papers.” Not all the people I worked with had to do this, but it was s particular skill exercised when in staff assignments, large and small.

What is a point paper? A point paper is a single sheet of paper, used to encapsulate complex issues and what the best course of action was for the purpose of communicating this to executive level leadership. It generally consists of three sections:

1) Background
2) Discussion
3) Recommendation(s)

Once completed, the document was usually reviewed by several other people in the chain of command and then corrections or changes were made before presentation to the commander. The goal at this final presentation was usually to be in and out in about 5 minutes, having skillfully communicated the essential points of the issue, and a supporting the best course of action to be taken. Sometimes the requirement was to present more than one alternative plan, but at other times, to present what was best from your research.

The skills developed in being able to get good at writing point papers involve being able to absorb the available information on an issue, determine the genesis of the situation, communicate what state it is in now, then evaluate the best way to tackle the situation for success, and to condense this to the point a senior manager knows what is required in order to make the right decision and get back to the other tasks at hand. In many cases, there was usually a time constraint on the person doing the research and writing, due to the operational needs at hand. A good point paper writer is a quick study and has an eye for significant detail, a great analytical mind, as well as the ability to be brief.

Need someone like that? Scan resumes for assignment to major staff position in any service, then ask if they’ve had the pleasure of drafting point papers.

Part III – Operations 24/7/365

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

In this part, which is actually a continuation of the story in Part II, since it relates to how I found out this is a desirable skill in the outside world.

Not only did Cantor-Fitzgerald like what they saw in the pilot they hired, after he had a few weeks on the job he noticed something was lacking in the understanding of the shift workers. The computer center needed to run 24/7/365 to support the world-wide operations. It seemed the day shift was pretty well staffed up, but the “after hours” shifts really didn’t handle casualties well. If the systems burped, they pretty much got out the paper and put their feet up, waiting for the day shift to show up and get things back into operation again. This guy saw that as pretty inefficient for a major corporation, with satellite offices around the planet.

He called me and asked for me to find him some chiefs (Chief Petty Officers (E-7 to E-9)) to be hired as after hours shift supervisors. He’s the key: he didn’t need them to understand computers, as much as he needed someone who knew how to keep things rolling, to be able to work through casualties, so that the “system” was available to the users. Certainly computer knowledge was desirable, but not essential, to the requirement.

Who better than a bunch of experienced ship engineering senior enlisted people to manage the tasking? This isn’t to say that others don’t acquire the skills, but the entire careers of “snipes” (that’s the polite term for the people who spent days on end below decks ensuring the rest of us had water, air conditioning, converted power, sewage services, compressed air, heat, ventilation, firefighting capabilities, and a variety of other things that seem so inconsequential, right up until the time they go dead, to paraphrase a like from “Top Gun”) is spent making things operate around the clock, and fixing breakdowns fast.

While I spent most of my career “above decks” (polite way of saying the non-snipes), I had a tour 21 months as an Engineer Officer. It corrected my prejudicial views of the engineers and I found out just how hard they work. I had been in operations and in charge of communications and tactical information management prior to that assignment. I thought those areas were 24/7, but that was mostly only while at sea. The engineers never take a day off, even in port, therefore, the people with a ship engineering background get my vote for the most experienced in making it happen day in and day out, night, day, snow, sleet, hail, in hurricanes and glass like seas, in port, out to sea or even in a dry docked condition.

As a result of this working environment, there is a certain set of thought processes that develop around these conditions. In addition to the mental process, the Navy has refined methods to train to handle the proper normal operation of large and expensive equipment, as well as how to quickly respond to casualties, to keep the equipment damage to a minimum, and to ensure personnel safety. That entire system, the “Engineering Operating Sequencing Systemâ” (EOSS) has its roots in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and is still in use today. The ships had been poorly maintained due to lack of funds and operations were basically run off hand written notes and word of mouth stories. We lost many people and spent a lot of taxpayer money on the repairs as a result of the poor “process control.”

The EOSS success spawned a corollary in the “upper deck” world, named “Combat Systems Operational Sequencing System” (CSOSS) in the late 80’s, which became widely deployed on ships by the mid-90s. As the upper deck equipment became far more sophisticated and equipped with compressors, power converters, heat exchanging units up in topside spaces, the resulting costs of casualties was excessive. I saw one report from a ship’s captain that said the expected “wear and tear” breakdowns seemed to almost disappear. He couldn’t quantify the cost savings, he just knew his equipment was operational most all the time, and he could only attribute that to the only significant change in how business was done, and that was the implementation of CSOSS.

Do you someone who needs a operations supervisor for a 24/7 shop? Go find a retired “snipe” and just see how much better things go. If the applicant is an AEGIS trained fire controlman or electronics technician, don’t hold it against them, but they are a good choice as well.