Part II – Auditing skills

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 Part I, I discussed how an interview for a Navy A-6 pilot helped educate a civilian headhunter on how the military develops initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills. In this part, I discuss the development of auditing skills from the military experience.

I worked for a few months as an executive recruiter. While I was terribly ineffective then, and looked at it as a failed experiment, I essentially paid for an education. I learned several things while there.

I was tasked to find people for the computer center of a firm you may have heard of, Cantor-Fitzgerald. The reason I had sort of an in to work at this was because a few of my professional friends had been Naval Aviators and had had one of their friends hired there. It seemed he was doing so well, they wanted more people like him. This man got in the door because one of his old commanders was now on the board at Cantor-Fitzgerald. This old commander did what you would expect, when this other pilot was being downsized, his old boss went to bat for him and convinced this firm to hire him. The retiring pilot was a “recipient” of the “peace dividend” at the close of the Cold War. He had been an F-14 pilot by trade, with no college level training in either computers or business, but given that he was a bright individual, they took a chance on him.

He was put in charge of the computer center in the World Trade Center office The operation had to run 24/7/365, because they had offices in London and Hong Kong. With in a few days of arriving, he was tasked to audit the operating budget of his center. He announced he had found a few million dollars surplus in the books. The management was amazed, as this man didn’t have a certificate of degree that said he knew anything about this. How did he do this? Simple, the military gave him the skills.

As officers, and sometimes senior enlisted personnel, are called upon on a regular basis to validate the resources entrusted to the people in uniform, for good reason. It helps identify theft and inappropriate use, but also enables tracking of the proper resourcing of different things. The process is pretty direct: What has come in, what has gone out and what’s still present. It’s not rocket science. By taking a systems view, you can apply this technique to just about anything where you need to make sure things are being handled properly.

In my career, I counted postal money orders, stamps, gas masks, small arms, ammunition (small to very large), classified documents, communications codes, dollars in various accounts and probably a few other things I lost track of.

The assignment to the process to count what ever needs auditing was usually handed out by the Executive Officer, either via a formal assignment on the collateral duties list, or when you got grabbed to just get it done. I don’t recall any officers I served with being exempted. If you were the custodian of something, you didn’t get a hand in the accounting, other than make sure the auditors had the records and access to the things to be checked, but there was plenty of other stuff you didn’t own, so you would always get a turn eventually.

That’s a long discussion about how leadership positions in the service get their hands dirty with auditing, which is a baseline skill that becomes subconscious, and therefore not mentioned in resumes or interviews (“you mean everyone doesn’t do that?” sort of thought). This skill is certainly a “force multiplier” for the potential employer and will be, almost without exception, be a capability the interviewee has.

The side moral to the story: A large civilian firm took a chance and found out they got a lot more than they expected, and then asked for more help. As a side note about what happened to this downsized pilot, he was promoted in 5 weeks to managing director of the computer center. Not bad for a stick and rudder guy the taxpayer didn’t want anymore.

Part I – Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills

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

I had the occasion to sit in on a pre-job interview between a professional recruiter (“headhunter”) and a Navy pilot about to leave the service. I had worked a few doors down from the headhunter for a few months and the Lieutenant had worked for me for six months before I left the Navy, so I knew both of these people at a professional level. The headhunter was a very successful recruiter in the sales and marketing fields. He had grown up in a mostly Navy town, his father having been a labor lawyer. The pilot was an ROTC graduate, who flew A-6 Intruders and wore a Silver Star from the first Gulf War. He had attended a local college with a long and outstanding history, earning an Executive MBA during his off hours.

I had mentioned to the recruiter that one of my associates was leaving the service and would be looking for a job, and he agreed to look at the pilot’s resume. I had him send it over and a few weeks later, the headhunter told me the Lieutenant was coming over for a pre-interview that afternoon and invited me to sit in. I joked, having no clue as to what I was really saying, that I could be the translator. I ended up doing exactly that, but what struck me was the inability of two very capable and intelligent people to communicate, as they had both lived very different lives.

The pilot arrived and the recruiter got down to business. The first few questions about qualifications and some information on the client and position he was being looked at for, as well as a overview of the company’s product line went easily. One of the first questions was “How can you explain to a small, innovative company that you will be able to help them, since you have worked for a large monolithic organization?” That rocked me back on my heels. I know the recruiter didn’t think he was being offensive, but it quickly came to me he had little clue, despite living in one of the largest ports that Navy has for all his life, except a few years being away at college.

The pilot seemed to have a little problem getting out of the starting blocks, not because he was unintelligent, but his life experience kept him from easily discerning the recruiter’s lack of understanding of the military. After a few moments of silence, I asked the pilot to explain how he had been given the task to figure out just how the navy would use modeling and simulation to approve testing requirements for major systems procurement. He then told the story of how someone, armed with only a modicum of detailed technical understanding of computer simulation capabilities did the homework to find out what could be done and how, drafted the concept, briefed it to three levels of leadership, got it approved and wrote the instruction. The recruiter seemed to have a new appreciation for what “junior officers” got to do and I made it a point to let the recruiter know this was common.

The result of that conversation allowed me to realize myself, and then communicate an inherently understood situation. Here’s how I summarized it to them: If a successful senior enlisted person or officer is sitting in front of you, it is almost a certainty that person has done the following: 1) Come up with and idea (innovation) 2) Communicated that idea to their boss (marketing) 3) Figure out how to implement it (program development) and, as a result of opening their mouths in the first place, been assigned to make it happen (program management).

Many people with military experience just take all of this for granted, never realizing they have practiced all of those skills, as well as an entire gamut of supporting skills, such as budgeting and “human resources,” along the way. I sealed the deal when I asked the recruiter if those skills would be valuable to a small, innovative company and he quickly agreed that’s what this company was looking for.

There were other questions, but one led me to ask the pilot to describe his first job. He had been assigned as the Line Division Officer. He had 90 people working for him as a “nugget” in a medium bomber equipped squadron. He was the only officer, and only had a single E-7 to help out at the khaki level. That got the recruiter’s attention as well. The discussion came to issues of monetary dealings. I asked the pilot how much his OPTAR was as a 23 year old division officer. “About $1M” he said. I took over and explained to the recruiter that that meant the pilot was responsible for managing the expenditure of that money in a single fiscal year. In addition he had had to plan the next year’s budget by estimating the resources needed, then at the end of the year, reconcile the end of year accounting for the Supply Department. This allowed the recruiter to see an entirely different picture of the professional experience of the man who sat across the table from him. If you think about it, unless the interviewer has some understanding of the military leadership requirements, none of this is a factor in their hiring decision making, and, from the other side, “we” forget that things like this are top level jobs on the outside (project manager, marketing, sales, etc), so we don’t even try to weave them into the conversation or resume. Additionally, they are such secondary skills to us, we just think of them as inherent tasks required to get things done.

So much for a world view of “a big, monolithic organization” (implied: inflexible, employing a bunch of automatons). More to come..stay tuned for Part II!

In the process of reorganizing the links to blogs, and giving each an appropriate amount of honoring of their “lineages,” I stopped by one I hadn’t been to in a few weeks and was rewarded with a personal testimony about the transformation of a former military member and veteran, from a stand on the side lines kind of personality to being a leader of a group established to get involved and let the troops know they are appreciated. A counter to the counter-culture, as it were, in this age of where the tearing down any authority, or governmental protective agency, is standard fare, as I discussed in two posts in the last few days ago. Part I and Part IA are here.

Please get a cup of coffee, a coke, or a bottle of water and follow this link to read Smash’s story, and also realize it just takes us, one at a time, to connect with like minded people, to become a voice for a cause. You won’t be disappointed.

I don’t think I wrapped up Part I of this unstructured multi-post, but here’s what the final issue should have been: Disrespect runs rampant, from the minor to the major demonstration. When I grew up, I wasn’t bludgeoned into submission, but I was taught those who went before me had some valuable life experiences that may be something I didn’t understand just yet, so I was to bite my tongue. It certainly has proven to be a valuable thing over the years of my life. The message also was there are “offices” that are worthy of respect, and sometimes the person in there isn’t the most respectable, but the submission to that position, and not the person was appropriate. This, of course includes that of the President of the United States.

I did have the occasion to work with and for some people who really either didn’t care what they were ding, or actually didn’t know what they were doing. In particular, these people would demand things that were wrong, out of ignorance, or laziness, but the net result was things would go off the tracks. Then it was time to jump in and properly disagree. I had to do that in a few occasions. After an upbringing that taught me respect for my elders/seniors, it was a difficult set of emotions to deal with, but it had to be done. By approaching them in the correct forum, and providing a coherent argument, unemotionally stated, things got better, or when I was mistaken, things got explained. Facts carried the day many times, instead of emotional appeals, particularly ones with a lot of “I feel” statements.

My point? Where has this level of respect gone to? If someone doesn’t think the President is doing the right thing, they grab the ear of a local media outlet and do a lot of ad homonym attacks, generally devoid of any substance, or alternative solution. The media, having been perverted, quickly trots the videos/sound bites out, and off we go.

We need to get back to teaching basic civility to a wide age range of many of us, since the problem has been percolating for several decades already.

This is a real stream of consciousness issue with me. I sort of have no clue where it will lead, but it can be somewhat coherent (well, at least from my point of view). Possibly you may agree with me, and if you do or you don’t there is a link below each post for comments, so feel free to take advantage to voice your opinion. For several years, I’ve thought about the influences we have had on at least two generations, and how that relates to events of today.

One recurring thought has been how the differences in how “authority figures” have been portrayed. My perception, and it’s certainly not from rigorous application of statistical methods, is that we have been through a long period where the leadership and authority positions have been directly or indirectly portrayed as, at the least, inept, and at the worst, just overtly criminal. This “attitude” is promulgated by TV shows, commercials, and movies.

Simply put, take something like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Wildly popular, still much a part of the current cultural memory, but it said 1) It’s OK to blow off authority and 2) the authorities, in particular, the principal, were oppressive, and stupid as well, and therefore the object of ridicule and disdain. Movies like “Spy Kids,” “War Games,” and so many others provide us with a regular feed of the message that people in government are lazy and uncommitted to doing their job. Since this is the perceived case, then the follow on message is it’s OK to go around them, or, better yet, take things into your own hands, as kids, teenagers, and young adults are immanently more knowledgeable and experienced. They then take on dangerous tasks, and win, showing that the stupid “authorities” would never have been able to solve the problem, or better yet,, they were so corrupted, they were actually hiding the bad guys.

Then come Michael Moore, trying to feed us some story about how the President really knew about all that went into the current war, and he invaded Iraq just for the oil. There are many sources that can factually refute portions of what “Fahrenheit 911” said, to include showing how images were graphically manipulated, then presented as the reality.

I have pointed out a few examples to support my conjecture, but there is “The Simpsons,” “South Park,” and many others. In music, rappers want to kill police, as well as many others around them and Green Day gets a Grammy for “American Idiot.”

So, what does this several decades long assault on authority and basic decent interpersonal behavior get us? We elect a president and a substantial portion of the country wants to deny he is the president. School children disrupt classes, denying learning opportunities to those who want to learn, and parents come down on the school administrators. The rule of one offended becomes the loudest voice, regardless of how wrong they may be. Lawyers are eager to jump in and take on the authorities.

Maybe I’m off base, but the lack of basic civility we experience today seems to be the natural outgrowth of the message that those in authority deserve to be mistrusted, and are all out to take advantage of us for their own gain, regardless of the cost.

The “reflective result” (that’s a new term I just thought of) is authority becomes calloused and distrustful of the youthful, and even well intentioned things are turned aside, which, in turn, fuels this fire, and none of it to our benefit.

As the son of a career federal civil servant, and as one who spent 20 years supported by and working with many federal civilians, yes, there are the lazy and stupid ones who help make for good jokes. In the grand scheme, and the far more likely case, they were (and still are) hard working people, who are prone to make the same mistakes and omissions as many of us do. We expect sometimes impossible performance, and knowledge that approaches omniscience, yet we would never want to be held to the same standards.

For most of my career, I didn’t work directly with the civil servants, but a few times I did. Several gave us more than our money’s worth, most al of them gave us a fair days work for a day’s pay, and a few were “skating” when they could, and only a handful were approaching the criminal aspect of performance.

Enough for one post. We’re in this together for many things, but it’s a “hot button” with me to see how it’s culturally Ok to be disrespectful of those who have been charged to help the next generations to grow and thrive.

Continued in Part I A.

I’m a computer game fan. I’ve played plenty of flight simulators and first person shooters over a few decades. The more realistic the simulation, the happier I am. I like as real as it can get.

Now, a “your tax dollars at work story.” In the Mid-90’s I was sent to a command where we were maintaining various computer programs, mostly all for Navy combatant (Crusiers, destroyers and frigates). We also had some tasking for development of new programs, but that wasn’t the main mission of the command. We had 60 military and 300 civil servants working there.

One of the projects that was in development, different from the vast array of ones being maintained was Battle Force Tactical Trainer (BFTT). The goal of this program was to allow ships, planes, submarines and shore bases to run realistic training scenarios. It was a unique project for its time, as the program manager had a the foresight to find out what other developed, or in development, programs were around that contained parts that could be woven together in order to save funds by not re-inventing the wheel, as it were. That was unusual at the time, as program managers for just about anything else being developed, jealously guarded their developments, and their funds, being afraid that they would have to admit a weakness in their organization, if they couldn’t do it themselves. I’m also convinced that they were scared that if they showed some of the working details, someone else may tell them (or worse yet show them) a better way, which would make them not look all knowledgeable.

Anyhow, BFTT was an ambitious project, in funding and schedule, and I watched, at close range, some incredible innovation to make it happen. The project has been absorbed at the joint level, so all services can share in the technology development, and subsequently, save lots of money (and that’s a good thing that has been done for us taxpayers, in the name of reason). The BFTT was essentially a central control system, that would interface with simulators and real equipment to present a coherent picture to operators, so their reactions would be properly developed. In this scheme, units could be connected via the Defense Simulation Internet (DSI) and live radio signals, while BFTT managed the responses of the many training modules, imbedded in various systems.

The way information was conveyed between units was via data “packets” which were in the Distributed Information System (DIS) format. The “packet” would define an entity in the battle space, to include the characteristics to allow the training systems portray it properly to the operators. An entity could be a .50 caliber machine gun bullet, a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier, or a SCUD missile. The idea was to put sufficient information in a format that a sensor display would show the operator what he may see if the entity would have been real.

Pretty innovative, and complex engineering went into this, all in the name of creating a virtual reality to train war fighters. Somehow, and I’m not sure how the connection came to be, the console game developers caught wind of the work the Department of Defense was doing in this “virtual reality” modeling. Since they were also trying to replicate the real world in their game consoles and computer games, they ended up at the DIS protocol meetings and became active players in helping design the standards for the DIS data packets.

This interaction between game developers and the military training simulating community has helped to provide us with the richness of the games we see in the Xbox, Play Stations and PCs today. The military training is superior as a result as well, resulting in tremendous reduction in training costs, and an increase in realism.

To take the synergism a bit further, after I completed the tour with the software development command, I reported to the Navy Operational Test Force, where the mission was to design and run test programs to make sure the top level procurement programs had in fact created systems that did what the military contracted them to do. As systems were becoming more complex, and budgets getting tighter, I walked into the early stages of the development of the use of modeling and simulation to verify equipment met the design specifications. The prior work of the BFTT and associated training programs became a building block to leverage from to help move more testing from the real world ranges to the internals of computers, at a quality to assure systems worked.

The next time you load up your simulation games, know some far sighted military and civil servants helped put your tax dollars to use to make your games really rock.

Many times I have talked to or read stuff written by people who fall into the “Yeah? And what about BUSH-HITLER?” when you comment on problems. Only complaints, never a plan, liberally laced with constant negativism.

I regularly think they just can’t see they also have the option to solve problems….

So…I have decided to come up an abbreviation to toss in their face:

“Shut Up, Suit Up, and Step Up!” is the long form. Shortened, it’s just “(SU)³.”

I put up a post last month speaking my piece on how I feel about the current lack of concern about the National Organization of Women.

I’d just love to see these complainers put their actions in line with their complaining, and to realize they can be agents of change.

Thoughts? I need no royalties, nor credit, but just the faith that will get a few of them thinking…..

Just a quick post to say a heart felt “THANK YOU!” for those still in Iraq and Afghanistan, military and civilian workers alike, and to those who have been and returned from those areas.

To the families who have to know their sons, daughters, husbands and wives are far away, thank you, too.

To the families who have lost a loved one, I have no words, but I’m certain you know I’m forever indebted to you and the one who will not return.

For all mentioned above, yesterday was possible because many individuals chose to step up to the challenge and be part of something bigger than themselves, and we all will reap the rewards of their sacrifices.

I’m impressed, and a little stunned that there is overall positive reaction to the history that occurred yesterday. “Ballot not Bullets” graced the above the fold story on the front of the Tampa Tribune. Good job!

Blackfive has two stories that show the desperation of the terrorists. Here’s one from an Air Force photographer and this is the other, which discusses how the terrorists have apparently run out of young boys and woman to volunteer to kill themselves, but now use children with Downs Syndrome. We’re talking real losers, who are running on fumes.

After just reading those two stories, how can any thinking person give any credibility to these people who hide behind ski masks, disembowel women peace workers and behead truck drivers?

The tide is turned. History is in the making. The world will become safer. The MSM and the left wingers will be left scratching their heads, making some illogical rationalizations.

Today is the day. The news will be full of stories on the Iraqi elections….well, let me reconsider that. If it’s a disater, and many people are killed, the process disrupted and the goal of uncoerced voting occurs, we will be completely overwhelmed by “NEWS.” On the other hand, if a nation decides to step up to the plate, as reports indicate, and begin to make a place of thier own, with women freely voting, right next to the men, and every citizen of legal age even having the right to vote, or not vote, as is their own personal choice, then the news will give us a few brief remarks, most likely with an over tone of “it was rigged.” I’m not prophet, but by using the past (Afghani elections), I’m making this prediction of the future.

This is a historic day. It is also a day that will not reward us with its goodness until many years from now. My evidence you ask? Simple. Japan and Germany. Poland, and a host of other formerly Soviet Block controlled countries.

I spent 6 years developing, distributing and supporting a PC based computer program that took the time requirements out of keeping up to date records on qualification in the wake to the gun turret explosion aboard USS IOWA (BB-62). As a result, the administrative offices actually started keeping the records up to date, and watchbills were more accurately prepared, and the process of planning how to get someone qualified was better managed.

I bring this up because it is like the case of these elections in that I can never prove how many lives may have been saved, or dollars not spent to repair damage, when an under- or unqualified sailor or officer attempted to do something outside of their capabilities, but I inherently know it must have. The program made it’s way to over 120 ships, from mine countermeasure ships and hydrofoils, and all the way up to aircraft carriers.

When this election process reaches fruition, and the candiates are put in place with a mandate (yes, that’s what happens when you are elected, ask Bill Clinton) to make a safe and peaceful country, we’ll not be able to count the lives that are not snuffed out because the hatred dies down.

I’ve often thought it would be illuminating to sit down and do some population math. If you begin by computing the annual death rate under Saddam Hussien, you can simply project that since his ousting from power, the people who would have been killed for sport and political expediency, are still here. Each day, more people survive as a result of the freeing of Iraq. The harder math comes when I’d have to study the process of population growth, in order to predict how many births will now occur, how many marriages will do like-wise, and also result in a following generation, etc, etc, etc, to help us get a handle on just how important this entire process of this war has been. Even if you’re one stuck in the “WHERE ARE THE WMDs?” world, can you honestly tell me you hate the fact that the dignity of human life has been enhanced, or might you be so calloused to have allowed Saddam Hussien to continue his fratricidal ambitions?

Greyhawk of the The Mudville Gazette has some excellent reading on reports from different cities in Iraq, complete with comments from those who will risk their lives to vote, becasue they see this as something special.