The Final Countdown: A Rookie Father's Introspection

Here I am. Staring down the final weeks before I make, perhaps, the single greatest transition of my life. I have been through a great deal of transition in my relatively short life and just digging back through my various blog posts I am amazed at all that has transpired in the short period of time that I have been blogging. But I am pretty sure that the next chapter of my life will prove more monumental and defined than any that has come before it. The transition I am referring to is that of fatherhood.

In a matter of weeks my lovely wife and I will bring a baby girl into this world. In some sense it has seemed like an eternity waiting for this moment. An eternity both in terms of the pregnancy/miscarriage/pregnancy journey we have endured and my lifelong actualization of becoming a dad. On the other hand, I feel like I am running out of time to "prepare" for the ceremonious shift that is fast approaching. As if one can ever prepare for a change like this.

Perhaps my converse perception of time is representative of the majority introspection I have done throughout this journey.

Emotionally I am overwhelmed by excitement and fear. Excitement in knowing that I have always wanted to be a dad and fear over whether I can pull it off. I can't wait to step into this new chapter alongside my wife but am terrified by an overwhelming sense of responsibility for their well being and happiness. I am so excited to see her little face but petrified on what to do after that moment. I imagine my feelings are common to most new expectant fathers but that doesn't make it any easier!

I also can't help but consistently think of the dynamic between the known and the unknown with regard to our family's future. I know that bringing a child into this world will be amazing and that it will forever change my life for the better. What I don't know is how parenthood will specifically alter our current existence and how it will change me. I know I won't get any sleep for the next six months but I don't know what our daily routine will be like. I have spent the last few months envisaging what our new life will be and not surprisingly the different visions of what our future could be are pretty broad.

Although my conscious introspection is wrought with paradoxical thoughts and emotions, my daily ideations and musings are much more random and (ironically) childlike. I can't help but wonder what she will be like. What will baby Blake's favorite color be? What passions will she develop? What will she look like? When will she stop thinking I am "cool?"

The combination of focused reflection and casual wonder can be mentally taxing and I must admit that I have been more tired than any time in recent memory. I can only imagine what my wife feels like! With that being said, I feel that we have harnessed our excitement for this life change and have continued to optimistically push forward towards our due date.

If there is one thing that eases my mind and reassures me that everything will turn out fine it is family. I am taking this journey with my loving wife who I have always felt is destined to be an amazing mother. I have been blessed with an amazing family and a set of parents who have given my brother and I a childhood that serves as a retrospective expose for successful parenting that I can follow and emulate. I married into a great family that provided the same loving environment and positive parenting example to my wife. So with that kind of lifelong support I feel like I have a foundation that will allow me to grow, develop, and flourish throughout my fatherhood journey.

After a few months of introspection I am left with just one question....am I good enough? Hopefully I can look back on a lifetime of trying to be the best dad I can and answer yes.

Academy Business Leaders

A great friend of mine has started a website called AcademyBusinessLeaders.org. He describes the site as,"an online database of business leaders who graduated from The U.S. Air Force Academy, The U.S. Coast Guard Academy, The U.S. Military Academy, and The U.S. Naval Academy."

The venture is rather new but he has started by featuring service academy business leaders in summary posts or more intimate interview style posts. I think it is a cool concept that could prove very valuable to the service academy graduate network assuming it continues to grow.

I feel lucky to have been featured this month in an interview style post that is focused on my non profit leadership work and my transition from active duty into the corporate world. I have included the post below but do yourself a favor and check out AcademyBusinessLeaders.org.

1. Describe the non-profit you started and how it impacts the community. 

I started a non-profit called Checking For Charity while I was serving in the Air Force in New Jersey. Checking For Charity is a non-profit that is dedicated to changing the world through competitive hockey events. A little ambitious? Yes. But we believe that change in this world starts by creating a small movement of passionate people with a common goal. Our Goal is to Assist! Our unique hockey centric approach is designed to raise as much money and awareness as possible for charity while putting on the most professional and competitive hockey tournaments. 

Each team that enters a Checking For Charity tournament picks a charity that is near and dear to their heart. All the proceeds from the tournament entry fees, corporate sponsorships, personal donations, merchandise, raffles, etc are put into the greater Checking For Charity pot. Each team/charity that is represented is guaranteed a percentage of that pot just for participating in the tournament. Each team/charity has the opportunity to increase their percentage depending on where they place within tournament play. Our unique format incentivizes everyone involved to raise as much money as possible as well as putting in the most competitive team possible. Our non-profit impacts the community in a few different ways. First and foremost, it empowers hockey participants to contribute to worthy causes through the game they love. Players can contribute to something larger than themselves through a fun and positive outlet. Secondly, we help the community by serving as a catalyst and a multiplier. We allow individuals, teams, volunteers, and corporate sponsors to have a much greater positive impact on the causes they value than they would individually or by donating to an individual cause. We also allow the participants to choose the causes they wish to support. Often time’s people are naturally funneled into donating time and money into the same few well established and recognizable charities. Nothing against well established and recognizable charities, as they undoubtedly serve great causes, but our charity allows the participants to contribute to local and/or more specialized causes. There are many people out there who are looking for the kind of vehicle that provides real choice and control while capitalizing on the multiplier effect the tournaments provides. Lastly, our charity impacts the community by promoting culture change amongst our citizens. Our charity proves that you do not have to be an extremist to be a positive contributor to this world. You do not have to dedicate your life to a certain cause to make a difference. We show through our model that you can be a model citizen while playing hockey, drinking beers, and barbecuing with your friends. You can be a contributor through the power of choice, the choice to participate in a movement like the Checking For Charity movement. For more information please visitwww.checkingforcharity.com. 

2. How have your experiences in the Air Force helped you succeed in the business world?

I recently wrote a blog post about this very question (http://badskiblog.blogspot.com/). Although it was more targeted towards my current position than succeeding in the business world in general the same themes hold true here.

Systemic Challenges: One thing that I learned in the military is how to operate in challenging and ambiguous environments. Throughout my career and most notably while serving in Iraq, I encountered challenges that did not have a textbook answer. There was not a clear cut best solution...or a solution at all for that matter. There were too many unknowns, too many interests, too many interconnected subsets, and too little time to easily solve problems. In the military you are forced to confront challenges that are spread and interwoven throughout a complex system. I see the same type of systemic challenges represented in the business world. Military veterans should not discount the soft skills they have developed that help them navigate and overcome these types of challenges. 

Execution: I am, admittedly, probably more of an idea guy by nature than a down and dirty details engineer type. I am energized by strategic thinking and collaborative brainstorming. However, I crafted my ability to get things done in the military and that is something I will always be grateful for. Now I am in essence getting paid for my ability to get things done as well as my ability to help other people get things done as a consultant in the business world. It is a challenge and I am constantly learning but it is exciting and fulfilling as well. A military force that can rapidly work its way through the planning/decision cycle to execute will have a competitive advantage over its enemies over time. My sense is that companies benefit from a similar (albeit less combative) approach in the business world. Going from idea to execution faster than your competitors is a critical competitive advantage over time. I feel that my military career helped me to realize the importance of executing over all else and that mindset alone is a differentiator amongst many corporate peers. Think Patton – “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

Leading Change: As an officer in the Air Force I have sat through a few leadership presentations in my day. In fact, my undergrad experience at the Air Force Academy was almost entirely centered on character based leadership training. In hindsight, a great number of those sessions drifted into discussions about leading change. The military isn't all about following orders as many like to think. And although as whole the military machine may be categorized as a bludgeoning bureaucracy of sorts, in smaller pockets the most successful units/organizations are all about leading and implementing change. The business world is no different. It is the organization or individual that can consistently lead change that will consistently win. My military experience helped me, in theory and practice, to lead teams through change initiatives.

3. Do you have mentors, and if so, how have they helped you develop as a leader?

I have had relatively few “formal” mentors in my AF career and my post AF career. I have found that the formal mentors probably served the least value towards developing me as a leader. I think the best lesson I have learned with regard to mentorship is that you can learn from everyone and if you approach even the most challenging personal and professional relationships with that frame of mind you will always be developing as a leader.

Additionally, I have learned the value in seeking out mentors before you “need” them as a mentor. Relationships are always a two way street and mentorship is no exception. Focus on creating a valuable relationship and interesting exchange with someone versus seeking out someone for the specified value you can extract from them to benefit your current needs. Ironically, this can feel a bit uncomfortable at times because you are taking action without a focused end state in mind. But the end state should really just be consistent learning and growth.

A lot of people associate mentorship with one person being senior or providing more value to the relationship than the other. Those mentors are valuable but do not discount the value peer mentors can provide. As a whole I would say that I have learned more from professional peers, teammates, friends, and family than senior professional mentors. Hopefully a few of those peers have learned from me as well.

4. What advice would you give other service academy graduates looking to transition to the private sector?

Strategically: Know yourself. Learn what you want out of your life. Not from a career perspective or a personal perspective but from a holistic perspective of the way you want your life to play out. The days of work life balance are gone. The name of the game is work life integration and happiness is the ultimate goal. Make every decision from separation to new career selection with your life goals in mind and continue to learn and grow as you pursue those life goals. Most importantly, never look back and enjoy it.

Tactically: Learn the value of networking and how to effectively network. This ties in directly with our discussion of mentors. The private sector is comprised of companies, companies are comprised of people, people interact by establishing relationships. Relationships were the only thing that worked for me in my transition. I focused on creating and building relationships and that eventually landed me in a career path that was a great fit for me. As service academy graduates, we are a bit spoiled in the sense that you essentially know everyone at your institution. If you don’t know them personally you know someone who does. Transitioning to the corporate world you should be attempting to create that reality for yourself again. You need to create a network where even if you don’t know someone, you know someone who does. If you are not utilizing LinkedIn as a tool to facilitate this kind of network building you are behind the curve. 

5. What is one of the biggest obstacles you have had to overcome while transitioning from Active Duty to the business world?

At the risk of sounding like a whiner, I would have to say that one of the biggest obstacles I had to overcome was other people’s ignorance and stereotypes. I moved back to Portland, Oregon which is not an area with a large military contingent. There were a lot of misperceptions about what a military guy had to offer. But that is the nature of the world I guess. We all have our preconceived notions and biases based on our experiences so when it comes to transitioning it is best to recognize that you will encounter the same things from other people. What makes that obstacle even more challenging is the humble nature of veterans. We come from a world where you don’t talk about yourself, and when you do it is uncomfortable. When you are trying to convince someone, who most likely has strong judgments on what you are all about, that you can add value to their organization it does not pay to be humble and uncomfortable when talking about yourself. Learning that lesson was a long and hard journey for me. What really helped was focusing on establishing relationships where I could speak with candor. When you focus on building relationships versus honing your ability to sell yourself the stereotypes are broken down naturally over time. That person then becomes your bridge to an opportunity, to another relationship, or they become a full blown advocate for what you are all about. Worst case scenario you have established a new positive relationship. You really can’t lose.

6. What piece of advice would you give to a young person thinking about starting their own non-profit?

I would give three pieces of advice for someone thinking about starting their own non-profit. Firstly, I would say that non-profit is not a dirty word. I never thought I would start a non-profit but my life journey led me to a place where I almost fell into creating my own non-profit. Non-profits have their own unique challenges and nuances but as a whole to be successful you must approach starting a non-profit as you would approach any other business endeavor. Don’t run away from the opportunity just because there aren’t opportunities for monetary spoils!

Which leads to my next piece of advice; your reward is knowledge. The reason I decided to start my own non-profit was to gather real world business leadership experience while I was still in the military. I had to navigate the challenging startup process and mobilize a motivated team to bring our concept to fruition. The rest of the world may not see the non monetary value that you will undoubtedly receive but who cares. If you are truly striving towards achieving your life goals then personal development is an enabler that must serve as a foundation for your efforts. My experience in less than four years of non-profit leadership will undoubtedly pay dividends for the rest of my life, not mention the fact it is extremely gratifying and fun.

Lastly, I would say that you cannot be your 501c3. Rhyming aside, I think a lot of people feel that they need to be consumed by a higher calling to get involved in a non-profit. They almost feel like if they aren’t dedicating a massive amount of time and effort to the cause they are faking it or something. I think nothing could be further from the truth. I was Active Duty when I started my charity and I work full time as a management consultant now. I don’t have the bandwidth to dedicate countless hours to my non-profit and still maintain an enjoyable family life. There is nothing wrong with that! I went into my non-profit journey with systems creation in mind. I wanted to create a system that was great, not an organization that “pumped my own tires” or showcased how great I (thought I) was to the world. I created a system that would raise money for charity with minimal effort. If we signed up four hockey teams to play in a tournament without any bells or whistles we would raise money. I then set to getting great people involved to take that system from one that makes money with minimal effort to a system that is something special. Our last tournament had 25 teams in 3 divisions, a beef and beer event hosted by hall of fame NHL’ers, a puck shoot to give away a car, and many other exciting features. All those extra features were more money and awareness for charity, a better tournament experience for participants, and they were all powered by great people and a calculated business system. If your non-profit is centered around you then you are in it for the wrong reasons and you won’t last. You will burn out! Create a system and mobilize a highly motivated and character group of people around the vision and you will be amazed where the endeavor takes you. 

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to contributing to academybusinessleaders.org. It is a cool concept and I hope it blossoms into a central hub for likeminded service academy business leaders. Please feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn atwww.linkedin.com/in/mattbader27.

About Checking For Charity President Matt Bader


Matt is a 2006 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he majored in Business Management and was a four year letter winner and two year captain on the men's Div I ice hockey team. Matt served as a contracting officer in the United States Air Force with stints in New Jersey, Boston, and Iraq before separating as a Captain in September, 2011. Matt currently resides in Portland, OR and works as a management consultant for the Gunter Group. He currently works at Nike World Headquarters as a project manager in the Sustainable Business and Innovation division on a project that is seeking to revolutionize the Nike manufacturing base and the quality of life for it's contract labor force. Matt still actively serves as the President of the nonprofit he founded called Checking For Charity. He is focused on building the success the organization has achieved on the east coast while expanding operations to the west coast in 2012.

Transition, The Status Quo, & An Ever-Present Enemy

It has been a long time since I have posted. A very long time. I almost feel guilty about it. But a lot has transpired since my last post on sacrifice. I have separated from the Air Force, travelled across country to settle back in Portland, OR, gone through one hell of a job search process, accepted a new position, started my new job, started searching for a house, not to mention the living my life part! It has been a roller coaster ride with many highs and lows, it has taught me some lessons, but most of all it has taught me about myself.

Transition is an interesting thing. There are very few moments in our lives where we really cross over into a new chapter. Most transitions are just slight iterations or developments of where we already are. And although those minor forks in the road are very important and defining in the aggregate, they are not nearly as beneficial introspectively as a major life changing transition like the one I am currently navigating.

My transition out of the military has forced me to really evaluate what I value, what I want my life to look like, and how I am going to make it happen. As I have discussed in many a post, happiness is always the ultimate goal for me and for my family. As evident by my last post on sacrifice, that doesn't mean that there aren't things or periods of happiness that you sacrifice in the name of long term fulfillment. But this transition has really been an amazing challenge in the sense that I had to make a lot of tough decisions regarding whether an option is worth it or not. Worth it in the short term, the long term, and in the entirety of the life I want to live.

Which leads to the next insight derived from my transition experience, that of the status quo. People are social beings. Undisputed. I believe that people are inherently good. Often disputed. With those contexts in mind I think that people are naturally inclined to default in some sense to the status quo, to push others to do the same, and at times to inadvertently give others horrible advice. I don't think that people want to offer poor advice they just innately find comfort in giving advice that is shared by others. Below are some real life examples and anecdotes that not only relevant to my situation but also illustrate my theory above.

"It is a tough economy out there."
"Aren't you scared to not get a job?"
"Why don't you stay in Boston and get a government civilian job?"
"You can't be too picky. People nowadays are just lucky to have a job."
"You might have to take a job you hate until you find something else that you really want."

Did some of these comments piss me off? Yeah, a little bit. Especially when I heard them 500 times. But going back to my initial thoughts, none of these comments were made with any ill intent. I was never mad at the person making the comment it was just the questioning in the aggregate that became frustrating. People give advice based on their own frame of reference and set of life values and as a whole many of those values align to a common theme. The challenge, when following your gut, is to keep a tight watch on what is best for YOU and not to let the constant pressure of the status quo influence your decision making. This was an enormous challenge for me especially when things got tough, when I was rejected, when I hit dead ends, or when nothing was happening at all. It was during times like these that I became all too familiar with the ever-present enemy.

My ever present-enemy is an enemy shared by all....self doubt. My parents gave me and my younger brother an incredible upbringing. I look back and feel like they raised us the 'right' way. They instilled within us a sense of humility and taught us to treat everyone with dignity and respect. They kept me grounded while encouraging me to achieve whatever I wanted. I attribute much of my long term success to those maxims being ingrained into who I am. I think being humble has not only helped me to get along with a wide variety of people throughout my life, but it has also kept me hungry and striving for more. But being humble can open you up to self doubt in the short term. Whether it has been in school, sports, the military, business, or life in general I have always battled self doubt as I am sure most people do. I have witnessed kids in hockey who are anything but humble, to the point that it negatively affects their team relationships, consistently reach heights beyond their ability just because they aren't paralyzed by self doubt. There are a lot of successful people out there who are successful because they attack life with a relentless self assurance. Although I wouldn't trade places with those people, I have taken notice at how they have overcome (or bypassed) fear to achieve their goals. In my case, overcoming fear or self doubt must be a much more conscious decision based on who I am. It is a challenge and one that I continually face at every stage of my life.

My transition to corporate life has been no exception and with the numerous ups and downs throughout the process I frequently faced self doubt and wondered if my goals and dreams were actually attainable. As the old cliche goes, hindsight is always 20/20, and looking back over the last few months I can start to see that my focus on my goals, refusal to accept the status quo, and my ability to overcome the ever-present enemy were all critical in my successful transition. It wasn't always easy but I can look back at this chapter as an embodiment of how to be resilient in pursuit of happiness.

Warriors In Transition: A Feature On The White Rhino Report

I have been featured on The White Rhino Report in a post called Warriors In Transition. The White Rhino Report is the blog of Dr. Al Chase, a friend and the founder of White Rhino Partners. White Rhino Partners is an executive recruiting company out of Boston, MA that as Dr. Chase so eloquently puts it"specializes in placing senior executives who are "Renaissance Men and Women," and who are entrepreneurial leaders - many of whom have had a distinguished military career and/or are Service Academy graduates and hold MBA's from top-tier business schools."

I am honored to be featured in the blog and to be working with Dr. Chase. I look forward to working alongside him to find my way into an organization where I can add value through my unique experiences and professional skill set. Below is the piece that was featured, but do yourself a favor and check out The White Rhino Report for a wide range of interesting topics as Al not only places Renaissance men and women, he is a Renaissance man himself.

Periodically in The White Rhino Report, we tell the story of a warrior who has served our nation in the military and is transitioning to a new career in the private sector. Today I am pleased to introduce the readers of the WRP to my good friend, USAF Captain Matt Bader. Matt is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, where he excelled as a member of the hockey team. He has recently returned from a deployment to Iraq. In the following paragraphs he shares some of experiences he had while serving with Tiger team in central Iraq.

Tiger Team in Iraq:

When I was deployed to Iraq I led a team of people responsible for providing contracting support to bases throughout central Iraq. There was seemingly more work to be done than could ever be accomplished, but you worked 14 hour days and did your best to prioritize the work to ensure the success of the mission. After I had been there a month or so I began to settle in and feel more comfortable in my role. Then I was assigned an additional duty as the lead of the DFAS Tiger Team. DFAS stands for Defense Finance and Accounting Service and they are the agency responsible for disbursing payments to all contractors doing business with DOD. I was charged with reducing the outstanding payments that the government owed contractors for goods, services, and construction that had been completed.

It was an additional duty that nobody wanted. The problems were multifaceted and complex in nature and each week the General in charge of all contracting for Iraq and Afghanistan got reports on the progress so it was very high stakes as well.

My team members were made up of DFAS liaisons, contracting personnel, and me. Most of them were less than thrilled to be given additional duties on top of the seemingly endless workload they already had. Our starting point was more than $2 million in outstanding invoices across Iraq many of which were accruing interest payments and costing the government thousands of dollars. We had conflicting interests amongst the key players and we were facing systemic wartime problems to include government bureaucracy, the fog of war, and the language/cultural barrier of our contractors. The DFAS Tiger Team on the prior rotation had made little to no progress in reducing the outstanding invoices and the lack of progress was becoming a sore spot for leadership. It was definitely an uphill battle.

I must admit that when I first took over I was feeling a little overwhelmed but I did the only thing you can really do in that environment which is put your head down, work hard, and give it your best shot. I knew that fostering a real team environment and creating buy in was the first thing I needed to do to get anywhere. I recognized that the DFAS liaisons were undermanned and often took the majority of the “blame” with regard to the outstanding invoices so I sought to earn their respect by immediately showing them that I cared about making a difference with the DFAS Tiger Team. I empathized with their situation and asked a ton of questions about the process. I think my humility and genuine desire to improve our current state won them over which was huge because they were the primary knowledge holders for the payment process and the inner workings of DFAS. I then sought to establish a common vision that was aligned with the overarching mission in Iraq. I described that it was building the Iraqi economy that was going to get us out of the war. Enhancing opportunities for the Iraqi people is the goal of counterinsurgency and there is no better way to do that then to put the Iraqi citizens to work. With that being said, huge damage can be done to our relations when the work has been performed and we do not hold up our end of the bargain with proper and prompt payment. I made sure that everyone on the team was aware that our team could have a direct impact on preventing extremism and that letting the current state continue could actually be fostering terrorism. It was clear that tying our additional duty to the mission of the war effort was a big turning point for the buy in and camaraderie of the team.

After I got my feet wet and had fostered a unified team environment I got my 8 member team together for a brainstorming session. I facilitated a mini continuous process improvement event for the team. We came up with the challenges we were facing and eventually came up with a set of action items we thought could improve the state of the payment process in Iraq. It was clear that we needed help from outside organizations such as DFAS Rome back in the states who processed all the payments, the Senior Contracting Official for Iraq, and the Brigadier General of CENTCOM Contracting Command. I knew that simply telling higher ranking people and outside organizations we needed help was a recipe for disaster. So we presented our findings in a very strategic manner. We showcased how we brought different stakeholders together and came up with a consensus of the “big rocks” or issues with payment process in Iraq. We then presented what “we,” Regional Contracting Center Central, were already doing to improve the current state. This included new standard work, re-engineered business processes, and visuals to be used as payment processing templates for contractors and customers. It was after our efforts had been showcased that we had a section detailing the help we needed from outside organizations. We tried to portray our findings as “here is what we are doing to help ourselves, but we could really use your help in these areas to take our successes to the next level.”

I presented our findings to my leadership and they in turn passed them onto the SCO-I, and the General. On a visit stateside the General met with the head of DFAS Rome in New York and began forging a new memorandum of agreement between the Command and DFAS.

Within two months the changes our 8 person DFAS Tiger Team had implemented had reduced the outstanding payments by more than 50%. This was without the help of the outside agencies. As I prepared to depart Iraq, The SCO-I emailed me directly for feedback on the memorandum they were drafting to be implemented in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience to take over a program that nobody wanted to be a part of and to build a highly performing team that achieved amazing results. We went from the Regional Contracting Center with the largest outstanding payment issues to the model for entire theatre in less than six months.

Matt will be leaving the Air force in the next few weeks. He and his wife are committed to returning to the Portland, Oregon area. If you know of an employer in that area who could use a leader with the kind of skills that Matt outlines above, his work ethic, leadership abilities and unimpeachable integrity, have them contact me to get in touch with Matt.

Dr. Al Chase, White Rhino Partners
1 Broadway, 14th floor Kendall Sq.,
Cambridge, MA 02142
achase@whiterhinopartners.com
office: (617) 401-2113

Thoughts On "Why Are All Our Best Officers Leaving The MIlitary"

There is an article that was recently published in The Atlantic magazine that is surely stirring up some controversy. The article is bluntly called, "Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving The Military."

I must start with a disclaimer of sorts. I am transitioning out of the military this summer. With my pending transition the title of the article definitely caught my eye, as it surely was designed to do. However, it wasn't because I consider myself the "best." I am a pretty humble guy so by nature it is hard to view myself as one of the best officers. I was more curious than anything else. With that being said, I certainly do not think that ALL of our nation's best officers are leaving the military. I have served with some unbelievably talented officers and leaders that are making the military a career and like any other organization the leaders will be a representation of our nation as a whole with the good, the bad, and the ugly making up our leadership ranks.

With my personal disclaimer out of the way, I must say that I think the article most definitely holds some validity and that many of the problems identified in throughout author's article are real.

Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector? An exclusive survey of West Point graduates shows that it’s not just money. Increasingly, the military is creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit. As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.

What I really liked about the article is that it wasn't just some naive opinion piece with a catchy title. The writing was backed with real life studies and surveys that have been researched over the years. As I began to read the findings that came from the aforementioned surveys and studies I was amazed at how closely they matched my own reasons for separating. Not only my own reasons but the frustrations I have discussed with my peers over the course of my military career.

A widely circulated 2010 report from the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College said: “Since the late 1980s … prospects for the Officer Corps’ future have been darkened by … plummeting company-grade officer retention rates. Significantly, this leakage includes a large share of high-performing officers.” Similar alarms have been sounded for decades, starting long before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan made the exit rate of good officers an acute crisis. When General Peter Schoomaker served as Army chief of staff from 2003 to 2007, he emphasized a “culture of innovation” up and down the ranks to shift the Army away from its Cold War focus on big, conventional battles and toward new threats. In many respects (weapons, tactics, logistics, training), the Army did transform. But the talent crisis persisted for a simple reason: the problem isn’t cultural. The military’s problem is a deeply anti-entrepreneurial personnel structure. From officer evaluations to promotions to job assignments, all branches of the military operate more like a government bureaucracy with a unionized workforce than like a cutting-edge meritocracy.

And that is when it hit me. When I read the final word of the passage. The word 'meritocracy' instantly took me back to something I did while deployed to Iraq. While deployed, at the request of my Commander, I completed a voluntary and informal "exit survey." The survey was created by my Commander, when she learned I was separating from the Air Force, to track trends of departing Company Grade Officers from the Contracting career field. Her genuine desire to address the problems in our military/career field coupled with her care for her people not only made me feel obligated to complete the survey, it made me feel honored to provide brutally honest feedback that may in some small way make the Air Force a bit better for the people behind me.

I opened my 'exit survey' for the first time since submitting it to my Commander in Iraq and I went to one of the first sections. The section asked me to describe my top five reasons for separating. Under reason number four I had listed "Meritocracy." Below is an excerpt of my response:

Meritocracy: I have always been very intrinsically motivated. I enjoy giving my best and do so without many external incentives. However, I have found that working in the government setting can be frustrating at times. I think that being in a career field that is heavily populated with civilians and contractors as well as military has made it even more frustrating. It is hard to work in [the] contracting [career field] and not notice that there are plenty of workers who do in fact very little working. Not only is it frustrating to watch as a fellow teammate but it is typically compounded by the fact that many of these people make more money than me and get more time away from the office than me. Not that money is everything to me. Not even close. I think that as an officer [in the military] the money and benefits are more than sufficient for my lifestyle and I am appreciative of how I have been able to set myself up quite nicely for the future given the paycheck I receive. However, I do have a problem working in an environment where the external incentives seem completely misaligned with the amount of responsibility and contributions to the team. I hate to generalize my civilian counterparts because I have worked with some great ones, but over time I have noticed a trend that many civilians want all the benefits of being in the military without any of the sacrifice that comes with it. I am not naïve enough to think that my transition to the corporate world with solve all my frustrations and that everything will be “fair”. However, I am looking for an environment where I can differentiate myself through performance and be compensated both internally and externally based on my merits.

As I continued through the article, I was amazed at the findings from the respondents in the survey and how closely they matched many of my peers sentiments and experiences. Below are some of the results that really stood out to me.

Among active- duty respondents, 82 percent believed that half or more of the best are leaving. Only 30 percent of the full panel agreed that the military personnel system “does a good job promoting the right officers to General,” and a mere 7 percent agreed that it “does a good job retaining the best leaders.”

Is this so terrible? One can argue that every system has flaws and that the military should be judged on its ultimate mission: maintaining national security and winning wars. But that’s exactly the point: 65 percent of the graduates agreed that the exit rate of the best officers leads to a less competent general-officer corps. Seventy-eight percent agreed that it harms national security.

The shame of this loss of talent is that the U.S. military does such a good job attracting and training great leaders. The men and women who volunteer as military officers learn to remain calm and think quickly under intense pressure. They are comfortable making command decisions, working in teams, and motivating people. Such skills translate powerfully to the private sector, particularly business: male military officers are almost three times as likely as other American men to become CEOs, according to a 2006 Korn/Ferry International study.

I too believe that the military does an excellent job attracting and training leaders. In fact one of the sections of my exit survey asked what I thought the Air Force does well. Below is my response:

What do you think the Air Force does exceptionally well?

Developing professional critical thinking leaders: I look back at all the unique challenges, experiences, and educational opportunities I have been given while in the Air Force and I start to think that the Air Force has given me much more than I ever gave in return. Sure the sacrifices are difficult; however I feel that the 9 years I spent in the military lifestyle have set me up for success in any endeavor I choose to pursue.

I think the Air Force has developed a culture, especially amongst its officers, that is founded on professional character based leadership. This is not an easy culture to establish en masse, but the further I go along in my career the more I realize how successful the Air Force has been at providing me a foundation for leadership success.

I think that based on the statistics above, Corporate America is finding value in folks with military leadership experience. The fact that men with military experience are three times as likely to become CEO as compared to their civilian counterparts is a statistic that shows the transitional success is not a mere coincidence. So why does the military have a hard time retaining great leaders when they do such a great job crafting them? That is a question author Tim Kane also sought to answer through his research.

Why is the military so bad at retaining these people? It’s convenient to believe that top officers simply have more- lucrative opportunities in the private sector, and that their departures are inevitable. But the reason overwhelmingly cited by veterans and active-duty officers alike is that the military personnel system—every aspect of it—is nearly blind to merit. Performance evaluations emphasize a zero-defect mentality, meaning that risk-avoidance trickles down the chain of command. Promotions can be anticipated almost to the day— regardless of an officer’s competence—so that there is essentially no difference in rank among officers the same age, even after 15 years of service. Job assignments are managed by a faceless, centralized bureaucracy that keeps everyone guessing where they might be shipped next.

The Pentagon’s response to such complaints has traditionally been to throw money at the problem, in the form of millions of dollars in talent-blind retention bonuses. More often than not, such bonuses go to any officer in the “critical” career fields of the moment, regardless of performance evaluations. This only ensures that the services retain the most risk-averse, and leads to long-term mediocrity.

When I asked veterans for the reasons they left the military, the top response was “frustration with military bureaucracy”—cited by 82 percent of respondents (with 50 percent agreeing strongly). In contrast, the conventional explanation for talent bleed—the high frequency of deployments—was cited by only 63 percent of respondents, and was the fifth-most-common reason. According to 9 out of 10 respondents, many of the best officers would stay if the military was more of a meritocracy.

Ironically deployments was the fifth reason out of five on my exit questionnaire as well. Although these generalizations are not true for all members of the military I think that there are many that do feel aligned with the concerns cited above. Most of my best friends in the military are competitors. Many spent years competing at the highest levels of sports, academics, etc. and the most frustrating environment you could possibly put them in is one where they feel constrained and held back. I am a firm believer that over time people rise and fall to where they deserve to be based on their merits. However, when driven people are given the choice to enter an environment that more efficiently rewards overachievers and winners inevitably some will make the jump.

Another facet of the current military struggle is differing outlooks on the status quo. For better or for worse many within the younger generations look at the status quo differently than their upper leadership. It is not that the younger leaders of the military do not buy into a culture that promotes integrity, honor, service and excellence, as that is definitely a cultural norm that they believe in. What the youth of the military struggles with is the status quo line of thinking. The youth of our country has been brought up to embrace their differences, to stand out, and to become their own unique person. One has to look no further than the trends of our information age to see the demand for individualization thriving. Anyone can start a blog, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a Twitter account, and much more. People are creating their own individual identities and virtual thought profiles online from a very young age. In a sense the new currency is ideas and the marketplace is rewarding people for their ideas. Anyone who has served in the military knows that is not always the case in the military environment. Often the individualized personas and unique beliefs that are embraced in the new world are seen as 'risky' in the military world.

In a 2007 essay in the Armed Forces Journal, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling offered a compelling explanation for this risk-averse tendency. A veteran of three tours in Iraq, Yingling articulated a common frustration among the troops: that a failure of generalship was losing the war. His critique focused not on failures of strategy but on the failures of the general-officer corps making the strategy, and of the anti-entrepreneurial career ladder that produced them: “It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.”

In America today, capitalism is entrepreneurial: our economy is defined by individuals failing or succeeding on the strength of their ideas. Crucially, the military has not recognized this shift. And the Army, in particular, has not changed from its “inefficient industrial era practices,” as a report by the Strategic Studies Institute put it last year. It still treats each employee as an interchangeable commodity rather than as a unique individual with skills that can be optimized.

That last line really hits it on the head for me. How can the military take the unique individuals that serve as the core of its make up and skillfully utilize those assets to make the organization better than it was? That is the ultimate goal. Of course it is easier said than done in one of the largest organizations in the world but the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.

I love the military and what it stands for. Any organization that is consistently recognized as one of America's most trusted institutions while simultaneously navigating some of the most critical and challenging missions on the planet is doing a lot of things right. I decided to write this post because I believe in our military and I want it to continue to be the world's best for my friends that stay in, for my country, and for the next generation. I truly believe that by consistently striving to improve and by continually addressing the evolving challenges like the ones outlined in this article, our nation's fighting force will continue its tradition of success long after I am gone.

Passion Barometer

"If I had all the money in the world, I would be doing exactly what I'm doing right now."

Can you say that about your job? Your life? Well that is exactly what Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan was quoted as saying in her interview with the CNN Small Business Blog. Simonetti-Bryan transitioned from a career in finance to achieve a coveted Master of Wine certification. Below are some details of her story with the full article available here.

Simonetti-Bryan had an existential crisis that many young professionals face: Working nights and weekends, staring at models on a computer screen, she felt bored and unsatisfied. Only 10 more years, a colleague told her, and she'd make managing director.

A few weeks after that, a fateful business lunch set the analyst on a new course. While giving a presentation in the corporate dining room of Citicorp's London office, Simonetti-Bryan was served an herb-crusted salmon paired with a Sancerre, a crisp white wine from France's Loire Valley. The way the acid in the wine cut right through the oil from the fish sparked her curiosity. She began taking classes in wine appreciation, and in the wake of Citi's merger with Smith Barney in 1998, she took the plunge, abandoning her six-figure salary for a wine shop job, then becoming brand manager for Cakebread Cellars and Domaine Carneros while collecting industry certifications.

One of those was the Master of Wine designation, the industry's highest honor. After passing a four-day exam that involves identifying 36 wines, applicants must write an original piece of research that furthers the industry. Simonetti-Bryan studied six hours daily on top of a full workday, sometimes suffering from "palate fatigue." "There were some days," she says, "where I was like, 'I don't want to look at a glass of wine. I don't even want to think about a glass of wine,' and then you get that one glass of wine and you go, 'Ah, this is why I'm doing this.'" In 2008 she became only the fourth woman in the U.S., and one of 289 people worldwide, to obtain the coveted title.

Although I enjoy a good glass of wine (or bad…..I must admit I cannot always tell the difference), wine is not what drew me to this article. What drew me in was someone going through a transition that is integrated in both their work and life. I am a big proponent of work life integration versus work life balance so stories like Jennifer's always appeal to me. Her quote above is a quote that serves as the barometer for how she is living her life. She loves what she does and wouldn’t change a thing about it. This wasn’t always the case for her which allowed her to recognize what she had once she got there.

I am going through a work/life change as I transition out of the Air Force this summer. Although I can’t say that I wouldn’t change anything if I had all the money in the world, I really do love my life. The only part of my life that wasn’t as fulfilling as it needs to be for successful work life integration is the work part. Although I am good at what I do and I enjoy it…sometimes, my heart is not fully invested in my current career path. Being a sports guy, I know what is possible when you are truly passionate about something. I need to find that something again.

Coming out of the service is tough because I don’t necessarily know what I want to be when I grow up yet. There are a few different avenues in business that interest me but as far as a specific job title goes I haven’t narrowed that down yet. I may just have to steal the quote from her to use it as my own passion barometer in determining what I want to do moving forward.

Perhaps I am an idealist. Perhaps I am just naïve. Who knows. All I know is that Simonetti-Bryan has what I want. She has a life and a career that are successfully integrated and she truly loves what she is doing. I am a little nervous but very excited to be breaking into the great wide open (hat tip Tom Petty), but I will trust my gut, work hard, and see if I can’t land my dream job too.