At The Clearing, we know from experience that high-performance teams and organizations prioritize diversity and inclusion in the workforce. Given this, we focus The Clearing’s talent management strategy on recruiting and retaining consultants from a wide variety of backgrounds and skillsets.

My personal background is an example of this skill diversity: my professional career began in the U.S. military, and has spanned a variety of public and private sector roles.

At 19, I graduated flight school and advanced to instructor pilot and Special Operations aviator with the United States Army. Having met my goals in the Army, I continued to serve in the National Guard while working as a commercial airline pilot. Feeling that I had more to give outside of aviation, I began building a career in key roles as senior White House liaison, strategic program manager, and executive consultant.

From my perspective, the fact that The Clearing team seeks out employees with diverse backgrounds and embraces my unique perspective is one of our key differentiators. This mindset adds to our ability to serve clients, both shaping and deepening our ability to understand and support individuals with dissimilar and widely varied backgrounds.

Over the years, I’ve found that many of the challenges civilian leaders face are very similar to those encountered in the military. I strongly believe that my experiences as a soldier taught me many important lessons that I share with our clients every day as we partner together:

1. Commit to the Mission and See It Through

Soldiers are known for the commitment they make to put service above self and follow through on the mission, even when there are many challenges standing in their way. They are willing to step out of their comfort zones and press onward despite adversity.

Good leaders, too, must commit to doing the right thing for their organizations, employees, and clients when challenges arise. They will be pushed out of their comfort zones and may be called upon to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. Like a soldier, a good leader may find themselves giving up personal time and energy in order to carry out their professional objectives.

2. Be Flexible and Change Course As Needed

In the field, soldiers know that surprises are practically guaranteed. They must be ready to adapt to constantly changing circumstances while still moving toward their target.

Like soldiers, leaders must also be agile in order to reach their goals. It’s beautiful when everything goes according to plan, but often even the best plans must be adapted to changing conditions in the workplace. For example, leaders may face:

Deadlines that become derailed due to uncontrollable external factors
Employees who benefit from different management approaches
Customers with unique, conflicting, or unexpected needs
A constantly evolving marketplace impacted by factors outside one’s control

If a leader expects the unexpected and remains flexible in spite of it, they will be ready to manage whatever surprises come along.

3. Never Stop Learning

In the military, we rotate our duty stations every few years. These shifts require a soldier to adopt a mindset of continuous learning. As soldiers take on new roles, they add new skills and expand their capabilities.

As leaders, it’s easy to feel complacent with a top role in one’s organization, but leaders benefit from continuous learning every bit as much as their employees do. The Harvard Business Review points out that the best leaders are the best learners, illustrating that leaders must learn in order to reinvent their organizations and remain relevant in a fast-paced economy.

4. Be Ready to Adapt to Suboptimal Conditions

Soldiers work in less-than-ideal conditions as a matter of course. More often than not, they must carry out their missions without all the details surrounding an operation, using limited resources, in precarious locations, at inopportune times. Regardless, they carry on toward their objectives.

Like soldiers on a battlefield, leaders are also subject to working in suboptimal conditions. Good leaders are ready to adapt to those conditions, adjust their plans, and advance the organization’s objectives all the same. Over time, leaders grow accustomed to things like:

Limited budgets for marketing, research and development, human resources, and other efforts
Unexpected challenges like sudden deadlines, product deficiencies, missing skills, unhappy customers, and more
Bad timing for product launches, meetings, travel, or employee absences

The faster a leader accepts that they must work in the real world rather than a perfect one, the faster they can overcome less-ideal aspects of their role.

You don’t have to be a soldier to draw upon the virtues of dedication, flexibility, and adaptability as a leader. While some learn these skills on a battlefield, others learn them in a boardroom and they’re every bit as important.

Do you have elements of your background that have taught you career lessons? I invite you to continue the conversation around how your life experiences have shaped your leadership style by reaching out to me.

The United States Air Force (USAF) has recently made innovative moves under the leadership of Secretary Heather Wilson–taking an outside-the-box approach to solving some of the vexing challenges that the service continues to face. Necessity is often the mother of invention, and service leadership is getting creative in addressing challenges… in some cases, revisiting concepts, models and ideas that worked in the past and could work again.

Most recently, an interesting piece of news hit print which indicates that for the first time in years, the USAF is considering using enlisted pilots to help shore up its pilot shortage, which now hovers around a deficit of 2,000 pilots. The pilot shortage presents a direct threat to readiness and capability, making this issue one of several important concerns for the USAF. The issue is not driven by problems in pilot recruitment or attraction, but really centers around pilot retention.

For several decades, the USAF pilot corps has been composed of officers only. But for those who know their history, at one time, particularly during WWII, it wasn’t just officers who flew combat aircraft–a good portion of our nation’s military pilots were enlisted. So, the precedent for non-officer pilots exists. In fact, the bulk of U.S. Army aircraft are flown by Warrant Officers.

That said, the pilot shortage challenge is, at root, human-centric in terms of a solution. Certainly, technology can help accelerate training or identify areas of performance improvement. But finding qualified and capable people to perform the mission–and incentivizing them to stay on and grow into higher levels of the organization–is an effort dependent on human will, human decision-making and human ideas. The creative search for solutions is defined by humans. In fact, taking it a step further, the incentive component is as dependent on organizational design (i.e., what does an attractive and healthy, positive organization need to look like in order to retain talent and leadership) as it is anything else. To that point, the military services are competing for talent in a fixed pool–some reports suggest that this pool is less than 1% of eligible 17-24 year olds – with not only the other services, but with the likes of Google and Amazon as well.

While the idea of expanding pilot ranks to qualified and motivated enlisted airmen and women may seem limited, recognizing that latent talent, skill, experience and motivation exists in all corners of an organization is important. This is especially vital when finding ways to fix or build unit morale, or achieve unified sense of mission and purpose, or recognizing human value and contribution in a large enterprise. Accordingly, what might appear now to be a practical, shorter-term stop-gap measure based on necessity might actually represent a way to achieve a number of longer-term benefits for the organization. Current leaders must ensure that the culture they are promising actually exists when this highly-skilled talent arrives at their first duty station.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see what the next steps in this endeavor look like–if the USAF is seriously considering opening some pilot jobs to the enlisted ranks. To be successful, the service will have to consider a number of additional issues, from what type of aircraft and missions enlisted pilots would fly, to addressing the inevitable social complications and culture-shock that will occur once a significant change in is undertaken.

But on the whole, this type of innovative approach to address human-based challenges in an organization is intriguing and necessary to solving the problems the country faces–both in government and out–and represents an exciting shift in perspective that could empower service members to more meaningfully contribute. To learn more about applying human-centric approaches to organizational problems, please contact Travis Wright.

Recently, The Clearing’s, Travis Wright, spent an afternoon with Jd Walter, the Director of Customer Relationship Management at the Program Support Center (PSC) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). During their discussion, Jd shared his thoughts on how M-17-22 and other recent mandates will impact shared services and potentially shift thinking in the federal government.

PSC is a non-appropriated operating unit within the HHS Division of Administration that partners with federal agencies to collaboratively generate solutions to their most pressing needs. As a shared services provider, PSC works with its partners to reduce redundant back-office activities in order to support improved organizational efficiency, timeliness, and quality of core missions.

The Clearing: Can you tell me about your role at PSC?

Jd Walter: My role is to help guide organizational strategy and development efforts on behalf of the Director of PSC. This includes working hand-in-hand with the executive team to develop a long-term vision, evaluate performance, and analyze partner and market data to position PSC as a leader in shared services across the federal government.

The Clearing: Can you talk about how PSC became a leader in shared services?

Jd Walter: PSC has operated within HHS for more than 20 years. It was set up as a center of excellence to address a number of back-office activities that were redundant within HHS. Over the years, the services that are delivered have expanded and been contracted based on different needs across HHS. Today it includes about 40 discrete areas. Currently, PSC is focusing on maturing a subset of core competencies into collaborative solutions that we feel are most salient in light of the government-wide focus on efficiency.

What is most telling about PSC’s story, and frankly the potential of the shared business model, is the volume of external partners we have today. Currently, about 71 percent of our revenue comes from outside of HHS. This affords PSC the opportunity to be more innovative in our response to partner needs, but also be increasingly proactive in addressing emerging market trends because we are seeing demand across the whole of government.

PSC has really come to embrace the idea of partnership with the agencies we support. The customer/provider dynamic will only take this business model so far, so we are looking at ways to expand the collaborative nature of partnerships and infuse a new energy into building and delivering solutions.

The Clearing: Do you see shared services expanding within the government?

Jd Walter: The opportunities for shared services in the government are seemingly endless. Just scratching the surface has been substantial in terms of cost avoidance. Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative operations will certainly help to improve service quality for the American taxpayer. This is what M-17-22 is about, but it is going to take considerable standardization.

I think the first thing we need is government-wide buy-in regarding the idea of standardization. While missions are indeed unique, the business end of accomplishing them is incredibly similar.

The second thing we need is a commitment to moving faster. The nature of government compliance and oversight means we won’t always be able to move at the speed of the private sector, but we can certainly inject a healthy dose of thrift to the process. Particularly with regard to how we acquire goods and services. This ultimately increases the government’s flexibility and agility. What the private sector does so incredibly well is respond rapidly to market demands. They’re constantly assessing large amounts of data, performing predictive analysis, and then balancing the outputs with a proven business savvy model before they take innovations to market. There is no reason the government can’t operate more like that.

Thirdly, we need to think about how we are collaborating with the private sector, as they are a critical element in our solutions. This has to do with how we are developing our contracts, setting them up to mitigate the risk being placed on the vendors so they can be innovative and creative on behalf of the government. It’s a symbiotic relationship when it’s done right. We’re already doing it in pockets to a smaller degree, we just need to systematize it and build our acumen government-wide to behave this way. There are some implications for the private sector here; the federal government can’t be a cash cow for companies wanting to live off government contracts. The private sector has to afford legitimate business advantages for the government because everything we do trickles down to the American taxpayer.

The Clearing: You mentioned M-17-22. What impact do you see it having on the federal government?

Jd Walter: Everything that is happening right now is getting us moving in the same direction. The government is comprised of many different agencies, but there is only one federal government in the United States of America. We’re all just in different operational units of it. Ultimately, we all need to behave in a common business manner because we are in fact one organism. M-17-22 is a wonderful first step in promoting a new way of thinking about how we operate both top to bottom and left to right.

The Clearing: How will M-17-22 potentially impact shared services and PSC?

Jd Walter: M-17-22 focuses on efficiency and shared services is one way to achieve it. It’s a basic business-efficiency model. There has certainly been an increasing orientation toward efficiency, but M-17-22 is really the first directive I recall being comprehensive in intent. Agencies are now starting to come together to discuss what makes sense for the whole of government. These conversations include standardization of performance metrics, delivery scheduling, and how to go through a requirements-gathering activity, but it’s still very much a learning process. We have to learn a bit more quickly than we have in the past because of the current administration’s focus on this as well as policy guidance like M-17-22. I think this is a good start. We are developing habits like communicating and sharing information, and over the next two years, I think we will see exponential maturation of shared services in the government for a variety of reasons.

From PSC’s perspective, we are rooted in M-17-22. We recognize the challenges agencies are facing and so we have gone to the whiteboard to begin sketching solutions that seem to make sense, including those that will add value to our partners and provide a substantive return for HHS. Next step is to take these partnerships to a new level and really collaborate on the solutions that make the most sense — providing the most advantageous outcomes and demonstrating the greatest returns. It won’t happen overnight, but we expect PSC to see significant increases in business because of this. We are doing everything we can to ‘up our game’ from rethinking our narrative and redefining our partnerships, to ensuring our workforce has the skills, resources, and support to execute solutions.

The Clearing: What role do small- or medium-sized agencies play in facilitating more widespread use of shared services in the federal government?

Jd Walter: I see small- and medium-sized agencies playing a critical role in shared services. I think smaller agencies tend to underestimate the impact they actually have on the aggregate. Because of their size, they should really be leading the charge, both proving and improving the model. Their experiences inform not only what is appropriate for a consolidated approach, but also inform on how to scale up to larger, less agile agencies. This approach makes a lot of sense because fewer people are impacted and fewer resources are needed.

Flexibility is power. Agility is power. It’s what the private sector celebrates. It’s their responsiveness that makes them successful, not the amount of annual net revenue or the operating budget. Look at the top companies today; their competitive advantage is their ability to hit the market faster than anyone else, to be more predictive and faster in response, and to produce a better product than everybody else. That’s what we need to be as a government.

I think M-17-22 will lead to a shift in thinking. This is fundamental to changing the approach on managing the business of government. Instead of focusing on how much appropriation an agency is getting, we could start to focus on our efficiency as a source of power. Real bargaining power is proving there’s a better way to do business. Congress decides how much money they want to commit to programs. It should be the job of the executive branch to implement effective and efficient programs that distribute that money in the best way possible with the least amount of overhead.

The Clearing: What do you think shared services in the government will look like in three to five years?

Jd Walter: We will have a better understanding of what makes sense to centralize government-wide, what makes sense to centralize in-house, what makes sense to leave in-house, and then what should be outsourced. We will have a much more mature evaluation process to measure how well services perform and how the system of sharing performs in aggregate.

PSC is going to be much more nimble than we are right now. We are shifting our own focus to be more mature as an organization. We are building solutions rather than just taking services to market. We are fostering partnerships with federal agencies rather than being driven by the traditional customer-provider relationship and we are getting better at evaluating ourselves. Ultimately, all of this is about agencies making mission-centric decisions and how we support that. Everybody has to be on the same page in understanding the “why” behind what we do.

If you look at the amount of work that’s being done by shared services providers today, it’s huge, but it’s still just a drop in the bucket. When you start thinking about the possibilities, that’s when it gets really exciting.

Imagine if agencies took a percentage of their overhead cost and simply repurposed it to programmatic funding. The increased programmatic spending could be used to meet the growing needs of the people without increasing annual appropriations. That’s revolutionary.

The Clearing: M-17-22 also talks about customer service. I understand that PSC is heavily focused on improving customer satisfaction through a better customer experience. Could you talk a little bit about what PSC is doing to improve the customer experience?

Jd Walter: This all goes back to the ideas of partnerships and solutions — collaborating with agencies to deeply understand their missions, operating environments, constraints and concerns, and what success looks like to them. Delivering services is pretty easy. This is about being a champion of their success and figuring out ways to ensure that the uniqueness of their missions is not lost within the dash toward efficiency. Think about the old 80/20 rule where the 80 percent is standardized. It’s the 20 percent that keeps agencies up at night and, their missions are built on it.

But therein lies the most salient advantage of a shared business model, shared intelligence. Shared intelligence refines the 20 percent with an exactitude that ensures both maximum efficiency and maximum operability. There is a reason the private sector invests heavily in the shared model because it works. But at the end of the day, there has to be an advantage to using a shared business model, and the outcome may not always be a dollar-for-dollar trade off.

Finally, it’s about understanding how our partners see the value proposition of what we are bringing to the table and having an honest dialogue about what works and what doesn’t and then, of course, why. That is really where the experienced rubber meets the partnership road. We have to be able to translate reductions in square footage, increases in buying power, and the benefits of centralized data, for example, to accomplish the mission. If done well, it is an incredibly powerful narrative.

“LEADING is what you do when you 1) set strategic direction, 2) align resources, 3) inspire action, and 4) are accountable for results. Period. LEADING is available to anyone at anytime. Our world is full of books on ‘Leadership.’ Our world has enough ‘Leaders.’ The problem is that we have too few people LEADING,” courtesy of  The PRIMES.

In a previous white paper from The Clearing, we discussed employee engagement and its impact on productivity. One of the recommendations from this paper was to actively engage leaders through experiential learning and development. Managers spend enormous amounts of brainpower choosing whom to promote and organizations spend substantial resources based on that decision. How do managers determine when someone is ready to take on a leadership role? How can the organization be sure the new leader is right for the long-term benefit of the organization? This problem is especially acute in technical areas. Will the software engineer who is great at coding be good at resolving conflicts between team members who were peers until recently? Is the intelligence analyst with the superb critical thinking and analytical skills ready to inspire her team to tackle that big new initiative? The same skills that make someone a good operator do not necessarily make a good leader.

Here are three things to consider when deciding if that rising star is ready to tackle a leadership position:

Fit: Conduct a thorough assessment of your team’s structure before deciding to fill a vacant leadership role. Is this a newly created role or are you backfilling someone who moved on in the organization? What does the potential leader bring to the leadership team? Will this new leader fill a gap? What about the personalities on the team – do you have a team full of extroverts and need to balance it with an introvert? Will the personalities of the rest of the team overshadow the new leader? Doing a hard analysis now will ensure your new leader is set-up for success in his or her new role.

Presence: A smart worker does not necessarily make a star leader – people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. The key differentiator is emotional intelligence. Sometimes called EQ, emotional intelligence is generally defined as the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others to accomplish tasks. Sit back and observe the prospective manager as they interact with their peers – how do they currently treat their coworkers? Do they take time to listen to multiple perspectives before making a decision? While some behaviors can be coached and improved over time, be sure to know the candidate’s weak areas before placing them in a new role. Need help improving your own EQ – start here.

Practice: What better way to evaluate a potential manager than with a beta test? Nothing can replace good old-fashioned experience so find opportunities for them to lead teams for a short duration. Have a pop-up project with a short deadline? Put your potential manager on it and let them show you what they’ve got. After the test project, be sure to talk with members of the team to get their assessment of the candidate’s performance. Talk with the candidate and ask what their experience was like. What aspects of the project appealed to them, what was most challenging, what didn’t they like? This assessment should give a good sense of the support they will need in their new role and most importantly, you can provide feedback and training before they assume the role.

It’s important to recognize that many people aren’t natural leaders. They may possess many of the skills that could make them great leaders, but they may require training on how to use those skills effectively in a leadership position. Training and mentoring can make the difference between a successful leader and one that fails to meet expectations.