Mission Critical: Unlocking the Value of Veterans in the Workforce

By Michael Abrams and Julia Taylor Kennedy

The Center for Talent Innovation's new study, Mission Critical: Unlocking the Value of Veterans in the Workforce, reveals how companies can ensure their veteran talent thrives in the corporate world. Veterans represent a highly desirable talent pool when they transition to civilian careers. They retain the passion for service and camaraderie that drew them into the military, and they bring leadership and technical skills honed in a pressure cooker. In recent years, corporate employers have demonstrated they understand the potential of this valuable cohort by greatly increasing their recruitment efforts. Yet once veterans get through the doors of corporations, they languish. In a matter of months many ambitious, skilled veterans lose their drive, failing to fulfill their leadership potentialmore than half say they don't aspire to hold a more senior position. Many of the remainder feel stalled in their careers.

Why? First, leaders don’t understand their potential. Second, veterans feel distant from their teams and cover their veteran identity in an effort to get closer. Third, they hunger for meaning and purpose at work, something they found in the military but lack in civilian jobs. Mission Critical explores these factors in-depth, especially as they affect women and veterans of color, and offers solutions to companies intent on keeping their veteran talent from tuning out and stalling out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781942600596

Book preview

Advance Praise

The men and women who volunteer for military service and then later return to the private sector are veterans in every sense of the word. They’ve been trained and tested to work as a team to achieve common goals; they develop a personal discipline at an early age; they achieve a maturity beyond their years. As a result, veterans are a national treasure for their willingness to defend their country and fellow citizens, then bring to the private sector a can-do, get ’er done spirit that deserves recognition and reward. This book and the testimonials from some of America’s leading companies affirm the value of the very impressive work of Michael Abrams and Julia Taylor Kennedy. I hope we can all rally around this very important enterprise.

—Tom Brokaw, former anchor and Managing Editor,

NBC Nightly News; author, The Greatest Generation

Veterans represent an asset that requires insight to be unlocked to maximum advantage. This well-researched work by Michael Abrams and Julia Taylor Kennedy provides concrete examples that will unleash the talents of your veterans and bring their substantial leadership, management, and decision-making skills to bear on your business. The case studies are exceptionally rich in scope and depth—who wouldn’t step out to implement these best practices and reap the benefits?

—P. Stephen Stanley, Vice Admiral, US Navy (Retired);

VP Cyber & C4 Government Relations and

VERITAS Executive Sponsor, Northrop Grumman

On target! This book truly hits the mark and is a crucial resource for companies looking to bring on more veterans while setting them up for organizational success over the long-term. Mike Abrams and Julia Taylor Kennedy focus on real issues…through inspirational stories of success and best practices that employers can put in place to help their veterans thrive in the workplace.

—Kenneth J. Barrett, Captain, US Navy (Retired);

Chief Diversity Officer, General Motors

As we’ve seen time and again at GE, valuing veterans increases the diversity of ideas and approaches in the workplace—and can bring us to new heights. Informative reading for anyone working with veterans, this book provides a shortcut to engaging them and ensuring they are able to fully contribute in the workplace.

—Deborah A. Elam, President, GE Foundation;

Chief Diversity Officer, GE

UPS has employed veterans for decades, and while bringing them into the workplace is laudable, knowing how to help them reach their potential is far better. In this book, Mr. Abrams and Ms. Taylor Kennedy explain the challenges many vets face when entering the private sector. All organizations would be well-served by paying attention to the needs of this valuable group of future business leaders.

—Eduardo Martinez, President, The UPS Foundation;

Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, UPS

"Executed perfectly! Mission Critical: Unlocking the Value of Veterans in the Workforce is a must-read for companies who want to begin or improve their commitment to veterans. By sharing the best practices along with personal stories of success and inspiration, Abrams and Kennedy highlight many of the benefits and challenges companies need to consider when hiring, developing, and retaining veteran talent. Mission Critical provides employers with terrific insight on the value veterans can bring to the workplace."

—Elizabeth Nieto, Global Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, MetLife

We are learning, with our veterans, how best to support their transition into civilian life and engage them—with meaning and purpose—in the corporate world. But we know there is more to do. This book offers any company that values its veterans practical solutions and novel ideas to tap the skills and ambitions of our high-performance, richly diverse veterans to ensure they have the rewarding careers they deserve.

—Kevin McCarthy, SEVP, General Counsel, and

VetNet Executive Sponsor, BNY Mellon

This is a Center for Talent Innovation Publication

A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books

453 South Spring Street, Suite 302

Los Angeles, CA 90013

rarebirdbooks.com

Copyright © 2015 by Center for Talent Innovation

FIRST TRADE PAPERBACK ORIGINAL EDITION

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address: A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 453 South Spring Street, Suite 302, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Set in Minion

Printed in the United States

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ePub ISBN: 978-1-942600-59-6

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Abrams, Michael P., author |Kennedy, Julia Taylor, author.

Title: Mission critical : unlocking the value of veterans in the workforce / Michael Abrams and

Julia Taylor Kennedy.

Description: First trade paperback original edition. | A Vireo Book. | New York [New York] ; Los Angeles [California] : Rare Bird Books, 2015. | Includes index.

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-942600-54-1

Subjects: LCSH: Veterans—Employment—United States. | Veterans—United States—Services for. | Career changes—United States. | Retired military personnel—Employment—United States. |

BISAC: Business & Economics.

Classification: LCC HF5384 A29 2015 | DDC 650.14/086/97—dc23

To the amazing thought leaders who have been at the heart of this research:

Nancy Di Dia

Lisa Dzintars-Pahwul

Isabelle Frank

Peter Gaytan

Michele Green

Renee Johnson

Frances G. Laserson

Glen Redpath

Sarah St. Clair

Project Team

Project Lead

Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Research

Laura Sherbin, director

Pooja Jain-Link

Charlene Thrope

Publications

Melinda Marshall, director

Isis Fabian

Anna Weerasinghe

Project Management

Deidra Mascoll

Communications

Tai Wingfield, director

Silvia Marte

Contents

Foreword xiii

Introduction 1

cHAPTER 1: Skilled and Seriously Ambitious—but Stuck 9

cHAPTER 2: Invisible to Leaders 19

cHAPTER 3: Covering and Its Costs 29

cHAPTER 4: Hunger for Meaning 47

cHAPTER 5: Helping Veterans Fulfill Their Potential 59

Post-Script 79

Endnotes

Methodology 89

Acknowledgments 91

Index 103

Foreword

I left the US Army in 1984 as a captain with two Meritorious Service Medals and with the confidence I’d honed over four years of military service. I also had a bachelor of science in finance with high honors from Lehigh University’s engineering school. So for me, when I enrolled in Stanford Graduate School of Business, academics weren’t an issue.

But I quickly stumbled on a problem: given all that I’d been through as an Army officer, I had trouble taking the concerns of my civilian classmates seriously. The biggest challenge some of them had faced was failing a test. In contrast, I was used to commanding soldiers in tough conditions, like those at Fort Irwin in the Mojave desert, where 114 degree heat and full chemical protective gear caused the troops to drop from heat exhaustion. A bad grade on an exam simply didn’t seem to hold the same stakes for me as it did for my civilian counterparts. On paper, I was ideally placed to make the transition smoothly, but I felt very separate from the civilian student body. Yet my paper credentials continued to serve me well: with strong academics and the leadership record of an airborne-qualified US Army officer, I graduated from Stanford with eight job offers.

It’s no mystery why top companies race to scoop up veterans who are able to