Managing Leadership^®

There has been considerable discussion about the ramifications of the retiring baby-boomer generation in the US, Europe, and in parts of Asia. The consequences run the gamut from companies struggling to fill emptying skilled and senior management positions to fewer taxpayers struggling to bear the burden of more retirees drawing government benefits. Interestingly, the US Government has been paying more attention to the matter than commercial organizations, although, politics being as difficult as it is, progress is slow, and even difficult to discern.

Unfortunately, though, the civilian sector, despite a few cries from the wilderness, still seems to be plunging ahead in blissful ignorance of the looming crisis. For example, according to an excellent summary of the issue in management-issues, only 20% of companies are pursuing efforts to keep their baby-boomer employees on the rolls. There aren’t many more than that that are even examining the effect of this remarkable demographic transformation on their staffs – and it is all but upon us.

Of particular concern is the loss of so many knowledge workers and so much senior management talent. As the information-intensive character of today’s organizational environment intensifies, we cannot easily afford to have our ranks so dramatically thinned of workers and managers who are competent and experienced in that environment.

And indeed, as an HR consultant has noted in BusinessWeek, there may very well be an overlooked but widely available solution that can help effectively to address both of these problems in the US: our military. Military members who are retiring are available to help fill mid- and senior management positions that are being vacated by other baby-boomers who want to retire fully, or who simply wish to strike out on their own. Other service men and women are leaving the armed services after one or two tours, and are ready to step in both to many highly specialized knowledge work positions and in to general management positions, as well.

As the referenced article touches on, they have been taught state-of-art skills in many extremely advanced fields in high demand – from the medical arts to the hard sciences, and including a number of demanding service areas in between. Moreover, (and the linked item covers this more thoroughly) they are taught leadership skills in a manner unsurpassed by any civilian organization and – more importantly – are expected to express them from within the organization in their daily work lives. They are thus experienced managers, team-members, and specialists – and they are eager to put all of that to work for you.

For more on this, you may wish to see a by-lined article I did for Execunet (subscription required), “The Military Manager and the Strategy-Execution Link,” as well as one published in a VFW publication in which I was quoted, “Choosing the Right Civilian Career” – the latter one has not made it into the In the Media page (under “Contents” in the sidebar).

Please do, in any event, visit both of the articles cited above for this post and consider the issue carefully. You may find that the military has more to offer the country than defense from without: it can also help provide regeneration from within.