Seven Military Skill Sets For Career Planning Success

Career planning is difficult in corporate America.  What makes career planning difficult is not the lack of options, but an incredible field of possible options based on companies to work for, attractive industries, emerging technologies, and socially responsible business models.  Great work and great careers energize both the soul and the paycheck.  However, people struggle with how to take all of these possible options and drill them down into a concrete, actionable plan that supports what they want to in their careers.

The military has a detailed planning process that looks clearing at mission objectives, explores options, examines the competition, and then drills this all down into an actionable plan.  The seven actions below are critical aspects in the military planning and mission executions process.  They work well for ensuring your next career step is a success.

(1)   Determine What Career Success Looks Like in Specific Detail. One of the key steps in the military planning process is when the Commander clearly and simply defines what they want to achieve.  Specifically, what does success look like?  This military concept, called Commander’s Intent, details in broad terms what the entire military operation from beginning to end will achieve and the impact it will have on the military campaign.  This is a great starting point for career planning – what will my career look and feel like when I achieve success?  How will I know when I have found it?

(2)   War Game The Possible Paths for Your Career.  In the military, war gaming is the process that tests and adapts battle plans against the expected actions and reactions of the enemy.  As a battle plan is developed, military planners have a separate team role-play the “enemy” to ensure the initial plan is challenged against the full range of what the enemy will and can do.  In career planning, we often times clearly identify what we want our next step to be, but then we never fully identify what will we do if our next career step does not happen?  A war game approach helps you fully develop and plan against different branches and sequels so you can fully adapt to changes in your career landscape.
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> (3)   Look At Your Competition’s Strengths.  Love it or hate it, we all compete against others both seen and unseen for your next opportunities.  All military plans look at “the most dangerous” actions the enemy could do to stop the friendly mission from succeeding.  In this analysis, the military clearly looks at the competitors strengths.  For your career planning, you need to have a clear, unbiased eye on the strengths of your competitors and how you can develop your strengths to be above the competition.  Don’t hate your career competition, learn and study the competition’s strengths to create your own tactical advantage.

(4)   Plans Rarely Go According to Plan – Always Have Career Back Up Plans.  Another Special Operations planning process is the P-A-C-E plan.  P-A-C-E stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency and its used to create four independent and effective ways to accomplish critical battlefield processes such as casualty evacuation, ammunition resupply, or leaving an objective area.  With P-A-C-E, Special Operations ensure success because they plan and anticipate problems and find ways to surmount obstacles to ensure the mission is a success even if there first three plans fail.  Success is not by accident; success is often times an adapted plan paired with initiative.  When you look at career steps and at different companies, always have a next step so if Career Plan A does not happen then Plan B.  If Plan B does not happen then Plan C, etc.

(5)   Rehearse The Critical Tasks in Your Career Advancement.  In the military, rehearsals are one of the core attributes of combat training.  Special Forces teams learn how to operate all team members’ equipment, shoot foreign weapons, live off the land, and speak foreign languages.  Critical actions and processes are rehearsed in the exact manner they are to be executed on the battlefield, because it creates an organization that is already ready to win.  In business, we do not rehearse as much as we could.  You can rehearse critical presentations, your sales pitch, and get your team to rehearse critical customer service actions to ensure the best customer experience.

(6)   Use The After Action Review (AAR) to Record Your Career Lessons Learned.  A good After Action Review (AAR) gathers all the key players in a room, defines what happened, defines what worked, defines what did not work, and then creates a plan to fix the problems.  The AAR is what builds quality in an organization and makes a person great.  After your next interview, presentation, or business initiative, run through an AAR to identify what worked, what did not, and how you intended to fix it.  The AAR, like coaching, is a great way to build your personal improvement plan.

(7)   How to Get and Give More From Career Coaching Sessions.  The military loves performance counseling or coaching.  In a performance counseling session, the military member’s superior reviews the major events, the standards of performance, how the military member performed against the standards, and then creates a specific, understood, defined, and actionable improvement plan to help the military member advance and improve their career.  How often have your coaching sessions created a specific, defined, and actionable plan for improvement?  Make sure that you fully list and refine your development goals and timeline.

Great career planning looks at defined goals, fully anticipates the competition, anticipates setbacks, and then creates plans and back up plans to ensure those strategic career goals succeed.  These seven military planning skills are great tools to ensure your continued career success.