Andy, yes being ex-military (>29 years) and now working in industry, there is much that can be learned from the disciplines, structured thinking, processes, risk management, teamwork, systems thinking, and planning processes within the military. Military management and leadership is not perfect, but I think those organisations that take on-board veterans greatly benefit. However, there does still seem to be a big misunderstanding and stigma against those moving from a military career into a civilian career and that many inherent skills and expertise servicemen have are not well articulated and accepted in industry (leadership; management; planning; resource exploitation; personal discipline; risk management and rapid adaptation; inter-personal skills; systems thinking; etc).


One area that I am aware that veterans have found it difficult to fit in is the NHS and its management approach, the ethos and culture.


Some approaches that would potentially be effective in many organisations are that of 'Commander's intent' - i.e. all understanding what the Boss's end point or outcome is required - the 'ends' - and 'mission command' - i.e providing the resources, guidance and initiative (the 'ways' and means') for local teams to deliver what is required within the bigger picture. However, this does need a clear understanding of 'the end' bigger picture requirement, understanding 'what my role is' in the outcome required, and a balanced centralised/de-centralised ('ways' and 'means') approach to trust people to use resources effectively and efficiently at a local contextual level, but within an overall policy, strategy, and service delivery framework. It would be anarchy if everyone was allowed to whatever, but, within a guiding more efficient NHS or organisational command structure, military approaches would probably help in many cases.


Other ingredients that need to be present is trust in, and, a competent leadership team, the ability and encouragement to innovate, take the initiative, benefit from success, a true teamwork ethic from cleaner to Cabinet minister/CEO, learn rapidly from failure, adopting and adapting best practice, to be held to account, managers to be leaders and have their staff on board, standardisation of data and IT, reward success and initiative, etc.


These times provide a great opportunity to share best practice between departments and the military and industry.

Andy, yes being ex-military (>29 years) and now working in industry, there is much that can be learned from the disciplines, structured thinking, processes, risk management, teamwork, systems thinking, and planning processes within the military. Military management and leadership is not perfect, but I think those organisations that take on-board veterans greatly benefit. However, there does still seem to be a big misunderstanding and stigma against those moving from a military career into a civilian career and that many inherent skills and expertise servicemen have are not well articulated and accepted in industry (leadership; management; planning; resource exploitation; personal discipline; risk management and rapid adaptation; inter-personal skills; systems thinking; etc).


One area that I am aware that veterans have found it difficult to fit in is the NHS and its management approach, the ethos and culture.


Some approaches that would potentially be effective in many organisations are that of 'Commander's intent' - i.e. all understanding what the Boss's end point or outcome is required - the 'ends' - and 'mission command' - i.e providing the resources, guidance and initiative (the 'ways' and means') for local teams to deliver what is required within the bigger picture. However, this does need a clear understanding of 'the end' bigger picture requirement, understanding 'what my role is' in the outcome required, and a balanced centralised/de-centralised ('ways' and 'means') approach to trust people to use resources effectively and efficiently at a local contextual level, but within an overall policy, strategy, and service delivery framework. It would be anarchy if everyone was allowed to whatever, but, within a guiding more efficient NHS or organisational command structure, military approaches would probably help in many cases.


Other ingredients that need to be present is trust in, and, a competent leadership team, the ability and encouragement to innovate, take the initiative, benefit from success, a true teamwork ethic from cleaner to Cabinet minister/CEO, learn rapidly from failure, adopting and adapting best practice, to be held to account, managers to be leaders and have their staff on board, standardisation of data and IT, reward success and initiative, etc.


These times provide a great opportunity to share best practice between departments and the military and industry.