For companies to become technology innovators, they must leverage the creativity and skills of all employees. Many are discovering their employees with military training and experience are key players for driving innovation.
By Royston Arch

A lot of focus has been placed on hiring veterans, and military reserve and National Guard members because they have earned the right to be full participants in the economy. There is another reason that is equally important. People with real-world military knowledge and skills have often worked on innovative projects, like robotics, and have applied technology in a variety of ways. They are efficiency experts and regularly utilized their skills to improve procedures and processes while working as team members in a continually changing environment.

These are precisely the kind of skills organizations need to remain competitive today. Employers are realizing that tapping into the knowledge and skills of this employee group is a strategy for driving the exact kind of innovation needed today.

Converting Creativity into Innovation in the Workplace
Fostering an innovative culture in which all employees eagerly participate in processes for developing creative solutions to meet client or customer needs is not easy. One of the characteristics of an innovative culture is that employees have opportunities to express their ability to problem solve or to present new ideas that represent the proverbial "thinking outside the box."

Companies have focused on hiring veterans with great success. Now it is time to take the process to the next level: Utilizing the ability of military-trained employees to innovate products and services, work comfortably with technology, and thrive in a continually changing business environment.

Converting creative ideas into real-world solutions is innovation. If there is anything difficult to define in terms of desired end goals, and processes to reach those goals, it is innovation. By its very definition, it is a unique idea, method, process, service, or product, which sounds obvious, but innovating is not a simple process. It takes people who are willing to participate. Hiring veterans and other military-trained people is one step, but not fully utilizing their talents is a wasted opportunity.

Jorge Barba, a serial entrepreneur and blog writer focusing on innovation, was asked what one simple thing a company can do to change their perspective of innovation. He responded by saying that companies "get in their own way … impeding people from doing the things that drive innovation."

To innovate, people need freedom, diverse teams, resources, encouragement, support and challenge.

Get Out of the Way
The first step in leveraging military skills to drive innovation is to recognize the employees have the creativity, knowledge and skills the company needs to innovate, set end goals and then get out of the way. In military terms, the company needs to follow the "Commander's Intent" in which leaders define what a successful innovation will look like.

The Commander's Intent is a key strategy for maintaining relevancy and applicability in a dynamic environment. It is a vision of what fulfilment of the end goal will look like once achieved, recognizing in the meantime there is lack of complete information and ever-changing conditions. The top leader's purpose is to empower subordinates to be flexible, adaptive and innovative in reaching goals. The FedEx CEO used this strategy to define an intent of getting all packages safely, undamaged, and on-time to their destination. The managers were free to find innovative ways to meet the end goal, which included new schedules and routes, adapting sort schedules, and scheduling extra planes and truck trailers.

Military-trained people know how to improvise and how to innovate, while working within basic ground rules. They also have trained on and worked with state-of-the-art technology in areas like autonomous technology and robotics. Millions of military people have developed, worked with and/or improved defense technology. They have designed and built autonomous unmanned vehicles, including drones, able to enter areas dangerous to humans and written software to automate services. The military invests in developing nanotechnology, virtual simulators, gaming, new safety materials, a range of high-tech war machines, and now artificial intelligence and machine learning. There are also military personnel who developed skill sets related to developing and managing global supply chains or global logistics.

Step Back and Let People Succeed
The military skills that can help a company drive innovation also include teamwork and assuming leadership roles on projects. This is why it is important to include veterans and other military people on company project teams (and then step back). They understand team support and team performance, and the importance of team success.

They also have "people skills" in that military personnel work and live with a diverse group of people, so they have developed high-level communication skills and appreciate different perspectives. This is a key quality for promoting innovation because people cannot feel intimidated when sharing unique perspectives and ideas.

Companies successful at innovating do not hem their employees in with preconceived notions. It is tempting to view military-trained people as a homogenous group of rigidly trained people who need specific instructions to perform on the job. The U.S. military has had to adapt as much as organizations do to the ever-changing global business environment.

During an interview with Major General H.R. McMaster, he said, "First and foremost, we need leaders who can adapt and innovate … and soldiers who join the Army expect it to be hard. … They want to be challenged."

The army immerses soldiers in complex environments and tests their ability to adapt to changing conditions and unforeseen circumstances, two situations defining the marketplace.

Give Them the Opportunities
Company managers need to provide their military-trained employees with the appropriate opportunities that enable them to utilize their knowledge and skills to innovate. Recognizing these employees have unique talents that can contribute to the company's mission is important to developing a successful culture of innovation.

Sometimes this may require training the leaders to overcome stereotyping of military employees. As the experts consistently point out; no employee group can be excluded for a company to have a true culture of innovation, the foundation of competitiveness.