The Balancing Act: Military Duties vs. Transition Activities

Does any of this sound familiar: You need to focus on YOU. It's time to take care of yourself so that you can navigate transition from the military. You have to make yourself the priority. For military leaders, the implicit requirement is to stop or reduce your commitment to take care of others so that you can focus your time and energy on yourself. Makes sense. Sounds logical. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

We've framed transition from a zero-sum perspective - an either/or proposition. In other words, you can either take care of your unit, or you can take care of yourself. Is it fair for service members to deny themselves and their families the time and energy required to find passion, purpose, and a new livelihood beyond the military? Of course not. Because units don't get extra personnel to account for pending separations, can we deprive military formations of their leadership and available workforce as they prepare for the next deployment? We can't do that, either. Nobody wins when we frame the problem this way. In order to take care of the service member and the unit, we need a reintegration strategy that allows us to do both.

The Mindset of Transitioning Service Members

For transitioning military leaders, simply telling them that they need to start looking after themselves neglects the deeper psychology and character of military service. From the first day of initial entry training, soldiers are indoctrinated to put the wellness of the team ahead of the individual. Selfless service is a core value of the military institution. Every aspect of the leader persona follows the model that leaders eat last, so you can understand how uncomfortable they feel when you tell them to move to the front of the line.

More importantly, many of these military leaders know the first hand challenge of preparing men and women to deploy under the pressure of increasing resource and personnel constraints. We don't want to feel like we are turning our backs on our unit - the organization we've come to recognize as family. After all, we aren't going on that next deployment if we are about to leave the military, but the rest of the unit is. Brothers and sisters in arms want to do right by their unit - their family. If they can't be with them, they want to do everything they can up to the point when they leave. This is just who we are, and given the nature of military service, would you want it any other way?

Given these challenges, let's explore the recent policy changes and examine how service members can do both military duties and transition activities at a very high level.

Giving Voice to Military Leaders

The recent policy change across the Department of Defense requires service members to begin transition counseling 12 months before their separation. This provides a framework for service members and their families to begin thinking about transition. That's the good news. The bad news is that the changes do not directly address the impending identity crisis that service members face once they remove the uniform. While the program is a clear improvement from the past, if the service member is not grounded in his or her own identity - purpose, values, strengths, beliefs, common factors, and intentions, then they can only hope to find the right opportunity beyond the military by accident.

The longer you serve in the military, the greater your attachment to the uniform, and the higher the risk of the identity crisis that you face upon separation

Another change is that transition programs are now mandatory. Commanders will be held accountable for implementation and compliance. This stipulation was added based largely on a GAO report that included feedback from transition advisers who largely blamed commanders and first line supervisors for the lack of participation in transition activities. The report includes plenty of quotes from transition advisers highly critical of military leadership, but the voices of those commanders and first line supervisors are absent from the report.

If the GAO had interviewed commanders and first line supervisors, they may have discovered two very important points to consider on how to manage transition successfully. First, there is no doctrine, process, or standard on how to coach, teach, and mentor service members on the identity crisis or military transition. Unless they had a break in service, military leaders themselves have no experience or expertise to help guide subordinates. How can they know what right looks like when they've not experienced this process themselves? So, what does it mean when a commander "checks-off" on a subordinate's transition plan?

The other issue concerns readiness. The report doesn't address the potential impact of implementing mandates and redefining priorities for the 200,000 service members leave the military each year. This could impact up to 20 percent of active duty formations. Given this constraint, what standard of readiness can we reasonably expect to achieve if leaders can reliably count on 80 percent of their workforce? Leaders - in particular- are not going to walk away from their obligations to the unit. We simply don't have the force structure to remove or protect transitioning service members from active participation in military duties.

Our Challenge Is To Do Both

Military transition and unit readiness are not discrete activities. They happen concurrently. Stacking mandates that add more pages to the five inch binder that contains the command inspection program isn't likely to support transition initiatives or the service member in any meaningful way. Remember, successful transition is ultimately an individual responsibility.

The one-year start date for transition serves as a great forcing function. It is designed to remove the excuses and delaying actions to push service members into that uncomfortable space of transition. Let's empower the individual to confidently navigate transition and reintegration while substantially contributing to their unit. To that end, how can we guide service members through a deliberate process that resolves the identity crisis such that service members and families can discover the best path for life beyond the military?

The answer is the Integrative Program of Transition and the Military Transition and Reintegration Process. Using the Military Decision Making Process as a framework, the 11-Step Identity Analysis facilitates the introspective reflection necessary for service members to discover their authentic identity for life beyond the military. Beyond the Military: A Leader's Handbook to Warrior Reintegration goes a step further and explores different opportunities using that identity (values, purpose, intrinsic strengths, beliefs, common factors, and intentions) as a foundation. Imagine the possibility of examining entrepreneurship, franchising, nonprofit, civil service, small business, and large corporation opportunities with an open mind from the perspective of what allows you to express your full potential.

As we look to improve transition programs, we need to explore solutions that acknowledge the psychology of military leaders. We can't simply dismiss their nature under the pretense that it is in their best interest to do so. We also need to appreciate the competing demands placed on military units and engage first line supervisors and commanders in an inclusive manner. Transition and readiness are priorities that must be addressed holistically and concurrently. Our units need leaders to stay engaged, and those same leaders deserve the time and space necessary to resolve the identity crisis for a successful reintegration back into society. Beyond the Military: A Leader's Handbook for Warrior Reintegration, allows them to do both.

Beyond the Military: A Leader's Handbook to Warrior Reintegration is set to be published by Lioncrest Publishing on Veteran's Day. For more information, please email Jason Roncoroni at [email protected].