What is a Green Beret and what can they do for your business?

As I begin the process of retiring from the military as a career Special Forces soldier to a business professional, I am immediately confronted with a critical question; How do I translate my value added through skills and experience as a Green Beret to the civilian business world, and how do I bundle it all up in a 30 - 60 second elevator pitch? I will briefly explain that value added, but first, there are two very big reasons that this is an enormous task for most Green Berets (distinguished from SOF or special operations which is a category and Special Forces being a title exclusively referring to Army Green Berets). 

The first reason is that Green Berets have such a broad range of high-level skills and experience that provide significant value to any business. Someone at a networking meeting asked me early on, “yeah, I hear all the buzzwords in your elevator pitch, but what is it that you do?”. In my mind I’m thinking, how do I say that I can do anything and everything? Green Berets are expected to operate in small teams with relative autonomy in austere environments, with little resources, working by, with, and through others, to accomplish national policy objectives. These are critical tasks that do not tolerate failure, where the minimum consequence of having an off day is a loss of trust and confidence, not just in the individual but everything that a Green Beret represents, which oftentimes represents the whole of the United States military, organizational competence and professionalism, and U.S. policy. Green Berets have a broad range of skills, so they are able to accomplish any task. Being able to distill that down to core concepts that civilian business leaders can comprehend is a difficult but not impossible task.

The second reason translating value added is difficult is that Green Berets are conditioned to be “quiet professionals”. Their concern is with mission accomplishment and the team. The primary motivation behind their effort and sacrifice is not for accolades or to call attention to themselves. It’s of service and a commitment to being part of something much greater than yourself. In an organization of elite professionals, there are those that stand out above the rest, but they don’t need to call attention to themselves. They understand that their actions speak for themselves; it’s understood. This is why Green Berets find it so hard to truly articulate their value and brag about themselves. It goes against everything that’s been ingrained in them their entire career. Individual successes are a reflection of the team and organization as a whole, so even when a Green Beret speaks about what they did, it often turns into generalizations and accomplishments of the team, organization, or the mission.  Even though Green Berets may be quiet professionals dedicated to service and therefore find it difficult to talk about themselves in a way that translates their individual value, that same loyalty and commitment to service are itself value added.

So back to the question of what is a Green Beret and their value added to the business world? 

Let me start by asking the following: What is the first thing you think about when you hear of Special Forces or a Green Beret? What you do you think their primary skills are? Do you think that directly translates to any business environment? I will tell you that most people, if they even know what a Green Beret or Special Forces is, immediately think of bearded, steroid jacked human specimens, shooting bad guys and blowing stuff up; the stuff in any action war movie with “SPECOPS” people in it. I’ve encountered this situation multiple times where someone mentally places you in this box of what they imagine you do, and they fail to hear everything else you’re telling them. What if I told you that anything you have seen in a movie is only about 1% of what Green Berets do and that their skills and attributes used on a daily basis directly correlate to what successful business leaders do every day? Every business should be lining up and competing with each other to acquire one of these professionals. 

Imagine a CEO or other extremely successful businessman. Think about what it takes for them to get there, what attributes they must have, how they interact with people and the level of professionalism and discipline it takes for them to get where they are. What skills and experience would you want in a high-level business leader? What if I told you that a Green Beret is all of that and uses those same skills on a daily basis? I can tell you that there is expensive instruction developed for the business world, and any other high performer, to teach people the attributes and mentality that Green Berets and all highly successful people already understand intuitively. They are highly disciplined, resilient, detail-oriented, confident, positive thinkers that get results. They’re winners. 

To become a Green Beret, the process begins with a Selection process designed to select the right person for the job. It’s designed to weed out the undesirables and find out who really has what it takes. You can’t even enter the selection process without certain levels of intelligence and performance. The selection process assesses for various items including, but not limited to, intelligence, problem-solving, psychological profile, ability to work with others and alone, ability to learn quickly, resiliency, integrity, and decision making. Physical ability is only one small piece. However, having the base “stuff” is just the beginning. A candidate still has up to two years of intense schooling and training to complete where their leadership and individual capabilities are thoroughly tested. You are always being assessed, and this process never stops. Even after 20 years, you are constantly being assessed and must earn your place. 

Once you are on a team, you carry more responsibility, impact, leadership, and expectations to perform than most people will see in their lifetime. If you consider that a “base model” Green Beret has over a $1 million invested in them, then imagine the investment made training and developing a career Green Beret, and the value of their experience. Begin by trying to imagine this: What is the value you would place on a career business leader who has consistently performed in the top 1% of his field, been progressively promoted to top positions of increased responsibility and worked for the most prestigious company in their field while being awarded numerous times for their successes, and carries 20 years of additional experience, leadership, and developmental training? It can be said that all businesses are the same. They operate under the same principles. Therefore, it’s easy to see that the same value a Green Beret brings to the military, is the same value they can bring to the business world. 

As I stated in the beginning, there is an extremely broad range of capabilities and skills that a Green Beret can bring to the business world. While they all share some things in common, individuals each excel more in some areas than others. However, if there is one key skill that a career Special Forces member brings to the table, it’s leadership and management skills. Any business leader today will tell you that they are in desperate need of these skills as they are hard to come by, with fewer people who have tangible and significant experience. You may find people that look good on paper with a degree from some random school in leadership or managerial studies, but what do they really bring to the table? They spent time learning concepts of what a Green Beret has been actively applying for years in highly demanding projects and tasks that truly have a significant impact. From day one, a Green Beret is expected to be a leader, each with unique stories of leadership and management challenges that they conquered and mastered that will astound most people. Green Berets are thinkers first and true masters of strategy and planning. One of the many hallmarks that set Green Berets apart from everyone else is their detailed planning and strategy skills. They plan for every contingency and strategize for the best possible solutions using out of the box and innovative thinking while understanding how everything fits in the big pictures. Hand in hand with that is knowing your operational environment. Not only do they conduct a detailed analysis of any situation they encounter, but they’re highly adaptable and can pivot to meet whatever requirements present themselves.

Complex problem-solving skills and root cause analysis fall right in line with these same skills. A Green Beret is always looking for the yes answer and how to make things better. They are true masters of innovation. Not only that, but they understand how to apply common sense. There is a difference between measures of performance and measures of effectiveness. In short, measures of performance come from answering the questions, “are we doing things right”, vs. measures of effectiveness that answers the question “are we doing the right things”. What this means is that while a traditional thinker may be limited by what already exists and feel that they are successful because they are doing things the way they are dictated, an innovative thinker such as a Green Beret is always assessing whether it is effective and what should be done. How can things be done more effectively? What you also get with a Green Beret is a person of integrity and candor that is going to tell you the real truth. 

With any Green Beret, you also get a person that has extensive experience working with diverse populations and building relationships. It’s also said that Green Berets are force multipliers. They accomplish this through their people skills and ability to develop relationships and leverage resources. They not only can do more with less, but they can also essentially take 10 loaves of bread and feed 1000. To do this, they must be very skilled in negotiations, professionalism, and diplomacy. Finally, Green Berets are advisors, mentors, and teachers. They are masters of their crafts, but masters of the basics first. They learn quickly with the mantra see one, do one, teach one. A large part of what Green Berets do is training. This is all-inclusive training both internal and to partners. They are well versed in preparing and executing training, as well as presentations.  

After reading this, my hope is that you have gained some insight into what kind of real value a Green Beret can bring to any business, or if you're on the military side of things, that you are able to take away one thing that will help you or stimulate productive thought.