An Army of One

In the first half of the 2000s the US Army used a new recruiting slogan: Army of One. A lot of people, especially veterans and people who were in the Army and had been for a while, did not like it because they thought it was contrary to the concept of teamwork. I disagree. I think those folks simply did not understand what it really meant, probably because they typically were not the ones for whom it was intended.

To me, Army of One meant that you — yes, YOU — could bring your talents and your motivation and your willingness to serve, and you could make a difference. Every individual could make a difference. This was, frankly, a change from the traditional way of thinking, where in many ways each solider was simply a faceless number whose job was to be run over by the Soviet (or North Korean) ground forces in Germany (or South Korea) before the nukes got launched. OK, that may be an oversimplification, but considering that the primary maneuvering unit in Army doctrine is the division, which included 12-16,000 people, it is easy for individual contributions to get lost.

That might have been OK when a soldier’s best employment options were other big bureaucracies like Ford Motor Co. or IBM. From the late 1990s onward, though, we saw entrepreneurial opportunities explode in the US, and suddenly people who had a lot of talent had other places to go, places where their talents would be appreciated and highly sought after. Encouraging those talented people to join the Army demanded recognition of what they could bring and a willingness to put their talent to use. Given the changing nature of warfare, in which a junior soldier’s actions really could make a difference (just ask the amateur photographers at Abu Grahib about their negative influence), it seemed like a good idea to change the perception of military service among the recruiting pool. In many ways, I think the Army was ahead of its time with this.

Fast forward to today and the Army does indeed have recruiting and retention problems. Studies by the Army have shown that many of the mid-level officers they lost during the 2000s were lost because those officers felt their opinions and experience did not count for anything. It is not just the Army, either. Many large bureaucratic organizations, whether companies or governments, have not adapted to the new expectations potential employees have about the workplace. While Gen-Y is often derided for being lazy, my experience has been that they are instead very driven to do good work, but only if that work is going to be put to good use. They do not mind paying their dues so long as the dues they pay are worth something.

If you work in a large organization, ask yourself: have we adapted to meet the new expectations of the emerging workforce? Do we offer the same opportunity to do worthwhile work as a small startup does, or a giant like Google? Do we value the contributions individuals bring to the team instead of just assigning them a number and making them part of the crowd? Expectations have changed because of the employment alternatives out there, and if you have not adjusted your own style to meet those expectations, you are liable to face a recruiting and/or retention problem that can lead you to bring in the wrong talent or waste a lot of money trying to continually replace what you have.

Your employees (yes, even many of your younger ones) have developed their talents over time and want to put them to use for you. Telling them to shelve that motivation for a few years until they are senior enough, or ignoring them because they’re “too young” or otherwise “don’t have anything to offer” would be an incredible waste on your part.

You’d be amazed at what one talented employee can do. You would be even more amazed by what 10 of those individuals, working together and feeling like they are each contributing, can do.