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 still in the Army and had been for a while, did not like the new recruiting campaign because they thought it was contrary to the concept of teamwork. I disagree. I think those folks did not understand what it really meant, probably because they typically were not the audience for whom it was intended. (full disclosure: I was a US military officer at the time)

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 view of the military, 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 was the division, which included 12-16,000 people, it was easy for individual contributions to get lost.

That might have been OK when a young soldier’s best employment options were other big bureaucracies like Ford Motor Co. or IBM. From the late 90s 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 both recognition of what they could bring and the willingness to put their talents to use. Given the changing nature of warfare, in which a junior soldier’s actions really could make a huge difference in the outcome of a strategy, it seemed like a good idea to change the perception of military service among the recruiting pool. Other people really did not understand it, though, and by 2006 the slogan was on its way out, but in many ways, I think the Army was ahead of its time with this.

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 even some of the giants like Google? Do we value the contributions individuals bring to the team rather than just assigning them a number and making them part of the crowd? Expectations have changed because of the alternatives out there, and if you have not adjusted your own recruiting and working 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 as people get fed up and walk out the door.

Your employees 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 are “too young” or otherwise “don’t have anything to offer” would be an incredible waste on your part. It would be so much better for you if you created an environment where people can put their talents to use, and then did what you could to attract those people.

You would be amazed at what one talented employee can do. You’d be even more amazed by what 10 of those individuals, working together, can do. Do what you can to find the people who can bring the most value to your organization, and then make the best use of that value.

Hooah.