U.S. Military Veterans Can Teach Us Agile Teaming & Tenacity. Transitions can be tough, especially when there is both language and culture to navigate. It takes tenacity. We see that people battle with this every day, moving from country to country. When people decide to make the USA their home, they can experience culture shock and have to find their way. I know this personally.

What about our veterans? They have given all of themselves and their families to provide us the opportunity to be able to make America a choice.  We often don’t think about how hard it can be for them to come back into the civilian world, not to mention transitioning into the corporate space.

I recently hired a vet, and our first-day onboarding was interesting. Listening to him answer the phone using sir or mam let me know some training was needed. I had to explain that we don’t answer the phones like that.  “Greet them and then let them proceed, and you respond to their lead.” I watched several things that made me realize there is a difference between the military world and our everyday world.

What can we do to ease the transition and empower our vets to succeed in the civilian corporate world? Supportive education, light humor, and collaborative teamwork.

These men and women are expert team players, and they have had to collaborate in many cases to stay alive. They are evidence that letting a team self-organize around their skills to make a mission successful is not a mere agile concept, but a ‘make sense thing.’

Leaders let me challenge you if I may?  The next time you feel it necessary to tell the team what they should be doing and how to do it. Take a step back and think about putting a mission or goal in front of your teams and stepping back to let them figure out how to make it happen. Our country is in the hands of men and women who have been nothing less. We as a nation continue to exist. Embrace the Agile Principles and Values and let agile teaming begin.