markets standing and looking

Loyalty

“Loyalty”. It came up the other day in a collaboration session I was having with my friend and USA veteran, senior HR official, and veteran reintegration researcher James Crook, DBA, ...

The Fourth First Principle of Solving Our Hiring Heroes Problem

The complex challenge of reintegrating our military veterans, i.e., “heroes”, defined as “people admired for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities”, back into the civilian workforce has persisted since Caesar ...

adult men playing tug of war

Mission Statement

It hangs in the lobby, or in an Executive conference room, and maybe makes it into an All Hands meeting once in a while. Regardless, they can often be anemic ...

ducks walking into the water

Quack!

Ockham’s razor.   If you’re like most people I meet in audiences across the US, many of you have heard of it. It, like all other philosophical razors, is a ...

dollar bills planted into the ground

Certify, Staff, and Grow!

That’s the phrase that I close with in my email signature block and that I autograph books with at book signings.   It encapsulates everything I do as a professional; ...

silhouette of a large group of people marching

Join us!

“Movement”.   Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines it as “an organized effort to promote or attain an end“.   And that’s exactly what we’ve done at Vets2PM, start a movement to ...

a panel of Charlie brown where an adult is talking - wah wah wah wah

The Charlie Brown Communication Problem

If you’re like most military veterans that have sat in that first interview during your transition into the civilian workforce, or you’re like most hiring managers I meet across the ...

two industrial ships at sea

This is Doug; Doug the tug!

Doug, a tug, and its crew and cargo sailed past the Fish Lips restaurant in Cape Canaveral, Florida yesterday, right before I went on stage to present the Florida Association ...

point graph with Business Context and Formal Leadership as the measurements

The Context:Leadership Grid

My Context:Leadership Grid. It’s the grid you see depicted as this post’s image, and it’s one of the fundamental concepts I discuss when I address professional and industry audiences on ...

painting of the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence

President George Washington was both Prescient and Apropos

That’s because his statement “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive ...

fireworks above a city skyline

Vets2PM’s Performance Baseline for 2024

Vets2PM, LLC closed out its eighth year helping military veterans land meaningful, lucrative post-Service careers strong! We’ve helped over twelve thousand of them do just that in 1,167 companies across ...

a happy looking dog

Smile! Your Customers and P&L Will Thank You!

“Smile!”.   As a young inside sales representative, that’s what I heard from my supervisors and owners constantly. And later as a call center supervisor, I promoted the same advice. ...

Military transition academy podcast - PM Pathfinder series

Cross the “T” to Obtain Your PDUs!

Everyone that holds a project management credential from the US-based Project Management Institute must earn Professional Development Units, i.e., “PDUs”, to maintain those certifications. You do not want to take ...

a pile of nuts and bolts

Project Management Nuts and Bolts

In its most recent version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge, the seventh edition, the Project Management Institute defines a “project” as any “temporary endeavor undertaken to create a ...

a clock overlay on top of several stacks of coins that get taller as they go

Do Talent Management Profitably and Easy

“15%”. That’s the amount of “higher earnings” your company could expect from “choosing the best leader for the job” according to a new Hackett Group study 1. However, many ...

Veteran Reintegration is a Matter of Mattering

TL;DR: https://youtu.be/h5UJaGQJkiI Global consulting firm McKinsey and Company produces many studies of workforces. One of them is conducted every couple of years, and it focuses on what matters to employees ...

What Does “Meaningful” and “Lucrative” Mean to You?

TL;DR Video: https://youtu.be/kvwJqFHCHmM One hundred and eighteen thousand. That’s the number we arrive at using some key Departments of Defense[i] and Labor[ii] numbers and a bit of arithmetic. And it’s ...

Why Mattering Matters

Imagine one day mattering so much to those around you that their lives literally depend on you doing what you know how to do extremely well so that all of ...