| First Year Out |
By
Frank Cumberland |
I have probably emceed a hundred retirement ceremonies. During the years when I was doing this type of work, I developed a simple classification system called Cumberland’s Conditions of Retirement. It has two axes. One measures professional satisfaction with the conditions of a person’s retirement, ranging from bitter/disappointment on one end, to happy/fulfilled on the other. The other axis measures personal satisfaction with those exact same factors. Informally, in talking with soon-to-be and recently retired people and their families, I started charting these conditions. I also did something far, far more important.
I decided 10 years before I actually retired I would leave the service with both the professional and personal scales maximized on the positive side. I would do this regardless of my rank, last job, last boss, last year, last experience, or any other factor.
During the first year out, you’ll meet employers, new people, new clients, etc. The way you talk—and the things you
believe— about your military service will affect your performance. I’m not suggesting you fake anything, use happy talk to mask honest disappointment, or try to fool others. I’m saying consciously set your own conditions of retirement, and make every effort to keep them positive. It will make a huge difference, especially during that first year.
Exercise 2: Start preparing mentally
See if you’re ready to make a decision about your own conditions of retirement by making an axes/chart of your own.. Then watch the difference it makes in your attitude, your approach, and the way others see you.
My brother Dan likes to say, “Some people have 20 years’ experience. Others have one year of experience repeated 20 times.”
You must learn your lessons the first year out. Whether you enter the world of business, government, academia, nonprofit associations, or whatever, know one thing. A year after you start your first job, you are going to sit down with your employer and they are going to rate your performance. Your performance will justify what they’ve already paid you. Now that your performance has been proven, the amount you’ve learned about their enterprise will establish your value for the second year. Learn your lessons. Take time to write them down. Identify gaps, and attack your weaknesses.
Here are a couple of mini lessons to watch for, to capture, and to enjoy:
• Learn the difference between conceptual money and real money. As a resource manager in the military, my job was to make sure that the fiscal year and the money ran out on the same day. In business, actual dollars, lines of credit, billable hours, bank audits, and, yes, profit-and-loss numbers have actual meaning. You’ve defended the American free enterprise system for 20 years, so jump in and see how it really works.
• The business world is a family, too. Frankly, I had the idea that because the private sector is so huge, people in business wouldn’t know each other as well as we did in the small, cohesive, military community. I was wrong. They all seem to know each other, and the business decisions they make hinge upon the exact same measures we used to make tough decisions in the military
—professional reputation and trustworthiness.
• Recognize the young generals. I worked for awesome people in the military. Some of my former wing commanders truly should run for president one day. But there is a group of young men and women in American business that match our best leaders, stride for stride, in every respect. They have thrived in a world that demands risk, imagination, and competitive spirit. I’m talking about the young people who are willing to mortgage their homes to invest money in their dreams. Watch these people and learn from them, just as you learned from your best leaders in the military.
Exercise 3: Keep track of what you learn
Right now, or on your first day on the new job, make a folder called, “I learned.” When you learn new things, have fresh observations about your new environment, get a technical insight, fail at something, or apply a principle from the military that works on your new job, write it down, and put it in the folder. When it’s time for your annual evaluation, make a nice professional summary of what you’ve learned, and how this makes you an even more valuable asset for the year ahead. This not only will give you confidence that you really are a great civilian, but your boss will appreciate it.
A final thought. Much of what I’ve written about the first year out involves one’s emotional separation from the military. What you feel, think, and believe. What you look forward to, what you remember, what you treasure, what you’ll do with your future, and what you’ve got to leave behind as you go forward in life. But there is one thing about your service that will—that should—grow over time: your pride in having served. Every person reading this article, including and especially family members, has contributed to the missions we see underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. A hundred years from now, your service still will be an important contribution to the American experiment in democracy. Your first year out, and always, let your pride in service grow.
Frank Cumberland, Col USAF, Ret., is the vice president for communications, marketing, and strategic planning at Axiom Resource Management Inc. in Falls Church, Va.