1st Sgt. James Mendelson, Fort Drum, N.Y., Recruiting Company
Senior USAREC Leaders; Are you Part of the Frozen Layer?
By 1st Sgt. James Mendelson, USAREC, Fort Drum, N.Y., Recruiting Company
Sept. 26, 2014
Although the poor economy over the last six years made it easier for Recruiting Command to fill the ranks of the Army with walk-in traffic, in the long term, it did us no favors.
Unlike private sector companies, we did not adapt to using the latest technology to do business, attract and hire qualified employees, streamline costs, and manage personnel.
Data collection and targeted social media interaction is how private enterprise recruiting and sales forces now do business. Cold calls and business cards became irrelevant almost overnight. Utterances like, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” now bring skeptical glances. Those phrases have been replaced with “Should we even do that?” or “Figure out how to do it in three steps instead of 20.”
These factors forced the private sector to change quickly or become irrelevant.
Organizations found ineffective frozen layers of middle management replacing or retiring them. Seniority in recruiting or sales no longer means what it used to. In the private sector, that had to change.
Our recruiting subject matter experts are changing too. They wear the ranks of staff sergeant and sergeant first class.
Sorry Top, inefficient cold calling of ALRL’s for four hours a day, wandering through the mall, DMDC leads, and posting the bowling alleys doesn’t cut it anymore. You’re about to be left behind. Maybe you’re starting to realize that.
Maybe you’ve finally asked your 14-year-old to show you this Instagram thing because you realize her phone hardly rings. If it does, she doesn’t bother picking it up because it’s mom, dad, aunt Mary or grandma. But, if it makes that Instagram chime sound, she can hear across the house while sitting at the dinner table.
Did you notice she stopped asking for a Facebook account about two years ago? While you were putting your foot, down she found 10 other ways to communicate on social media and you didn’t even know it.
Maybe you’re starting to realize there is a wealth of information on social media that will allow you to blueprint and target your propensed junior and senior market before the other branches do.
That’s why a goal of 100 percent contact doesn’t make sense to your recruiters. They understand there are ways to identify 30 percent of potentially propensed leads. They want to focus 100 percent of their effort with targeted messaging on that 30 percent.
Maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to realize your recruiters aren’t lazy or that the problem is not because they’re not trained well enough when they tell you that the way you’re asking them to execute, doesn’t work in 2014.
So you’re a dinosaur. You’ve never even tweeted. You’re not even sure what that really means. Now what? What can you bring to the table? Should you just retire?
Actually coming to this realization will bring you one step closer to where you should be. You don’t have to ever tweet. You don’t need to become the expert on change. You already are. The Army has taught you and prepared you for this. ADP 6-22 lays it out for you. Mission command makes it possible for us to lead a bottom-up learning organization.
Senior leaders must lead. We bring our experience in managing people and resources to the process of change. Use your experience to mentor and shape this change. Make it your personal mission to give time back to your recruiters and commander by finding efficiencies in processes. Use your experience to strip non-productive, non-mission focused efforts from day-to-day business.
Learn to effectively recognize and communicate those lessons learned up and down the chain of command and laterally within your unit. Reinforce success in your unit and be proactive in looking outside your unit to find ways to replicate success. Join the USAREC Forum on Facebook so you can see the unconstrained ideas and possibilities our future leaders are discussing and developing. Look to use those 15-25 years of USAREC experience to assist commanders in developing a clear strategy.
So you’re not the smartest person in the room, first sergeant? It’s ok. Your experience in leadership should allow you to figure out who is and put him or her in the right place to make your organization more successful. Not only that, your experience as a trainer will allow you to determine how to maximize the smartest person to develop the rest of your organization.
Your understanding of mission command will allow you to effectively empower and enable your junior leaders while still executing the commanders’ intent. Trust them. Learn from them. Encourage them. They want our organization to be successful as well. It’s a good trade. They’ll teach you how to do Google+ stuff and you’ll teach them how to effectively lead and mentor.
After being away from Non Prior Service recruiting for a few years, I expressed my concerns about becoming a recruiting first sergeant to a brigade command sergeant major. His reply was simplistic and holistic.
“It’s just leadership.”
Effectively managing change is no different today than it was before.
“It’s just leadership.”
The late university professor and award-winning columnist Lance Secretan authored 15 books on inspiration and leadership. He said, “In teaching and leading others, you must earn and build trusting relationships with followers. Trust creates a space in which experimentation and challenge can occur, a space in which it is possible to let go of certainties. This leads to change - and in change there is power. It takes little courage to cling to the familiarity of the status quo. Movement and change, which involves letting go of the familiar while embracing the new requires courage in leaders and followers.”
By 1st Sgt. James Mendelson, USAREC, Fort Drum, N.Y., Recruiting Company
Sept. 26, 2014
Although the poor economy over the last six years made it easier for Recruiting Command to fill the ranks of the Army with walk-in traffic, in the long term, it did us no favors.
Unlike private sector companies, we did not adapt to using the latest technology to do business, attract and hire qualified employees, streamline costs, and manage personnel.
Data collection and targeted social media interaction is how private enterprise recruiting and sales forces now do business. Cold calls and business cards became irrelevant almost overnight. Utterances like, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” now bring skeptical glances. Those phrases have been replaced with “Should we even do that?” or “Figure out how to do it in three steps instead of 20.”
These factors forced the private sector to change quickly or become irrelevant.
Organizations found ineffective frozen layers of middle management replacing or retiring them. Seniority in recruiting or sales no longer means what it used to. In the private sector, that had to change.
Our recruiting subject matter experts are changing too. They wear the ranks of staff sergeant and sergeant first class.
Sorry Top, inefficient cold calling of ALRL’s for four hours a day, wandering through the mall, DMDC leads, and posting the bowling alleys doesn’t cut it anymore. You’re about to be left behind. Maybe you’re starting to realize that.
Maybe you’ve finally asked your 14-year-old to show you this Instagram thing because you realize her phone hardly rings. If it does, she doesn’t bother picking it up because it’s mom, dad, aunt Mary or grandma. But, if it makes that Instagram chime sound, she can hear across the house while sitting at the dinner table.
Did you notice she stopped asking for a Facebook account about two years ago? While you were putting your foot, down she found 10 other ways to communicate on social media and you didn’t even know it.
Maybe you’re starting to realize there is a wealth of information on social media that will allow you to blueprint and target your propensed junior and senior market before the other branches do.
That’s why a goal of 100 percent contact doesn’t make sense to your recruiters. They understand there are ways to identify 30 percent of potentially propensed leads. They want to focus 100 percent of their effort with targeted messaging on that 30 percent.
Maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to realize your recruiters aren’t lazy or that the problem is not because they’re not trained well enough when they tell you that the way you’re asking them to execute, doesn’t work in 2014.
So you’re a dinosaur. You’ve never even tweeted. You’re not even sure what that really means. Now what? What can you bring to the table? Should you just retire?
Actually coming to this realization will bring you one step closer to where you should be. You don’t have to ever tweet. You don’t need to become the expert on change. You already are. The Army has taught you and prepared you for this. ADP 6-22 lays it out for you. Mission command makes it possible for us to lead a bottom-up learning organization.
Senior leaders must lead. We bring our experience in managing people and resources to the process of change. Use your experience to mentor and shape this change. Make it your personal mission to give time back to your recruiters and commander by finding efficiencies in processes. Use your experience to strip non-productive, non-mission focused efforts from day-to-day business.
Learn to effectively recognize and communicate those lessons learned up and down the chain of command and laterally within your unit. Reinforce success in your unit and be proactive in looking outside your unit to find ways to replicate success. Join the USAREC Forum on Facebook so you can see the unconstrained ideas and possibilities our future leaders are discussing and developing. Look to use those 15-25 years of USAREC experience to assist commanders in developing a clear strategy.
So you’re not the smartest person in the room, first sergeant? It’s ok. Your experience in leadership should allow you to figure out who is and put him or her in the right place to make your organization more successful. Not only that, your experience as a trainer will allow you to determine how to maximize the smartest person to develop the rest of your organization.
Your understanding of mission command will allow you to effectively empower and enable your junior leaders while still executing the commanders’ intent. Trust them. Learn from them. Encourage them. They want our organization to be successful as well. It’s a good trade. They’ll teach you how to do Google+ stuff and you’ll teach them how to effectively lead and mentor.
After being away from Non Prior Service recruiting for a few years, I expressed my concerns about becoming a recruiting first sergeant to a brigade command sergeant major. His reply was simplistic and holistic.
“It’s just leadership.”
Effectively managing change is no different today than it was before.
“It’s just leadership.”
The late university professor and award-winning columnist Lance Secretan authored 15 books on inspiration and leadership. He said, “In teaching and leading others, you must earn and build trusting relationships with followers. Trust creates a space in which experimentation and challenge can occur, a space in which it is possible to let go of certainties. This leads to change - and in change there is power. It takes little courage to cling to the familiarity of the status quo. Movement and change, which involves letting go of the familiar while embracing the new requires courage in leaders and followers.”