The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

From Service to Success: Understanding Veteran Workforce Challenges with Jason Anderson

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 32

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Many veterans face challenges when transitioning from military service to civilian jobs. In this enlightening episode of The Talent Forge, Jason Anderson, a veteran with years of corporate experience, unpacks the complexities behind these transitions. He sheds light on the common pitfalls that cause many veterans to struggle in their new roles, particularly due to the different expectations and cultures between military and corporate environments.

Tune in to discover actionable steps L&D professionals and employers can take to create successful onboarding experiences for veterans. This episode isn’t just about showcasing the achievements of veterans; it’s about recognizing the complexities of their journeys and ensuring they have the tools necessary to thrive.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development, and today I am joined by a special guest, Jason Anderson. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Anderson:

Thank you very much, Jay. It's really nice to be with you and your audience.

Jay Johnson:

I am excited for this conversation. Number one is because we are talking about veterans and I want to say thank you to every veteran, including you and any of your team. But thank you so much for the work that you do to keep our country safe and for ensuring the freedoms that we all enjoy. To even be doing something like this podcast, so it's amazing to do that. But let's get the audience a chance to know you a little bit better, jason, tell me your story How'd you get into this L&D space and a little bit about what you're kind of focused on.

Jason Anderson:

Sounds good, I appreciate it. I will tell you, just as the top line. I did not get into the L&D space intentionally. It rather kind of happened as a bunch of circumstances. So let me tell you my story real quick and then that will kind of back end into an explanation of how this all came about. So I was in the Air Force for a total of 20 years. I retired in 2014. I finished my last six years at service at the Pentagon.

Jason Anderson:

So at the Pentagon I was selling a bunch of defense equipment and hardware to Japan. Big backstory there, but we'll keep it simple for now. But during that time, of course, I would frequently meet with defense contractors you know the bigger kind of aerospace defense companies trying to come through me to talk to Japan. So I got very acquainted with that industry and as I was getting ready to leave the service and move back to Wyoming, I had a network of friends who said, hey, we think you'd be really good for this role. So I ended up taking a role with Rockwell Collins, which was like a smaller aerospace defense company, headquartered at that time in Cedar Rapids, iowa. It was about a $6 billion annual revenue company, so it was small in that particular industry when you look at the bigs. But man, I love that company. It was run like a small business. Actually, the CEO then is now the CEO of Boeing, so it just had some outstanding leaders in the company. It was absolutely fantastic. So within that business development role, I did that for a year and then they targeted me for a higher role. So I ended up getting promoted up several levels to executive and then my family and I were expatriated to Tokyo and I ended up being the managing director of Japan, korea, taiwan for a nice four-year stint. So I ended up after that staying with the company a total of nine years.

Jason Anderson:

So with that as a backdrop, your audience may or may not know, but there's a rather large struggle with people leaving the military and ending up finding success in employment, specifically the private sector. So I'm here to say on paper, I did great, right On paper. You know, I had a great job with a great company, I was getting paid really well, I enjoyed my roles, I enjoyed my teams. But here's the unfortunate reality that kind of underpins our whole conversation here. I was not ready to perform in any of those roles at all with my background in the military, and I know that you have talked with a bunch of your other guests that I've listened to, about a Marshall Goldsmith. What got you there is not going to get you here, and this is the ultimate example of how, even though you can be a super capable military person in the military environment, the private sector environment is vastly different. So therefore, training we think is needed, kind of across the board, industry agnostic, to help that service member or that veteran workforce really be optimized and flourish in their role.

Jay Johnson:

So it's so interesting, you know, and there's a lot to unpack there, jason, and again thank you for giving us that background and for the service I want to, you know, point out. So there's an interesting conversation we had just recently on the Talent Forge with somebody named Susan Hensley and she had worked in the L&D function for an organization that generally they targeted hiring veterans. Now I know that that's not the case in a lot of places and I have heard a number of different things. So my brother is a former well, he's a veteran of the US Army. He was a ranger specialist and this was many, many years ago and when he came back he actually ended up starting his own business and kind of navigating that forward with with and without some different struggles.

Jay Johnson:

So, like I recognize that there's some big challenges in that space. She focused on bringing in veterans, partially because of structure and systems and being able to kind of be that go getter. But also we talked a little bit about some of the challenges of like how it was to sort of make that transition. Can you talk to me a little bit about it's really nice to have a conversation with somebody that goes even deeper on that Like, what was that transition like for you from military life, military sort of direction, to now civilian, corporate, private sector, and how did that transition feel?

Jason Anderson:

Great question and I will kind of go back to. I have to give you a little bit of background on the framework whereby people are leaving the military and entering employment generally, but mostly private sector, say the numbers. So, recognizing there's a problem, the government created a program or record called the Transition Assistance Program and it implemented it in 1991. What's kind of interesting about that implementation is they just did it. So it's kind of like dunk, here's your program and then you know, with a big kind of government entity like that, what typically happens is it sets a market. And then you know, with a big kind of government entity like that, what typically happens is it sets a market and then, of course, people jump into the market. You got service providers, you got interagency, different parts of the government, you got higher education institutions, you got employers, communities, right, so they were kind of given the framework from which to kind of create services. Now, in retrospect I will tell you, having done lots of research, because the pre-veteran journey started way back in 2015. So, as context there, we did a bunch of research and then developed programs, but it took quite a while to kind of figure out.

Jason Anderson:

The actual problem is the setup. So when we talk about frameworks, what ended up happening is, I'd like your viewers to kind of visualize two circles kind of next to one another. One circle is the military environment, the other circle is the private sector environment. And if you go back to that 1991 program or record, what they basically did is took a commercial model off the shelf, which is essentially network, build a resume and do a great interview and you're going to get a job, and then they kind of added translate skills, right. So with those four things, that's kind of become the framework to go hey, military person, this is what you need to do in order to be successful in the private sector. So from our analysis standpoint, if you go back to those two circles I'm having you visualize, it basically implies to the service member that they're similar or substantially similar.

Jason Anderson:

And, moreover, what happens then from a behavior standpoint is the service member hears the following messages hey, you're really talented and capable, you're going to make six figures. People are waiting for you. The second you drop your papers to hire you. So when they hear those kinds of messages, it's really confusing from a behavior standpoint because it really means do I need to change at all? And if I needed to change? What do I need to do? And there's no roadmap whatsoever for that. So what ends up happening from a practical standpoint is each service member tries to create their own model, and you can imagine I don't know if your audience is aware, but 200,000 people leave the military every year, so that's 200,000 models, of which everybody has their own individual take on what they should do. So you can imagine that's chaotic, right, and it all stems from the fact that the environments were set up to be substantially similar, which led to this behavior that we're talking about.

Jay Johnson:

Jason, as you were saying that, and I was visualizing these two circles and immediately when you said it's translatable, I had this like mental image of a circle and then all of a sudden, that other circle turned into a square or a triangle or something else. So when we think about like because and let's, I don't want to stereotype, so, but one of the things that we do think about when we think about the military is we think about discipline, we think about process, we think about camaraderie, we think about passion and just sort of like fortitude and resilience and adaptability and everything else which, when we take those terms and we apply them into the corporate world, they make a lot of sense. But you're saying it sounds to me like you're saying that there's more to it than that. There's something underlying that, a set of behaviors that maybe work or function inside of service and not necessarily translate perfectly to the outside world, even if those terms are the same. Help us understand that a little deeper.

Jason Anderson:

Excellent. Thank you for that. So the segue to that is I want to tell you how we're fixing the problem and then we'll kind of go into that exact problem that you brought up. So where the current program record makes the service member or implies that the systems are similar, what our program does is make sure that they know they're drastically different and, just to use a comparison right, the three different things we use as pillars are existence, competition and the need to make revenue. So if you just do a simple comparison of both of those environments, they're arguably diametrically opposed to one another.

Jason Anderson:

Environments. They're arguably diametrically opposed to one another. So the way we explain this to service members now who think that the environments are similar, what we say is basically jay, let's just say, you know, you were two years out, or two years prior to leaving the army, like your brother, and I say hey, jay, guess what? When you went into the army, they pulled you from the general public, put you in a very specific operating environment and they taught you how to think and make decisions in that very specific environment. Guess what, jay? The private sector environment has completely different parameters, based on what I was telling you before competition, existence, the need to make revenue. It requires completely different thought models and different behaviors. Now there will be some carryover, but we've assessed that the carryover's about 40% max, so there's a 60% delta that would require training to be optimized for that.

Jason Anderson:

Because when you kind of see the statistics and I don't know if your listeners are aware of it, but the stats been around since a landmark study in 2014 by VetAdvisor and Syracuse University that said 50% of the transitioning service members leave their first job within 12 months and then 65% leave within two years Huge turnover rates. The reason why they're doing that, going back to my explanation, is if they think that the environments are substantially similar, they will think they can seamlessly go from one to the other, which they cannot, and what they end up doing is not doing the due diligence to figure out what industry and company they want to go into. So they pick the wrong industry and company and then, even if they did pick the right industry and company, a la me, I'm not sure how to perform in my role. So there's actually quite a bit of dysfunction built into that initial framework, because if the service member's confused or not quite sure or is not oriented at all to the private sector. There's going to be some problems in there that are just kind of commonsensical.

Jason Anderson:

Again, it's not the service member. We are huge advocates, extremely educated, extremely driven, all these different things but it was, if everyone understands. It was developed in the military environment for the military environment. It just makes sense that they need training in order to channel that into a private sector environment and we find out, once they get training to orient them to that environment, they do exceptionally well.

Jay Johnson:

This. It makes so much intuitive sense. I mean, like, even if we were to take it out of the context of the military, to kind of coin the analogy here, sort of like finish the thought, you know, to the sales manager, to the sales leader, and we expect that sales manager or sales leader to just walk into that position, perform admirably because you were great at sales. But it's a different mindset, it's a different skill set, it's a different purpose, it's a different intention, it's a different whole set of behaviors. Different intention, it's a different whole set of behaviors.

Jay Johnson:

So, even in something like that, when you are in from a civilian to a civilian, you know a individual contributor to a manager, I can see and and thank you for bringing this up because I do think that that's a total gap in my own thinking, let alone, you know, the thinking of an employer. An employer is going to look at this and say, well, they're adaptable, they have all these skills. But, yeah, I can totally see this. So walk me through. You're sharing with that applicant as they're going through the process, that veteran, you're sharing. Hey, look, yeah, you've got 40% of the skill set for this job. There's a 60% delta. How do you essentially coach them to better understand that shift, that mindset shift, or even that behavioral shift that's needed.

Jason Anderson:

Perfect. Let me take a tiny excursion to tell you how we got to where we are now. So, going back to the early stages of pre-veteran, we had to figure out what the problem was, which we now know is the setup, you know, the environmental setup, which then creates thinking, decision-making challenges for the veteran because they're not aware that the private sector is different and need that training. So leave that there. There's an impact to the employer too, right? The employer has been told certain things about that veteran employee, right, and when they're not performing at that, they scratch their heads going, whoa, I was told something completely different, you know. So I want to explain that it's not just the service member, it's everything. The service member touches downstream from that, unfortunately, because we actually need to train the service members. So when we developed our first training, what we wanted to do is target people getting out of the military 18 months to three years prior to that, because we knew that they had to make a journey. That is both mindset and orientation. The private sector and then career exploration, because the careers are different, even if the careers have similarities in task or similarities that kind of feel similar. The private sector is just totally different operating environment.

Jason Anderson:

Let me give you a couple examples, like one a service member. I was a pilot, right. So as a pilot, I couldn't give a rip. Who made the airplane, who made the radio? Who made the transponder? Who made whatever right? I used it. It was a tool. Made the transponder, who made whatever right? I used it. It was a tool. And that's a mindset. When you use a product as a tool rather than understanding the team that went into the product, the process that went into the product, the supply chain, all the different kind of contextual elements that make it a business rather than just a tool. Do you know what I mean? So when we started this training five years ago, we've been deploying this individual training I was just telling you about. We went in with the thesis and the thesis was proven to be true. So we've been executing this training for five years and have very good insights now into what the gaps are that we just talked about when the person leaves the military and goes into the private sector.

Jason Anderson:

The thing I was going to share with your audience while I started off with hey, you know I'm kind of new to learning and development or talent development is because I've always loved training, but the training we did for the individual service member. We understand now the consequence if they don't get that training before they leave and they're already in an employment environment. Or you know, onboarding, pre-onboarding we're even finding it be applicable to service members or veteran workforce, rather within two years, day to hire. Why? It's kind of like my situation where if I were to estimate how long it took me to get up to speed where I felt just comfortable in the environment, I can say that now, right, it's a thing. It took me four years. That's crazy that it took that long.

Jason Anderson:

And think about all the opportunity. Well, think about the stress that I had to undergo because I had to figure it out right, remember I told you that service members leaving the military create their own model. Everybody, the veteran workforce, is also creating their own model to try to figure out what that private sector environment's like and try to deploy tools. Because they don't want to tell their supervisor, they don't want to tell their leader that they don't know what they're doing. And they don't know what they're doing because I remember intensely as a business development entry level specialist, I kept telling my wife a year and I'm like I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. No-transcript meaning how companies are organized, how they make money and how the role they go into aids the profit-making enterprise. If you can give them that framework, they go. Oh that's it, and it just becomes such an easier way to bring your talents to bear in the way the business wants you to bring them to bear, not the way you think the business wants to bring them to bear, if that makes sense.

Jay Johnson:

It does, and I can imagine how frustrating it would be to be one year, two years, three years, four years into a position and still not feel like you've actually got your grounding and from a business objective. One of the things that we talk about on the show quite a bit is the training function is to support the business objectives and if it's not doing that appropriately it's expensive. It's expensive to have somebody that's not up to speed within 90, 120, even 160 days. It's expensive to the employee who is pouring out emotional resources, cognitive resources to try to find that fit, to try to find that success. So it is taxing on both entities. And it seems like what you're doing with this workforce readiness, workforce development is you're short-circuiting that entire timeline and you're really getting somebody that's you're doing it Now.

Jay Johnson:

How does that work? I want to get a little logistical here with you. How does that work? You're 18 months before they're leaving their deployment and I think in a lot of cases do a lot of the vets know that they're leaving their deployment in 18 months? Or are they, you know at that point in time? Because, not being military, I wouldn't understand, I wouldn't claim to have any understanding, but I do know. At least a couple of the people that I've talked to in those spaces were like, yeah, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue, I'm not sure if I'm going to do this, I'm not sure if I'm here and ultimately I don't want to say it's a game time decision for them. At some point in time they make that decision. What does that decision process look like?

Jason Anderson:

And how would a vet know to or you know future vet know to? Hey, maybe I should get into this program. Individual service member. Getting them 18 months to three years is really like an individual training program where we found them through partnerships, like with associations that have constituencies that just represent that block of people, and create partnerships with them and then run them through the program.

Jason Anderson:

What I want to for today, though, the veteran workforce training, is where I want to kind of focus my effort, because I want to help the L&D folks out there who want to help the P&L and want to help performance with their employees, because I can just tell you kind of employers at large are unaware this problem exists at all. They've been told right, and we all kind of know the disconnect between TA and L&D, right. I mean, ta wants to put people in seats, make sure they meet their numbers. L&d folks really want to help the productivity of the company, right, so they're more tied to the leaders. So I want to focus on the L&D folks, because they might not be recognizing the challenges that the service member has or the veteran workforce the challenges that the service member has or the veteran workforce, for example, when you bring someone on and they haven't had this training that we're talking about now. Even if there is onboarding, that's more kind of a company orientation here's our sites, here's our product line and stuff like that. They don't understand how the business is generally organized, how it functions, how it makes money, how the role they do actually aids in that profit-making enterprise. Because remember, as service members like me just flying the airplane, I didn't care how it worked, I didn't care about the background. You need to care about the background now. You need to know where you fit into the teams and stuff like that to be effective.

Jason Anderson:

And again, companies are just not aware of this that we've seen. We haven't really seen this product out there outside of some like super high, like a Booz Allen or something like that. It's like 30, 35%. You know veteran workforce as part of their workforce. Most are like high single digits 7, 8% and they follow federal guidelines if they've got federal contracts with the government. So if we focus on that and they understand that they want to help optimizing that veteran workforce to flourish more. And we talk a lot about leaving the military and losing purpose, right, losing my team and my tribe and stuff like that, what really fixes that for the HR folks that are listening is to create a new company identity for them that's meaningful to them, meaning I know where I fit into the organization, I know what I'm doing has an impact and I know exactly what it does to help the bottom line. And when you kind of know that, you're like, oh, that's my purpose right. Another one that I'll kind of do as an example is in the military. I was a pilot.

Jay Johnson:

That's also before you jump into that. That's also a great practice for non-service people too. So getting somebody to actually recognize what value they bring, how they're impacting both the end user but also the team inside of place. So I mean that is something to translate, but it makes a lot of sense of how important that that's important personified, coming from one of those from a service, you know, from a veteran service environment, to an actual civil or corporate environment.

Jason Anderson:

Let me give a few tools. I know we're getting, we're going along on time here, but I want to give a few tools to look out so your L&D folks can look at if you have a veteran workforce and all. So remember like I was a pilot, but at the end of the day, every service member is a generalist, meaning we do whatever the unit needs at any given time. So think about the consequences to that. Cognitively right. What we've actually done is create heuristics that scream to us that we're a generalist. And then you take us and supplant us into a private sector environment where everything is very specifically siloed into your role and you start kind of wanting to do other people's jobs and you kind of want to start kind of driving other people's teams and stuff like that. You have no idea you're doing it but you've never been trained and no one's told you that and no one in the corporate world has told you to look out for that. So that's just one example of what they do.

Jason Anderson:

One other example and that can disrupt teams. One other example is when they try to just try to figure out their role. Really what they're doing is without telling their boss that they aren't really comfortable doing what they're doing. They're going to put a lot of energy into their job and the business is going to look at them and go, wow, they're motivated, right?

Jason Anderson:

Not knowing that what they're all they're trying to do is orient themselves in this crazy environment and they might knock over some things and they might, you know, show some behaviors that are a little bit. You know. It just makes sense. This provides the context for what you're seeing and why and it's just we're trying to make sure the businesses understand you have a super capable employee. Once they're trained and they feel very familiar and comfortable in that environment, they'll be a phenomenal employee. But there are going to be gaps and challenges and that is going to turn into a dollar amount because, like what you were talking about just a moment, jay, a moment ago, if you're not comfortable and you stay there six months, you're just going to go right and you're going to go on to the next thing, so it's going to become a cost in that regard as well.

Jay Johnson:

So if I'm an L and D person in a business, Jason, what are some of the questions or conversations that I should be having with some of my veteran workforce?

Jason Anderson:

If you were to just directly ask them how comfortable do you feel doing your job that simple? Do you know who to ask questions to? Do you understand how your role helps our company perform, helps perform for the customer, helps deliver a product or service? I can almost universally guarantee that they're going to have problems answering that question Just because, like I mentioned before, we used products. We didn't create products and deliver products. We just use them as simple tools. So again, it's not their fault. Super smart and capable in that environment, once they're oriented to this new environment, go. Oh, this makes a ton of sense. I feel very comfortable, I can operate much better, I can operate much quicker, I'm much more efficient. I can contribute because I know how to contribute. So it's just, it's like having a primer for understanding this new environment instead of having to figure it out for yourself, which I think is huge understanding this new environment instead of having to figure it out for yourself, which I think is huge.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I think that makes a lot of sense, and the interesting thing is is I would ask any of our audience to also put yourself in an empathetic standpoint, to think about hey, if you had to now, all of a sudden, take the skill sets that you have and apply them inside of the military, what are things that you wouldn't be able to do or wouldn't translate or be able to manage? And I think that that probably will give them a little bit of inspiration on huh, this is probably a bigger issue. So you brought up onboarding, and onboarding is obviously something that, if I'm to be perfectly honest with you both, for, quite frankly, onboarding sucks. Most organizations don't do it. Well, that's the reality. Whether you're a service member, or whether you are somebody who is coming into the job for the first time, or whether you've been in an industry, most onboarding programs are generally ineffective.

Jay Johnson:

So if we're now thinking about this in a more complex environment of, hey, we've got these, we've acquired these incredibly talented, high performance potential, you know, potential workforce, what are some of the things that need to happen early on to get that level of comfortability or to create at least the trust that I can ask those questions or that I feel confident in bringing, because obviously, from four years in, there was some level of confident, some level of disconnect, of you feeling like you could go to your superior, your manager, your supervisor and be like I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I need some guidance, like how do we make that a comfortable conversation? Because you're right, it's not their fault and it's in many cases. I'm not even going to put the blame on a company owner or the L&D team because it's a gap in understanding or awareness and you're bringing visibility to that. So how do we navigate, creating the conditions for having more comfortable conversations around? Hey, we don't know what we don't know.

Jason Anderson:

Great question. So I agree with you. Onboarding, we talk to a lot of companies now. A lot of companies have downright almost abandoned it. If it is there, it's not that good, and a lot of companies we're just seeing kind of, you know, discarding it or doing it in a very lumpy manner. Right, the really easiest way to look at this is go, they're moving from a military environment, super unique, into a private sector environment. So if there isn't an onboarding or the onboarding isn't effective and doesn't address them specifically, they are going to be disproportionately affected by that.

Jason Anderson:

For sure, right, rockwell Collins had an outstanding onboarding program. I still felt like I was in. For sure, right, rockwell Collins had an outstanding onboarding program. I still felt like I was in a dryer Right, I was just kind of kind of floating around all over the place because it was too much information. So what you got to get them is really specific information to orient them quickly and then put them into onboarding, which is why you know what we have is we specialize in what I would call micro training, right, because we've been doing it for five years and we know exactly what the gaps are and how we can fill them. What we're doing now is we're working with companies before like post-hire veterans. We hold workshops that are two to three hours long and we can get a long way into the mindset and private sector orientation in that two to three hour long and we can get a long way into the mindset and private sector orientation in that two to three hour window. And then at least when they show up to onboarding they go. I have some idea of what's going on here, right? So that is a really good, easy gap filler that gets them into the same bucket as everyone else.

Jason Anderson:

Actually, because they're not, even though people that are non-military are going into onboarding. They're more familiar because they've not, even though people that are non-military have are going into onboarding. They're more familiar because they've been in and around the private sector environment, unless you're coming right out of high school or right out of higher ed, right, they just there's. There is a gap there just having some level of business acumen for entry-level employees anyway. But what happens with the military folks? Yes, some go to entry level but some go to, you know, senior individual contributor, intermediate individual contributor, director. I mean, it might be a title only, but they're considered a very strong subject matter expert for a very important program or programs and they still don't know how to quite interact with the teams. You know what I mean.

Jason Anderson:

You could see where this is a problem. Let me I'll give you a great example. We have a client it's an aerospace defense company and they didn't know there was a problem until we started kind of talking to them and then when we gave them this lens of just a few things I showed you, they're like oh, we're starting to see this senior business development individual right, and he came from a very important program within the government and they put him in a business development position First. Business development is really tough because military people just the nature of the industry you don't sell anything ever.

Jason Anderson:

You can do relationship building, but there's a whole lot more to BD than just relationship building. So this poor guy struggled and he just left the company right in three months and he was expressing all these telltale signs we tell you about just discomfort, disorientation, not sure what to do, not who to ask, who to ask questions. So I wanted to just show that as an example. It's real and if you start asking around it's a very significant challenge but it can be overcome pretty quick because they are smart and capable. It's just they haven't been told they're going in a new environment and they haven't been given a primer for how to operate that effectively.

Jay Johnson:

It seems to me that you're well positioned, having had a foot in the military and also having had a foot and experience in the private sector, to be able to kind of merge this together. Have you seen anything like a service member to service member type mentorship program or something for that ongoing support or that ongoing learning right Like even beyond onboarding or training, learning right Like even beyond onboarding or training? Are there any other things that we can be thinking about to really kind of smooth that pathway for success?

Jason Anderson:

It's a great question. It's a complex question. Remember, I go back to the 1991 kind of framework that was set. The results from that framework of the program or record has not been good. So you can imagine there's been a bunch of coaching businesses, there's been a bunch of like mentorship platforms and stuff like that.

Jason Anderson:

I'm a little conflicted on that because, like what I told you about going back 30, 40 years, everybody that's gone through the service and to this day is creating their own model. So essentially we have 200,000 per year mentors multiplied by the number of years and they've all had completely divergent experiences. So I don't know how much value there is in that. To be honest, training where you can all become baselined in what the private sector is, how it functions, how it makes money, how you do that where, what you're going to do with your role, that aids in that profit making there, thereby showing purpose.

Jason Anderson:

If we create, if we had that baseline man, if we had that baseline, we would just be so much better off because the employer knows what to talk to the veteran employee about, mentors know what to talk about, because there's a consistent framework that is really rooted in real private sector kind of business focus rather than. This was my personal experience and it is valuable. Don't get me wrong. It's just you're going to ask 10 people the same question. You're going to get 10 different answers.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, so at what level? And you had mentioned and I would just like to dig into this a little bit more you had said, you know, in a two hour kind of workshop or some kind of frame like that, you would be able to help sort of navigate some of that divide. What does that look like? Like, what does that experience look like? Is that really just kind of the um? Is that kind of one of those where it's like I don't want to say just this is what to expect? Like, where does that go, uh, in terms of kind of bringing everybody and getting them on the same page?

Jason Anderson:

Yep, and I appreciate you, jay, because you're a brain guy, right? I mean, I've listened to a few of your things and I love your. T plus F equals B, right? So thoughts plus, I think, feelings equals behaviors. Okay, so let me get right to your question.

Jason Anderson:

So there needs to be two different types of training that take place. There needs to be what I would call more or less an intervention, where it's you need this training, right, but as you level, they're going to be processing through this, but that still gets them from a. I have no idea what I'm doing to. I know what my target is now, right, I know what. I know what this environment is, even if I'm not comfortable in it yet. So that first two to three hour workshop does that. And then we have ongoing training on a quarterly basis in order to reinforce these things. It has more exercises because at the end of the day, I have to.

Jason Anderson:

The training has to get you to begin first understanding there's a new environment, so self-awareness. And then the next piece is how do I operate in this environment? And we use how you fit into your role in the organization to operate in that environment, because then that opens up aperture into? What business processes am I going to be participating in? What do I do on an activity on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis? How does this flow into the annual operating plan, the strategic and financial plan, gate processes, gate reviews, right. And once you know what you're doing and how that aids in the profit making with the business process side, it's just like oh, I have context, you know, it's just it feels so much better because you're like I know what I'm doing.

Jay Johnson:

This is great, you know. So this is incredible, jason, and I really applaud you for both the tenacity to kind of discover this major gap quite frankly I mean absolutely major gap and to really recognize the fact that you know when you get somebody out there like Gallup, looking at the you know promotional resistance, that happens. You know 50% of people promoted are seen as underperforming within 50,. You know within 18 months of being promoted, underperforming within 50,. You know within 18 months of being promoted. And to hear that there is some of that same kind of concept going on because of a lack of understanding of those two different worlds or the gaps between those two different worlds, it must have really been rewarding for you to kind of get that aha moment. Can you talk to me just a little bit? What was that like when you were like, holy, this is something that we can actually address, this is something that we can make lives and businesses better by, you know, really understanding this. What was that moment like for you?

Jason Anderson:

So it has been a moment long in the timeline, right, because the first aha moment? It's been a series of aha moments. The first was really figuring out what the problem was, eureka, you know, I figured it out more or less in 2017, 2018, when I was side hustling pre-veteran with approval from my company, by the way. Then the next aha moment is when we actually developed a courseware, right, and it worked and people really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. But now that we understand the problem and really how to optimize people, no matter where they are, whether they're getting out or already in a workforce we know they need this training, 100% right. But what we're convinced of is that the market has been set a certain way, which means service or veteran employees don't know they need this, so they struggle. Companies don't know they need this, so they struggle.

Jason Anderson:

So, as you can imagine, it's equal parts, great opportunity and great challenge, right? A great opportunity is if we can talk to your listeners and they go. That makes sense. I want to try a free demo and we're like sounds good, let's do it. Let's do a two to three hour workshop and demo it with your leaders, but once we start kind of getting people to understand the problem and see the telltale signs and then understand the implications, both financial and from a human resources standpoint. We know that there's going to be business there and impact the individual in the business, both financial and from a human resources standpoint. We know that there's going to be business there and impact the individual in the business right, but they just don't know it's a problem yet.

Jason Anderson:

So you could see great opportunity. But then there's great challenge because it's a disruptor. It is a completely disruptive but very necessary training program. Well, jason, let's find out. If our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do so? Or, as you navigate on the website, you'll see veteran workforce training. There's options in there to contact us or even set up a demo or set up a discovery call to do a demo. We'd love to talk with your listeners in any industry. We can kind of tell them the telltale signs of what to look for and then have a really easy, cost-effective solution.

Jay Johnson:

That's just going to make things work out better for their business and better for their veteran employee workforce. So, audience, if you are in an organization that is working or hiring veterans, this is a great resource and a great opportunity to really get a better understanding of how to create the conditions for success. And I want to say thank you, jason, not only for your service, but for the continuation of supporting that population and for coming here and sharing this insight. This is really really brilliant and, honestly, it's just something that I don't think a lot of people would naturally think about, and you're really doing a nice job of surfacing this and empowering both your participants and your trainings, but also the businesses and better understanding what this gap is.

Jason Anderson:

So thank you for being here with us today, really appreciate you letting me talk to you and your audience, Jay. Thank you so much.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we're shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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