0:00 from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every uh Tuesday Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time 1M eastern time to talk about business uh sorry military Doctrine military history the practices of great military leaders and translate that into how we can improve the performance of our businesses and our professions so today I'm going to talk about a topic that I um um mentioned I I was on
0:35 another show last week with Vanessa Donaldson and we were talking about the challenges of transitioning from military life to civilian life and one of the issues we we we discussed is how much more chaotic civilian life is than military life so most I think most people who haven't been in the military picture the typical Soldier Marine sailor Airman in in this combat
1:11 environment bombs are exploding and grenades are flying all over the place couldn't be farther from the truth the reality is that probably no more than 10% of service members ever ever engage in kinetic combat where there's actual you know ordinance being dropped or there's you know bullets flying that that kind of thing the other 90% of us including me we there to support the the military structure and to support the various combat elements so that they can
1:47 be effective and so for while the the the battle environment the battle space is of course tremendously chaotic that is not the typical experience of service members While most of us stay either in Garrison meaning on a base or even when we're forward deployed we're still probably in a base of some kind um perhaps in a fob a forward operating base um but that doesn't mean that you
2:23 know we're actively engaged in combat okay so our our lives are are heavily regimented and um very predictable um compared to civilian life so and and and one of the most predictable aspects of military life is our career progression so when um someone enters the military from that first day they know what their career progression is going
2:59 to look like it's it's set out very specifically and they may not know exactly what they need to do from day one to go you know to go step by step through their progression um but um they um they quickly learn what it takes okay so um I've talked about a a little part of this aspect once before um but I'm I am going to I'm going to share my screen because I want to show you a
3:34 graphic here we go okay so um this this is a graphic that shows um the ver what are called the rates or used to be I mean you you'll typically hear them called ranks um nowadays but they're actually these are actually rates the enlisted rates um and um and the um officer ranks okay so there's and we there's there's actually sort of three
4:09 categories so let's let's look first of all at the enlisted rates or or um um you know you you see here it says military occupational specialty that's not really the case these are all everybody calls these ranks um you know even though like I said technically these are called rates all right so um when you first enter the military as an enlisted person you start at the E1 level okay and you can see
4:46 here that in the Army and Marine Corps that you're a private in the Navy and the Coast Guard you're a seaman recruit and in the Air Force you're an Airman basic and in space Force this is new space force didn't exist when I was in the military specialist one okay and then from there you advance to E2 private in the Marine Corps PFC Sean Apprentice Airman Airman special specialist 2 okay and then from there you go to an E3 okay in the Army that's a private
5:22 first class in the Marine Corps it's a lance corporal and the Navy in the Coast Guard it's a seaman Airman First class and okay so this level right here E1 through E3 these are the the sort of basic Personnel in the um in the military at the enlisted level okay the next level right here E4 and E5 okay and in this case in the Army it's a Corporal or a specialist and in
5:58 the Marine Corps it's a special I'm sorry it's a Corporal as well in the Navy and the Coast Guard it's a petty officer third class in the uh Air Force it's an air um senior Airman okay at this level You're Now what's called an ncoo a non-commissioned officer and that's true of the E5 level as well you're in noncommissioned officer so sergeant in in the case of a in the Air Force a staff sergeant and then a p petty officer second class
6:34 now at the E6 level okay you're what's called an snco a senior non-commissioned officer okay staff sergeant okay petty officer what and so there there is a little bit of a difference here so the Navy and the Coast Guard really consider a petty officer first class as being an NCO not a senior NCO okay but the rest of the branches consider E6 to be a senior non-commission officer okay and then when you get to E7 so a Sergeant First Class Gunnery Sergeant chief petty
7:11 officer okay you're now in a master sergeant or a first sergeant now you're definitely in the senior non-commissioned officer ranks and that's for all the rest of the non um senior non all the so for the um E7 E8 and E9 those are all senior non-commissioned officer R rates or ranks okay now by by the the name noncommissioned officer they're telling you that historically these leaders did
7:47 not have what's called a commission so um in the old days the difference between an enlist someone who enlisted and someone who was an officer was when you're an officer you have what's called a commission it's a document signed by The Sovereign or in the case the United States signed by the president secretary of of of defense or Secretary of Navy depending on what branch you're in I should say Secretary of the army secretary sorry Army Chief of Staff common on the rine Corps a oh gosh I'm
8:22 I'm really messing up here sorry yeah Secretary of the army Secretary of the Navy Secretary of the Air Force Etc okay so your commission would be signed by that person and and and that's different than enlisting because when you enlist you enlist for a specific length of time that you can and you can reinlist periodically when you are a commissioned officer okay you're in until you resign okay so um an enlisted person they periodically renew what's called a con renew a contract okay an
9:00 officer they're in until they choose to leave now usually there's a minimum service requirement but once their minimum service requirement is done um then they can submit their resignation and um the military will let them go now there is this middle group called warrant officers it used the difference between a warrant officer and a commissioned officer used to be that um a warrant officer got what was called a warrant um which was a different type of document than a commission these days they actually um work the same way and the
9:37 difference between a Warren officer and a commission officer is Warren officers specialize in certain areas of of um military service and commission officers are more sort of General leadership okay so um that's a little bit of a repeat of what I talked about before but what I what I want to um focus on here is from day one when you enlist you know that your potential career path starts at E1 okay and sometimes you'll start like if if you were if you are an eagle scout I
10:12 believe you start at E3 if you enlist but in any event wherever you start you know what your career path looks like it's going to go E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 through E9 you're not going to skip any of these and in fact time and grade or the time you spend in a particular rate or rank is in in especially in the beginning is pretty much what it takes in order to advance so to go from E1 to E3 is I think it's around three months to go from I'm sorry from E1 to E2 I
10:49 think it's about three months from E2 to E3 is I think about six months okay and then from E3 to E4 I think is Maybe 9 months or 12 months I think it varies service by service but um in the beginning you the you know you know you're going to advance in rate merely by being in the in the in the service for a certain period of time okay so there's a there's a level of certainty there that you don't have I I I don't know of any civilian job where if you
11:26 last you know in your job for say a minimum of 6 months you're automatically going to be promoted that doesn't happen now in the officer ranks okay if you start out as a second lieutenant or an ENT okay that's an 01 okay it takes believe it's 3 years to go from 01 to 02 no I take that back it's it's I think it's 18
12:01 months to go to O from 01 to 02 and another 18 months to go from 02 to03 okay so those are what are they're they're essentially automatic promotions okay with time and grade assuming that you don't commit the big stupid okay then your first competitive promotion comes when you when you want to advance from 03 to four and then all of the advancements after that are competitive advancements all the way up to' 06 now in theory okay and and by the
12:39 way um 01 through 03 are called Junior officers or J's okay 04s through 06 are generally considered senior officers sometimes you'll hear the you'll hear the term field grade that majors and Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels are field grade officers okay and actually in the Navy senior officers are um only commanders and captains same with with the uh Coast Guard so there are differences between the service branches but but generally speaking um you know 0 01 through 03
13:18 Junior officers um and then 04 through 06 senior officers and then 07s through 010s actually okay are what are known as flag or general officers so and flag officers actually really applies to all of these General officers applies to the Army Marine Corps Air Force and space force they're General meaning General General officers okay now theoretically going from 06 to 07 is a
13:53 competitive uh advancement but it's also a political advancement okay um you you don't get to be a Flagg or general officer um just because you did a good job you you have to have um you know done the politics of the military very well to to get that star okay especially your second third and fourth star okay so um you know it and and part of that is the skills that are necessary once once you're a a member of what I I you know somewhat
14:29 uh you know derisively call the star Club um you you know you're you're playing you're playing in the Pentagon and those areas um you're interacting a lot with senior civilian leadership and so politics tends to impact virtually everything you do all right so when you first enter as an officer you know you're going to start out as an 01 or in some cases an 02 or even an 03 okay but then then from there you know what your path is 04 5 6 7 8 n and 10 okay
15:04 although the reality is um if you make it to 06 you've had an amazing career okay because very few people um are are promoted beyond that okay now not only do you know what what the steps are and what they're called um but you also know in at least in general what you have to do to advance so while E1 to E3 is pretty much just time and grade to become a Corporal you're going to have to or a petty officer third class you're going to have
15:40 to demonstrate leadership ability now not you know big leadership ability but kind of small team leadership ability okay and in fact in the Marine Corp you may even attend What's called the corporals course okay um which will teach you then the leadership that you need to know not only to be a Corporal but also what you need to know to advance to the next level which is Sergeant okay and um you um in the um in
16:19 the Navy we have what are called Fitness reports okay um fit Reps for short and in that f Fitness report and actually let me let's see I'm going to see if I can bring up a fitness report form here I should I should have done this before but oops okay yeah great so let's uh let's stop sharing and let's go where is my
16:56 studio here it is okay I'm going to share the fitness Report Form yeah here it is okay so this is the form that gets filled out every year that you're in the military and so you know exactly how you're going to be rated in terms of your performance okay and in fact in many cases you may be filling out part of this now you're not going to fill out the things down here okay but you're going to fill out a lot
17:32 of this top top stuff here so your name grade E1 E3 not really but like 01 O2 E5 E6 Etc your designation is what what do what do you specialize in your social security number okay um are you active or Reserve component your uck is that relates to um which command you're at so uick is the number and then command is the specific command within the the uick uni uick is uniform something command I think okay promotion status are you eligible for
18:08 promotion are you in zone meaning it's you're at the you you you're at the point that um you're eligible to be promoted are you below Zone meaning it's not time for you to be promoted or are you above Zone meaning you're past the point when you should have been promoted um but you're still in and you just didn't get report promoted now there's lots of reasons why you can be what's called above Zone and and that could relate to there just isn't a lot of opportunity for promotion okay or you could have changed communities and so um
18:45 the number of years you have in service made you above Zone automatically you could have switched from the active to the reserves and that could have changed that that could change your promotion status from being below low Zone to above zone or you know vice versa okay date reported makes sense okay and then you you get reported periodically once a year but also when you detach from a command okay and there's other special reasons this is the period of the report now there's something called a not observed report if you've been at a command a very short time they don't know you well enough to
19:22 know to be able to really rate you so you get what's called a non-observed report which means there's less weight put on that in terms of your eligibility for promotion then you have what are called a regular report which is just like it sounds it's just in the regular course of your career you have a concurrent report meaning you're you're reg you're doing something other than your regular Duty so you're going to get a fitness report for your regular duty but also for this special concurrent Duty that you're doing okay and then what's your physical Readiness status okay who the reporting senior is that's the person who's going to sign this
19:58 report their grade their designator their title their uick okay command employment and achievements this is what you did at the command here's your primary and additional duties okay and um then you're supposed to be counseled although usually a lot of times that you're supposed to be counseled I think every at the six months break but a lot of times that doesn't happen okay now here's what you're going to be rated on okay now remember we we we had this thing over here not observed report so if you haven't been at the command long enough for them to really know how well
20:33 you're doing so you get what's called an no not observed and they'll check off every single one of these no okay but assuming you're you're getting a regular um Fitness report so you're going to be rated on Mission accomplishment very low low average high very high okay operational professional competence Vision strategic thinking communication skills fiscal plan planning organizational skills geopolitical fluency military bearing leadership judgment leading change okay uh okay and then they have
21:10 potential traits so this is a little bit different than what was used when I was in so you see some of these um repeated uh fiscal planning organizational skills personal growth professional growth potential leading change strategic thinking okay now in the Navy if you get anything below a four you're not going to get promoted that's just how it works and then there's been great inflation in the Navy okay now in the Marine Corp in interestingly enough a three is considered good okay it's really tough
21:45 to get a four or a five in the Marine Corps okay you really have to be above average okay and and so that's you know that that's just a factor there okay and then um what you get after these numerical ratings you get an average okay and you get your individual average and then you get the reporting seniors average the goal is for your individual average to be higher than the reporting seniors average okay because that means really
22:20 the report the person who signing this report say is saying you're better than most of the people I work with or that work for me okay and then you get recommendations for future assignments right here's some things that this that I think this this particular individual would would be good at okay and then next here's where there's open-ended comments so um what you're the intention here and a lot of times in the military at least in the Navy you're asked to fill this out what were the specific
22:55 accomplishments you had and you try and quantify them like like um one of mine was um uh hired new Personnel in 90 days which is half to a third of the normal time it takes to hire Personnel in the Navy at least when I was in it right that's in a com like how the heck did he do that that's what people that's people were asking how did you how did you get this done so fast I said well I went and talked to the people who had to do stuff and ask them what I could do to make
23:30 their job easier that's exactly what I they're like why would you do that I said well if I can make your job easier I can get this done more quickly and we really need to hire a new person and so I figure the best thing I can do is help you out they were so blown away by that concept that they're like well um this is what I need to do I'm like here I'll tell you what how about if I draft something up for you and maybe that'll make it easier and then you know you can get this off your desk more quickly oh sure that's what I did bang bang bang then we did it okay all right and then then then it's it's signed and and all
24:06 that kind of stuff so the the point of this is and and uh I'm going to go uh let's see let's go back over here stop sharing okay here we go okay so um I'm going to focus now just on the Navy because that's that's the branch that I that I know the best okay um and the Marine Corps this is actually true for the Marine Corps as well so when you get your Fitness reports okay that's you
24:42 when you already know what what do I have to work on in order to get a good Fitness report so I can move from being a Corporal to a sergeant or a petty officer third class to a petty officer second class or for that matter from a from an enen to a lieutenant Junior grade JG or a second to a first lieutenant you already know the things you're going to be raided on okay and you can be talking to your uh your reporting senior about about you know being given the
25:19 opportunity to do things that will rate you high okay so let's say that you know you want to show you have good fiscal planning and organizational skills because you know you're going to be rated on that so you can talk to your supervisor uh what you know is is there a project that needs to be done where I can uh learn better fiscal planning and organizational skills is there a project I can do where I can lead change or show vision and strategic thinking right so
25:54 how do we apply this then to the civilian World well it's the one to one thing if you have a a a fairly standardized um Fitness reporting form okay and you can call it evaluation You Don't Have To Call It Fitness report whatever you want to call it okay and you have certain things that you want to see in your employees in order to help them grow your organization put them in here and show them this is what I want to see you do this is the these are the kinds of
26:30 things that you need to be concerned about to advance in this organization okay and then so if you couple the the clarity of showing them in advance what are the important skills traits that you need to exhibit in order to advance couple that with a clear path for advancement okay this here's here's what it is here's what the chart is okay
27:06 here's this is the Personnel organizational chart couple those two things together and you're giving you your team the best information that that you can and the best support you can in helping them develop their own careers and therefore benefit your organiz ation okay now from time to time these things will change and that's true in the military periodically the Navy updates its Fitness Report Form um it hasn't changed the the levels in a long long time th those have been standard now for
27:43 for many decades although in World War II there was no such thing as a Senior Chief Petty off yeah Senior Chief Petty Officer or a master chief petty officer okay you didn't have the E1 through E9 and 01 through 011 system in World War II that was a post World War II phenomenon nonetheless it's been around for I think 50 or 60 years at this point um but but it does change periodically it it it does change so you can set up the same kind of system in your organization okay um
28:20 and I mean in many in many companies these things do exist they're just not not put down with this kind of clarity okay and for for you know younger people entering the workforce right these days to have that kind of clarity for them is very important okay because it shows them you know what what are the steps and then what do I need to do in order to be able to advance those steps okay so it's a it's a basically a onetoone uh um trans translation if you
28:58 will all right so that's that's the show for today um I hope hopefully you um you got you got some some good information out of it some good ideas if you have any questions um there will be links to our um uh social media in the uh show notes so feel free to post a comment in Media or send me an email happy to answer your questions tomorrow at 10:00 am Pacific time is my show people making money my my guest is jock pton and he's going to be talking about special types
29:34 of business financing so I invite you to tune in for that and then next week on Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific will be the next episode of uh trusts and Estates weekly and then of course we're back a week from today for the next episode of business lessons from the military so thanks very much for tuning in today I appreciate it I'm wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie you're my bell all the best folks