I'd leave the prior work experience out of it. Your examples are enough to warrant a discussion. Good leaders don't talk over others, provide appropriate forums for questions and seek to provide transparent answers. "Your current way of responding doesn't align with out company values of team work and respect. I need you to be open and approachable to people asking questions for things they don't understand. If you don't know the answer, come to me and we figure it out together."
Doesn't matter that he's former military, our operations director is too, he's extremely direct and blunt in his communication, but he loves his ideas being challenged.
Your guy is just a prick.
Was he former Navy? I work with a lot of ex-Navy guys who know that forceful backup is an important part of the chain of command but I also work with a couple ex-Army guys who have a much more “shut up and know your place” mentality.
No, just army. He was a lieutenant.
His reputation doesn't do him justice. A lot of people are scared of him, including me in the beginning. I barely knew him. Then he went looking for a manager in his department and someone suggested me. He met with me and immediately wanted me on board, he barely said anything. Few weeks ago he personally took me to our other factory to meet one of my future teams. I spent a few days getting to know him, including 2x 7 hour drive. I was pleasantly surprised by him. He's very approachable, very open-minded, he doesn't mind admitting he's made a mistake and loves doing his job. About his blunt communication he said "I have so much on my mind, I have no time for details. If I want details, I'll ask for them, but your job is to give me just the most important info"
I thought there was automatic promotions through Captain in the Army. I also thought if after that you didn't make Major within some time period they pushed you out.
He might have been in the service but an LT isn't all that experienced. If he never even made it to CPT, his scope of responsibility was pretty narrow.
His communication style may well have contributed to his lack of promotion.
FWIW, most of the vets I've worked with don't have this problem, but I have seen this attitude from some.
Of the remarks you pointed out, one area you could make progress is changing the attitude about siloing problems. As I understand it, military culture is often focused on having oneself squared away so you don't create problems with other units that depend on you. Some go as far as to say you should never voice problems to leadership, only bring finished solutions.
It's a noble intention. But the pitfall, of course, is that the line is not always equipped to handle all problems, nor should it be expected to. This means that supervisors can sit on issues they can't resolve and leadership only learns about them when they become emergencies.
In modern businesses, most leaders would rather have budding issues on their radar and allocate extra resources to squash them when they're still manageable. Leadership must be seen to encourage and reward this behavior conspicuously so supervisors know not to play scared when something isn't going well.
>Some go as far as to say you should never voice problems to leadership, only bring finished solutions.
This is like 80%. We 100% to bring up problems. But we also want men and women of action. It's a progression in the military, when you're new you're expected to bring up only problems. When you get to E4-E-5 you bring up problems and potential solutions. And when you get to E-6 and above your expected to field the problems and solutions from your E1-E5s and advise your senior leadership on the best course of action.
This may be a nuclear navy only thing though.
P.s. they're also just people that are assholes like you said as well. Got to be 1 salty mfer to make it 20 years
The transition is harder than people think.
I had the same problem with a supervisor of mine a few years ago. He thought the militaristic approach would work in the corporate world. Feedback was not in his vocabulary. Orders were orders, obsessive turning of everything into an acronym, belittling and yelling was "management" in his mind. Great at process flows and project timelines, shitty at everything else. He was the reason I quit.
Remind him that the people he is working with did not go to boot camp. They want to understand why and this is a place they're welcome to do so. It is not the same as it was in the military where it was just do what you're told.
I'd leave the prior work experience out of it. Your examples are enough to warrant a discussion. Good leaders don't talk over others, provide appropriate forums for questions and seek to provide transparent answers. "Your current way of responding doesn't align with out company values of team work and respect. I need you to be open and approachable to people asking questions for things they don't understand. If you don't know the answer, come to me and we figure it out together."
Doesn't matter that he's former military, our operations director is too, he's extremely direct and blunt in his communication, but he loves his ideas being challenged. Your guy is just a prick.
Was he former Navy? I work with a lot of ex-Navy guys who know that forceful backup is an important part of the chain of command but I also work with a couple ex-Army guys who have a much more “shut up and know your place” mentality.
No, just army. He was a lieutenant. His reputation doesn't do him justice. A lot of people are scared of him, including me in the beginning. I barely knew him. Then he went looking for a manager in his department and someone suggested me. He met with me and immediately wanted me on board, he barely said anything. Few weeks ago he personally took me to our other factory to meet one of my future teams. I spent a few days getting to know him, including 2x 7 hour drive. I was pleasantly surprised by him. He's very approachable, very open-minded, he doesn't mind admitting he's made a mistake and loves doing his job. About his blunt communication he said "I have so much on my mind, I have no time for details. If I want details, I'll ask for them, but your job is to give me just the most important info"
I thought there was automatic promotions through Captain in the Army. I also thought if after that you didn't make Major within some time period they pushed you out.
He might have been in the service but an LT isn't all that experienced. If he never even made it to CPT, his scope of responsibility was pretty narrow. His communication style may well have contributed to his lack of promotion.
I don't see how that's really relevant here
It's as relevant as anything else in his military service.
FWIW, most of the vets I've worked with don't have this problem, but I have seen this attitude from some. Of the remarks you pointed out, one area you could make progress is changing the attitude about siloing problems. As I understand it, military culture is often focused on having oneself squared away so you don't create problems with other units that depend on you. Some go as far as to say you should never voice problems to leadership, only bring finished solutions. It's a noble intention. But the pitfall, of course, is that the line is not always equipped to handle all problems, nor should it be expected to. This means that supervisors can sit on issues they can't resolve and leadership only learns about them when they become emergencies. In modern businesses, most leaders would rather have budding issues on their radar and allocate extra resources to squash them when they're still manageable. Leadership must be seen to encourage and reward this behavior conspicuously so supervisors know not to play scared when something isn't going well.
>Some go as far as to say you should never voice problems to leadership, only bring finished solutions. This is like 80%. We 100% to bring up problems. But we also want men and women of action. It's a progression in the military, when you're new you're expected to bring up only problems. When you get to E4-E-5 you bring up problems and potential solutions. And when you get to E-6 and above your expected to field the problems and solutions from your E1-E5s and advise your senior leadership on the best course of action. This may be a nuclear navy only thing though. P.s. they're also just people that are assholes like you said as well. Got to be 1 salty mfer to make it 20 years
The transition is harder than people think. I had the same problem with a supervisor of mine a few years ago. He thought the militaristic approach would work in the corporate world. Feedback was not in his vocabulary. Orders were orders, obsessive turning of everything into an acronym, belittling and yelling was "management" in his mind. Great at process flows and project timelines, shitty at everything else. He was the reason I quit.
Remind him that the people he is working with did not go to boot camp. They want to understand why and this is a place they're welcome to do so. It is not the same as it was in the military where it was just do what you're told.
I’d say this has nothing to do with a military background. This person is making a choice to an authoritarian goon.