Do Veterans Make Better Entrepreneurs?
In a course that my wife is taking on entrepreneurship one of the questions that was asked was as follows:
Starting business is hard and many fail. However, Statistics show that military veterans have higher success rates. Why?
This question made me think, not only for the immediate answer, but also what can be taken from this to aid military leaders solving problems of civilian companies. There has been a lot of books, discussions and countless panels that discuss this. However, I want to provide some thoughts to it. Remember that my perspective is one that is grassroots, coming from nothing and making my way in the military with a hell of a lot of work, a little luck and some amazing humans that guided me.
In the military as leaders, we are very use to not seeing results. We cast big nets of influence not always knowing how it will pan out, or if any results will present itself while we hold a position. Sometimes I will see sitreps of previous units and smile, knowing that events happening now are part of something I helped lay the foundation. This happens YEARS later.
We aren’t scared of hard, sometimes mundane work. Some people think of high-intensity conflict or training when they envision daily Army life. Truth is that makes up a small percentage of what we do. For a training event or mission that lasts a couple hours there is 8-10 times as much preparation, coordination and logistics that go into it. Sometimes in the military it comes down to the 11th hour and everyone must get to work to see it happen. Forget the rank and get it done, even commanders will sprint across the finish line along side everyone else.
From the day you don the uniform you are a leader in training. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, you won’t become a leader. But statistically speaking you will be a leader, even if you don’t want to be and if you fail at it. Eventually the military will thank you for your service and send you on your way.
Those three things aren’t specific to the military though. All those happen in the civilian word as well. It’s the volume that makes it different. We do this a lot! Repeatedly with little to no breaks for years on end, in previous years it would be in training, certifications prior to combat and then in combat.
The military is pressure cooker for leadership, on the job training and resiliency. So on the backside of a career, you have a leader that has done the above more times than they can count, many time working well above their pay-grade and comfort level. With the looming reality that lives counted on success, simply put fail wasn’t an option.
Now that we talked about the good, let’s dive into the other side of the coin. What do we struggle with? Perspective. Simply put we are surrounded by people that think alike, shared mission and spend countless hours together. So, we must fight to gain perspective in an environment that is moving so fast that at times different thoughts are deemed as counter-intuitive to progress.
So, when running a business this can be a detriment because the nose will be so close to the grindstone. With our narrowed perspective we fail to realize the friction we are causing and creating additional work.
There is also another factor to consider, placement, access, and a years of planning. Many veterans start businesses that either correlate to their time in service, or maybe a gap they identified while in. They know the people that can help see if be successful and they spend time while still in laying the foundation for it.
This isn’t a complete explanation, there are a lot of other factors to consider, but this is part of the reason I believe veterans are postured for success. The real million-dollar question is how we better leverage this population to work with civilian counterparts to create new level of success. There are a lot of organizations that do just that, however there is still a larger pool of veterans we can pull into the fold.
If you are reading this an entrepuner, consider the advantage a veteran can offer. If you are a veteran take the leap, your entire career has prepared you to tackle the complexities of being a business owner and you are used to adjusting on the fly.
~Mike
