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Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows Program FINAL REPORT MCKINSEY & COMPANY, LLP LTC Keith A. Armstrong, USA May 2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary ……….……………………………………………… 3 McKinsey & Company ……………………………………………………4 Quotable Quotes ………………………………………………………….. 6 The Paradox ……………………………………………………………… 7 The Private Sector – at War ………………………………………………. 9 The Military – the Uniformed War for Talent .…………………………… 14 Personal Perspectives ……………………………………………………. 21 Findings/Recommendations ……………………………………………… 24 Conclusion .……………………………………………………………….. 26 Figures ……………………………………………………………………. 29 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………… 49 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report is an overview of the fellowship conducted at McKinsey & Company in Houston, Texas, from August 1999 to June 2000 as part of the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellowship Program (SDCFP). The purpose and scope of the SDCFP is outlined in Department of Defense Directive 1322.23. This was the fifth year of the program. While assigned to McKinsey & Company, I worked primarily as an associate performing consulting work as a member of a client support team based out of the Houston Office. I did have occasion to observe the workings of the firm at a higher level and interviewed all of the Texas office partners during the course of the year, but the majority of the work was at the consulting entry level. I chose to concentrate my focus for this year’s project on a subject that is of great concern to the Defense Department as well as private industry – the War for Talent - the attraction, recruitment and retention of top talent. In times of national economic and defense success, organizations are faced with a significant human resources crisis. Unemployment rates are as low as they have been in decades. Interest rates are down. Inflation is under control. Markets have been soaring. So what is the crisis? This paper will attempt to answer that question. The War for Talent exists in many different forms with no cookie-cutter solutions to help solve the problem. One thing is for sure – money or compensation is not the overarching solution to the problem. Companies must establish value propositions attractive enough to draw top talent from new talent pools and/or existing talent pools. The challenge for the Defense Department is to identify the key levers to use in order to establish a viable proposition while at the same time solving public relations issues that have become impediments to recruiting and retention of key personnel. Included in the paper is an analysis of the War for Talent from the private sector and Defense Department perspectives with some proposed actions to help resolve the problem. McKinsey was a gracious host and provided a work environment that was only bounded by my own initiative. Despite the busy schedules of the partnership and support staff, they went out of their way to make me feel at home and to accommodate my research. I must admit I was most impressed by the expertise of the consulting staff; they are truly some of the most talented young people I have ever had the opportunity to work with. I thank McKinsey & Company for sending me to firm training at the Mini-MBA and Basic Consulting Readiness, without which I would have been totally lost. This has been a rewarding year – new problems and new problem solving techniques, new experiences and new memories, new friends and new adventures. McKINSEY & COMPANY McKinsey & Company describes itself in McKinsey & Company, Inside and Out – An Introduction to the Firm, as a management-consulting firm. Founded in the United States in 1926, it was not the first consultant on management, but its approach was very different from the management “engineers” and “time in motion” experts of the day. McKinsey’s strategy was built around two planks: 1) Service - serving senior management on problems important to them and their enterprises, and 2) Professionalism - putting the interests of clients first and maintaining the knowledge and skills necessary to serve these clients. James McKinsey and Marvin Bower, the founding fathers of the firm, describe the “big idea” for the firm, “to provide advice on managing top executives and do it with the professional standards of a leading law firm.” McKinsey always looked at where the firm was and what its outlook was before moving forward on any project. The firm started with a forward looking management staff and 75 years later the founding fathers would be proud to know that the ideology has not changed. In the late 1930s, a third strategic plank was added: 3) People - to make it a “career” firm for young people rather than an “end-of-career” firm for experts and semi-retired executives. The addition of this plank allowed the firm to move to the top of the consulting business. People and the intangible capital they bring have become McKinsey’s greatest assets as evidenced by this statement from Business Week, September 20, 1993; “What sets McKinsey apart, even some rivals concede, is that the firm continually assembles the very best people.” McKinsey & Company established offices around the world and dealt with issues in all viable economic markets. The nature of the problems McKinsey helps a client address changed over the years and reflected both differences in the relationships between large companies and their governments and the sophistication of management. McKinsey consultants designed the initial organization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, advised the Vatican on its banking system, developed the Universal Product Code, specified the systems supporting Frankfurt’s stock exchange and helped the Treuhandanstalt privatize East German companies. Given the breadth and depth of this work, there is an intellectual tradition at McKinsey that is very different from what one finds in a university or in a consulting firm that concentrates on a single problem or industry. It is a tradition that first celebrates the complexity and the differences of management challenges, and then presses for practical answers based on both analysis and experience. It is a tradition that recognizes the importance of being able to reach out to colleagues and clients wherever they are in the world. THE WAR FOR TALENT Department of Defense and Private Sector Battle for Survival QUOTABLE QUOTES “The first priority was our people in uniform and their families. U.S. military superiority requires high-quality people, which necessitates that we provide them with the appropriate pay, housing and medical benefits.” William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense “If we don’t get the people thing right, we lose; it is the most important thing in all our businesses.” Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric “Three extra special things I see: being crazy enough to follow an unorthodox vision, being courageous enough to allow people to have fun and be “real” people who love and care at work, and being smart enough to recognize that their most valuable assets are their people and the culture they cultivate.” Tom Peters, describing Southwest Airlines “If you believe in building your business and you don’t believe in talent, you have a screw loose.” Susan Burnett, HR Manager, Hewlett-Packard “Our ability to effectively compete for talent is not an issue…it is a crisis.” Pete Boucher, Senior HR Officer, Citigroup Global Technology “To lose the war for talent is to accept a second-rate military in which the most capable men and women in the United States do not choose to serve.” David H. McCormick, McKinsey & Co. THE WAR FOR TALENT Department of Defense and Private Sector Battle for Survival The Paradox. While serving as Armor Branch Representative and as an Associate Professor of Military Science at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York from 1988-1992, I had the privilege of teaching, recruiting, and preparing some of the best young people in the world for entry into the Combat Arm of Decision – the Armor Corps. One of the classes I had the privilege of developing on Battlefield Operating Systems included a session on leadership and the conduct of combat operations. I took the opportunity to present several videotapes of then Brigadier General Barry McCaffery, Deputy Commandant of the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia. The topic of the presentation was battlefield synchronization, which is still and always will be an enigma, but that was only one of the interesting topics from the presentation. During his comments, BG McCaffery spoke of a very intriguing paradox that exists within the conduct of war. That paradox, simply stated, is that over time war has become much more deadly as a result of new, technologically advanced weapon systems and methods of employing those systems, battlefields have grown in size, depth and dimension, and at the same time casualty rates decreased comparatively speaking. From a time when conflicts were fought with clubs and rocks where you literally had to see the whites of your enemy’s eyes, the world has seen drastic change – spears, lances, bow and arrow, sword and saber, long-bow, flint lock, percussion cap, cannons and mortars, howitzers, tanks, airplanes and helicopters, atomic energy weapons, and smart weapons, to categorize a few. We can now surgically attack a target using specially skilled people, with specially designed weapons, in a three-dimensional battle space (including space itself), for the sole purpose of maximizing target destruction while minimizing casualty rates and collateral damage. So what does this have to do with the War for Talent? The conduct of a successful battle, campaign or war takes people - the best people in the world, specially skilled people. The same holds true as businesses battle for supremacy within their market space. Another paradox exists today that could be deadly not only to the Defense Department, but private sectors as well - the ability to man our ranks with top quality people. As the United States experiences one of the greatest economic booms in its history, many companies, corporations, organizations and even the Defense Department may be on the brink of a catastrophic event. If the armed forces and the private sector are so successful, what is it in the economy that is causing a shortage of highly qualified talent? Why is there a problem with the search for the most talented player? What could possibly cause a catastrophic event in such prosperous times? It is essential for the Defense Department to identify appropriate talent pools to attract, recruit and retain the kind of men and women necessary to operate within the complexities of the modern battlefield, and the battlefield of the future, while at the same time engaging the most technologically advanced weapons and command and control systems mankind has ever known. The armed forces of the United States have demonstrated their ability and resolve to close with and destroy the enemy, if and when called upon to do so. They have also demonstrated the resilience of a police force when tasked to eliminate fratricide and ethnic cleansing or a humanitarian relief force when tasked to prevent starvation or major health epidemics. If we have demonstrated our core competencies so well, why does the Defense Department have a problem attracting and retaining talent? Why are our ranks filled with vacancies? Why are so many high-performing mid-grade officers and non-commissioned officers leaving? Are we fundamentally off base in our recruiting and retention goals and methods? What motivates young men and women to join the military, then stay or leave? What does the economy have to do with these issues? This paper will examine these pressing issues, examine how private industry defines the issues, and attempt to draw direct correlations to the Defense Department. In a recent study, Workforce eServices: Developing the Modern Workforce for Competitive Advantage, February 2000, ICARION stated, “The underlying premise here is basic: Human capital is now the most important asset. Intellectual capital outweighs bricks-and-mortar and other tangible resources on the corporate balance sheet. Corporations realize that only skilled, knowledgeable people can help them do what they need to do amid relentless global competition, shrinking product lifecycles and an ever-increasing need for speed, efficiency and innovation. The major challenge today is to plan for, hire, deploy, develop, and retain the right people for the organization. Tracking and developing employee skills has become an imperative, particularly with the rush of advancing technology. In fact, all organizations of any size today need some technical talent, all are competing for a limited supply of that resource.” The following paragraphs from The New York Times Magazine also clearly identify the existing problem: You know it’s a tight labor market when a larger percentage of the American population is employed than at any previous time, according to a report from the Council of Economic Advisers and the Department of Labor. The national unemployment rate of 4.0 percent, as of January, is lower than it has been since 1970 – and it is far lower than that in some areas. Mitch Potter of William M. Mercer Inc., a human resources consulting firm, says the word in Silicon Valley is, “The only way to find an unemployment rate is if you count people in cars on their way from one job to another.” The situation is so extreme that it is driving some understaffed employers to desperate measures: in Plano, Texas, International House of Pancakes has had to offer a $4,000 signing bonus to attract managers; Lord & Taylor sent out part-time-job solicitations with its monthly charge card statements this past Christmas; And a Chicago-based staffing agency, the Harris Group, has arranged 160, $100,000 signing (and retention) bonuses for Web-savvy hires at one company alone. Karl Marx spent all those years dreaming about the worker’s paradise. Yet he never got to sit in the conference room at Berbee Information Networks Corporation and listen to Jim Berbee rattle off all the luscious perks he offers his employees. They get stock options, of course, but also Palm Pilots, cell phones and a $1,000 bonus to help with the down payment on their first homes. If they want to work in their pajamas, the company pays to install and maintain high-speed I.S.D.N. lines in their bedrooms. Two years ago Berbee took everybody in the company and their families to Disney World. Bagels and muffins are free on Fridays, the sodas in the office machine are free all the time (consumption went up 400 percent after that change), and if em