Long ago, I considered joining the Coast Guard. As a young guy, the thought of being out on the water chasing drug smugglers and rescuing people quite appealed to me.
And why not; serving one’s country is honorable and a true expression of public service. As I talked to the recruiters and they gave me their various pitches, I began to inquire how the promotion system in the Coast Guard works. I received many smooth sounding but nonsensical answers about training, length of service, etc.
To me, these responses did not answer why some people were promoted faster than others. Finally one of the recruiters dropped the façade and gave it to me straight. “Look kid, to get promoted you have to get your “ticket punched.” he confided.
This honest man went on to explain what he meant. In order to be promoted into the upper ranks you need to have held certain jobs along the way. I can’t remember exactly what those jobs were, but the point was that to be in high command you needed to have served in several key jobs and gained some key experiences.
Those making promotion decisions would look at your record to identify if you have held the appropriate jobs before promotion to the next rank, hence the term “getting your ticket punched.”
This system actually makes a lot of sense to me as it ensures the leaders have first hand experience in many of the areas they will be commanding. This first hand experience fosters mentoring, understanding and compassion toward those under their command.
I often think how far the business world has gotten away from such a basic and common sense approach.
Currently there a strong movement away from viewing experience as the primary criteria for evaluation. The substitutes for experience are “credentials” or “certificates.”
There are two manifestations of this concept. The first is the hiring process for many jobs. Experience, technical skills and character are no longer the primary qualifications for job seekers. Ignoring the platitudes from HR and recruiters, the focus in hiring has shifted towards credentials. Are you a CPA? Did you work at a big accounting firm? Do you have an MBA?
Sure the job descriptions are full of stuff about experience and character but the dead giveaways are the disqualifying statements such as “CPA required.”
The hiring process seems to have devolved from a rigorous examination of one’s experiences to a “check the box” exercise by management.
Unfortunately “checking the box” rarely ensures that the person you are hiring has the skills you need to fulfill the company’s requirements. For example, I myself am a CPA, and am acutely aware of the large spread of skills amongst those carrying this designation.
The second manifestation of the preference of credentials over experience is in our own area of consulting. It’s comical to see people in this business with nearly 20 letters behind their name. I literally have seen the following (name anonymous of course):
John Doe, CPA, MBA, CFE, CISA, CIA, CCSA
To quickly handle the obvious rebuttal, yes most of these certifications have experience requirements attached to them, but let’s face it they are minimal. In addition, one wonders how the “expert” consultant manages to gain any real in depth experience while pursuing all those credentials.
As usual we left the most egregious example for last. Crystallizing the concept of “preference for credentials over real experience” we see people fresh out of business school being employed as “consultants.” These consultants are typically employed by very high end (and high priced) firms and they often sit across the table from battle scarred, grey haired managers lecturing them about “how you need to run your business.”
If you stop right here you can see how inherently illogical this is. Someone with little or no experience is employed as an “advisor” to people with years of experience?
Other consulting companies..cough…Granite Consulting…..cough…have been successful in advising their clients using consultants with decades of experience.
Certifications and credentials are fine as a starting point. The problem arises when they become a substitute for real experience or a disqualifier for those with deep experience and knowledge.
I will never forget years ago, I was working for the finance arm of an automobile manufacturer. There was a branch manager in Canada who had been in the business for approximately 30 years and had run his branch effectively and profitably. An edict had come down from the mountaintop that all branch managers must have a minimum of a Bachelors’ degree.
Alas our poor friend in Canada did not have his Bachelors degree so, you guessed it, he was forced to obtain one or…..
It was a scene from the twilight zone. I’ll never forget leaving the office one night after hours and seeing him studying in his office. Popping my head in his office, I asked what he was doing. When he told me I felt terrible, so I naively tried to make him feel better by telling him how much I admired his decades of experience.
Our Canadian friend looked up at the 24 year old Staff Internal Auditor with a Bachelors degree. With a disgusted look he grunted, “I’ll trade ya.”
Until next week,
Michael Bechara, CP..oh forget it
Managing Director
Granite Consulting Group Inc.
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#1 by Dan Helming on January 8, 2010 - 9:54 am
You would have liked David Hackworth’s book, About Face. He was the most decorated soldier in the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and turned into an anti-war activist at the end because of the Army’s focus on strategic bombing rather than troop and anti-guerrilla tactics. He was right… and we made the same mistake in Iraq even though the Army War College, State Department, and the most experienced general at the time, Gen. Shinseki, were right. There is no way of telling whether the training, certification or promotion regimens of either business or the military services are right or wrong except by listening to the most experienced people on the ground. That’s it!