4 Efficiency Lessons from Successful Former Military Entrepreneurs

Most military organizations run like clockwork. They have established systems and processes that hold their operations together, ensuring that everything, from soldiers to sandbags to bullets, is in the right place at the right time.

When a military veteran takes that rigid ability to maintain efficiency and productivity and applies it to the business world, it can create impressive results. It can also shed fresh light on different areas to focus on when it comes to entrepreneurial efficiency.

In this article, we will explore business efficiency from this unique perspective. We will consider the proven methods of several highly successful former military entrepreneurs who made the leap from the trenches to the office and examine how they leveraged their discipline, planning, and problem-solving skills to build streamlined and productive businesses.

1. Set the Example

Military service may conjure images of screaming drill sergeants and leaders giving orders. However, genuinely effective military operations come from leaders willing to set an example before they expect others to follow it. This is true for efficiency as much as anything else.

Effective operations don’t come from being overbearing or micromanaging others. They stem from leaders willing to set a standard and live it out personally before expecting others to emulate it.

This creates a trickle-down impact for those further down a business’s org chart. Employees can see the degree of competence and productivity they are expected to achieve set out in no uncertain terms by those in charge.

Co-founder of GBRS Group and retired Navy SEAL DJ Shipley spoke to this concept when he said, “Use yourself as the example of the employees you want working for you. The way you act, work, and treat others should be what you want employees to mimic as they represent your company. The best leaders I ever worked for in the military were idealistic in nature and always set the example.”

Shipley’s co-founder, Cole Fackler, also a retired Navy SEAL added to the sentiment, “Dont ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do.”

Shipley ended his thoughts with the perfect litmus test for whether a leader is inspiring efficiency or not. He posits: if you had the ability to clone them, would you? Would it make your company better?

Ask yourself this honest question. Is your efficiency as a leader something you would want to see replicated across every area of your company? If the answer is yes, you know you’re setting the right tone for an efficient organization.

2. Bring Together (and Care for) Your Team

An individual can be efficient on their own. They can manage their time, steward their resources, and care for their health without another person’s input. Efficiency in the workplace, though, is a team activity. An efficient individual operating independently will have minimal impact, as their productivity will often hit bottlenecks and impasses at some point further up or down each process.

Founder of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith, is a Marine and a decorated Vietnam veteran. The former military business titan understood how much teamwork-oriented leadership could impact team performance.

He told CNN, “Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals.” Smith added that good leadership boils down to a top-to-bottom interest in looking after your people. You want everyone to feel they are part of the team. When you can create a sense of cared-for buy-in that originates in leadership, it encourages others to remain invested and focused — two key aspects of operational efficiency.

If you struggle with efficiency in your business, don’t just look for a faster program or a better process to speed things up. Consider the uniformity and morale of your team.

Are you looking out for the interests of your staff? Are your employees coalescing into a single unit focused on fulfilling your company’s mission and reaching its goals? You can hone in on specific aspects of efficiency in business operations, but those efforts won’t have staying power if your team isn’t able to implement and maintain them with you. That starts with building a group that—like a well-oiled military unit—is seen, cared for, and forged into a single unit with a clear vision.

3. Embrace Imperfection

It’s easy to blur the lines between efficiency and perfectionism. However, the former can enhance a business’s activity, while the latter can hinder it. Leaders must understand that efficiency is a process, not a switch. It is an imperfect science that requires perpetual growth and adaptation.

Marine and GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons has addressed this important distinction in the past, saying, “Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it.”

Parsons adds that if something were easy, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to turn it into a business because everyone would be doing it. The demand for efficiency comes from the fact that business is inherently messy, especially at the entrepreneurial startup and early growth stages.

If you’re running a young company, you’re going to be inefficient everywhere. A good leader seeks solutions to both present and future inefficiencies to perpetually move a company toward success.

DJ Shipley has also touched on this subject as it pertains to using military resilience to overcome obstacles when running a business. “Military life isn’t easy and comes with a lot of stress and personal challenges to achieve the things you want,” he said. “The same is true when running a business. It’s never going to be perfect, but as long as we are consistently improving, we will keep going in a positive direction.”

Business efficiency is a process. It takes time and can always get better. Adopt that mindset if you want to maintain a truly efficient operation over time.

4. Maintain a Big-Picture Perspective

Efficiency is often seen as a nitty-gritty process. You want to cut costs, reduce downtime, and improve skills — and that’s true. But it’s not the whole story. Efficiency can also be beneficial when approached from a 10,000-foot perspective.

Phil Knight, a Marine and founder of Nike, takes this viewpoint in his book Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike. He points out that when a business creates, improves, or delivers something, you’re attempting to make the lives of complete strangers happier, healthier, safer, or in some way better. “When you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is,” Knight adds, “you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully.”

This big-picture perspective is important not only in the larger scheme of conducting business but also in improving efficiency. As an entrepreneur, you invest significant resources into creating solutions for consumers.

No matter what that looks like, you always want those products and services to meet your customer’s needs. If they don’t, you are running an inefficient business model.

Always invest in maintaining a big-picture perspective when it comes to efficiency. Along with processes and frameworks, do your overall strategy and vision remain valuable in the eyes of your end-users? That, at its core, is the most critical efficiency of all.

Gleaning Efficiency Insights from Former Military Entrepreneurs

The military has much to offer business owners, including many unique perspectives on business efficiency. From setting an example as a leader and coalescing your team to embracing imperfection and maintaining a big-picture perspective, ensure you’re approaching efficiency the right way in your business. If you can do that, you can unlock unexpected results and ensure that your company has the best chance of long-term success.