BPG as Trusted Advisor: Working with the Military for More than 20 Years

So is it important to know the difference between an ensign and a plebe? And does it matter if you say "Hooah" or "Oorah" when working with the United States Marine Corps?

When working with outside consultants, it's a huge times savings and possibly a saving grace when that outside contractor knows your industry. When you don't have to explain every bit of jargon or explain the culture, it's that much easier to focus on the task at hand.

For more than two decades, The Bob Pike Group (BPG) has been working with the United States Military and dovetailing our workshops to fill their needs and help participants better apply the concepts to military applications. We've even unveiled a two-day train-the-trainer boot camp focused specifically on those who work in or with the military, such as those doing on-base trainings for civilian employees.

"I've personally worked with every branch [of the U.S. military] except the U.S. Coast Guard," said Rich Meiss, senior training consultant with BPG. We do our coaching, mentoring, presentation skills, time mastery and effective meetings workshops for different branches, he said, "but the big one is our Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp."

The military boot camp is a slightly customized version of our regular boot camp where we use our regular workbook but use specific military examples and applications for the activities and techniques. "For example, when we do the window paning exercise, we use the steps naval nuclear shipyards might use when checking for radioactivity," Meiss said. But when the workshop is sponsored by a military group, the workshops are even more customized. In these classes, "we show how to adapt the participant-centered techniques to military briefings, which typically run 30 to 60 minutes versus a longer workshop format."

Not surprisingly, the biggest change Meiss has seen military groups implement is the switch from lecture and PowerPoint to a more participant-centered approach. "We were greeted with initial skepticism, especially from the instructors, but the fact they've invited us back so many times tells us they've really bought into the participant-centered approach," Meiss said.

Another huge change that has been implemented is the integration of classroom and hands-on instruction. "Some of these groups would do two or three weeks of classroom instruction and then move to hands-on application," Meiss said. "We've encouraged them to merge the two more quickly, so after a few days of classroom instruction they then move into the hands-on a little more quickly."

In his work with the National Guard, there has been "quite an emphasis on mentoring," Meiss said. "We have been chosen to be the ones to bring our mentoring program to them. We're going to be training National Guard trainers who will then train their mentors. Like so many organizations today, the Guard is finding that they are losing so much of their knowledge base due to retirement so they want to make sure they are mentoring the newer guardsmen and women as they come in."

"Very often in the military, training is seen as punishment," Meiss said, which contradicts Pike's Third Law, that “learning is directly proportional to the amount of fun we have.” Many instructors in the military have told us that the idea of 'fun' might not apply for them, but they’ve definitely seen a shift to having training be more enjoyable. 

"It's become more enjoyable for the instructors as they’ve become more participant-centered, and we certainly know it's more enjoyable for the participants, and the increased retention and improved content transfer back to the job cannot be ignored,” Meiss said. "One military group which implemented these techniques saw an average of eight percent increase in retention for  re-certification courses with a drastic reduction in course failures."  That illustrates the power of the participant-centered approach!