Human Performance: What Military Experience Can Offer Wider Industry

Twenty years in the British Army have exposed me to a recurring requirement: people must turn intent into coordinated action, often with competing demands and limited time. My experience spans physical development, instructor training, training management and assurance.

The value for wider industry comes from translating that experience into its context. Military service does not automatically establish expertise in another sector. A business has its own customers, constraints, professional standards and measures of success.

What I mean by human performance

I use human performance development to describe helping people build and apply the knowledge, skills, behaviours and capacity their work requires. It includes leadership, communication, followership, adaptability, teamwork and personal responsibility.

Physical readiness can matter, but so can the working environment. A team may have skilled, committed people and still struggle because priorities are unclear, handovers lose information or individuals cannot raise a concern early enough.

The first task is to understand what is preventing effective performance. A development course is one possible response. Clearer processes, resources or management decisions may be needed as well.

The experience behind that approach

In Sierra Leone, my training-development work involved reconnaissance, senior-stakeholder engagement, needs analysis, programme design, delivery and assurance. The transferable lesson is to understand the requirement and local conditions before designing a response.

At Headquarters 3rd Division, my physical-development oversight extended across more than 50 Regular and Reserve units. That exposed me to the challenge of coordinating provision across a dispersed organisation, engaging leaders and maintaining assurance while local circumstances differed.

At the Army School of Physical Training, instructor development and training management included adapting provision during COVID restrictions. I now serve as Regimental Sergeant Major at the Army Instructor School. These roles inform how I connect organisational requirements with the people expected to deliver them.

These are relevant experiences, not evidence that the same approach will produce identical results in a civilian organisation. Transfer requires diagnosis, adaptation and evaluation.

Where the crossover is practical

A logistics team might need more reliable handovers. A project team might need clearer responsibilities when priorities change. A management group might need to improve how it briefs decisions, receives challenge and follows through. These are illustrative requirements that call for specific behaviours, not a generic promise of high performance.

Salas, Sims and Burke (2005) propose five core teamwork components: team leadership, mutual performance monitoring, backup behaviour, adaptability and team orientation. Their framework also includes coordination mechanisms such as shared mental models, closed-loop communication and mutual trust.

My practical interpretation is to make those ideas visible. Does the team share an understanding of the task? Are important messages acknowledged and checked? Do people recognise when a colleague needs support? Can they adapt without losing responsibility for the outcome?

Honest reflection also depends on how people are treated when they speak. Edmondson's (1999) study of manufacturing teams found an association between psychological safety and learning behaviour. For my approach, this reinforces the need to make questions, concerns and mistakes discussable while keeping standards clear.

What I would bring to an organisation

I would begin by agreeing the performance requirement with leaders and the workforce. Then I would identify the relevant behaviours and barriers, design purposeful practice, and connect it to an agreed workplace action.

The follow-up matters. A workshop can reveal a weak handover, but improvement requires someone to own the new routine, create opportunities to use it and check whether it is working. Measures might include handover completeness, avoidable rework or timely escalation, depending on the requirement.

My military experience gives me a foundation in developing people and coordinating delivery under pressure. The contribution I want to make to wider industry is practical: clearer leadership, stronger teamwork and learning that carries into everyday work.

Explore leadership, team development and training-review services.

Further reading

Salas, E., Sims, D. E. and Burke, C. S. (2005). Is There a “Big Five” in Teamwork? Small Group Research, 36(5), 555–599.

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.