.
How can the military adjust to keep pace in a changing world? Serving military officers answer here in a new series of features in collaboration with Military Leadership Circle (MLC).
Over the past few months, I have had two meaningful experiences that, considered together, highlight much about how individuals in uniform are affected by the military experience. In late April, I attended the Milken Institute Global Conference—an incomparable gathering of innovators, leaders, and decision-makers coming together to discuss the most pressing issues of our times. A couple of months later, I drove my family across the country for what will most likely be our last military change of station after nearly twenty years of service. Although those two experiences have little in common, they both left me thinking about Maslow, needs, transcendence, and the civil-military divide.
By Maslow, I am referring to the psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow, who first devised his famous hierarchy of needs theory in the 1940s. The foundation of his hierarchical pyramid consists of physiological needs – air, food, water, sleep, clothing, and shelter. Without these most basic of needs being met, a person cannot move forward to higher levels of accomplishment or achievement. Such higher levels include safety, belonging, esteem, self-actualization, and, ultimately, transcendence.
My two experiences—the conference and the move—drove home just how much the challenges of the military lifestyle can shift an individual down Maslow’s hierarchy. To attend the Milken Global Conference as a member of the Military Leadership Circle (a group of active-duty service members who come as invited guests) was to see the thriving that can take place when individuals and groups are actively pursuing collective solutions for higher-level needs. The conference’s attendees generally feel safe, healthy, and personally, emotionally, and financially secure. They are at the top of their respective fields, and comfortable interacting with others in the same stratosphere. Admirably, they come to the event to better themselves and the world at large.
To leave that conference and enter the frenzy of a typical change of post, then, was jarring. My family drove three days across the United States to our new duty station, not yet having an assigned house at our destination. We slept on floors and in hotels for weeks, living out of suitcases until quarters were made available and our household goods were delivered. That’s not a rare experience for those in uniform: military families know all too well about the dangers of deployments, fighting for proper healthcare at military hospitals, constantly searching for new schools and churches where they feel like they belong, and living in areas where military compensation puts them at an economic disadvantage.
As Maslow would have predicted, such challenges hinder the growth and skew the worldview of many service members. Basic needs are often the priority, with higher-order ones lying outside the realm of attention. Moreover, these facts of military life are also, ironically, what “scare” many individuals into staying in the safety of what they know and never reaching for their true potential (although many of us would never admit to being scared—we’re too proud for that).
My answer for what to do, personally, with this juxtaposition? Make the most of both experiences, and apply the lessons and opportunities of the conference for the betterment of my current environment. At Milken’s Global Conference, the dialogue rises above a mere “thank you for your service”. The very inclusion of the Military Leadership Circle by the Milken Institute is a testament to the fact that there are those who recognize a potential in service members beyond the military—a potential that (because of where we may be on Maslow’s hierarchy at any given moment) we cannot always see in ourselves. At the conference and afterwards within the networks that we’ve built, military officers may apply our skills and attention to higher-order needs, build relationships, find mentorship, and grow professionally and personally. And that growth can be invaluable for addressing issues when we find ourselves facing those basic needs at the base of the pyramid once again.
About the author: J. B. Brindle is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army and a member of the Military Leadership Circle. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the positions of the Department of Defense, United States Army, or any government agency. More information on the Military Leadership Circle can be found at https://militaryleadershipcircle.com.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
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Military Service and After: A Hierarchy of Needs
September 1, 2018
How can the military adjust to keep pace in a changing world? Serving military officers answer here in a new series of features in collaboration with Military Leadership Circle (MLC).
Over the past few months, I have had two meaningful experiences that, considered together, highlight much about how individuals in uniform are affected by the military experience. In late April, I attended the Milken Institute Global Conference—an incomparable gathering of innovators, leaders, and decision-makers coming together to discuss the most pressing issues of our times. A couple of months later, I drove my family across the country for what will most likely be our last military change of station after nearly twenty years of service. Although those two experiences have little in common, they both left me thinking about Maslow, needs, transcendence, and the civil-military divide.
By Maslow, I am referring to the psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow, who first devised his famous hierarchy of needs theory in the 1940s. The foundation of his hierarchical pyramid consists of physiological needs – air, food, water, sleep, clothing, and shelter. Without these most basic of needs being met, a person cannot move forward to higher levels of accomplishment or achievement. Such higher levels include safety, belonging, esteem, self-actualization, and, ultimately, transcendence.
My two experiences—the conference and the move—drove home just how much the challenges of the military lifestyle can shift an individual down Maslow’s hierarchy. To attend the Milken Global Conference as a member of the Military Leadership Circle (a group of active-duty service members who come as invited guests) was to see the thriving that can take place when individuals and groups are actively pursuing collective solutions for higher-level needs. The conference’s attendees generally feel safe, healthy, and personally, emotionally, and financially secure. They are at the top of their respective fields, and comfortable interacting with others in the same stratosphere. Admirably, they come to the event to better themselves and the world at large.
To leave that conference and enter the frenzy of a typical change of post, then, was jarring. My family drove three days across the United States to our new duty station, not yet having an assigned house at our destination. We slept on floors and in hotels for weeks, living out of suitcases until quarters were made available and our household goods were delivered. That’s not a rare experience for those in uniform: military families know all too well about the dangers of deployments, fighting for proper healthcare at military hospitals, constantly searching for new schools and churches where they feel like they belong, and living in areas where military compensation puts them at an economic disadvantage.
As Maslow would have predicted, such challenges hinder the growth and skew the worldview of many service members. Basic needs are often the priority, with higher-order ones lying outside the realm of attention. Moreover, these facts of military life are also, ironically, what “scare” many individuals into staying in the safety of what they know and never reaching for their true potential (although many of us would never admit to being scared—we’re too proud for that).
My answer for what to do, personally, with this juxtaposition? Make the most of both experiences, and apply the lessons and opportunities of the conference for the betterment of my current environment. At Milken’s Global Conference, the dialogue rises above a mere “thank you for your service”. The very inclusion of the Military Leadership Circle by the Milken Institute is a testament to the fact that there are those who recognize a potential in service members beyond the military—a potential that (because of where we may be on Maslow’s hierarchy at any given moment) we cannot always see in ourselves. At the conference and afterwards within the networks that we’ve built, military officers may apply our skills and attention to higher-order needs, build relationships, find mentorship, and grow professionally and personally. And that growth can be invaluable for addressing issues when we find ourselves facing those basic needs at the base of the pyramid once again.
About the author: J. B. Brindle is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army and a member of the Military Leadership Circle. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the positions of the Department of Defense, United States Army, or any government agency. More information on the Military Leadership Circle can be found at https://militaryleadershipcircle.com.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
