49. What Amazon and the Marine Corps Have in Common with Beau Higgins

Brock Briggs  00:00

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt podcast, the podcast for current and former service members in pursuit of their higher calling. I'm your host, Brock Briggs and today I'm speaking with Beau Higgins. Beau is a retired Marine Corps Intelligence Officer of 25 years and now works as a senior manager overseeing military talent acquisition at Amazon. We talk through how to inspire leadership from every single person in the unit, even down to the most junior personnel. Beau talks through his framework for managing risk and balancing the necessity for field training with the requirement of comprehensive instructions. 

We close the conversation talking about how the culture at Amazon has mirrored that of the Marine Corps, getting comfortable with failing quickly, and tactics for successful job hunting, coming from someone who, quite frankly, looks at a lot of resumes. Beau is incredibly passionate about serving others. And you'll hear that today. He puts out a lot of great career resources online, so be sure to follow along with him on LinkedIn. Please enjoy this conversation with Beau. 

I appreciate you tuning in today. Please consider leaving a review on whatever platform you listen on, if you haven't already. And if you're new here, all I ask is that if you find value in what you hear today, please send it to a friend. 

Brock Briggs

What is the thing that you are the most proud about but you don't ever get to or never tell anybody about?

Beau Higgins  01:41

Phew! That is a great question.You know, I will tell you, you know, one of the things and I don't know if it's, I guess yeah, it's probably a good answer for it. You know, I'm proud these days, as a guy that retired eight years ago from the Marine Corps. I am super proud of the Marines that were in my command or that served for me with me that are still in, and both continue to reach out to me to ask for mentorship and help and to see the progression of their commands or their opportunities. Some that have gone into command and have done great things. 

I mean, that's something I'm super proud of, you know, I kinda invested. I like to think I invested a lot of time in leadership and being a mentor and setting the example for the Marines that, you know, that worked for me and to see them be successful is so much more, you know, satisfying than your own success. And again, for my kids, I'm certainly proud of them. But they hear that and I talk about that. And I've never really talked about how proud I am of the Marines that work for me to see their success and how proud I am when they ever do reach out to me and ask for hey, sir! You know, they still are in.

So it's like these are, you know, how would you do it when you were in command? And what are tips you had or things you can share with me. And that makes me proud that they learn something from me, probably some good, some bad. I think you take good and bad from all leaders. But that's something that I probably don't talk about much, but means a lot to me to see their success, you know, years after I've been out of the Marine Corps.

Brock Briggs  03:27

Is that what you or how you would maybe define successful leadership?

Beau Higgins  03:33

To me, it is. To me, it's definitely mean service. That's what servant leadership is, right? You're serving others. And I think especially in this role at Amazon, you know, as a guy that had a full career, 25 years, you know, these days, I get the greatest joy out of hiring veterans from a leadership perspective. I get it from seeing the success of my team here. You know, I tell my team all the time, and they're young. I'm 55, right? My teams of 20 and 30 year olds, you know, this is their, you know, started their careers. And I have no desire at this point in my life to be Jeff Bezos or be Jane Bezos, whoever it may be, right? 

But I really do take pride in seeing the success of my team and hoping that they believe me when I say look, I'm here to help you. You know, I'm not looking to win another plaque to put on my wall. I'm not looking to win another award, I have done. I've had a great career. If I went home today and did nothing, I can be proud. But if I can do something to open the door for you to help you be successful in your careers, you know, the analogy I'm making. Let me be the, you know, the offensive guard to block for you. So you can be the quarterback and the running back and score the touchdown, right? 

I want to give you those opportunities to be successful. And to see them be able to run through those holes and be successful is what really makes me excited. So again, similar to the Marine Corps piece and seen those guys years ago that I did. It's the guys today or you know, the team today. I definitely something that I certainly still invest in, you know, and I think they've been part of what has been part of me since hopefully day one in my Marine Corps career.

Brock Briggs  05:11

That was gonna be the next bit I was gonna ask about. I have a quote from you from retiring the Corps. You said, if people remember me as someone that put others first and was a man for others, that would be a legacy I would strive to obtain. Does that mentality and outlook come from the Marine Corps? Or do you think that that was something that came from just you individually?

Beau Higgins  05:34

I can tell you exactly where it came from. I came from Jesuit High School where I went, that is what we talk about a Jesuit High School is being a man for others. And they, you know, they say they beat that into your head, but it's just something that becomes part of your life. And when you're in high school, you don't necessarily appreciate it. So many things, when you're in the moment, you don't appreciate what you have when you're doing it. But when you look back on it, and you see the relationships you had, the education you had, the foundational experience you had of being for me and all boys Catholic school. 

And having you know, these priests there. These Jesuit priests that teach you to think and teach you to just appreciate what you have, but also try to be thinkers and to be that man for others. That's what their whole philosophy is all about. And again, I don't know that I was very good at it or you know, or really embraced it fully when I was, you know, 15 through 18 and even in college. But I think as I got into the Marine Corps and was trying to find my leadership style, that is certainly, you know, one of if not the most core foundation of what I always try to start with. If you do that, if you put others first and be a man for others, you can't go wrong. So yeah, it definitely started when I was in high school 100%.

Brock Briggs  06:51

It seems to me like one of those things that really comes from, it's almost just pursuing delayed gratification, kind of I equate it to my background is in finance. And so you're always talking about like saving for later. And sometimes like that day never really seems like it will come. But were there points maybe in your career where it felt like, hey, it's time for me to like get something out of this? Or did you? I guess, maybe talk about a time where that fight of wanting the gratification of now versus giving.

Beau Higgins  07:26

You know I think you can balance both, right? I talk always and when I talk to Marines in particular to this day, you wanna keep every door open for your career. And keeping every door open means you need to do all the things it takes to be eligible for promotion, you know, to be competitive for command, to have the best jobs. And so you have to be, I think you can be a servant leader and still be somewhat selfish or at least driven, maybe it's not really selfish, this is driven to say, look, I wanna be the best. And being the best doesn't mean I have to be, you know, an asshole.

But you know, you can do that. I think you can do both, you know. That's the balance, can you be the leader that you want to be and also maintain the values that define who you are. So, you know, again, if it's academic prowess, something that's really much very much based on you and the work you put on. And I was able to kind of show that in schools I went to in the Marine Corps to be successful, right? From a leadership perspective, I mean, it's, you know, it's investing in time, investing in others. And if you do that, you know, if you invest in your people, and your people do well, your command will do well, and therefore you will do well, right? 

So it's, I think it's easy, sometimes you say, I'm doing myself and I know leaders, we've all had leaders that said, you know, and they were successful on the backs of others, which can be done up to a certain point. But at some point, the scope and scale of your command is beyond your ability to be there every day for every second to micromanage everything. So when you have to depend on others, you know, you have to find a way to motivate them to be successful on their own. And if they're successful, it will make you successful, too. So I mean, that's the, and if they're not successful, then you may not be successful. 

And that's, you know, that's your fault and you challenge the leader. I think you're right, so you have to sometimes maybe adjust to that a little bit. But that's, I think, if you invest the people, they will always if people know you have their best interest at heart and truly and show it not just words when we in Latin, and other jazz would highschool had take Latin for five years. So often on verbal, right? Actions not words. You know, they see your actions are really putting your money where your mouth is, they're going to put in the effort to be successful. And again, that makes the small unit level. Those things are building blocks for success for your unit. So, again, I think all can be done in one way helping yourself be successful by helping others be successful.

Brock Briggs  10:13

Another thing that I had written down that you had said before is that you believe that everybody should lead every single day. At a certain point, there are only so many leadership type roles and so many positions that can be filled in that way. How is it possible for anyone today, maybe in their workplace or maybe even specifically Marine Corps military in general? How can everyone be a leader?

Beau Higgins  10:43

Leadership is, there are opportunities to lead every day that we don't even think about. And it's not big thing. It's not leading some massive, you know, frontal assault in the military or imperious assault, right? In Amazon, it's not leading, you know, some huge effort to like, start what Amazon Prime or whatever. I mean, it's about the example you set, right? Do you see trash on the ground? Pick it up. You know, if you see an opportunity to help somebody out, help them out. Take an extra minute to be kind in that is leadership, it's leadership through the example that you set because as a more senior person, whether in the military or whether it Amazon, people are always watching you. 

And leadership is by what you do, it's sending little note to sending I write a lot of personal letters to this day, you know. Those are little things that that's leadership, that's not something that's out in front, and I'm like, beat my chest and I'm great. It's just things you do because it's the right thing to do. And that to me, is leadership. And that's what resonates with people when you're when you do the little things right, you know. And like the Admiral McRaven speech, right? Make your bed, right? The first thing every day, if you're successful doing that, then things just kind of stack from there, right? 

And I really believe in that. I think your actions, your small actions you take of taking time for people, when people come to you and have problems. Don't say, you know, multitask and do six things be like, be in the moment, right? Be present when people are talking to you. That's leadership, you know that it's something little, but you also know when you can tell people are kind of like, just wanna be done and move on from you, right? And people see that and sense that. So, you know, being present, setting the example. I mean, those are the things that allow you to lead every day, in my opinion. It's not the big stuff. I mean, the big stuff is great. And there will be those opportunities once in a while to be the guy, you know, carrying the sword on the horse, in charge across the battlefield. But usually, it's just the little things that matter.

Brock Briggs  12:45

I've always really struggled with the idea of what leadership is because every time it's pitched or somebody asked kind of the big question, what does leadership mean to you or whatever, they're always people are looking for this grandiose answer that talks about this massive decision. And like you just pointed out, it's not that at all like it very, very rarely, more often, it's the sum of smaller decisions over time that, like you were just saying, speak to who you are throughout and kind of build that relationship with your subordinates or even people over you. 

Beau Higgins  13:27

Yeah, I mean, it's muscle memory of doing the right thing over and over and over, right? Where you get used to setting the example in whatever you're doing, you know. And once you start doing that, again, it has a trickle down effect. Like I said, people are watching you and they will do and they will, you know, they will follow your example, if you set a good example. If you set a bad example, they will follow that as well, right? So you can't say one thing and expect different behavior, right? You can't act one way and say, well, you can't do that, you know. And that's what you see as bad leaders are ones that have that double standard of, you know, you can't do this but I can do that, you know. 

I mean, that's where you know, the whole idea. You hear from, you know, from senior leaders all the time, you know, generals eat last or leaders eat last, right? You let the troops eat first. That's a little stuff that, you know, again, makes a difference. And people watch and people see that. So, again, you're right. It's not leadership is not the big things. The big things, you will be successful in the big things, if you have the little things right. And little things are things you can do every single day.

Brock Briggs  14:37

You spent 25 years in the Marine Corps, and so you have a very long history of learning these types of things and practicing them over time. How do you think that the Marine Corps instills that idea in its troops today? And this comes from a place of over as I've been doing this podcast for the last year taking a real keen interest in the way that senior leaders lead their troops. And there seems to be something very different in the water, whatever the Marine Corps is drinking. It differs in a very large way. And I think that it's seen in kind of the morale of junior people. So I'm curious what you think and how you think that the Marine Corps does that differently?

Beau Higgins  15:26

Yeah, no, I agree. And I think we are, we Marines are very biased about being the best branch. And I think there's some justification for that. We're the smallest, right? So we do have a little bit of a, I hate the word elite, we have this idea that we are special. And I think, even the way we describe ourselves, right? You talk to a Marine, every Marine knows the Marine Corps birthday, right? Every Marine calls themself a Marine. If you talk to people in the army, they typically will say, well, I'm, you know, I'm an 82nd airborne guy. I'm an admiral first airborne guy. Or if you talk to any guy in the Navy, they say, you know, oh, yeah, I'm a pilot. And I'm attached to this ship. Their identity comes from their unit or their branch. In the Marine Corps, it's about being a Marine. You're a Marine, I just, this is how it is. 

So the institution itself, I think, has some ability to bring people together and have that extra layer of camaraderie that's built in from us from day one. I think a big part of it is, you know, obviously, just the investment we make in training people, whether it be for the enlisted Marines at boot camp, for the officers at Officer Candidate School. You know, the more you push and the more you invest on the front end of the training, to, you know, inculcate people into the culture and share the history, it becomes part of your DNA. And then, you know, as you grow, I mean, you know, I will tell you, to me, the Marine Corps is about getting, you know, it's about getting a degree in leadership. You go to college, you get a degree in something.

The military and the Marine Corps particular is about leadership and how we, you know, how you can build, I talk about building adding tools to your leadership tool chest. I think all of us, we start as Marine Corps leaders, you know. You may only have a couple tools in the tool chest, you know, and a hammer and a screwdriver. And you see every situation and you act a certain way. But over time, you know, it's about taking, you know, using all the tools at your disposal to be successful as a leader. I think the Marine Corps is just, you know, we want to, we really value, the most junior, you know, NCO, that fire team. We empower them to be leaders, you know, at a very, very junior level, right? 

That is also a huge difference, I think, from the Marine Corps and other services, where if you look at the Navy, you're not in many times the Navy, you know, to your chief, you don't have much authority and responsibility, right? That's, you know, E-7. You know in the Marine Corps, as it you know, as a corporal, you're leading a fire team, and there's expectations placed upon you very early in your military career that you have to lead. You need to lead. You need to take care of your people. So it's giving people the opportunity to succeed or fail very early on, and hopefully giving them the tools to be successful. 

But I think that's part of it is just our willingness and our necessity to, you know, empower, you know, Marines at a very young level, whether it be Lieutenant or as you know, as an enlisted Marine to have that as opportunities to lead then that will lead them or allow them to grow into even better leaders, right? That's a big piece of it. That's, I think, different in our culture than others. Look, a great example of it is what's happening in Russia right now. No leadership in the lower level. The only people that are leading over there are colonels and generals, right? 

You know, you need to empower those Marines the lowest possible to make a decision on the battlefield. The battlefield is crazy. You know, so if you do that, there is risk with it because a 22 year old may make some crazy decisions sometimes, right? But I think that's the kind of risk, you know, risking analysis, you have to do of what is the right thing. I think for the Marine Corps, it's to invest in those young people, invest in their training and let them go. And it can be a cultural difference between us and other services in many ways.

Brock Briggs  19:29

I remember so many examples of exactly what you're talking about going through ACE school and because we were in a mixed class with Marines and Navy, going through aviation. And the amount of respect that was even just afforded to senior E-3s was like nothing that I had ever seen. And even going out into the fleet, like and getting out away from the Marines altogether. There really isn't that respect for anything until you are at E-7. You're just kind of like, you're just there. And I think that that causes a lot of problems with almost the ownership of the branch and your job. And I really admire that about the Marine Corps.

Beau Higgins  20:20

No, I think you're spot on. I did three cruises with the Navy and a lot of times for the Navy over time. And again, as a guy that was a sickener, my training with the Navy as well. And, you know, I think the ownership, I think you're spot on about that. You know, it's ownership at a young age. The ownership at a junior rank that, we put that on you, whether you can handle it or not is up to you. That's the expectation that you're going to be able to do that. And it's interesting because you know, ownership is something we value at Amazon too. So again, it's always interesting to me, when these skill sets of the military how they translate over into the corporate world. That's something we stress here. So interesting, I think you're right, ownership is a big deal. And we push that down to the junior level as possible.

Brock Briggs  21:04

Other than maybe a young corporal that's 22 years old, making a really poor decision in the heat of things that maybe could happen to anybody. Are there any other drawbacks to the ownership and empowerment that's given to junior troops?

Beau Higgins  21:24

I don't know if there's anything wrong with it? I don't know if there's any drawbacks to it? I think it's, you can't pass on responsibility, either. I think there can be a sometimes maybe you can, if you're not a good leader, you can, you know, you can push down decisions that should be your decision, right? I mean, you don't want to be that's really have to figure it out, right? What's the decision he has to make and really needs to make? Or what's a decision that can be pushed down to those junior folks. 

And I think if you are able to push those decisions down to junior folks, you can't, when they make that decision, you have to be somewhat patient in their decision making process to give them a little bit of rope and just say, oh, that's horrible. What are you thinking? I'm gonna do it this way, you know. So you can't like break their morale, if they make a decision that isn't exactly what you want. If you want them to grow, you have to put them in a position where they are empowered to actually make a decision. And maybe you can tweak it a little bit, but don't just, you know, reject it out of hand. I think that sometimes what we see is, again, there are those leaders that are so risk averse. They want every decision held up to them. 

And you know, every decision has to go through them because of a bottleneck. That's the wrong way to do things. You have to push the systems down. You have to trust those leaders that they're gonna make the right decision as best they can because that's what's gonna help them grow and to be leaders later on. So I don't necessarily see there's anything wrong with it unless there's other leaders that again, I think there are some leaders that don't want to be held accountable for anything. They just like, I'll push down on somebody else. Because if it goes wrong, I can blame somebody else. 

Whereas a good leader, even if they make a decision that goes wrong, you're the one that holds that responsibility, right? So if it's a junior person, I would still say yep, you know, sir, I'm the one that told Lieutenant Johnson that what he said was good to go. And you own that. I think the concern would be if you do empower them, that some people would say, they would pass the buck down and say, no, I didn't make that call. You know, that was Lieutenant Johnson that made the call, you know. So that just comes from, you know, again, there are bad leaders that will do that. That is something that could be a second and third order effective that if you allow it to in a poor command climate.

Brock Briggs  23:48

Do you have any memories of specific times where you may be passed something down that was wrong? And what kind of the outcome of that was?

Beau Higgins  24:01

That's a good question. You know, I think we all look at decisions we made in the military and some that we probably would regret in some way, shape or form, you know and or could do better in some way, shape or form. You know, in my case, I had a kind of an extreme example. I had one of the Marines, a Marine that was, we were training to go deployed over to Iraq at a time when I was CO of first recon. And we had a Marine that was killed in a training accident. One Marine didn't check, mixed up live around with blanks, right? Now, again, I took full responsibility for it. There are things that I could have had in place as a commanding officer some SOPs that would have potentially, you know, saved a Marine's life, right? 

So you have to take the ownership and that's the exact right word for it, you know. You have to have the ownership when things do go wrong. So, yes 100%. There are decisions that I know I made. And again, that is an extreme example of one, certainly, but those decisions you make every day, what do you invest in? Do you invest in, you know, making sure the SOP is updated, refined? Or do you invest your time in, you know, training? Your time is the most valuable, you know, thing you have, and where you invest your time is what you have to figure out as a leader, right? 

And if you overlook one thing, that maybe doesn't seem that important, it can come up sometimes and bite you in the butt, you know. And again, I think you want to give your Marines also the latitude and Marines always gonna wanna focus on like training and doing the fun stuff. But there's a need to have a balance and do the behind the scenes stuff, the maintenance and the, you know, get the SOPs built out and invest in that before you can do the fun stuff. And I think that's where maybe sometimes as a leader, you might get that out of whack a little bit. And I think that's probably what happened to me a little bit. I was so focused on the mission and the training, we let some of the behind the scenes policies and training, you know, maybe slide a little bit. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  26:21

To kind of unpack that example that you just gave, is that what the outcome of that particular circumstance was? Did you go back and revisit those policies or

Beau Higgins  26:33

We did. I mean, we 100% did. Again, it was a chain of just weird things that happened that we're all kind of one off. So it's hard to you couldn't put your finger on one thing, it was multiple breakdowns. There's a very strange circumstances to be candid that how it occurred. But it made us to do a big, you know, basically your safety stand down and step back and look at all our policies. Similar to what happens on the aviation side of the house, right? Do you have a helicopter goes down, you have a safety stand down. You look internally. You figured out the training, what was the problem and dig into that. We had to do the same thing. 

So certainly, it forced us to do that. It's unfortunate that it had to be an extreme incident that pushed us to do that. But yeah, we 100% looked at that, and made changes to policies and did some things differently moving forward. You know, hopefully avoid that ever happening again, but you know sometimes. And it's only this would be crass. But sometimes there are just weird circumstances that one thing that you would never, you could never write, you can't write a policy that covers everything under the sun, right? There are just, stuff happens sometimes, you know. And again, we could have done better. 

I'm not trying to write off any kind of, you know, ownership of this by any means. But there always seems you can do better to tighten up and make sure people really understand policies and understand what they're doing. Are they reading it? Are they really embracing it and doing it, you know? And how do you measure that and it can be tough.

Brock Briggs  28:06

As a senior leader, do you ever fully get okay with the balance of knowing that you may not have an SOP or a policy for everything, but knowing that you need to continue to proceed forward in the light of that uncertainty?

Beau Higgins  28:23

I think 100%. And that's like what you're paid for is to make those decisions, those risk analysis decisions, right? Yeah, that's what you're always kind of doing is you're evaluating the risk. So it is, do you have enough? Because you're never gonna have perfect information, right? We'd say that in the Intel world all the time, right? You know, you're never gonna have 100% certainty that analysis you made or decision you make, you're not gonna have under 100% clarity what the enemy is going to do ever. So you have to make decisions with imperfect information. 

Now, again, I think there's a level of information that is kind of, you know, red, yellow, green, right? We'll never do it when it's red, in yellow, you know, there's risk as long as you I think part of it is, as long as you're identifying what those risks are, if you call it upfront, hey, we know that we may be a little short in this area, and there's some risk here. However, the mission is so important that we are gonna take that risk or the mission is not that important, we're not gonna get the risk. We're gonna pause and we're gonna fix this thing, right? So I think that's part of it is just really, in the planning process, which the Marine Corps loves, you know, how do you identify those risks, those gaps that you have and then say, okay, are you as the commander willing to accept the risks that we've identified and move forward or not? 

And that's what you're paid the big bucks to do is take that on and make that decision and have the ownership for that, and sometimes the answer is yes. And sometimes the answer's no. That's just kind of sometimes it's like, you know, that's what leadership is. You know, it's about experience about, you know, it's like playing Chess, right? If you're giving her General Van Riper talking about, you know, the more you can play chess, you can see the battlefield cuz you've done it so many times. You can kind of say, okay, predict the future, but you know what's going to happen hopefully ahead, right? So hopefully you've been as a Marine leader, the more decisions you make, the more times you've been in these situations, you hopefully have a better feel for what the outcomes are gonna be and where it's, you know, okay or where it's, you know, affordable to take risk.

Brock Briggs  30:32

You spent majority of your career in intelligence roles. How do you think that that shaped your decision making over time, and maybe you can talk about how it was when you came in? And then throughout the iteration of those roles, how that maybe changed over time?

Beau Higgins  30:52

Yeah, you know, I'll tell you, I think the key thing about being intelligence in the intelligence field is that you have to rely on or be able to be a good writer, you have to be able to compress lots of information into a very short document to make an assessment, and if you’re willing to make a call, right? The Intel guy has to be able to say, I think commander that you know, you can or can't do this, or the enemy is gonna do this or that, right? You can't be wishy washy, right? So, I think when I came into the Marine Corps, you know, certainly in my head, I thought I was gonna be an infantry but I ended up having the opportunity to be an intel officer, which is great. 

And every Marine is a rifleman. And we get that, certainly, and I think when you first get in, though I didn't know how to write for effects, I didn't know how to influence, or it just takes you a while to understand how, again, the planning process or the decision making process inside the Marine Corps. And as an Intel officer, you have to understand your role and what the commander needs. And that's also a challenge because every commander is different, right? I've worked for different bosses that wanted different things. They wanted information presented in different ways. Some want pictures. Some want words, someone, you know, whatever it may be, right? 

So again, I think there's something that over time, you just you need to have those Intel tools in the tool chest to be able to provide the commander, the information he needs in a way that he can best digest it, and then make a decision because you're not the decision maker when you're the Intel. You’re the staff guy, right? You're the one that's providing the information for them. So being able to do that, being able to kind of read people and understand how they process information is a big part of the job, which took me time to figure it out. And then again, I think the real key of it is how do you condense multiple inputs, you know, whether it's, you know, signal information, you know, eland information. 

I mean, there's a myriad of, you know, satellite imagery, how do you take all these inputs, human reporting and blend that in to make something that can be a useful product, and be a value added for that commander, right? And hat's hard. It's hard to condense, you know, 27 reports into a paragraph, but you usually get, you know, the people's attention spans are somewhat short. I think the Marine Corps in the military in general, I'll say, this is a comparison between the military and Amazon. You know, most brief you go in, in the Marine Corps or in the military or PowerPoint briefs, that's what you get in the military, a lot of PowerPoint, which is very, you know, PowerPoint deep, right? It's a bullet here, a bullet there. 

In Amazon, we write six page papers. So you have the ability to lay out your data and lay out your arguments. And I think we in the military could probably use or learn a little bit about that about our decision making process to get a little more invested and put some more of the data behind the PowerPoint bullet because PowerPoint bullets sometimes don't have much behind them. You know, I think that's something that I saw over time and some people didn't know what they were talking about. They put the bullet up there, then it came down to they really had nothing. There was no data to back it up, you know. And again, as an Intel guy, you do have to rely on the data on the facts that you were able to see your collector analyze. And that's something that again, took me time to kind of figure out that coalesce all of that and be able to be a value add to that commander.

Brock Briggs  34:23

 I've heard the phrase, brevity is the soul of wit. I'm curious how you think about the value of being able to condense something. I understand that as something that's anybody who can make something very simple, probably understands it very well. Do you think that there's opportunity for people to hide behind information when they're allowed to expound to the nth degree?

Beau Higgins  34:48

I think it's easier to hide. Like I said, we were only allowed to have one slide in a brief, you know, and that's where you have to condense it down to. And if you just have like three or four bullets on there, it's easy to hide behind that. Like when you have to provide a six page paper, in my opinion, you know, that's a lot harder. It's a lot harder, the writing that I do now is a lot harder than in general, the Intel writing I had to do. And that said, like I said, when you write a document that if you're writing an analysis, they're gonna go up to TIA or CIA or you know, a more a higher level organization, you need to have the rigor behind that. 

And again, you have to take that six page paper and just pull out the one, you know, cogent paragraph. So that's super hard to do. And you have to know the topic very well to be able to do that. What is the most cogent piece of that six page doc? I think you can't hide behind that one, that one is gonna be backed up by data, but you can hide behind or just PowerPoint bullets, that there may not be much data behind them at all. It's just kind of a swag you put on there because it's all you have and just all you're gonna get people, you know. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  36:05

How do you think about the value of intelligence when it comes to decision making, maybe in general and or the military? I kind of am curious, you already had mentioned that every Marine is a rifleman, like first and foremost. And I see a distance there from working in intelligence to the field and where those decisions are, like being made. Does everything kind of come back to intelligence at one point or another? Because were those actions are taken is based off of that?

Beau Higgins  36:38

In theory, that's what you hear that said often. Like, I think, you know, intelligence drives operations. And that's how it's supposed to work in the cycle of things that we are, you know, the intelligence collected and analysis is made. And based on that, an operational plan is developed and then tweaked as because intelligence is constant. You know, you're getting more and more in and that feeds the plan. And if plan continues to happen. I think the reality, you know, especially at lower level, you know, for troops on the ground kind of thing, a fire team here or there, you're not always gonna have intelligence resources available to you. You know, this is the scale decision making process is pretty small and pretty quick. So it's kind of like you see, you react. You do what you have to do. 

I think the more complex a situation is, the more critical intelligence becomes to drive the operation. And the more critical it is to think about second and third order effects, that okay, if you decide to go for this operation, you know, what is going to happen, right? Because, you know, I think it was interesting. When we first got into Iraq, some of the analysis we did was very simplistic. It was like, oh, there's good guys and bad guys, right? And we kill the bad guys. And, you know, we work with it, we kill the bad guys and work with good guys, right? And that was, and Marines like that. Everyone likes, everyone likes simple, especially in the military, like bad guys, good guys. Kill them. Easy day. The reality is, it's so much more complex. 

And it makes it hard for many leaders to make decisions in that complex world. Because the reality is, it's a sliding scale, right? Someone that you're trying to influence maybe a friend today, but if you do something, he may be an enemy tomorrow, right? So it's never, it's not static, right? It's not like you're good or bad, you're kind of some people are gonna be 10% are good always gonna like you. 10% are bad, always gonna hate you, like 80% in the middle are sliding one way or the other based on power or control, right? So you have to figure out, you know, who is the most important person to you because if you kill this person, that may make this person pissed at you. You know, if you make a person happy because he's filling the void, so it's just becomes super complex. 

And I think the biggest thing is, you need to be aware of it. As long as you're aware of it and you're making decisions that take that into consideration, then I'm good with as an Intel guy, you know, I can't do more than that, except advise you on what the outcomes could be if you decide to, you know, hit that target. If you do it if you're taking actions without considering that, that's a problem. That's when Intel is not driving operations. This operation is just for operation’s sake. And that happens sometimes too. I think, oh, we have a target. Let’s go, kill them. And they don't really think about what that will mean in the bigger picture of things. So I think it's critical to have Intel drive operations. It doesn't always happen because it's hard. And some people would like to think about it. They'd rather, the black and white is much easier.

Brock Briggs  39:47

If you were to put yourself on the decision making part. You've got this intelligence and I'm going to try and roughly try to draw some parallels to like real life here. Or like people in there everyday lives more. So we've got imperfect information about whether we're going on a mission we are in our personal careers and our relationships. What is the best way that you found or a framework that you have for thinking about making the best possible decision with little or imperfect information?

Beau Higgins  40:26

Yeah, no, I mean, again, I think in the real world, we try to do that all the time. You know, in Amazon, we make decisions without perfect information all the time. A concept we talked about at Amazon, which I think is a good one to think about, it's called two way doors. We talk about making decisions that are two way doors. If you make a decision, it's a one way door where you go in and there's no way to come back and unpack it. That's something you need to think about. But hopefully, you can make a decision. So even if you make the decision, you have the ability to back through the door and try it again with, you know, what you've learned from that process, right? So don't burn the bridge behind you. 

Because I think we're kind of at the point of that, right? So if you make the decision, do your best to be able to have the ability to go back. It may slow you down and may cost you a lot of money. That's okay, if you learn from it. I think that's part of what I love about Amazon is that ability to try new stuff, but try fast and fail fast. If you're gonna fail, it's okay to fail. And people in the military don't like that concept. And it's interesting when I talk to folks, sometimes interviewing, we're talking about failure. But you know, it's we I think at Amazon, we sound like we embrace failure, per se. But we understand that not everything is going to work, we're going to fail. But if you do fail, fail fast, learn from it and try again. So that's what I would tell you, you can't let perfection be the enemy of the good. 

But it talks about perfection can't be the enemy of the good, where good enough is okay. Because perfection will take you a month, good will take you a week, I'm good with good. Understand that if good doesn't work, we may fail. And I have built that in and then back out of it. Take lessons learned, you know, and go from there. You know, a great example in Amazon. Amazon gotten the cell phone business years ago. And it just went horribly, Fire Phone. It just, it didn't work, right? It was nobody bought them, nobody used them, as a bad decision. But the technology in that phone, you know, we lost money on that decision back in the day. But they did take that, you know, and it turned into tablets and other things, other technology. So the technology was good, just the delivery of it was bad, right? 

So again, I think you have to be able to do is, you know, learn from your mistakes, take the good from them. If you do, don't be so stubborn that you shouldn't say it's my decision, we're just gonna drive through and put our head down. You have to realize that you know what? I made a bad call, that's okay, we're gonna stop, we're gonna back it up, we're gonna take the loss, and we're gonna, you know, take what we learned, and we're gonna go from there, which is I think that's the very applicable lesson, you know, we see in the real world and, you know, in the corporate world.

Brock Briggs  43:15

Well, in reality too, would show that there's not a lot of decisions that you can't come back from, like, there's not a lot of those one way doors, you know. Life has way more two way doors, but it's like, you know, you wanna go through it, but leave it open. Don't just slam the door behind you and burn it down and say this is what we're gonna do no matter what. And lock yourself into that and give yourself room to be wrong.

Beau Higgins  43:45

I think there are some decisions that are one way doors you like, you know. For example Amazon, when we decide to build the headquarters somewhere, you know, you do all the analysis. And then if you're invested, you're in, right? You can't say we halfway built this campus. And we're gonna, you know, like, there are some big decisions that are one way doors, so you really can't back away from. Now you can maybe modify it or tweak it a little bit. 

But there are some things that are pretty, you know, they are the exception based on the rule. I think you're right. It’s probably only, you know, a handful of those. And again, in any decision, to your point, you do want to have the ability to have thought through the second, third effects if something isn't going right, how do you tweak it? There's a difference between tweaking a decision and totally backing away from it and saying, that was a bad call. We're gonna stop that. And we're gonna head a different direction. You know, they're kind of two different things. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  44:37

I wanna talk a little bit about you getting out of the service. 

Beau Higgins

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

And before we dive into really your role at Amazon and kind of what you're doing now. I know you held another job between getting out of the Marine Corps and coming to Amazon, but I wanna hear what that transition was like for you. And we don't have to go too deep into it, but I'm curious what your thought process was reentering, like the workforce. And I also wanna point out that you did 25 years in and you still went on to work. So many people, I feel like think that they're gonna do 20 years and then get out and never work again. 

Beau Higgins  45:15

Five kids, five kids will do that for you. So that's, you know, I have three in college and two in high school right now. So, you know, they don't feed themselves. So that’s part of it, but 

Brock Briggs 

Get checkbook out 

Beau Higgins 

Exactly. I tell you what, that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, as I was leaving the Marine Corps, you know, I think for anyone and that I would, as anyone transitioning out, you know, the key thing that I have folks come to me and say, hey, I'll do anything anywhere, you know. Let me work at Amazon. I’d be great. I'm like, alright, you know, the hardest part of transitioning is figuring out what you want to do, right? That's what you need to invest in is figuring out what you want to do. 

And on the flip side of that, is what you don't want to do, right? Figure out what you do want to do. Figure out what you don't want to do. And the third piece is really where do you wanna do it, right? Those kinds of things you have to kind of, you know, figure out as you're leaving the military. Because again for 25 years in my case and for others 5, 10,15, 20, you know, your monitor, your detailer kind of told you what you asked, I would like to go here. They would tell you, that's great. I appreciate that. We think you're gonna go here, you know. So you didn't really you were involved in the process, but you didn't own the process. When you're leaving the military, you own the process 100%. You know, you're the one that's responsible for everything you're doing out there. 

So you know what I did and what I encourage anyone to do, and there's a TED talk on it, you know, 50 cups of coffee, right? It's just talk to people, talk to your high school friends, talk to your college buddies, you know, talk to your, you know, veterans or Marines or, you know, anyone that's got out. The military community has gotten out before you. Talk to people because, you know, in the military, I know, you know, I had friends of mine that worked in commercial real estate, for example. I guess I knew that means they sold buildings, right? But what is it like to be a day in the commercial real estate? What do you do? Do you have meetings? I mean, I had no idea, right? Just, you know, people that were lobbyists, like, what? What does that mean? You have dinner with people and I didn't really know, you know, like, what that meant? 

I mean, it sounds like it'd be kind of cool, I have no idea. So just have those conversations to figure out what jobs really are. What does it mean to be a program manager? You know, what does, it sounds kind of neat that you manage program. I don't know. I mean, what does that mean? So I think that's the boat that the thing I would tell you, anyone that's in the transition process is have those conversations. Those conversations will help you figure out like, who had sounded good on paper but and really that's what you do every day. I definitely don't wanna do that, right? And part of its you wanna work with the government or not work for the government and that's a big decision for a lot of military folks as well. 

But if you can do that, you know, once you've if you go through that process and figured out what's gonna give you your, you know, you're gonna jazz you up once you get out then people like me can help you out, right? That's a big, I will say that as well. But for me personally, you know, I figured out that hey, I wanna back in Tampa. So I got out of the Marine Corps. I finished up my O-6 command. I was in camp Lejeune. I had a change command the morning. I retired the afternoon and move on to Tampa. I had been in Tampa from 9 to 12 down at SOCOM and kind of fell in love with the area. And so I knew where I wanted to go. That actually limited my options of what I wanted to do. 

But I knew that's where I wanted to go mostly for my kids and high school aged kids. I knew I didn't wanna be in the government, didn't wanna go back and do something Intel related, didn't wanna do a DOD thing. And in my head, I wanted to do something in business. So I started trying to pursue business type, you know, roles. And that's the interviews and the conversations I had more and more neck down to that. And there was some construction, there were some in some consulting type worlds. But I ended up getting a job at a company that fabricated and installed fiber optic cable. 

And it was a great first job, small company, 200 people and my network helped me get that job, right? So those conversations are the ones that got me to that job, right? So and again for two years, it was awesome. And my transition was probably easier than most. I enjoyed having those conversations. I enjoyed having those 50 cups of coffee or 50 glasses of beer or whatever it may be. Sometimes having beers was a better conversation in some cases. But I think that's something that so many veterans are transitioning, veterans are scared of transition because you've probably heard them make this analogy before. It's like the Shawshank Redemption, right? 

People get institutionalized in the military. They get so used to doing the same things, the same ways, their uniform matters. They get told what to do in some cases, but they're very comfortable and very independent operating in that. All of a sudden, when you leave the walls of the institution you know, you're Brooksie, right? And you don't know how to, you have to ask because you go to the bathroom, you don't know what to do, you know. So it's scary. And I get that. And I think people also lose contact with their friends from high school and their friends from college and their friends. 

You know, maybe they lose touch with that part of society because their whole world becomes the military, which is great when you're in, but when you're trying to leave, it's hard. You have to get to, you know, indoctrinate yourself into that life. So that's the investment you have to make as you leave, as getting back out, getting used to being in, you know, the real world if you will. And just start talking to people. And for me, it just worked out great. And again, networking is not a dirty word, you gotta do it. Network and timing are what get you jobs more than anything else in the world. I'm convinced to that.

Brock Briggs  50:49

I would agree with that wholeheartedly. There certainly is no end to the value in that. And you should start as early as you can really. I had another guest on the show that said that he talked about and was planning to get out the day that he joined. And I was like, wow, I wish that I would have taken that approach and started thinking about that. And, you know, didn't know that I was only gonna do four years. But when you're preparing for those things early, there's really no amount of things that, your pocket never gets full of those types of contacts or whatnot.

Beau Higgins  51:27

100%. Yeah, I think that people say that all the time transition is continuing. It should be something you start and think about from day one. I know the reality is not happening that way. But I think it's something that we need to look at. I think it’s something people should do. They don't often or usually do not. But yeah, yep.

Brock Briggs  51:45

Well, in your outcomes aren't binary like they are in the military. And it's not completely black and white while you're in but kinda. It is a weird feeling to be back sort of in control of your own destiny where you need to think about, like you framed it. You wanna look at all the options and then narrow it down, rather than just trying to look at the scope of what's available to you. Because while you're in whether you've got your MOS or your rating or whatever you wanna call it, you have a very narrow sliver of what's even possible for you. 

So it's very easy to look at that wide range. But as soon as you're out, you've all decided, you know, something this big and you need to like kind of whittle that down by, like you said, by location, work remote, government job. And the pool of jobs that you're interested in, it compresses very quickly when you start asking those big questions.

Beau Higgins  52:41

Yeah, no, 100%. 100%. I mean, that's what the process is, the process is necking that down to figure it out. And also, you need to consider in the process is, you know, what's important to you? Because I think there's, that sounds kind of silly, but like, you know, in the military, you don't appreciate how much you have what I call the give back factor, right? You're doing something for your country, where you are giving back every day and you don't really even ask for people to say thanks. You just do it. And you know, it's just part of the job. 

But when you leave it and you have a job where you're making cable, nothing against that it's important, but there's something missing, right? And is that gonna be important to you? Do you need a job where you have to have it? Or you’re good like, you know what? I can find that as a volunteer. I just wanna make money. Where are you in your life? You know, what's important to you at that phase of your life? And also looking at companies for what their culture is because again, Amazon's culture is very different than JP Morgan's culture than USAA’s culture, Boeing's culture, right? Culture matters, you know, and that's something that, again, Marine Corps culture mattered. 

I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to be in the Marine Corps, you know. Join the company where you're gonna be a good fit culturally. Because if you're not, you're probably gonna leave sometime pretty soon and not to be happy with it. And if you're, if you only come for a company and work for it for a year, that stinks for you and it stinks for me because I have to hire somebody else. It's expensive to hire somebody new and train somebody up. So you know, make the investment as best you can on the front end to find a place where you're not only operationally happy but culturally happy.

Brock Briggs  54:18

It sounds like you knew going into working at Amazon, that that was going to be a cultural fit for you. And I think that you hit the nail on the head with what's valuable to ask there is start figuring those things out as quickly as you can because it's not just this yes or no. You have the ability to dictate what jobs you wanna work out by what's important to you. Again, you know, now that you're out you have the ability to choose who your employer is and choose how you commute every day and all of the other things that go into that culture and work for something that matters to you, whether it's, you know, higher calling and purpose, whether it's money, any of those things. Yeah,

Beau Higgins  55:02

Yeah, no. 100%. That's all. It's all part of the process, all part of the transition process. Just what I said, the more you can figure out what you wanna do. And what you wanna do includes all of those things, right? It's not just figuring out the job. It's figuring all the supporting stuff that goes with that is just it's sometimes even more important than the job itself, 100%.

Brock Briggs  55:25

Well, I'm working to find those things out as quickly, that fail quickly mentality. 

Beau Higgins

Yes, definitely. 

Brock Briggs 

By asking somebody, networking with somebody, reading a book about a specific career type or whatnot, you're gonna be able to find out those answers much more quickly rather than committing to working a job and just finding out.

Beau Higgins  55:45

Yep, I agree. 100% agree. Yep. 

Brock Briggs  55:48

Will you talk about your position at Amazon right now? 

Beau Higgins

Sure 

Brock Briggs

You are a senior manager, overseeing military talent acquisition that started in 2016. Talk about what that title means, what your responsibilities are and we'll go from there.

Beau Higgins  56:02

Yeah, no happy to. I started Amazon like a little over six years ago in 2016. My role came about. So Jeff Bezos went to the White House back in May of 2016. He made a pledge back then to hire 25,000 veterans, military spouses over a five year period. At that point in time, to be candid, Amazon did not have much of a veteran focused hiring program. We did hire veterans, but it was kind of ad hoc, we don't really track it. It was just kind of all over the page. So Jeff Bezos goes to the White House, as you might imagine, that made Amazon realize, hey, we better you know, kind of put some processes in place behind this. How are we gonna measure it? How are we gonna track it? What are we gonna do to scale our programs? 

So I came on board soon after that, about four months after that, I came on board with the, you know, the focus on building out Amazon's veteran hiring programs. And there's some specific programs that I built. But I think the bigger thing to understand is not only, you know, I came there with a focus on hiring and that's what I do. So I'm not a recruiter. I'm a program manager. So I run our SkillBridge programs, which focus on transitioning veterans during the last six months of active duty, apprenticeship programs, direct hiring events on base or virtual events. We have artificial intelligence based talent matching tool. 

So any veteran go in there and enter in their MOS, their time and service, their rank, their clearance, much other stuff. And it'll tell you what's the best fit for you in Amazon, all that stuff. And all I do is focused on that piece of things. That piece of things is very important, but our team is bigger than us by the beer concept. So I've grown the team from just focusing on the hiring piece. Now I'm part of a larger military affairs team that not only focused on hiring veterans, we have a second pillar, the team focused on retaining our veterans. So how do we make sure once we get you here? We keep you, so mentoring programs, upskilling programs, what can we do to kind of be our own career navigator monitor detailer for veterans at Amazon to help them stick around once they get here. 

And about a third pillar on our team focused on community engagement. And in particular, we focus on veteran unemployment, veteran mental health, veteran hunger, veteran homelessness and veteran mental health, those three in particular. So it's been great to see Amazon's investment over time from okay, hirings, all we got to do six years ago to okay, let's grow could be done a good job of hiring. Let's make sure we are retaining our veterans. So retaining our veterans is like engaging our veterans in the community. So at the end of the day, the thing to take away is that the commitment we've made from program management level is huge. 

So I think we have 16 or 17 people that are solely on this team focused on military programs. And then we have recruiters within our different organizations, so Amazon Web Services because our tech side of the house, Amazon operations, which is all the stuff to get a package delivered to your house, Amazon Studios, Amazon labs, Amazon, movies, or Amazon music and down the line, right? All have, you know, their own investment in veterans in some way, shape, or form. And what my job basically used to be an internal consultant to help all the different pieces and parts of Amazon, make sure they have programs focused on developing veteran and military spouse hiring pipelines. That's it, great stuff.

Brock Briggs  59:28

That sounds incredibly comprehensive, and like it covers a lot of different things. I'm assuming that Amazon has probably looked at why veterans are such good hires for the company. And I think that anybody who has served will just pay the very, like, it's very easy to give the lip service of like, oh, yeah, you know, they've got this leadership experience. They've got work ethic. They've got all these things, just the usual stuff. I'm curious if you have seen, like KPIs or net tricks that talk about or show within Amazon, hey, this is why veteran hiring is so important. 

And not just like, it's not a lip service thing from a large company saying we're gonna hire veterans to give back. The veteran community doesn't need to be gifted back to. They’re highly qualified people that are very great at all of these things. And so I just am curious if you've seen something that shows actually why they're great hires to meet.

Beau Higgins  1:00:30

You know, a thing I would start with to be candid is, you know, if you look at Amazon's leadership principles, and our leadership principles are what we base all of our hiring decisions on. They are very similar to, you know, the things that you will see in the Marine Corps or in the military as a whole, right? And when we interview people, we interview based on your ability to demonstrate Amazon's leadership principles, those include things like bias for action, deliver results, you know, ownership, right? Those are things that we value at Amazon. You need those skills at Amazon to be successful. 

So clearly, a part of what you do in the military is going to translate over very well to be successful at Amazon, who better than to deliver results have a bias for action to show ownership than someone in the military, right? So that's kind of the surface level of it, you know, what we're looking for veterans have. So there is part of it. I think another piece of it, and what I look at almost say more than other things or what I've seen veterans bring to the table, which is awesome, is we bring diversity of thought. Now, again, veterans are diverse from a, you know, a racial component, which is also something that is helpful because we wanna make sure we represent a very diverse population at Amazon across the board. 

But diversity of thought is the thing that I've keyed in on again, we don't measure that, necessarily. I just see it when we're in meetings and how we problem solve, you know. What we do well in the military is plan and look at ways that we're making decisions and analyze decisions, right? People that are good at doing that in the military are gonna do well here because we don't have group thing. You know, we are not afraid to express our opinion. We are, you know, I think veterans look at problems from a way that is different than someone that has never been in the military when we think about things like risk. 

And we think about second and third order effects that are stuff that were, those are words we are very comfortable with, that are not things that other people often bring to the table. So that to me has been what I think stands out from non veterans is that that diversity of thought. And when you're in a room with veterans, and I look at problems is something that is respected and you know, desired by non veterans here at Amazon, so I think that's a big piece of it to me, that is seeing what veterans make veterans successful. And the data, I can't put a KPI on that. But I can tell you is that veterans, while their attrition rates in the first couple years or worse than their non veteran peers, and which is not uncommon across any industry, veterans in their first year and a half or so, typically leave faster than non veterans, you know, from companies. 

However, what I can also tell you is if veterans make it to the 18 month mark, they promote faster than their peers. So again, the data is that if veterans can get over that hump of transition, they're gonna promote faster, right? That to me is important. And something that I like to highlight to, you know, people that are looking to hire veterans about what you know, hey, the data shows if you bring them on, when you can help onboard them well and give them a good experience, they're gonna perform for you and promote for you. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  1:04:00

You likely aren't looking at individual resumes or doing direct hires yourself. But I'm curious if there has been a standout trend that you have seen that veterans coming in and applying to Amazon or maybe anywhere else that you think really makes an individual stand out before they even come to the interview or vice versa. Something that is like hey, this is a big red flag. This is a no go. Just kind of maybe resume best practices or

Beau Higgins  1:04:35

Yeah, yeah, I see. I do see I still look at resumes every day. Not a lot of them but I mean a few of them every day more because I'm making sure if I send them on to someone, I wanna make sure that they're not that they're well done. They're not just you know that they're well done at the end of the day, right? And what is well done look like? Man, I do and I'm part of a virtual webinar that we host every other week where we talk about resume, we talk about interviewing, we talk about the hiring process at Amazon. 

So for resumes in particular and I see a lot of bad ones every day too, everything. And this is not just veteran focus, it is just in general, for any resume that I wanna see. Everything we do at Amazon is based about data and outcomes, right? So if you write a resume, if I get a veteran resume, I get veteran resumes all the time that are pretty bad. And those because they're used to writing in Fitrep or OER bullets, you know, and they will put on their resume was responsible for the command safety program. 

I'm like, okay, I have no idea what that means. How big was the program? Did the program improve or day worse? Is safety get better? If so, by how much? Did you win an award? Did you, so what? So again, veterans are just back generic bullets they pulled off of there. They slap it on their resume and it says nothing at all. So again, I need your resume. If it's gonna be successful, you're competing against A. probably other veterans, when you're competing against internal Amazon people that may wanna move into that job, as well as competing against civilians that want that job, right? 

So you need your resume to stand out. To make it stand out, you have to have data and you have to talk about outcomes. So it's what is the so what and again, they write about your team as part of a team that, like, well, did you do it? I want the guy that did it, it was the team or was it you? If it's not you, then give me the guy that did. It was responsible for the innovation and made it happen, you know, so again, we're just veterans are pretty bad. And I try to be nice. I mean, you know, I get that for years, you were taught to defer credit to the team. And that's just how we do. And we're bad writers in the military in so many cases because we do get so used to doing PowerPoint. 

So there are resources out there Hire Heroes USA is the one and I think it's the best per resume review. But again, it's about data, it's about outcomes, and making it clear like for every job opening in Amazon, there are a list of basic qualifications, probably four or five basic qualifications. Basic qualifications are non negotiable. So if it says, you know, MBA required, if it says, you know, advanced SQL skills required, they're required. Like, you're gonna get rejected if you don't hit all the base qualifications. But I had people send me resumes all the time that don't even come close to hitting the basic qualifications like this, don't waste your time in mind, right? Is what I tell people. 

And make it clear upfront, like in the start of your resume, you know, I would make it clear saying, hey, you know, transitioning veteran with 10 years program management experience that is well versed in Excel and SQL, you know, looking at the top secret clearance that you know, looking for a job in your organization, whatever it is, hit all of that right up front to make it clear you meet all the basic qualifications. Make it easy for that recruiter to say, yes. They’ll hunt for your resume and find two years here and a certification there. They may miss it, you know, so that's my advice that I got a look at a little riled up because I see so many, and so many that are not that good. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  1:08:15

I can hear that voice fluctuation. 

Beau Higgins  

Yeah 

Brock Briggs 

Like this might hit a sensitive spot. If I would have known that you spent a lot of time looking at resumes, what I should have done is sent you a copy of it beforehand. And then we could have like, did a roast of my resume on this call. That would have been funny. No, I think that that's really good feedback. And I think the general consensus for military and even some of the organizations that can kind of help, it's just like, okay, we're gonna use these really big words and like, you know, responsible for this program or whatever. That doesn't mean anything like, say, hey, here's what I did. Here's what I was responsible for. And here's how it got better. And the skills I've used to make that happen. 

Beau Higgins

Yeah  

Brock Briggs 

That's all you got to say. And in like, two sentences, it doesn't take a lot. Make it simple. And make it straightforward, like you said, make it easy for the recruiter to say yes.

Beau Higgins  1:09:15

100%. That's just all about. Yep, yep. Yep. Yes. Yeah, pet peeve of mine. So yeah, but yeah, so we talked about that. I tried to push that for veterans and make sure they know that stuff. And again, there's a lot of resources out there. That's the thing. I get that it can be hard to translate your military experience into civilian speak, but there are people that can help you do that. Coz you can, it is very translatable if someone kind of helps you kind of guide you through the process. It's very, very doable. Yep.

Brock Briggs  1:09:45

What do you think that the largest misconception is that veterans have about reentering the workforce and that could or could not have to do with resume specifically but what do you think it is that people are thinking about that is just wild wrong?

Beau Higgins  1:10:02

I don't know if it's wildly wrong, I think it's just I think the biggest issue is that veterans are just scared, right? They're scared of being dependent. And that's what I see where veterans fail more often than not, or one of the biggest issues why veterans fail is that they don't like to ask for help, right? I think in the military, we are trained to be strong or to not show weakness, right? And if you show weakness, that's a sign of failure, but for many in the military, right? So you learn how to do things yourself, you'd be very self, you know, you're independent, right?

So when you leave that behind, you leave the ability to function without asking for help to a place where, like Amazon, that is super high paced. We have our own language, our own, you know, we do things in our own different way. And you know, Amazonian is a way we talk about being Amazonian, right? I mean, it's hard for people to adjust to that. And what many times what I see veterans, because they're not willing to raise a hand, say, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know how to do this. 

They just say, you know what? I'll figure it out. I'm gonna treat like a deployment, I'm gonna put my head down, and I'm gonna grind through it. And six months from now, I'll have it, you won't. You won't have it at Amazon, right? It will beat you and you will leave if you don't ask for help. The culture here is one that we accept, we can basically expect that if you need help, you need to ask like, we're not gonna come up and say, oh, looks like you're having a bad day, we'll have a cup of coffee. 

Like it's not we expect your knowing what you're doing, and you're delivering results. If you have questions, ask. We will help. People are very generous with their time when you ask, but you need to ask and if you try to do it all on your own and try to be, you know, independent instead of saying, I just don't know. Can you please help me out here? That's the thing I've seen as being the biggest, you know, challenge or weakness that veterans have when trying to leave the military and coming into civilian sector.

Brock Briggs  1:12:09

Well, then I think that asking for help also helps manage expectations too because it's going to be people's first inkling when they give you an assignment to say. And if they don't hear from you, they're gonna assume that the outcome is good. And you've got it handled. By asking for help you not only manage expectations about the outcome of your product, like it might not be that good if I'm having to ask for help. 

But it also allows them to intervene early. And like that comes back to, again, something you said earlier, like fail early and quickly and figure it out so that you don't get down the road. And people are relying on you for like a specific deadline or completion of a task. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, no, we're actually way back here on step one because we didn't know.

Beau Higgins  1:12:58

Yep, no, 100%. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. That's what they should do. But they don't always do. But yeah.

Brock Briggs  1:13:07

You've laid out a couple of the things about Amazon that has and how it aligns with military culture, work, ethics, values, all of those things. Aside from those things, why is Amazon a place that vets should consider working at? Maybe talk to that culture a little bit more or anything else that has been extremely beneficial to you as a transitioning service member.

Beau Higgins  1:13:33

Yeah, you know, and this is not necessarily, again, this is not necessarily veteran centric. This is Amazon centric. And what I've loved about being here is that Amazon is very good about and willing to try new things in beta test things, right? They're willing to experiment all the time. And I love that attitude of innovation. We talk about being innovators all the time, right? And I think, you know, for me, there was certainly some frustration in the military where, you know, you had senior leaders would often say, hey, we need outside the box ideas. 

And, you know, you know, Lieutenant Higgins has outside the box idea. Like are you crazy Lieutenant? Get back in your box, you know, there, we really didn't value outside the box thinking in the military, in my opinion. There's just a few people, you know, here and there probably, but relatively speaking, it's like, hey, just, you know, conform to the system. We know we got here, be part of the machine. And that's what kind of the military and I get there's a reason for that, right? When you're trying to, you know, have this discipline you need and the structure you need, there's a need for some of that. 

But what I've, you know, what we didn't have, I think one of the things that so many people in the military would like to have more of is that freedom to try new things out. That you know, freedom to, you know, just to experiment and being here has opened that possibility for me. I always have, you know, four or five different beta tests or our partners that we're working with to try new things you know, from the hiring side, you know, and the military spouse hiring is one that we've invested in heavily this year. 

And I have some ideas about doing better for student veterans and National Guard focused veteran hiring. And, you know, again, they might like my boss, like, yeah, let's try it out, you know, and it doesn't work out again, fail fast, learn from it, and pivot from there and find where we can do that kind of thing. That to me has been super refreshing and really enjoy just the ability and the willingness from Amazon, from the leaders to be able to, you know, always be willing to invest in and try new things, that's been pretty cool.

Brock Briggs  1:15:34

How do you think that we can take that same idea and maybe apply it to our personal lives? I think that coming out of the service, it's very easy to be very rigid about our lives in general. And all of a sudden, you have all of this flexibility and almost that forces you to almost like tighten up even more. When in reality, you have this whole host of options and you can literally do anything. And that's part of why this podcast exists is to encourage and inspire people to talk to new people, explore new career opportunities, and really find the thing that you're supposed to be doing with your life.

Beau Higgins  1:16:16

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. You know, I said before the hardest part veterans have is leaving the institution behind. And it's because they're scared, right? It's not like, they have the skill sets, they don't know it. They don't believe in themselves, right? So how do you develop self confidence? You know, how do you because you could be the guy that's you're able to go lead troops in a combat. You would do that every second of every day. 

But that idea of like putting on a suit and having to go into a cubicle and brief somebody on that, like, scares the crap out of you, right? You know, it's weird to me, but I kind of get it. It was also scary, you know. So you have to be willing to put yourself out there and not be the expert, because you do become the expert on certain things in the military, right? And you can get by on your expertise and your corporate knowledge, if you will, would allow you to walk into any room and be able to talk fluidly on that. You have to accept the fact that you're not that guy, right? You have to, I'm not that guy. 

But you know, you have to invest in your learning and development. And you understand where you may have gaps and you know, close those gaps, whether it's by classroom training, by talking to people, and just put yourself out there. And that's what it's always about, it's about you can't be afraid to put yourself out there. And for people to tell, you know, or to tell you, you know, that's wrong. And I think we just get into this place as veterans where we become afraid to do that. And until you can do it until you take that leap of faith, you're not gonna reach the full potential that you have. 

And there's no secret sauce to it. I mean, in my you know, it's hard, but I get that it's hard. And I get that it's scary. But that's what it takes at the end of day to be successful is you have to be willing to just take that jump and believe in yourself, right? And again, hopefully, with your network. To your point, though, I mean, you're taking that leap, but there are people there that are dying to help you people like me, people like yourself. You know there's almost too many veteran resources out there to tap into to help you make that leap, you know.

But finding out the one that works for you, that's gonna help you, you know, get to where you wanna go is kind of on you, you know. And just again, have picked a cup of coffee, talk to people, don't be afraid to say, hey, look, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I'm scared. I think this is what I wanna do. You know, but if you can't take that first step, you know, it's baby steps, you can't you know, if you can't take that first step, you're never gonna get there, you know. It's a crawl, walk, run thing. And, you know, I've been able, I mean, we all go through it, you know, and some guys get through it faster than others. You know, some babies walk at six months, some take 18 months, you know. It takes the pace you're at to kind of figure it out.

Brock Briggs  1:19:05

Beau, this conversation has been extremely high value. And I've learned a lot I think that this conversation will be extremely valuable to others as well. If there's one thing that they take away from this chat today or something you haven't said, what do you think that every vet ought to hear?

Beau Higgins  1:19:27

You can do it. I've done it, you've done it, we've all been through it. Like there have been millions of veterans that have made this transition and feel and felt like you did. I mean, whether you're a you know, from a private to a general, we're all scared. You know, we all have to make that leap. And it's not easy for anyone, so you're not alone, right? 

And that's probably the most important thing to understand, right? That there are people to help you there are tons of resources out there. You're gonna make mistakes. It's okay to fail, learn from the failure and re attack you know. And those core values you had in the military are going to help you down the line. But you're gonna have to, you know, scrape your knee a few times before you get there. And that's, you know, this is how it is.

Brock Briggs  1:20:11

Awesome! Beau, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Beau Higgins  1:20:14

My pleasure. Good to be here. It’s good to have me.