Page 98 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2018

96 REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
There are occasional moments when life plays you a Full House, or better, with sudden, urgent serendipity. We should grasp them. Feeling somewhat put out by the Minister for Armed Forces’ out of hand (and out of interview) rejection of all army candidates for his military assistant post – and staring dubiously at the unsolicited prospect of nine months in Baghdad concurrent with my first son’s first nine months – I observed the opportunity for a placement in industry with some eagerness. One phone call, two Army Personnel Centre boards, and three months later I walked into the Royal Bank of Scotland on Bish- opsgate for my first day as a banker; or, at least, as a soldier in a suit working in a bank.
Along with grasping opportunities as they arise, I also strongly recommend the Army’s new External Placement Programme to those within its scope (warrant officers, captains, majors, colonels, and brigadiers at last glance). The programme aims to build and enhance our individual and collective knowledge, skills and experience (KSE) across all the career fields and in multiple, tightly-defined areas of work. Ideally, placements rep- resent a sort of pre-employment training for specific posts in which the individuals lack relevant KSE. In reality, that is hard to achieve but I would suggest that it remains a reasonable aspi- ration even for an under-strength army. We have, for example, not achieved that ideal in my case (I am working in a Change role at Royal Bank of Scotland and go next to a Strategy post in
the Ministry of Defence) but the fringe benefits are legion and I expect this placement will prepare me well for many and varied future military posts.
Perhaps the most interesting, and hopefully the most enduring- ly useful, aspect of my current role is the incipient engagement plan between the bank and the army. In its infancy the plan has six focus areas: talent management (as opposed to career management), leadership, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, growth, strategy, and performance management and risk. The bank will host counterparts from the Army in each of those areas to discuss current and planned initiatives and try to identify how those might be of relevance, and value, to the other organisation. Royal Bank of Scotland’s work on artificial intelligence is, for example, both world class and market leading and so the Army stands to gain enormously from a relationship in this critical aspect of future military capability. The Army’s leadership doctrine and code might be regarded as examples of excellent practice in this important field and so – and we shall see – perhaps the benefits will flow in reverse in that focus area.
All in all, it is very interesting, novel, and enjoyable and I can- not recommend it sufficiently highly. I would encourage anyone of any rank who is interested in the External Placement Pro- gramme to call me; I am more than happy to chat.
WJRR
A Year in Banking
Lancers in The Permanent Joint Headquarters
2018 has again seen The Royal Lancers provide the largest contingent of land SO2s to the UK’s Permanent Joint Head- quarters. J5 Plans has seen four Lancer Officers cycle through this year with the departures of Duncan Bam in February 2018 and Chris Kierstead in August 2018, the arrival of Jamie Mos- sop in May 2018 and Andy Meeke also putting in a three-month stint. J3 Current Ops saw Andy Horsfall and Jamie Mossop, (who spent five months in J3), sharing a desk, managing the current Ops across North and West Africa, and reliving their final days as Adjutants of the QRL and 9/12L when they shared the Adjutant’s desk in Catterick, pre-amalgamation. Andy, al- ways a glutton for punishment, has since moved to be Military Assistant to Chief of Staff (Operations), prior to his return to Regimental Duty later in the year, and is currently dusting off previous COS (Ops) handover files authored by (then) Majors Mudd and Foden, a nice RL continuum; although Andy is very aware he is lacking a DSO!
Permanent Joint Headquarters continues to be fast-paced and operationally focussed, yet an enjoyable environment to work in. The ‘Joint’ arena makes it genuinely interesting and adds an- other dynamic when compared to the Army HQ type jobs. Man- aging a Royal Navy ship on counter-illegal migration duties in the Mediterranean, (with the obligatory visits), has proved both interesting, and required a new operating language be learned quickly; not taught at Land Warfare Centre or on Shrivenham courses!
For those approaching staff jobs at either SO3 or SO2 I would highly recommend Permanent Joint Headquarters, despite the current trend, you do not have to have been an adjutant! The working environment is fun and interesting, the social life and access to London is fantastic and I genuinely believe one adds an additional ‘string to ones bow’ by spending a tour in the Joint environment.
JONM