How to Cope with Cross-Sector Culture Differences
Will Knehr was a high school dropout and a teenage father working two jobs when he decided to join the U.S. Navy to better support his family. After an aptitude test, he was put on a path to becoming a cryptologist, specializing in cybersecurity. His career—and lifelong pursuit of education—took off.
Knehr pursued a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and more than 35 certifications in his field, all paid for by the military. This enabled him to dive deeper into different variations of cybersecurity skills, kinetic operations, signals intelligence, and more.
But after 12 years of active duty enlisted in the military and working within the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), he moved into government contracting before getting a call from video surveillance manufacturer i-PRO to build out the company’s cybersecurity program and security operations center.
Knehr had to come to grips with some significant cultural changes in his switch to the private sector, including a more nebulous chain of command and a shift from giving orders to influencing decisions.
Knehr spoke with Security Management earlier this year to walk through some of the challenges and opportunities he experienced when transitioning across sectors. He also shared the advice he would offer to security professionals on both sides of the public-private spectrum today.
Excerpts from the conversation are included below, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Security Management. Can you start me off by explaining some of the differences you’ve seen between your work now and your work in the public sector?
Will Knehr. Where I have struggled in [the private] sector is the chain of command isn’t as clear anymore. What they expect of you is different. In the military and in contracting, it's very simple; it was very much like “This is your job, this is your scope, these are your responsibilities. You color within these lines, and as long as you color within these lines, you’re good.”
In the private sector, it's very much been like, “Well, why didn't you go and do all this other stuff? Why didn't you raise the alarm about such and such?” Well, I did. “Yes, but you didn't go two steps above that person when they didn't do what they were supposed to do. Instead of just reporting it to your commanding officer, reporting it to your senior, why didn't you step out and go do something else?”
In the private sector, at least from my experience, they really expect you to go ahead and be acting in the role that you want to be promoted into. It’s a lot more about grabbing the bull by the horns and actually doing the thing that you want to be promoted into. Whereas on the DOD side of the house or in the public sector, you don't dare do things that are outside of your job description. You wait until you’re promoted, then you can go and do those other things.
That has been my biggest problem escaping, and being, I think, a little bit more successful on the private side of the house—adjusting to this non-chain of command mindset. Adjusting to going ahead and doing the job, taking the risk, and taking that plunge versus waiting for the job to reflect what it is I think I should be doing.
SM. How did you adjust to that difference? Any suggestions?
Knehr. I've been working very hard on that. I've been reading a lot of different books about how you’re supposed to be doing it. What I would say has been the biggest thing is right now I’m a senior manager, but next I want to be a director. What I start doing is asking, what would a director do in this situation? Who would they reach out to? What kind of documentation would they go ahead and write up? How would they communicate? How would they handle this project?
What I found is that if you just start doing it and just start telling people what to do, they will just usually do it. Oftentimes, if I hit resistance, then that’s a different bit of a conversation. Usually I can just explain, “Hey, this is what we’re doing and why.” Considering what I think a director would do in this situation has been incredibly helpful.
SM. The keyword there is “why”—having to explain your actions and recommendations. How did you go about learning to do that?
Knehr. This is one thing that I’ve been relatively fortunate about, because I had this commanding officer, and he ended up becoming quite successful. His name is Rear Admiral [Steve] Perode. If you ever want to go look him up, the guy is an absolute legend. He was my very first commanding officer, and he used to tell us all the time, “If you can't explain the why for your mission, then you can’t connect those dots for your sailors. You can’t motivate your people to actually do the mission that they’re here to do.”
You have to understand what you’re doing and why…. How many military folks can tell you the importance of Ukraine or Russia, China, Taiwan Straits, Malacca Straits, the importance of what’s going on in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and so on and so forth? If you can’t explain why you're there, what you’re doing, what its importance is to the United States? What’s its importance to the military? What’s its importance, ultimately, to that sailor and their family? Why do they care? If you can't do that then you're not being an effective leader.
What’s nice is that has really transposed itself very well to our sector. What do our products do? You’d be amazed at how many people work at a company that don’t understand what the products do, or don’t understand how the company actually makes money. Which even in my field, in the technology field, it's everywhere. I can’t tell you how many cybersecurity experts have no idea how their company makes money, what their company’s products are, what they offer, or how they sell them.
My MBA (Master of Business Administration) helped out a lot. After I finished my MBA, I switched over to a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration). That has helped out a ton, too.
Communicate with stakeholders, too. Find out what's important to them and why, and view the business from all of the different seats that people sit in. If you’re sitting in your operation director’s seat, what’s important and why? If you’re sitting in your director of sales position seat, what’s important and why? Really putting yourself in all these other people’s job positions and thinking through it can help connect the dots to what it is that your team does and how it affects those folks.
SM. Looking at leadership styles, what are some of the differences you’ve seen between public and private sector leadership?
Knehr. Public sector leadership styles, it really is Russian Roulette. You get the folks that are the old school mentality of “Don’t ever ask me why, just do.” Then you get the folks that are like open books.
I used to have this master chief that told me all the time, “I can learn from anyone, because even a fool can teach me what not to do.” It’s like, don’t waste your time complaining about this person’s leadership style, because in the military they’re going to be gone in a year anyways. Just look at that person, absorb everything you absolutely can’t stand about what they do, and just don’t do that when it comes time for you to lead.
I still serve, so I’m in the Reserves now. My leadership style has completely morphed. When I was active duty, I was very aggressive. I was very much a military person through and through. Now, I’m an officer on the Navy Reserves side of the house, and my leadership style is private sector style leadership. It’s very open, it’s very much, “Ask me anything you want to; I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” It’s extremely high touch and just an open-door type of policy.
In the private sector, I’ve run into everything, including leadership styles that are—man, you’re a VP or you’re a president or a CEO, and have you never had a leadership course? Do you not know how to communicate and talk? There’s so much of that. A lot of egos, a lot of that stuff, and the way some of these folks talk to people, it’s insane to me. I hear gunnery sergeants talk to people better than some of these people talk to folks.
My immediate leadership is good, but what I would love to see more in the sector is a lot of communication—what’s going right, what’s going wrong. There's just not a lot of that unless you’re actively seeking it or unless you’re poking and prodding at it.
Claire Meyer is editor-in-chief with Security Management. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her directly at [email protected].
