In recent months, which radical, tree-hugging group has upped the volume on pushing for action on climate change? I bet you wouldn't have guessed American military leaders. Apparently, the people standing on the proverbial (and actual) walls defending our freedoms are very concerned about the dangers our soldiers face in an uncertain, physically changing world. It's something that businesses need to pay attention to, since the military's top strategists are now getting involved in developing solutions that may well be useful to — or even critical to — individual companies' success.

Generals and admirals are now making the case that climate change is a threat to our national security. Changing regional climates, more natural disasters, and displaced peoples will force us to put troops in harm's way more frequently — and the military must be prepared.

For the leading thinking on climate and security, look no further than CNA Corporation, a think tank funded by the Pentagon, which has, in the words of the New York Times, spoken "ominously of climate change as a 'threat multiplier' that could lead to wide conflict over resources."

I recently spoke at an event in DC and sat at lunch with retired Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, the President of both CNA's Institute for Public Research and the American Security Project (ASP). In his powerful keynote address, Vice Admiral Gunn spoke about the risks global climate change presents to America. His view on the science was simple: "Some are still not convinced about the science on human-induced climate change — I am."

The Admiral laid out three large shifts in military practice and strategy that climate change will bring about:

1. Why the U.S. fights, gives aid, and responds to disasters: Natural disasters, water shortages, and the weakening of some states mean "we will deploy more often to more places."
2. How logistics patterns will change: One of our primary military bases in the Middle East, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, is only a few feet above sea level. The physical shifts and the changes in force structure related to #1 and #2 will all be expensive.
3. What will happen to international relations: The loss of sea ice is changing commercial and military sea patterns. The Arctic represents a new area of resources for countries to potentially compete over (remember Russia planting a flag last year on the North Pole sea bed?).

In short, Gunn made the case for immediate climate action: "Spend a relatively small amount now or a lot more later in treasure and human life, in many cases American men and women in uniform."

The current military establishment is also getting on board. Intelligence studies and Pentagon sponsored institutes are conducting war games and planning for handling, for example, a flood in Bangladesh that would send hundreds of thousands of refugees into India. Increasingly, all branches of the military are seeing climate as a threat to national security.

Just look at one simple logistics issue to understand why the Army is serious about going green and moving away from fossil fuels: the vast majority of cargo in a war zone is liquid (mostly fuel, and some water). Supply convoys are prime targets for attack. There are literally lives at stake in making tanks more energy efficient or finding other fuel options (and it doesn't hurt that these actions help to mitigate climate change as well).

Vice Admiral Gunn and others from ASP are hitting the road to speak at universities and communities around the country about the connections between all of these issues. As we head toward more national discussion about climate bills this fall — and the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December — let's hope people listen.

Here's a test. Ask five to 20 of your employees to explain what your company's customer value proposition is. How many different answers do you guess you'll get? Answer: somewhere between five and 20. This is, of course, in addition to the response, "What the heck do you mean by a value proposition?"

This is slightly exaggerated to illustrate a point. But, in the many years with which we have advised on and written about customer-driven strategies, there has been a common pattern: massive inconsistency in people's ability to clearly articulate their company's value proposition. To test this in your own organization, do what we do with our own firm and with the firms we advise by asking the questions below to a sample of five to 20 employees. These questions form the core of describing your value to a customer. Whether you call it a value proposition, a brand promise, a mantra, a USP (unique selling proposition), or any other consulting euphemism, guru term, or blogger moniker, the guts of being able to clearly describe what you do boils down to answering these three important questions:

1. What product or service is your company selling?


2. Who is your target customer for this product or service?


3. What makes your offering unique and different?

Sometimes the answers are 180 degrees counter to one another even among people working on the same team. Your employees have no clue what you do, or they have a damn hard time explaining it. Either way, it is a problem.

Not enough value propositions start with authentic meaning and purpose. With purpose comes belief, and with belief comes an easier ability to articulate the customer pitch. In one of my most recent blogs, my partner Mats Lederhausen described the need to begin with a purpose bigger than the product. The goal is not to have employees mindlessly memorize the answers to the questions above like a multiplication table. People need to feel that the customer proposition is true and intuitively believe in it. I remember a meeting in a prior company with my partner Dick Harrington who said, "We are not simply a database of medical data. We are in the business of saving lives; that is our purpose." It resonated with everyone there and I bet few have forgotten that moment.

With a clear purpose as the starting point, these four points will further clarify your message to customers, align your team's goals with it, and improve your team's ability to articulate it.

1. Clarity, consistency, and frequency of the customer message points from the top.


2. Forums for others' to articulate the value proposition. We have done exercises in which we listen to our own elevator pitch from fellow employees. At times we've even video-taped these for learning.


3. Get people from different divisions to go through the exercise of answering the questions described above. Share with the group the biggest disconnects and try to resolve them. Half of the battle is understanding that you have a problem.


4. Make sure the articulation is consistent across all marketing collateral to allow on-going evolution. Whenever the message is edited, apply the change across all channels. Understand which materials customers see most frequently and periodically check consistency across all materials.

Articulating a message that management, employees, and customers all understand is one of the most critical priorities for any effective organization, from an entrepreneurial upstart to a Fortune 500 company. The value proposition is the connection between product development and selling. If your own people do not believe in it and cannot consistently articulate it, what are the chances that customers will get it?