4 Star – Page 25 – Public Intelligence Blog

Excellent Training Material, See Also the Workbook,

July 20, 2009

Patrick Lencioni et al

This is one of two books being used in a U.S. Government mid-career leadership course, and I decided to look at both of them for insight. The other book is Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.

To obtain this book I actually had to go to Border's Bookstore, and while there I had a chance to go through both The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Participant Workbook (J-B Lencioni Series), which is outrageously priced at Amazon, half the price at Borders, and also Toxic Workplace!: Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power.

On balance, I prefer the workbook to the text. It was much easier to read, it provided for the development of dialog among participating team members, and in general struck me as more likely to produce the desired outcome.

Having said that in no way demeans the value of this primary text discussing the five dysfunctions:

01 Absence of Trust

02 Fear of Conflict

03 Lack of Commitment

04 Avoidance of Accountability

05 Inattention to Results.

I read this book a bit more critically than Crucial Conversations, in part because I have a continuing concern about the context within which we hire and manage people in the US Intelligence Community and the US Government at large–the hypocrisy, duplicity, and lack of strategic coherence at the top (see my article, “Fixing the White House and National Intelligence”).

I do not wish to lead–or mislead–individuals who work 60 hour weeks and more, only to be told that the Quadrennial Defense Review has already been sketched out by the Undersecretary for Policy, it will focus on China (space), China (maritime), and China (infowar), and no all-source intelligence is needed, thank you very much.

This books emphasis on individual accountability is one of its strengths, and long overdue in both government and the private sector Not only do we have too many employees going through the motions, but with all the money that has been invented since 9-11 and the financial crash of 2008, we now have TWO contractors for every government employee, and “the Borg” just keeps on growing.

Of the two books, this is harder to read and also the more rewarding if you believe that by leading your patch properly, this kind of open, effective leadership will spread upwards. I am not so sure.

There are several other reviews (be sure to read the reviews for the workbook as well) that go into detail, for me, even with the remediation provided by over a decade in the appreciative inquiry, deliberative dialog circles (see my recommended books below), the elements this book defines that I lacked in my days of seeking to slay dragons include:

01 Who you are is impacted by where you sit. Don't make it personal. Good people do bad things for reasons that have nothing to do with you personally, or their inherent nature.

02 Fear of conflict is natural, especially when rankism prevails, and it will be very hard, but by taking the first step in offering civil “full and open” dialog, you can change the game for everyone to the better. The opposite of this–my own mortal sin–is to seek and create conflict as a means of flushing the issue, which I now realize is counter-productive.

03 The book talks the talk about “cascading communications” but it lacks the information technology savvy to make this practical. It has been shown that Wikis reduce meeting times by half and email by two thirds (roughly). I see this as three things that must be managed in harmony: the top bosses must actually value openness and diversity as a foundation for effectiveness; the IT infrastructure must be geared to this (IntelWiki is far removed from the totality, and employees still spend a quarter of their time logging in and out of disparate systems, most of which are not geospatially-rooted for ease of access).

04 Accountability makes me crazy. We lack strategic coherence (what is our mission?) operational connectivity (who is doing what across the Whole of Government), and tactical effectiveness (do we really need to carpet bomb civilians instead of one man – one bullet precision?) I admire the various strategic plans that exist, but the higher you go the more surreal they get. Accountability for me means that the QDR will be intelligence-driven; that OMB and GAO will be full-partners; and that we will recognize that our own misbehavior is costing us vastly more than anyone attacking us could hope to achieve with kinetic weapons; and that we lack global situational awareness because we have over-invested in technical collection while neglecting human intelligence and processing. Yes, we need to hold individuals accountable, but I shy away from crucifying individual Marines for a handful of civilian casualties “mano a mano” when the Air Force takes out entire city blocks without a second of remorse.

I guess the highest compliment I can pay this book is that it set me off. It is a righteous book, and it is a superb book for getting rising leaders to think about leadership fundamentals: integrity, clarity, education, empowerment. The context in which our rising leaders do that is troubling, and so I put this book down with a sense of despair. Good people, all, trapped in a bad system. Who teaches “the system?” Can a “system” learn? These are my questions.

Other books I recommend (I do have high hopes for the common sense of the average citizen):
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential

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I Respond to Comments Here or There

2009/07/182013/07/03

Review: Dead Aid–Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, Diplomacy, Disaster Relief, Humanitarian Assistance, Information Operations, Information Society, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Stabilization & Reconstruction

Goldman Sachs Pitch Dressed in Don's Robes,

July 18, 2009

Dambisa Moyo

I bought this book cognizant of the negative reviews, and I break with them in giving this book four stars instead of one, two, or three stars.

This book is worth reading, and it makes points that I summarize below that are in my view meritorious.

Continue reading “Review: Dead Aid–Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa”

2009/07/142009/10/16

Review: Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Of, By, and For USA Status Quo Bubbas–Essential but Very Partial

July 14, 2009

Roger Z. George

This is a very fine book, not least because of its inclusion of Jack Davis (search for <analytic tradecraft> as well as Carmen Medina (see her presentation to global audience via oss.net/LIBRARY), but in its essentials this is a book of, by, and for the status quo ante bubbas–the American bubbas, I might add.

If you are an analyst or a trainer of analysts or a manager of analysts, this is assuredly essential reading, but it perpetuates my long-standing concerns about American intelligence:

1) Lack of a strategic analytic model (see Earth Intelligence Network)

2) Lack of deep historical and multi-cultural appreciation

3) Lack of a deep understanding and necessary voice on the complete inadequacy of collection sources, the zero presence of processing and lack of desktop analytic tools, and the need for ABSOLUTE devotion to the truth, not–as is still the case, “within the reasonable bounds of dishonesty” aka “slam dunk”

4) Lack of integrity in so many ways, not least of which is the analytic abject acceptance of the false premise that the best intelligence is top secret/sensitive compartmented information–see the online CounterPunch piece on “Intelligence for the President–AND Everyone Else.”

Below are ten books I recommend as substantive complements to this book:
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)
Lost Promise
The Age of Missing Information (Plume)
Informing Statecraft
Bureaucratic Politics And Foreign Policy
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America

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on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

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2009/07/042014/03/28

Review: Disrupting Class–How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

4 Star, Change & Innovation, Education (General)

Almost a Three, Solid Four for Americans Only, June 7, 2008

Clayton Christensen

The earlier books on innovation, and especially The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials), are better. I strongly recommend that you buy both the above book and this book to have a larger understanding.

The book reads like a Harvard case study fleshed out from 40 pages to 230.

The book has exactly one bottom line: that self-paced instruction using online learning and (this is the cool part) interaction with other languages and cultures (e.g. connect an Arab learning English with an American learning Arabic), is the only way to introduce flexibility. It is this human dimension that carried the book to a four for the US audience only.

Everywhere else in the world they substitute discipline for technology and do quite well. I was troubled by the book/s very narrow focus. There is no consideration in this book, for example, of any of the following (just one example per literature category):

Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Idea Of A University: Philosophy (Notre Dame Series in the Great Books)
Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Flyleaf notes:

+ Need to migrate from monolithic “one size fits all” methods (meaning teacher talks, all listen, or “didactic instruction” to student-centric technologies (my note: rather than human scale and practice)

+ Ages 0-4 are where the child actually learns all the self-confidence and other characteristics needed to succeed down the road (but no real discussion of this and how computers could help, that I saw)

+ Schools are too standardized, need modularity and flexibility (of course this is what the last two generations, and especially Generation 2.0, have been telling us–schools beat the creativity out of kids by the fourth grade, and today the best student drop out of high school rather than sit still for another two years).

+ They give Gardner full credit for discovering multiple intelligences, but they lost me a second time when they focus only on technology as the innovative solution, and fail to properly develop the theme for art, music, theater, social work, apprenticeships, and etcetera. This is a book with one simple message and focus on computers in the US classroom.

+ Schools have four jobs (none of them actively discussed in dollar and cents or program planning terms):
– Preserve democracy, inculcate values
– Provide something for every student
– Keep America competitive (ha. China graduates more HONOR students than we graduate students across the board)
– Eliminate poverty (this is a bit lame, reflecting no appreciation for structured inequalities outside the classroom, as well as political disenfranchisement and banking fraud including red-lining for future development profit).

The authors repeat one of the pearls of wisdom from The Innovators Dilemma (link in first line above), and suggest that those who wish to innovate should go after those not served, citing Apple's genius in offering its early computers as toys for children.

+ Four factors are in favor of innovation (in US schools):
– Computer-based learning keeps improving (see Don't Both Me Mom, link above, that book ends with recommendations for learning programs across the board that are online now)
– All can select pathways (this assumes they have been taught discipline and curiosity someplace along the line)
– Looming teacher shortage (I agree–advanced child care and factory worker angle are history–we need to learn to learn in all places)
– Costs fall significantly as market scales

They spend too much time on three business models, my first hint this might be a Harvard Case Study in book form:
– Solution shops
– Value chains
– Facilitated user networks

I write down from the book “best to combine disruptive business model with disruptive commercial system.” I have no idea what this means. From the poverty literature (see my lists), I received the idea of hybrid organizations, non-profits that catalyzed profits sufficient to attract foreign investment, e.g. low cost nutritious yogurt for children in India). Perhaps that is what they mean, I concluded after reading this twice that maybe they meant go after those not served *and* make it free at first (upgrades can cost).

Harnessing user-generated content is a key idea that may not be noticed. It is in fact the foundation for Web 2.0 and I expect the human factor will continue to scale in importance and the cost of technology declines.

The book ends weakly, with disappointing coverage of the 0-4 age or on educational research needed. They conclude with short messages for various stakeholder groups.

I went back through the book a second time, and would note that there are some very clever useful visualizations in the book, especially Figure 8.2 on page 187, and these alone are worth the price of the book.

In the end for me, the book was worthwhile but could have so much better if they had started with innovation ideas for each of the stake-holder groups they address in ending. The five billion poor are never going to be educated in a classroom, but we *can* give out free cell phones and create two call centers, one in China and one in India, that combine Internet access, Skype free telephone access, and access to a global network of 100 million or more volunteers able to answer any question in any language, free, at the time of it value to the poor person asking the question. THAT is world-class innovation because it creates infinite wealth, and does not limit itself to justifying charter schools because they can buy more computers.

2009/07/042011/10/22

Review: Your Government Failed You–Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters

4 Star, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Security (Including Immigration)

Self-Serving Goo–Useful as a Light Primer, June 17, 2008

Richard A. Clarke

Edit of 28 June to acknowledge Retired Reader's comment in favor of the author. I yield to his more direct knowledge. In the larger context, however, all of our civil servants and flag officers failed to do their duty to the Constitution (as did Congress, abdicating on Article 1).

I was hoping for more from this book, but a close examination of the chapters, the notes, and the recommendations quickly established that this book is largely self-serving goo intended to make money and profit from one public moment that I thought was as contrived as Ollie North's shaking his head over the dead Contra during Congressional testimony.

There is NOTHING is this book that has not been known to all of us who actually cared about intelligence reform and who did as much as humanly possible, especially in 1992, to get a National Security Act of 1992 passed, an Act that was destroyed by Senator John Warner (R-VA) and Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense.

I find this book especially annoying–to the point of anger–because both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are surrounded by very old dogs long overdue for total exile, and young to middle age staff pukes that are part of the “don't make waves, go along with institutionalized insanity.” The next Administration, regardless of who wins, is going to have no one with a radical iconoclastic brain or an open mind. Voters should take great care in understanding with precision the money and the minds (I use the term loosely) that are “behind” the front running for President.

The idiocy and myopia of Clarke's self-congratulatory and sanctimonious pontification can be readily discerned if one takes a moment to digest a few facts:

1) The world is unconquerable. Get over it.

2) The US is best friends with 42 of 44 dictators, ostensibly because they support the war on terror (a tactic, not an enemy) while sucking our treasury dry in getting arms and training for looting their own commonwealths and repressing their indigenous peoples.

3) There are ten high-level threats to humanity, as identified by LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret) and other members of the international panel, and I list them here to place the narrow, inflammatory, deceitfully presented Clarke book in perspective–note that terrorism is next to last in this list, and only because of the potential for catastrophic consequences:

— Poverty
— Infectious Disease
— Environmental Degradation
— Inter-State Conflict
— Civil War
— Genocide
— Other Atrocities
— Proliferation
— Terrorism
— Transnational Crime

I won't bother to list the twelve core policies from Agriculture to Water, or the eight demographic challengers that must be wooed with an EarthGame that demonstrates how we can create a prosperous world at peace without repeating the mistakes of the West. Clarke has no clue how to manage a government, balance a budget, articulate reality to We the People, or stand up to those who wear their rank on their foreheads with little else in their brain housing group.

This is the last book I am going to buy by anyone who has served in this or any recent Administration. These are the losers that got us into today's mess–losers who valued their jobs more than the truth, their perks more than our lives.

One cannot have a government that functions when Congress has abdicated its Article 1 authorities; the media is owned by those who would happily consent to 935 lies and 25 documented impeachable offenses by Dick Cheney, and a public that is oblivious to the perils, perils that escape them because the USA is no longer a smart industrious nation.

ENOUGH. It is time to take the 27 secessionist movements seriously, to have a Citizens' Summit (Chicago, on Lincoln's Birthday 2009) and to demand both an Electoral Reform Act and a Smart Nation-Multinational Information Sharing Act. Senators Hagel and Feingold, with their recent call for a commission to draw a new map of the world, are on the right track. Sadly, they are most likely to draw on all these self-congratulating peons who have been happy to be lions to the public, and ants in the White House.

Vastly better more relevant books include:
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Web of Deceit: The History of Western complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State

On a positive note, see:
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Our government did not fail us. We failed our Republic, and gave it up for dismemberment. Our government did not fail us. The individuals who served in the highest elected, appointed, and civil service positions failed to honor their Oaths of Office and defense the Constitution against all enemies, domestic and foreign. It takes real guts to speak truth to power, and bet your livelihood on being honorable.

There are only a handful of truly honest and intelligent wizards left, and I can name them on one hand: Zinni, Nye, Oakley, Palmer, Hagel, and if I use the other, Bloomberg, Iacocca, Biden, Schoomaker, Cochran. Everyone else has sold out and betrayed the public trust, and I especially include the 9-11 Commissioners who put the icing on the whitewash cake with their pretentious and deliberately ineffective “road show.” A few, like Gates and Clapper, could be saved, but need to discover their innovative bones and their future sight–current ops is NOT where it's at.

We the People are angry, very angry, and 2009 is going to see our anger in full display. The 2008 election is fradulent for having disenfranchised both third party candidates, and close to half the citizens eligible to vote.

2009/07/042015/10/20

Review: A Time to Fight–Reclaiming a Fair and Just America

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Politics

Unusual, Thoughtful–Ideal as McCain's Vice President, June 17, 2008

Jim Webb

The next President is going to have to tear down the US military, resurrect the atrophied civilian instruments of national power, and recreate the U.S. government in a manner that allows us to eliminate the debt and the deficit while waging peace and successfully nailing isolated organized crime, corporate corruption, and individual terrorists.

This means that a Democrat need not apply (less Senator Sam Nunn as either Vice President or Secretary-General for National Security, overseeing Defense, State, and Justice). As I put this book down I was thinking to myself, estranged Republican that I am: “this guy is too good to be a Democrat (or a Republican!).” I stand with Senator Hagel who is calling for a new party and an end to the two-party spoils system How about Bloomberg-Webb? Or Bloomberg-Powell with Nunn at Defense, Hagel at State, and Webb as Chief of Staff?

I take away one star because despite the candor and the reflective tone, the surprising but welcome comments against both the military-industrial complex and the prison complex (most of which is based on marijuana and is used to create slaves for the corporations running the prisons), the author did not offer a strategic framework.

He mentions Tony Zinni with favor, and he does a good job of suggesting that many generals did in fact try to talk the civilian leadership out of the elective occupation on attack, but I for one do not buy the latter. What they should have done was had Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz arrested and turned over to Congress, and told Dick Cheney to go fly a kite.

It is my personal view that the Democratic and Republican parties are dead. A new political demographic is emerging in America, one that demands multiple parties, an end to winner take all control of either the Executive or any half of Congress, and an end to “party line” treason.

Jim Webb is not a Democrat. He is, as Ike so famously said in answer to Marshall's question, an American. It is just possible we may have found a leader for a new era, an era that demands the leader engage all of us in conversation, and not lead so much as facilitate and nurture. See the images I load above.

Right now, Chuck Hagel, Joe Biden, and Jim Webb are people I respect, and I hope they, rather than the staff pukes that do not read and have never operated overseas, have the necessary influence to draw our new map of the world. Combine them with Joe Nye, Tony Zinni, and a handful of others who have not sold their soul to the beltway bandits, and we just might have what it takes to fight smart.

This is not a political book. This is more akin to public philosophy aloud.

2009/07/042013/03/05

Review: The Art and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis

4 Star, Intelligence (Commercial), Strategy

Too Expensive But Two Top People Cannot Be Ignored, July 5, 2008

Benjamin Gilad and Jan Herring

Although this book is dated and too expensive, Ben Gilad and Jan Herring are as good as it gets in the field. I recommend this book for corporate competitive intelligence collections–individuals should consider attending the Academy of Competitive Intelligence and look for less expensive works, such as I list below.
Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies
The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyzing, and Using Information about Your Competitors
The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence: How to See Through and Stay Ahead of Business Disruptions, Distortions, Rumors, and Smoke Screens
Strategic and Competitive Analysis
Super Searchers Do Business: The Online Secrets of Top Business Researchers (Super Searchers, V. 1)
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption

Not listed on Amazon, but available via the web from the UK, is Ben Gilad's book Blindspots, which I continue to regard as the single best work for a CEO willing to consider the possibility that their information is inevitably filtered, biases, incomplete, and late.

Category: 4 Star

Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team–A Leadership Fable