Peter Ernst & Maryanne Curranch “Business Confidential”

Business Confidential is a book written by a former top CIA operative and a business psychology author that focuses specifically on hiring and managing people and organizations.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is often portrayed in movies and TV shows as very cool, but the real-life CIA is not, according to the authors. This is a book that is more of a business book, but it’s still a good foundation for general management, as it explains the process of recruiting agents and acquiring intelligence from the CIA.

“Talent Selection, Information Analysis, and Organizational Management”

The book is organized into three main chapters. The book is organized into the following chapters

Talent selection
Information collection and analysis
How to improve your organization

“About Talent Selection…”

The first chapter is about talent selection. This is quite similar to the recruitment method applied by large Korean companies in the past from the 2000s to the early 2010s.

“Filtering through personality tests and in-depth interviews”

The CIA also uses personality tests and “MBTI” tests to select new employees. After passing the personality test, it leads to an in-depth interview, which was easy to understand because it was similar to the process in large Korean companies at the time of the book’s publication.

“Collaborative people rather than smart people”

Organizations tend to want people who can collaborate more than people who are just smart. The book describes “engaged employees” as those who are motivated to realize the mission and organizational values. Their characteristics include “loyal, motivated, passionate, and highly driven. “In addition, they have a positive personality that empowers others, are optimistic, collaborative, and oriented toward good customer service,” he says.

“If you’re a promising candidate…”

If you’re a promising candidate, you’re said to practice the following factors

do your research on the company, the people, and the competition, and come to the interview prepared.
They are straightforward, honest, but avoid exaggeration, and have a high sense of responsibility.
Have a clear reason for wanting to join the organization and how their strengths can be leveraged in the organization.

“To facilitate engagement…”

Once you’ve selected a candidate, it’s time to facilitate engagement. According to Gallup, the failure to build an engaged workforce costs the U.S. economy as a whole about $350 billion a year. Approximately 59% of employees are disengaged, aka “clockwork” employees.

To reduce attrition, you need to create an engaging work environment. You can help employees advance their careers, introduce mentoring programs, and build healthy labor relations.

After hiring, you need to provide the right support and processes, which the book refers to as “onboarding”. You’ll need to build a culture that is welcoming to newcomers, with appropriate training and education on the job.

You can use storytelling techniques to add value to your organization, experiential learning, and role-playing to help them learn the ropes. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that employees continue to acquire the necessary knowledge at school, and to improve communication efficiency and coordination between departments through cross-experience, the author says.

“Regarding intelligence collection and analysis…”

At the heart of the CIA is intelligence collection and analysis. These are covered in the second chapter of the book.

The information should be “accurate, objective, and timely to help the organization make decisions,” the authors say. Interestingly, the book also discusses how spies get information, including how to eavesdrop or wiretap. Surprisingly, spies also collect a lot of information through “Google” searches.

“Rules of Intelligence Gathering: The Moscow Rules”

Among the rules of intelligence gathering are the Moscow Rules, which are as follows

Don’t assume anything.
Don’t go against your instincts.
Look for distinct and trending profiles and patterns.
Always be consistent.
Do not appear threatening to your opponent, keep them off guard, and mesmerize them.
Know your opponent and their territory inside and out.
Always consider your objectives in advance.
Don’t bully your opponent.
Always leave yourself options.
The first is an accident, the second is a coincidence, but the third is an enemy attack.
Choose the right time and place for your actions.
There is no limit to the human ability to rationalize the truth.

“The art of translation and the art of decoding”

Although the book calls it a translation technique, it’s really about how to decipher our body language. This means that you need to be aware of the cultural background of your targets, as body language can vary from culture to culture. Similarly, the art of decoding is about analyzing attitudes and behaviors, and it covers how to gather information by analyzing people in a multifaceted way.

“Analyzing and disseminating information”

In the modern world, we have too much information rather than too little, which means we need to analyze it with the right insights. There are two main analytical methodologies: isolated analysis and Socratic questioning.

Once you’ve analyzed the information, it’s important to communicate it. It’s important to make it easy to understand at a glance. This relates to the “form” of information delivery. “The CIA writes reports in the form of “problem, review, and conclusion” as a way to convey information, and it can be applied to private companies as follows.

Topic: Meeting with XYX customer to determine satisfaction.
Discussion: We’ll post a formal report on Friday, but no action is needed before then.
Conclusion: The customer has some complaints about the payment process. To be resolved in consultation with accounting. Installation and interoperability issues are not expected to worsen as a reason for canceling the deal, but should be addressed with closer technical support.

The principle is simple. “Whether written or spoken, make your report specific to the audience you have in mind.”

“About organizational improvement…”

In the last chapter, the topic of organizational improvement is discussed. We’re also talking about branding and marketing. He also discusses how to change and revise your goals, and how to deal with damage when it happens.

“Branding: Is your image built by choice?”

It is important to think about whether the image of a product or company is built by itself or passively built by other companies’ products or branding. Apple is an example of a company that built its own image, and Southwestern Airlines, a low-cost airline, can also be seen as an example of independent branding.

If your image isn’t self-created, you might want to rethink your branding.

“No permanent enemies, no permanent allies.”

In business, there are no permanent enemies and no permanent allies. This is an old adage from the past. It’s good to keep in mind that there are no permanent enemies and no permanent allies, especially in the business world where survival is at stake.

“Maintaining trust is key”

The stages of a sales pitch are said to be much like the stages of an intelligence officer’s recruitment. Applying this to business, the first step is to establish “trust”. The second step is to discover something, the third is to make a presentation. The fourth step is called resolving objections, which is the final step in the authorization process.

Arguably, the most important thing in both intelligence and business is to build trust.

The CIA, the U.S. national intelligence agency, has a strategy that can be applied to the business world. However, in translation, I found it difficult to understand the book because the context sometimes didn’t flow smoothly, and the examples presented in the book were often US-centric. However, the idea of applying CIA lessons to the corporate world is both novel and entertaining.

“Business Confidential: Your company, good night, the CIA is coming to your rescue!”