Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence & Surprise Events [Hardcover]

Alain Paul Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 10, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0865029245 | ISBN-13: 978-0865029248

This book covers the organization, leadership, tools, practices and culture of intelligence. It reveals a powerful framework comprising new instruments, platforms and breakthrough concepts to address intelligence issues facing professionals and decision-makers, at the national and corporate levels, post September 11. Armed with a wide variety of real-life examples and road maps from business, government and the military, the author demonstrates how the framework can be applied to win customers and allies, seize opportunities, anticipate threats, shield assets from adversaries, and gain insights into the mindset of stakeholders, by legal and ethical means. The content is based on Harvard University Global System™ management road maps pioneered by the author Alain Paul Martin.

The failure to act on valuable intelligence is legion. About half of the book addresses this issue with new instruments for intelligence analysis and interpretation. A full chapter focuses on anticipating and managing surprise events, and another covers the application of the issue-incubation cycle, as an early warning system. Neglecting this cycle can result in undue risk exposure and flawed decisions. In addition, acting on valuable intelligence requires the commitment of a team, with members playing complementary roles. Otherwise, too many important ideas, intelligent trails and even great goals and missions are abandoned. The book examines the power, status and role of the catalysts of intelligence-led change. It also introduces new intelligence tools used to analyze the perceptions and behavior of consumers and other stakeholders.

The book is suitable for general audiences. Learning about intelligence can help each of us make wiser choices, work better and be a more informed and accountable citizen. Technical terms are explained thoroughly. Real-life examples about people and important issues will be fun to read, talk about, both at work and to stimulate discussions and give your staff or students a primer on intelligence.

All in all, this is an excellent, timely and easy to read book with entertaining, vivid examples and breakthrough instruments, most of which are not available elsewhere. As illustrated by the following testimonies, this book is highly recommended for managers, professionals, educators and students in business, government and the military.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A must read for senior executives... This is a grand slam by Martin."

Professor Sunder Kekre -- Professor Sunder Kekre, Carnegie Mellon Graduate School of Industrial Administration

"A powerful message... a richly-resourced guide for the intelligence gathering practitioner, replete with compelling examples of successful applications." -- Archie W. Dunham, Chairman, ConocoPhillips; Chairman, National Association of Manufacturers

"I highly recommend that all managers and leadersread this book." -- George Kolisnek, Director Strategic Intelligence, Department of National Defense

"Mining intelligence is a tall order... Martin delivers sensible advice, rich in practical ideas and real-life examples." -- Douglas McCracken, CEO, Deloitte Consulting

"This book should be compulsory reading for senior executives." -- Howard Mann, President and CEO, McCain Foods

An extraordinarily.. well written book on a topic of great contemporary importance... Advice.. practical.. completely on target."

F. Warren McFarlan -- Professor F. Warren McFarlan, Harvard Business School

From the Author

Why Should You Read or Offer This Book As A Gift?

A wide variety of individual and corporate buyers can benefit immensely from reading this book. Although the interest for this publication is worldwide, the focus of this document is on the North-American market, which is characterized by the following features.

1. More than ever before, intelligence and intelligence security, like insurance, are now considered an essential part of the cost of doing business regardless of the economic climate and the sector of activity: business, government and defense. As an illustration, President Bush made improved intelligence gathering and analysis a top budget priority in his 2002 State-of-the-Union address.

2. With less trade barriers and excess capacity in nearly every industry, competition has nowhere to go but up. Competitive intelligence is emerging as a fundamental lever in most functions of the enterprise. Without it, scientists, engineers, managers in business and government, and professionals in finance, marketing and sales are flying blind. This book opens their eyes to counterintuitive ways of promptly acquiring intelligence and connecting the dots.

3. Whether you are competing for a job or negotiating a deal, you will be much better prepared by reading this book. Indeed, you will increasingly face colleagues, teammates and adversaries who have cutting-edge skills in intelligence. The subject is among the fastest growing disciplines in business schools. Furthermore, corporate, collegial and municipal libraries confirm the growing demand for books on intelligence.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Professional Dev Inst Pr (December 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865029245
• ISBN-13: 978-0865029248
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,704,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun to read. Good to grow customer-service sales., April 24, 2003

By 

radovan thomas (L. A. California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence & Surprise Events (Hardcover)

The stories featured in A. P. Martin's Harnessing the Power of Intelligence are fun to read and talk about, at work and at home. I have used some of them to alert my customer-service team about hidden risks and untapped opportunities. We have been applying the ideas of the first six chapters (Part I) for about three months. Our interactions with customers are yielding better results. We are now moving aggressively to prevent tampering with our information assets as noted in the section titled "How Good Organizations Lose Intelligence".
Four of my high-school educated supervisors, who read the book, found Part I a down-to-earth eye-opener, and right on target, for making wiser choices and avoiding costly errors. They, however, thought Part II would be more applicable to middle and senior management. A drawback: the cases in the chapter on Psychographics lack the detail necessary to be useful.
I have also read C. S. Fleisher's Strategic and Competitive Intelligence. Both books represent, in my opinion, two different, credible and complementary approaches to intelligence-based decision-making. Except for some references, there is virtually no duplication of content. A big bonus!

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turning Intelligence into Value, February 20, 2003

By 

John J. Sviokla (Newton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence & Surprise Events (Hardcover)

"Ninety percent of the information used in organizations is internally focused and only ten percent about the outside environment. This is exactly backwards." -- Peter Drucker

As usual, in one pithy phrase, management sage Peter Drucker captured the central problem facing organizations in uncertain environments -- they look in the wrong place. In volatile times, humans tend to hunker down in the cocoon of the controllable. Effective leaders embrace such times as an opportunity for greatness, when the prepared organization can jump ahead of ostrich-like competition.

Yet, few management advisors opine on how to combat these human tendencies and systematically scan, analyze and act in uncertain environments. Michael Porter's classic works on Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage did dispense advice on competitive intelligence gathering, but did not attend to the conversion of intelligence into commercial advantage. Alain Martin's new book "Harnessing the Power of Intelligence" compiles tested processes which create such value.

Martin's frameworks are based on research at American Express, Boeing, Dell, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, and Microsoft as well as application of his ideas in businesses, government, and the military. The book has the most up to date, and complete list of intelligence sources. For example, Martin cites the University of California at Berkeley "invisible web" project, which has shown that search engines only document about 15% of the business intelligence available publicly, because the vast majority of it is either not in a standard hypertext format or not linked to a public domain name (the silent campers). His framework on issue incubation, shows that large scale issues go through a relatively predictable process of incubation and development. Many leaders make the mistake of getting on an issue too early or too late. The issue incubation process delineates ways to recognize the progression of topics, and provides advice on if, when and how to intervene. Martin also has a tool called, Factional Analysis that helps a manager analyze who is likely to influence a volatile situation (from allies to adversaries). This tool is much richer than the traditional stakeholder analysis for it includes roles that do not fit in the normal economic calculus. For example, he includes "fanatics" in the analysis -- people whose sole purpose is to disrupt.

A leader can take the advice in this book and use it to guide outward looking intelligence, assess the current state of issues (or do a triage on a surprise event), and then take concerted action.

At points, the book does suffer from the same weakness of Porter's books in that its desire for completeness, the text often has a "list-like" feel. But, on balance this book provides a framework full of tested tools to turn uncertainty into value.

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious Book on Competitive Intelligence, February 13, 2003

By 

B. Farber (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence & Surprise Events (Hardcover)

I have read countless publications on strategy and competitive intelligence. Since I was often disappointed, I was hesitant to buy the new book "Harnessing the Power of Intelligence" and commit precious hours to study its content. But I quickly changed my mind after glancing over the long list of testimonials from well-respected intelligence experts and executives who highly recommend the book. It is now clear to me that author Alain Paul Martin has distilled the lessons of his extensive field experience to craft a practical framework that has been successfully applied in the private and public sectors.
Apart from the first Chapter, which I skipped, here is my impression about the rest of the book.

Chapter 2 "Building A High-Performing Organization" offers tips on the role of chief intelligence officers, issue managers, intelligence collectors and other scanning resources in an intelligence-centric organization. The section on intelligence culture deserves a greater coverage.

Chapter 3 "Building Intelligence Capital" starts with a brief discussion on scanning but the competitive-intelligence road map is a real gem.

Chapters 4 and 5 on intelligence platforms, search engines and the invisible Web are relevant to a wide range of occupations and activities beyond competitive intelligence. Just by applying the tips in the Brain Stem-Cell Case Study, I got my money and time worth within a week of reading Chapter 4.

Chapter 6 "Intelligence Security in Business and Government" does not provide new material to intelligence experts but is a good primer, filled with examples, for managers.

Chapters 7 and 8 examine the process of opportunity and threat incubation through the lenses of Martin's powerful paradigm. The illustrations suggest that the instrument is already used to capture new markets, and anticipate and manage various risks. The appendix on the Mad-Cow issue in Britain supports the framework and adds credibility to it. It is written by Dr. Brian Morrissey, a veterinary scientist who led government R&D on a host of complex national and global issues related to food and health protection.

The ideas and tools described in both Chapters 9 and 10 are the most advanced I have ever came across on stakeholders' analysis. Chapter 9 offers novel tips to identify the players who can make a difference in managing projects or reaching deals. It also sheds a new light on the role and power dynamics between these players. Chapter 10 helps readers map the positions and perceptions of the stakeholders, a pre-requisite for strategy formulation. Chapter 11 is a basic introduction to psychographics and VALS. Chapter 12 completes the book with concluding remarks about the application of intelligence to our personal lives.

The book is highly recommended to managers and students in military colleges, business and public administration. Chapters 7 through 10 will be of great interest to intelligence analysts who are constantly in search of new ways to connect the dots. I hesitate between a rating of 4 out of 5 stars for expert readers and 5/5 for managers. Actually, the framework alone is worth 5/5 and is without match in the world of competitive intelligence.