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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
In October of 2020, Bob Gourley had a conversation with Rear Admiral Paul Becker, USN (Retired). In January of 2021, Admiral Beck also took part in an OODA Network Interview with OODA Expert Network Member Chris Ward. Admiral Becker is an author, speaker, and board member with extensive experience in intelligence operations. During his 30-year career as a naval intelligence officer, he led major operational intelligence efforts, rising to the position of Director of Intelligence (J2) for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Upon retirement from the Navy, he formed a consultancy delivering solutions and lessons learned around intelligence to corporate America. He is also a professor, teaching at the US Naval Academy and the University of Virginia. Paul is renowned for his ability to translate military leadership principles into corporate pillars of performance, productivity, and profit.
We continue our effort to underscore certain patterns and themes found throughout the OODAcast library of over 80 conversations with leaders and decision-makers, on topics such as leadership, empowering a team, finding the right people, clear decision-making while operating in a low information environment, the qualities and best practices of a true leader, the future of intelligence, the future of cyber threats and cyber espionage and strategic action.
This conversation with Admiral Becker covers his Navy career, leadership, management, decisionmaking, intelligence, and the future of the intelligence community.
Bob Gourley: One thing I think could be interesting is hearing your foundational story. What made you want to join the Naval Academy and what was the deciding factor there that brought you into the service?
Admiral Becker: I grew up in New York City and in Long Island. My dad was a cop, and my mom was a mom to four boys. After my older brother went to college, he’s a couple of years older than me, my dad sat me down in his office one day, which was the kitchen table, after mom cleared away the supper dishes. And he explained to me his financial facts of life. And he asked me which service academy I would be applying to.
I thought about it and the World War II and Korean War heroes that I saw on TV and in the movie theaters growing up. Of them all, the Navy leaders struck me as the most motivational and charismatic, you know, whether it was Henry Fonda’s Mr. Roberts Naval service, John Wayne as Sergeant Stryker in Sands of Iwo Jima, Gregory Peck as Captain Horatio Hornblower, and even Ernest Borgnine as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale in McHale’s Navy, who was still engaged in combat. but seemed to be having fun while he was doing it. So, I didn’t even apply to the other service academies. I applied to the Navy and thanked goodness I was accepted, and this began my Navy adventure.
Gourley: You then graduated from the Naval Academy and what was the shift into the intelligence career? What caused that?
Becker: Well, like the founder of the OODA phrase, Colonel John Boyd, I wanted to be a pilot, but I had some surgery as a midshipman, which put me in the not physically qualified category to go to Pensacola and Navy flight school. So, I thought the next closest thing would be to be a squadron intelligence officer, so I would be part of the aviation culture. I will deploy on an aircraft carrier, but it wasn’t what I aspire to do, but I figured I could do it for five years and then I will leave the Navy and become Mr. Becker. But after five years, I really liked the challenge, the opportunities, and I decided to stay for another tour. And another. And another. And it got to the point where, okay, at twenty years, that’s a good run. Now it’s time to become Mr. Becker with a pension and a nice career behind me and a lot of real-life experience.
And as we were approaching twenty years, that was 9/11 and America went to war. And at that point, I didn’t think it was the best timing to leave the service. I had just participated actively in Operation Enduring Freedom from the Northern Arabian Sea and Operation Iraqi Freedom for the Air Force, a combined air operations center at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. , so I thought, well, let’s see how the war goes. And it took thirteen more years before I finally decided to hang up my khakis and become Mr. Becker and join the private sector.
“…the goal of intelligence…is not to sit back, collect and admire information and data. But it is to act on it.”
Gourley: In my time in Naval intelligence, I had heroes and people I looked up to – the great masters of operational intelligence – but, you know, throughout my career, I had never heard of this guy, Colonel John Boyd, until I went to school with the Marines at the Marine Corps Command and Staff in 1996. Those guys were all over John Boyd. And once I learned about his process for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act, I recognized it as the kind of stuff we were doing in Naval intelligence. We just did not have that model on it. And you told me earlier you saw his plaque at the Naval academy – and that just really gave me hope that his impact is enduring in the military.
Becker: Yeah. I’m glad the midshipmen know who he is and why it is important to follow the tenets of OODA. But to even shorten that acronym a bit. Rather than four words, two that come to mind are Decision Advantage. Which is the goal of intelligence, right? It is not to sit back, collect and admire information and data. But it is to act on it. And that is Decision Advantage. And that is what Colonel Boyd was all about.
“Management is of things. Leadership is of people.”
Gourley: Great. And that is so relevant to corporate America today, too. If you want to win, you must have a competitive advantage. And that decision advantage is the key in this information-centric world. So, another lesson I want to ask you about Paul: I would love your thoughts, based on your career and your studies to date, on leadership in management. What’s the difference between leadership and management?
Becker: They are cousins, and they are mutually supportive – and I am a fan of both. Each has its own place, but it’s important to recognize what those places are. Management is of things. Leadership is of people. My good friend from high school, Anthony, is an accountant, but he got tired of just being an accountant and he just didn’t want to manage accounts. He wanted to start a business. So, he created an accounting firm. He led it right. He had a vision for what the accounting firm would do.
He provided motivation to the team. He recruited to keep talent coming in. And he had a manager, a junior accountant that kept track of the things that need to be done. And I put a bow on it by using a few adjectives. I think management is more measurement, regulation, control, whereas leadership is more a process of influence, expansion, and creating value. Anthony is a very successful accounting firm CEO now in Long Island. And we keep in close touch.
“…we coach them to bring their performance up to the level of their values, not bring their values down to the level of socialized or rationalized performance.”
Gourley: That is a good succinct way of capturing that, Paul, I appreciate it. Let me ask another question. What is success?
Becker: There are so many metrics of success. But to me, it comes down to the feeling that you have done your best to achieve an objective, right? Success is not the accumulation of accolades or materials, although that’s a component of it, for sure. But to me, the feeling of success comes from an expectation that I’ve attempted to fulfill an individual goal. And it may be a personal record. I’m a swimmer. I have a certain amount of time where I like to swim a mile a day. It is now hovering well under an hour, but when I started it, it was above that right. That’s a success in its own right: hitting a performance mark. There are other metrics as well, but whenever you can close the gap between your potential and your peak performance, to me, that’s the definition of success.
Gourley: That’s great. Very helpful. Now, I know you are teaching at the University of Virginia and the Naval Academy. You are teaching these young leaders ethics and moral decision-making. Is there anything you can succinctly encapsulate your entire class in a couple of sentences? What should a leader know about ethics and morality in their decision-making?
Becker: Well, we, we want the midshipman to have the framework to think about doing the right thing, whether that’s as a follower or a leader. So, while we cover philosophers from Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, up through Kant and Mills and the utility theory, at a ratio of two to one apply case studies from the fleet. What did this ship’s captain do when they were confronted with this situation? Or what did this Marine platoon leader do during the battle of Fallujah when they were confronted with this collateral damage conundrum? And we let the mids think for themselves and we guide a discussion, but the goal is to build people of integrity. Where their values and their actions match. When there is a separation, that is cognitive dissonance – something we want to avoid. And we coach them to bring their performance up to the level of their values, not bring their values down to the level of socialized or rationalized performance.
“…people working on innovative and modernized intelligence collection analysis…should be exercised and empowered at the edge.”
Gourley: I was in a conversation a few days ago and we were talking about the future of the intelligence community and the past. The intelligence community has been around since the time of General George Washington, who needed eyes on and an ability to collect information on the movements of the British during the Revolutionary War. And, of course, needed mechanisms to protect his own information and to make decisions. But it’s evolved over the years. And the last major evolution was the National Security Act of 1947 after World War II, which established the CIA and put in place a basic structure of what’s there today. That’s been changed a little bit over time. What I’m getting at is this organization seems to be working the same way today as it did in 1947. What commercial enterprise would operate the same way it did in 1947? The world is changing. Shouldn’t the Intel community change? And if you agree with that thesis, how should it change?
Becker: You mentioned the National Security Act of 1947. I would add the Intel Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004, which created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2005. It was a significant step up, right? You recall post 9/11, it was exposed, right? We had single-threaded intelligence reported and analysis generally flowing to the National Command Authority. And we didn’t adequately integrate all the resources of the sixteen elements as they are now of the Intel community. So, let’s create a staff to make that a little more integrated.
But in my opinion, Bob, seeing it in action now for fifteen years, it’s a bloated bureaucracy, right, The Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence? I’m for there being one. The law says there should be one, adding tangible value and creating some synergies. But overall, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of intelligence professionals working to manage and are not necessarily lead. And this comes at the expense of some of these people working on innovative and modernized intelligence collection analysis processing outside of equivalent practices that should be exercised and empowered at the edge.
Of the individual communities, whether it’s the Office of Naval intelligence, whether it’s the Drug Enforcement Agency. Whether it is the FBI National Security element. Along the way, I think the Office of the Director of National Intelligence can be scaled down to a smaller council that can help manage the budget and lead current efforts at synchronization and integration. But that synchronization and integration are the management aspect of the Intel community. And I think there’s too much resource devoted to it – at the expense of analysis, innovation, and application with the warfighters or decision-makers to prevent warfighting.
Also, a previous Interview with Admiral Becker can be found at OODA Network Interview: Paul Becker.
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About the Author
Daniel Pereira is research director at OODA. He is a foresight strategist, creative technologist, and an information communication technology (ICT) and digital media researcher with 20+ years of experience directing public/private partnerships and strategic innovation initiatives.
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence