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Intelligence, Advice, Investment and Politics

Yesterday I read a Seattle Times article about Paul Pillar, a former high-ranking CIA official who has raised important questions about the intelligence that was collected before and during the Iraq war, the advice that was given about this to the Bush administration, and the extent to which the intelligence advice was acted upon.  This fits in with the theme of advice and advisors I've been reading, thinking and writing a lot about lately (most recently tying that in with the intangible investments in an angel / entrepreneur relationship), and I want to extend this, and the notion of investment in general, to politics. 

The article I read was based on an essay that Pillar had written for the most recent issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, which starts off with the following summary:

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.

I don't want to delve into the details of the article in detail here (though I highly recommend it), in part because I feel so angry about the Iraq war and other policies the Bush administration has implemented, and in part because I think the larger issues of seeking, considering and acting on advice [another instance of the input-processing-output paradigm] that are brought out in Pillar's article can be instructive ... so I'm going to focus on filling buckets rather than dipping here.

Near the very end of my last post, I referenced Kathy Sierra's post about "It's the [?], Stupid", which was, in turn, inspired (in part) by the "It's the economy, stupid!" slogan used to great effect by one of Bill Clinton's advisors, James Carville, in the 1992 U.S. presidential election campaign.  This got me thinking about how voting is a type of investment (there are many other types of investments and investors in the political process, but I don't want to go there ... now).  Electing a new president might be seen as an initial public offering -- a much later (and rarer) round of investment than the angel investment I wrote about yesterday -- where a management team has already been assembled, there is a defined market with existing products, services and customers, and the candidate is looking to expand into a new nationwide market.

After votes are cast -- and the increasingly low voter turnouts suggest that most candidates are not creating a lot of passionate voters -- very few constituents offer subsequent advice to their elected officials.  In fact, our system of representative democracy, was designed so that such advice is not required to run the government.  Instead, we trust that our elected officials will use their best judgment -- and avail themselves of advice offered by professionals who are experts in areas of importance to our country -- and do the right things, in the right ways.

The article by Pillar suggests that the administration was not taking advantage of some of the advice it was given.  I will admit that I, too, do not always take advantage of the excellent advice that some of my personal and professional advisors have offered me.  However, so far, I think that the consequences of my failures to act on good advice are not nearly as devastating as the missed opportunities detailed in the Foreign Affairs article.

I'm reminded of a quote by Dee Hock, founder of Visa International and champion of chaordic leadership principles, that Guy Kawasaki uses to introduce the chapter on Recruiting in his book, The Art of the Start:

It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

I hope we will benefit in future elections from a government that embraces and expresses greater diversity, humility, tolerance and wisdom.

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