Jan 15, 2021

Kathy and Randy Pherson both had successful careers in the US
Intelligence Community, where they pioneered new
analytical methods and would later help bring those methods to
widespread adoption in the community. Both are also successful
business leaders who created companies that build value for
others.

In the OODAcast we discuss the third edition of their book:
Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence. They provide their
context on what a good intelligence program in industry or
government looks like, how to avoid out for cognitive bias and
cognitive traps, how to be proactive in data collection and
processing, and how to produce intelligence in ways that can be
consumed by decision-makers. The also provide insights from the
latest cognitive science and do it in a way that can help any
analyst in any enterprise improve. We also examine what critical
thinking is, and how to teach it.

Kathy reviews what she calls the “5 habits of the critical
thinker”, which includes:

1. Examine your key assumptions
2. Consider multiple alternatives
3. Look for disconfirming data
4. Look for drivers underneath your topic and finder indicators of
   future action
5. Understand the context and how the issue is framed, through
   framing seek to understand

Kathy and Randy have had a very interesting career together
(they were the first married couple to join and spend a full career
at the CIA). One aspect of their career I found particularly
interesting was their work with the famous Richards (Dick) Heuer.
Dick had taught Randy on topics like counter deception, and was
later a contractor under Kathy. Years later Dick and Randy would
work together on books including one on Structured Analytic
Techniques for Intelligence Analysis. We hope you enjoy meeting
them and learning from them in this OODAcast.

Other related reading:

• 
  A Practitioner’s View of Corporate Intelligence: Organizations
  in competitive environments should continually look for ways to
  gain advantage over their competitors. The ability of a business to
  learn and translate that learning into action, at speeds faster
  than others, is one of the most important competitive advantages
  you can have. This fact of business life is why the model of
  success in Air to Air combat articulated by former Air Force
  fighter pilot John Boyd, the Observe – Orient – Decide – Act (OODA)
  decision loop, is so relevant in business decision-making
  today.
• 
  Useful Standards For Corporate Intelligence: Discusses
  standards in intelligence, a topic that can improve the quality of
  all corporate intelligence efforts and do so while reducing
  ambiguity in the information used to drive decisions and enhancing
  the ability of corporations to defend their most critical
  information.
• 
  Optimizing Corporate Intelligence: Actionable recommendation on
  ways to optimize a corporate intelligence effort. It is based on a
  career serving large scale analytical efforts in the US
  Intelligence Community and in applying principles of intelligence
  in corporate America.
• 
  An Executive’s Guide To Cognitive Bias in Decision Making:
  Cognitive Bias and the errors in judgement they produce are seen in
  every aspect of human decision-making, including in the business
  world. Companies that have a better understanding of these
  cognitive biases can optimize decision making at all levels of the
  organization, leading to better performance in the market.
  Companies that ignore the impact these biases have on corporate
  decision-making put themselves at unnecessary risk.