Food For Thought On The Approach For Mastering Any Strategic Skill

(Reading from left to right)

"Skill is acquired through continuous practice, sophistication and depth (are achieved) by giving thought to it . "

This "martial art training" quote can be applied to the study of strategy or any subject of value.

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Illegal Profiting Through Deception on the Web

"Things are not as they appear to be, nor are they otherwise."  
- Surangama Sutra

When surfing online,  one needs to be careful where he/she is pointing and clicking   

Here are two NYT articles on malware that could put a dent in your pocketbook - news item #1 and news item #2. 

Click here and here for other web frauds.

Stay centered on your grand objective when surfing the web. Assess your settings for a quick moment before clicking.  One should not take things for granted. Do not be distracted while pointing and clicking.

Remember that there is always a penalty for having a lack of concentration. Time is an expensive commodity.

Final Thought
Remember that "the desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.  .." 

Great Food For Thoughts by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Writer of Black Swan)

Exclusive Aphorisms from Nassim Nicholas Taleb 

• Aging and bad breath are things you notice only in other people.

• Don't take notes. We forget ideas for a reason.

• Love is more voluntary at the beginning than at the end; friendship the opposite.

• During youth, they prefer death without aging to aging without death; but they will practice the reverse.

• There are some people about whom whatever you may say will be true.

• In a good conversation, it is often the most significant that will remain undiscussed. 

• By dying, most of those we call generous will act stingy; all of those we call close-fisted will show great generosity.

• It is hard to engage people without seeing them in the light of either the most favorable or the most unfavorable of the impressions we've ever had of them.

• Virtue is having one, or more than two, partners.

• It is rare for admiration to not decay.

• It is foolish to attempt to correct the crowd about their false beliefs; they will go on to formulate new false beliefs.   


•  "My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism.

How to Collect and Exploit Field Intelligence

Comments From The Compass Desk

The following news item is a good example where collecting the right data begins by utilizing the green capital as a bait. Out in the field, one carefully sprays it to the proven sources (informants) hopes that he gets lucky with one of his many baits.

Those who believed that collecting field intelligence from the search engine, is the way to go, are either inexperienced and naive. Sometimes,  they are just deceiving their audience.

There is an art and a science behind this process. Those who know, don't say.

However, you can read The Art of War and the Secret Six Teachings about the basics of collecting intelligence.

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SF cops went all out retrieve stolen gun

Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross

Updated 5:49 am, Sunday, March 10, 2013

San Francisco cops dodged a real bullet the other day when one of their AR-15 rifles wound up in the hands of an East Oakland gang after being stolen out of the trunk of an unmarked police car.

The prospect of a police semiautomatic rifle being used in a violent crime prompted a Code 3 response once officers discovered the theft last weekend South of Market.

Police Chief Greg Suhr immediately put out word to start questioning every street source they had.

"No resources were spared," Suhr said.

Asked exactly how they traced the rifle, the chief told us that "it wouldn't be in the best interest of future cases to give away trade secrets."

Other law enforcement sources, however, said the department caught a break almost immediately when an undercover cop working his informants in the Bayview heard about a stolen police rifle showing up in Oakland.

Soon, Suhr himself was on the phone to Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, whose department promptly joined in the hunt.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the practices of San Francisco and Oakland police tell us it's likely they paid for the key information they got.

"We have a fund that pays for information on guns," says one longtime San Francisco police insider.

Oakland police spokesman Sgt. Chris Bolton would say only that police used "a number of investigative techniques."

Once the cops got an address, the Oakland SWAT team was brought in.

Police negotiators were then called to make contact with those inside the house on the 1300 block of 88th Avenue, urging them to surrender peacefully and to give up any weapons.

Other details about the raid have not been divulged, but we're told that there was a car chase at one point involving at least one suspect who fled.

Still, while as many as seven people were detained, there were no arrests - a clear sign, department insiders say, that they had a deal with somebody to get the weapon back with no questions asked.

In addition to the stolen police rifle, officers recovered a Ruger Mini-14 tactical semiautomatic rifle, a semiautomatic pistol, a shotgun, 1,000 ecstasy pills and other drugs.

As far as Suhr is concerned, "We got lucky."

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/SF-cops-went-all-out-retrieve-stolen-gun-4342330.php

Other Notes 

Click here and here for other good reads on this topic of intelligence  gathering.

Food For Thought 

“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” – Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  – John 8:32, the creed of the Central Intelligence Agency

“The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity.”​  – Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good.”  – Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, The Prince

"There is one evil I dread- and that is, their spies. "  - George Washington on British Intelligence, March 24, 1776. 


Comments From The Compass Desk
Whenever there is chaos,  focus on securing the best set of information that creates order.   Assess.  ... Position  ... Influence.  ... 

How to Assess Your Strategic Situation (via a Classic Samurai Movie)

Kurosawa's Sanjuro is a very good movie for those who are interested in learning how to assess (or read) a situation in terms of its specifics. 

Toshiro Mifune plays Sanjuro, a ronin who saves a group of young samurai from being slaughtered by a high political official and then began to mentor them on having the right set of information before any decision is consummated.     (The story is slightly more complex than what is being described here.)

Throughout the movie,  he indirectly advised them to patiently assess their situation on the tangible truth and sort through the information. Do not act on emotional impulse. This act of mentoring was repeated many times.

At the near conclusion of this movie, this group of novice samurai learned the lesson of being self-patient. 

Sanjuro almost always made good decisions- except for the choice of the Komyo Temple for his story and the picking of the flowers at the wrong time (for the purpose of signaling his group of samurai to raid the targeted house).  
Compass Rule
Whenever, one is not focused  on their objective while not being mindful of their setting and beyond, the probability of errors will definitely rise.

The Dao of Decision Management 
From this movie, the best lesson for budding chief decision makers comes from these two quotes 

Mutsuta's wife: You're too sharp. That's your trouble. You're like a drawn sword. Sharp, naked without a sheath. You cut well. But good swords are kept in their sheaths. 

Sanjûrô Tsubaki: He was exactly like me. A naked sword. He didn't stay in his sheath.

The Analysis of the Above Video
Before the first move, Sanjuro mindfully assessed that the drawing the second move (his first move)  of the match would be more effective than his opponent's capability was too slow and the execution of the opponent's second move would not work. He mindfully positioned ahead with a tactical move that was a hybrid of two intents:  1.  The execution of his first move with his left hand as soon as the opponent began his first move.  2.  The continuation of that draw by leading with his body while cutting deeply into the opponent's body while avoiding the opposing strike.  (Our martial arts associates at Cook Ding's Kitchen referred this movement as intercepting.) 

Click here to watch the entire movie and you will understand the events that lead to those quotes. 

Food For Thought

In practice, never a useless move. 
In operation, no motion is wasted.  

- The Compass Strategist

Comments from the Compass Desk

How does the decision management process of this movie reflected to our 21st century information economy?

Because of the pseudo transparency and the moderate levels of deception,  some people usually glossed over the configuration of their Big Tangible Picture and occasionally misunderstand the risk consequences of their own situation.  Another words, they do not connect the dots.

This decision management action originates from their urge for immediate gratification.  Look around you. People do this all the time.  They erred. Somehow they get away with it with some level of damage. (We know the reason behind their action.)

To prevail, the successful strategists always calmly assessed the configuration of their situation and the quality of intelligence before deciding on anything. They rarely operates on his impulsiveness.

Note on the Compass Process Model
Fwiw, our process model is so scaleable that it enables the strategist to adjust to the tangibility of the situation.   This model success is based on the implementer's capability to properly execute it. We will talk more about it in a future post.

Q: Do you know how to increase your level of assessment when the complexity of the situation grows?  Without a process model, are you willing to grind it out?

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Side note
"Intercepting" is a mindful strategic action that requires its implementer to assess the configuration of the Big Tangible Picture (BTP) and to capitalizes on the on-coming opportunity with the right efficient moves.  Fwiw, this concept is indirectly emphasized in the Art of War, the Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings and the Li Quan's book.