The WAY to WOW Shows
The Enemy Gets a Vote: Intelligence and Uncertainty
September 29, 2026
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[0:02] Leaders want certainty. Where is the enemy? What are they planning? How strong are they? What will they do next? Business leaders ask remarkably similar questions. What will customers do? What is our competitor planning? How large is the market? Will this product succeed? What happens if we raise the price? The military has spent thousands of years trying to answer questions like these and has learned an uncomfortable lesson. Intelligence is never perfect. The purpose of intelligence is not to

[0:38] eliminate uncertainty. It's to reduce uncertainty enough to make better decisions. This This distinction matters. Organizations can spend enormous amounts of time and money gathering information while postponing the decision the information was supposed to support. Worse, leaders can make an intelligence estimate can take can mistake an intelligence estimate for a fact simply because it arrives in an impressive briefing. Military history offers a better model.

[1:14] Collect from multiple sources, evaluate their reliability, distinguish observation from interpretation, communicate uncertainty, challenge assumptions, protect against deception, and ultimately recognize when it's time to decide.

[1:36] >> Who are you?

[1:38] >> [music]

[1:39] >> And where are you going? What do you want?

[1:51] >> Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and leadership practices and then distill from them lessons we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So, today's topic is

[2:14] >> [laughter]

[2:14] >> I almost then I forgot the topic. It it's the enemy gets a vote, intelligence and uncertainty. And this points out the uncomfortable truth I mentioned in the the the you know, the tag, which is that we can gather all kinds of information, but we're not necessarily going to know whether that information is accurate, whether it paints a complete whether it completes a paint completes a it paints

[2:49] a complete picture. And so, no matter what we do, we're still going to be making decisions in a climate of uncertainty. And so, I want to talk about this. I I've addressed this issue before, but I think it's something to to really we're going to really drill down into it today. So, I want to start out by mentioning several misconceptions about how military intelligence works. No jokes about, you know, conflict of terms.

[3:23] >> [laughter]

[3:24] >> So, you know, a lot of what we think we know about intelligence gathering in the military comes from, you know, movies and and and popular culture. And of course, they're telling us a story, but that isn't necessarily historically accurate. So, in many cases, I think when we when we hear the word intelligence, military intelligence especially, we think of spies. like, you know, people, you know, plotting to get behind enemy lines and that sort of thing. Now, it is true,

[3:59] espionage is one form of intelligence gathering, but there are lots of different forms. So, historically, armies have gathered information through scouts, through patrols, through interrogating prisoners, through deserters, through local populations, maps, in in uh intercepted messages, observations, you know, aerial reconnaissance, signals, electronic signals, imagery, satellite sensors, and even open sources. In in World War II, there was the big, you know, loose lips

[4:34] sink ships, right? And so, the idea was keep closed mouth about what was going on. So, um it's it's important to know that intelligence intelligence gathering activity is not merely collecting secrets, it's gathering information from a wide variety of sources, both open and secret, and then converting that information into a useful assessment. That's what military intelligence is. So, another misconception is that good

[5:11] commanders uh I'm sorry, good intelligence tells commanders what the enemy will do, right? And the fact of the matter is, intelligence almost never tells uh with certainty what the, you know, what the the opposing force um is going to do, right? I I mean, rarely do we have a situation like like the Battle of Midway in World War II, where we had broken we mean meaning the the United States had broken the

[5:47] Japanese code and we knew they were going to attack at Midway. And by the way, even knowing that, although we were successful, we still took some pretty heavy losses, right? So, we we still didn't know with precision exactly what the Japanese battle plan was, etc. So, good intelligence, it identifies capabilities, intentions, patterns, vulnerabilities, and likely courses of action, okay? But, a commander still has to make a judgment call as to how he's going to respond.

[6:25] So, the next misconception is that more information automatically produces better intelligence. Now, in it in many cases, modern organizations suffer from the opposite problem, which is too much information. And and they have so much that to collate it, filter it, and analyze it uh becomes a a very difficult task. And so, just the volume of information obscures what it is that

[7:00] commanders are trying to understand, right? So, uh you know, intel the intelligence problem evolved from finding information to determining which information deserves attention. And that is the real hard part. That that's where uh you know, a a a really good intelligence officer uh adds his value to the whole process. So, again, another misconception, intelligence fails because nobody had the information.

[7:36] Now, sometimes that is the case. Sometimes the information wasn't wasn't, you know, detected, sometimes it just wasn't available for various reasons, but most famous intelligence failures occurred because although the information existed, it was either dismissed or it was misinterpreted, it was fragmented and so couldn't be compiled properly, or it it was fitted in to an incorrect assumption, and so in

[8:14] the end the commander didn't have as clear a picture as he could have, and so he ended up making a bad decision. And so and then finally the last misconception I want to I want to address is technology solved all the intelligence problems, right? So we have satellites, we have signal interception, we we have drones, we have databases, we have artificial intelligence, and all of these extraordinary capabilities of collection therefore mean that hey, we

[8:51] have all the information we need and therefore we have perfect intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth. So for all of the technological advancement we've made, we they have not eliminated deception, ambiguity, incomplete information, analytical bias, or for that matter the adversary's ability to change his plans, right? So technology has helped us gather information and analyze the information, but it has by

[9:28] no means made intelligence a perfect function. It it in in ways has increased the complexity of doing intelligence well and and and and then and thereby created this sort of false sense of security. Right? So, some some questions. How old is military intelligence? Well, it's really as old as warfare. So, ancient commanders needed information about terrain, enemy strength, alliances, supplies,

[10:03] intentions, right? And so, they would put out scouts. They would uh talk to merchants who might be able to get behind enemy lines. They would talk to travelers and defectors, prisoners, diplomats, and spies. All provided information from for from time immemorial. Okay? And we we even hear about this in in the Old Testament, right? So, military intel- intelligence has been around for literally millennia. And if you look at at at uh Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which is more than two millennia

[10:39] old, he explicitly discusses the the importance of knowledge and the use of spies, right? And and uh he like one of the things he says is like the fundamental problem was already understood. A commander who knows more about the opposition has an advantage, right? But, obtaining the knowledge requires human beings and human information is incomplete, it's biased, and sometimes it's deliberately false. So, these the you know, the problems with military intelligence have been recognized again for at least two

[11:16] millennia. So, um you know, with with that as kind of the foundation, when did intelligence become professionalized, which is what we see today? So, as as nations and armies became larger, intelligence gathering moved from being an activity that was it was you know, maybe done by a you know, a commander once he was in the field to a much to really to a permanent organization within the military structure. So, um in in those cases diplomats collected

[11:53] political information and often times it was sent back to the home country in diplomatic pouches which were not supposed to be viewed by you know, anybody but the diplomats on you know, at from where it was sent to where it was delivered, right? Um armies developed reconnaissance and staff functions dedicated to gathering and interpreting intelligence and governments created specialized bureaus for intelligence. Uh so, for example, in in World War II, we created the Office of Strategic Services

[12:29] uh which was the predecessor to the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, right? So, the 19th century saw an acceleration of this process of professionalization. So, telegraphs trans transmitted information much more rapidly and railroads in increased the speed uh the speed and scale of mobilization and you know, more sophisticated maps and staff systems enabled commanders to process larger quantities of information. And

[13:05] so, during the 19th century intelligence became more and more a system as opposed to simply a network of informants. Then then, you know, as technology, I mentioned railroads and uh telegraph, as technology, you know, developed from there. How did it change intelligence gathering? Well, new technologies created new sources of information. So, balloons, for example, they offered elevated

[13:41] observations. This was particularly good for for artillery. So, in World War I, they would launch balloons and the observers would, in essence, not not radio down. They would use phones, actually. They would phone down their observations to the targeters for artillery in order to make to make them more accurate, right? And then photography enabled the creation of a durable visual record. So, now the commander could see pictures rather

[14:16] than just hearing what his scouts were describing. And then you could mount camera camera's on aircraft and you could fly over an area and take pictures at a high speed and then you could bring the the film back and develop it and you would have lots and lots of pictures, right? Telegraph eventually led to the development of of radio communications and these and and then intercepting those those signals created another another source of information. And then

[14:52] radar revealed information that the human eye just could not see, right? And it gave advanced notice of attacks, for example. Same same with sonar, right? And then satellites expanded our ability to to do aerial reconnaissance over enormous distances, right? And then computers gave us the ability to collate and analyze data, process it, process data much more rapidly and much larger quantities, and in theory come up with

[15:29] better assessments, right? But every innovation led to a countermeasure. So, we created codes rather than speaking in in clear language, but that of course led to code breaking. And we saw some amazing examples of code breaking in World War II. One of them I mentioned, the breaking of the Japanese code that led to intelligence about the battle at of Midway. Um we also broke the German Enigma code uh during World War II. But

[16:04] code breaking encouraged stronger encryption, right? And so, you know, there's there's that process of of always trying to keep ahead of what your enemy is doing. So, aerial reconnaissance encouraged camouflage, right? So, it would be harder to see what the enemy was doing from up in the air. Radar uh produced electronic countermeasures, right? To foil the radars. So, if you look at how uh if you were to look at the surfaces, for example, of aircraft today, much different than what they were

[16:40] 75, 80 years ago. Um and those surfaces are designed to make them less detectable by radars. So, I remember when I went to do my uh um interview to become a chaplain in the Navy, I met with a a senior chaplain down at um Naval Air Station Miramar, which at the time was in San Diego near the coast. And after the interview, he took me to see some of the aircraft, and he and we stood at the front of um an an F-14,

[17:16] and it had this it it you saw like a huge aircraft from the front and then we went and stood at the front of an F-18 and all you saw was basically the circle of the nose and two thin wings. And the reason for the change was the F-18 the F the F-18 had a much smaller radar signature, so it was more difficult to detect, right? And then um sur- surveillance encouraged deception, right? So again, there's always this this this process of trying to leapfrog

[17:51] to protect. So uh you know, intelligence has become a continuing contest between collection and concealment. So I've I've mentioned World War II already a couple of times. It was really a pivotal point in intelligence and and that was because it demonstrated intelligence could be done on on essentially an industrial scale, right? So signals intelligence, crypto cryptanalysts, um aerial photography, uh resistance networks, prisoner interrogation,

[18:28] um uh reconnaissance and deception, they were all integrated into an enormous overall system and in many times they were huge. For example, the deception operation that was a part of the Normandy invasion designed to convince Nazi Germany that the invasion was going to come at the Pas de Calais instead of uh the Normandy beaches was enormous. They had platoons, uh whole companies and and battalions of tanks that were just balloons basically.

[19:05] Um George Patton was set up to be the commander of this tank army, right? Even though he had he had nothing to do with the deception operation, right? So, um you know, these kinds of of enormous operations developed in World War II. And it wasn't just the Allies doing it, the Germans were doing it as well. Um and so, uh you know, again, the breaking of the codes led to enormously valuable intelligence. Um and so, all of this led to a a a sort of idea

[19:44] that um intelligence and and influence and deception became kind of merged. And so, part of intelligence became what we might call counterintelligence, where we're trying to actively influence what the enemy believes about us. And the deception operation I mentioned for the Normandy invasion was a prime example of getting dis- German decision-makers to believe something that was not the case.

[20:19] Okay, so, from World War II, then we then things changed even more so during the Cold War. And um first of all, aerial intelligence inc- uh the abilities increased dramatically. The SR um SR-11, I believe it was called, the Blackbird, was this supersonic uh it it spy aircraft that could gather enormous intelligence um and and was a a very uh you know, powerful uh um information-gathering tool, right? So, um it and that allowed intelligence uh

[20:55] gathering to become globalized and more highly uh technical, right? So, we had intel- we had a reconnaissance aircraft that I just mentioned. We we launched satellites that were essentially spy satellites. We we made advances in signal interceptions, nuclear detention detection systems, human intelligence networks that were that were large spy networks during the Cold War. Which at least from the US perspective largely atrophied after the Cold War was won, right? And

[21:32] then strategic intelligence became a particularly important aspect of intelligence gathering because errors could have catastrophic consequences. So intelligence became more than just information and assessments needed to pursue a hot war. It became a part of national defense strategy even though there weren't armies in the field. So uh you know and and and and intelligence gathering

[22:07] and assessing has only advanced from there. So So what does modern intelligence look like, right? So uh Um now we have we have there's all kinds of acronyms. So we have human intelligence known as HUMINT, we have signals intelligence SIGINT, imagery and and geospatial intelligence, we've got measurement and and and signature intelligence, we've got open source intelligence known as OSINT, and we have cyber and other technical

[22:42] collection devices. So we have all all kinds of technology. But but some countries, for example Israel, maintain much higher levels of much larger spy network than for example the United States does. And then the analytical challenge is to fuse all of these sources into a coherent assessment. So, what do we know? How do we know it? How do how reliable is the sources? What are we assuming? What are

[23:17] the alternative what are alternative explanations fit the data, right? And what information would change our assessment, right? So, this is the process by which is by which intelligence is analyzed to get to a coherent picture. So, the technology has changed enormously, but the the fundamental problem has remained the same and that is a leader must make a decision about an uncertain future using incomplete information about an

[23:54] intelligent opponent, right? And so, as a historical example, going to use Pearl Harbor. I've read extensively about Pearl Harbor, especially the intelligence failures and I put them in air quotes of Pearl Harbor. It's not exactly clear that there were intelligence failures per se, but if you recall December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. There's been debate ever since

[24:31] then, you know, everything from it was a genuine surprise attack to no, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew about it and he purposely hid that knowledge from the commanders at Pearl Harbor in order to draw people in order to draw the United States into active combat in World War II. I don't I don't agree with either one of those. I I think that the the Roosevelt administration, they had indications that Japan was up to something. I don't think they knew in advance that Pearl Harbor was going to

[25:07] happen. But but you know, they they knew that war was imminent. But knowing that war is imminent doesn't mean that you know that it's a particular attack is going to be launched on a particular day, right? And so we had a situation where the relationship between America and Japan had been deteriorating for quite some time. And on the one hand, the US was trying to get an accurate picture of what Japan was doing and and what they might do. And and

[25:42] these sort of warnings would be sent out to the commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel and General Short. But but there was no specificity really in any of these warnings. And and and the orders were not at all clear as to what these commanders should do. They were essentially left to use their best judgment. Now that wasn't uncommon at that time. On on the other hand, eventually these commanders, both commanders, were held

[26:18] responsible for what happened at Pearl Harbor. And I think you know, I could make a strong case that they did the best they could given the kind of cryptic and sometimes contradictory information they were given. But there was no way they could have predicted the Japanese attack. And and and in the end, but in the end they you know, they they they were assessed to have the responsibility. And you know, uneasy is the head that wears the crown, I think it it it is kind of the you know, the situation there. Um so,

[26:56] you know, in in in Pearl Harbor, um the operation the Japanese operation was successful because um although there were some indications that uh that that the Japanese were up to something, those various sources were that that were coming from from diplomatic side, from the military side, from local observations, um they just weren't able to be coordinated well enough to be able to

[27:33] actually paint an accurate picture of what the Imperial Japanese Navy they their their contemplated action. And even when they even when we had information, so for example, there was a mobile radar station on Oahu, and it picked up a bunch of incoming aircraft um on the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack, December 7th. However, the the commanders uh and it wasn't the most senior commanders who made this decision, it was more junior people cuz it was a Sunday, um and they they had

[28:08] they had the watch. They knew that a flight of B-17 bombers was due in from the continental United States, and they just assumed that the aircraft that the radar station picked up was that flight of B-17s coming in, right? So, even when they had information, it turned out it was interpreted incorrectly. Now, you'd say, "Oh, how could they mistake, you know, Japanese fighters for, you know, B-17s?" Well, this is the early days of radar. Um it was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today. Uh the

[28:43] B-17 flight was flying um in with in in radio silence as were the Japanese of course, right? And so it it's easy with hindsight to say, "Oh, they should have been able to distinguish between the two." But it it's not as easy as it sounds. And so in the end, warnings, the kind of warnings that were sent out by the the military departments, not the same as prediction, right? And so in this atmosphere of uncertainty

[29:21] and and in and in an atmosphere of like with the radar situation, making a a wrong interpretation eventually, I mean not eventually, the the Japanese were able to launch and be successful in this surprise attack. Was it an intelligence failure? Well, on some level it was. But it points out just how difficult it is to you to gather and use intelligence in a way that will prevent a bad result or lead to a good result.

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[30:35] property challenges into peace of mind. Call us today at 213-264-4396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay. So, lesson number one, right? Intelligence reduces uncertainty, it doesn't eliminate it, right? So, leaders will often ask analysts for answers that the evidence just cannot support, like, you know, "Will the competitor launch,

[31:11] right? Will customers accept a price increase? Will this acquisition work, right?" There's There's There's no way for even with the best intelligence to answer those questions because you know, the the the leader is is is asking for a pre- a prediction of the future, and the future is it's never certain, right? So, good intelligence functions distinguish between what is known, what is likely, what is possible, and what is unknown. And it's in one of

[31:46] those four contexts that all data should be presented, or all lacks of data should be presented, right? So, false precision is dangerous because and you you get you know, like, if you have this beautifully, you know, constructed and laid out, um, forecast, it still depends on uncertain assumptions. And so, you know, it's like having more decimal places at the end of a number. It seems like it's more precise, but it it it's it's not

[32:21] necessarily It's not necessarily the case. It just you can add more decimal places. Who cares, right? So, the business lesson is ask for confidence, not just conclusions, right? So, what do we believe? How confident we How confident are we in this belief? What evidence supports it? And more importantly, or not not more importantly, but as important, what evidence refutes what we

[32:56] believe? I'm going to talk about that in another lesson. And then, what would cause us to change our minds? So, don't pursue a sense of intelligence that is more certain than it actually is. That's lesson number one. Lesson number two, separate facts from assumptions, right? So, intelligence assessments inevitably combine observation and inference, right? So, the competitor Our competitor has hired 40 engineers,

[33:33] okay? That may be an observation, right? You, you know, you you may know someone, you know, at at at the competitor who has told you, "Yeah, we just hired 40 engineers." Right? Now, assuming that person is reliable and not deceiving you, okay. So, now you know something the company has done, right? Therefore, they are entering our market. That's an interpretation. We don't You don't know that just because they're hiring a bunch of people, okay? It could be they're developing some new product that has nothing to do with your with what you're

[34:09] doing. So, we, you know, in in any uh in any uh view assessment of intelligence, the the the fact needs to be separated from what's what's assumed as a result you know, coming from the facts, right? So, the problem is is that organizations frequently blur the two. So, once an inference has been repeatedly presented, it it it it sort of takes on the cachet of fact, even though it still remains an uncertain observation. And

[34:45] so, we need leaders need to guard against that. So, leaders should force this distinction by saying, "What did we actually observe? What are we inferring from those observations? And what assumptions connect the two?" Right? That tells you what you know and what you're analyzing from it. And this analysis should, you know, probably

[35:20] be there should be multiple possibilities from an observational standpoint, so that you keep in mind how ambiguous data sometimes can be, right? So, businesses should label assumptions explicitly. Okay? And that way everyone can see it and they can challenge the assumption. And and and that's good, because when we challenge assumptions, we come up with, at least potentially, a clearer picture, but at least we keep uppermost in our

[35:55] minds the uncertainty of what we face. Okay? So, number two, separate facts from assumptions. Number three, use multiple sources and look for contradictions. I mentioned this just briefly under the first lesson, right? So, military intelligence rarely wants to depend depend on a single source, right? So, human reporting can be wrong, sensors can be deceived, communications can be manipulated, imagery can be

[36:30] misinterpreted, you know, false signals can be put out, right? And so, there needs to be data needs to be gathered from multiple sources, right? And then all those sources need to be interpreted in order to come up with some kind of semblance of a picture of what's actually happening, right? So, businesses should think in a similar fashion. So, they can do customer surveys that tell what customers say, but they should also look at data on behavior of customers because that will

[37:06] tell you what they're actually doing, right? And then sales people should be encouraged to share their observations, okay? And then finally, I'm not not finally, but also financial data should be analyzed because that gives another another perspective on what's going on. And then finally, competitor announcements will tell you what competitors want the market to hear, not what is necessarily true, but what they want competitors and customers

[37:41] and such to think maybe true, right? And so, and and the most useful information often times is the information that doesn't fit, especially fit neatly into what is otherwise looks like a pretty coherent picture, okay? And that's important because when you come up with that data point that doesn't fit in, that is often times telling us that, hey, we're missing something here, okay? So, um

[38:17] why are customers saying they love a product and yet sales are declining, right? One is coming from customer surveys, another is coming from actual behavioral data. If those are in conflict, there's something there that we don't know yet, right? Why is a sales pipeline growing while, you know, um uh uh income is declining, right? If sales are growing, we should be making more money. Okay? Well, maybe

[38:53] it's because the cost to service those sales is rising because we didn't because the business didn't prepare well enough for a surge in sales and so they're just throwing money at the problem, right? This is uh I've talked about Krispy Kreme on a number of occasions. That was one of the things they did, right? And that's true a lot often times true for a business. Their assessment of the market and what's going to happen is inaccurate, they get a surge of business they don't expect, and now they want to fill all the orders, and so they just start throwing

[39:30] money at the problem. And so, they they're selling lots of stuff, but their net income is declining, right? So, this is where, you know, you want to look at financial data for the company. So, we business The business lesson is we do not want to average away contradictions. We want to investigate them. What is going on here that different sources of data are telling different stories, right? So, number three, use multiple sources and look for contradictions. Okay.

[40:06] Number four, beware of intelligence that tells you exactly what you want to hear, right? So, um leaders often times can influence intelligence simply by the questions they ask, right? So, um analysts learn what leadership expects. And and so then they they start developing narratives that play into those expectations, but are not giving an accurate picture

[40:42] of what's really happening with respect to the enemy. And so, contrary evidence starts getting excluded because it won't fit into the overarching picture that's been created. The result of this is it's called confirmation bias, right? Is um the the evidence uh supporting the preferred view receives all the attention, and the conflicting evidence gets ignored or explained away, right? And now you're operating under a

[41:19] an inaccurate picture by definition, right? So, leaders need to create mechanisms for dissent. So, um if you are if you're discussing uh information about the market intelligence, make sure there's someone in the room who knows it's their job to always argue the point, to always argue the counter position. Even if maybe they agree the prevailing perspective, they somebody needs to to pick at things in a way to

[41:56] potentially identify holes in the picture, uh contradictions that may have a rationale behind them that doesn't fit with how everybody else is looking at things, right? And so, uh you know, make an extra uh uh, large effort to identify those inconsistencies I mentioned in in the previous lesson. Um, and and and and and discuss those and and figure out why they exist. And if there is an intelligence debacle and it turns out

[42:34] it was because of some contradictory uh, information that got discarded, conduct a a what we call a hot wash. I I've talked about that in a previous uh, show. Conduct a postmortem. Why was this allowed to happen? Why was this information ignored? Uh, and and ignored as it turned out to our peril, right? So, um, ask yourself, if the conclusion is wrong, what are we most likely missing, right? So, the intelligence function,

[43:09] at least occasionally, should make leadership uncomfortable. Okay? It should challenge their their view, their perspective, right? So, again, number four, beware of intelligence that tells you exactly what you want to hear. If you keep hearing that over and over again, it's it's very possible confirmation bias has overtaken the people responsible for gathering and analyzing intelligence and and the company is putting itself in a uninformed position. Okay. Finally,

[43:46] I don't I lesson number five, at some point, stop collecting and decide. Okay? So, intelligence has diminishing returns. So, another survey, another consultant, another forecast, another, you know, customer interview, another competitive analysis, I'm you can do them endlessly because going back to the the the foundational concept of this show of of this episode, I should say, there you will never reach certainty. There will always be uncertainty. So,

[44:22] additional information often times feels productive um, because gathering it postpones the moment of accountability, right? So, we need more data just becomes a sufficient sophisticated way of saying, you know, we aren't ready to be wrong. Okay? But, delaying a decision often times is as bad or worse than making the wrong decision, right? So, from a military perspective, commanders rarely have the option of perfect information. So, you know, waiting until

[44:58] the situation changes, um, you know, opportunities can disappear. Opponents act to take advantage of one of our vulnerabilities, right? And so, the devalue the So, the value of the decision, um, um, it it it decays, okay? While seemingly the information improves. It's It's a sort of Faustian bargain, if you will. So, leaders should define the decision threat threshold. What is going to need to be in place for us to make the

[45:34] decision, right? So, what information do we actually need? What uncertainty can we tolerate? What information would materially change the decision, right? And what And when does the cost of waiting exceed the value of learning more? All of these should be discussed in advance, and there should be somewhat of an ongoing discussion about them so that the gathering and analysis of information doesn't become just the process of delaying making the decisions that need to be made, so the business

[46:11] can advance, right? So, business lesson, intelligence supports decisions, it does not replace them, okay? So, at some point, stop collecting and decide. Right. So, let's closing thoughts. From ancient times to, you know, scouts to through through balloons and and reconnaissance aircrafts and now all kinds of super high-tech uh uh you know, technology super high-tech

[46:46] devices, right? There have been extraordinary resources trying to understand what is happening beyond the immediate view of the decision makers, okay? And after thousands of years, things still have not changed. They never ever will. Because intelligence ultimately deals with an uncertain world populated by people who conceal their intentions, who change their minds, who make mistakes, who deceive their

[47:22] opponents, and respond to changing circumstances, right? And so, business leaders need to learn to operate effectively in this same kind of environment. So, you can study customers, you can analyze your competitors, you can build forecasts, you can collect enormous amounts of data, and you should do all those things. But, eventually, and oftentimes sooner rather than later, someone has to decide.

[47:58] And the res the most intelligent response therefore isn't do we know everything? It's do we know enough to make this decision? And do we understand what we don't know and therefore the risks inherent, right? Perfect intelligence is impossible. Good intelligence under uncertainty is the real competitive advantage. So, where do you use intelligence in your business?

[48:33] And how do you use it? How do you prevent yourself from intelligence gathering and analysis becoming just the postponement of making decisions, especially important decisions. Look right down below you, there's links to social media there. Post something there. I'd love to hear your thoughts and I'm very happy to comment on it. So, okay. Schedule of shows. All of these are Pacific time. Monday 10:00 a.m. Trust and Estates weekly. Tuesdays 10:00 a.m. Like today, business

[49:09] lessons from the military. Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. People making money. And then every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Join me at Jigger's Place for a cocktail and a schmooze and we'll talk about all kinds of things not related to finances including books, movies, ideas, relationships, etc. So, I thank you very much for joining me today. And if you are not a subscriber, if you're watching on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts, sure would love it if you would subscribe and that way you'll never miss an episode of The Way to Wow shows. So

[49:46] again, thank you so much for joining me today. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times.