Take Command and Win

Captain Gail Harris, USN

(Retired)

Outline

• Why Would a Retired Intelligence Officer

Speak at a Financial Conference?

• Case Study Approach

• Core Beliefs

• My Story

• Lessons Learned

• Cyber Case Study – One of the greatest

teamwork stories never told.

Core Beliefs

Truth is all of us battle someone or something

trying to keep us from our potential.

Sometimes we self eliminate.

One Team, One Fight!

An elite athlete develops a year round

program to remain physically fit.

To stay at the top of your game in the work

place, develop a program to remain mentally

fit.

SIMPLE DOES NOT MEAN EASY!!!!

My Story/Initial Challenges

A 5 year old girl recognizes her destiny.

Admiral Zumwalt

Affirmative action and civil rights policies and

laws forced people to read my resume and

took away excuses NOT to hire me.

What it didn’t do was teach me how to survive

in a situation where the laws, rules, and

regulations were ahead of the attitudes of

people I had to work for and with.

Initial Challenges

Majority of co-workers felt women didn’t belong

Many in the military didn’t understand the role intelligence played in the work place and felt intelligence personnel were worthless and provided little value to the organization.

Race riots on aircraft carriers

Conscious and Unconscious bias i.e. My credentials weren’t considered valid

Did not understand there are unwritten rules for success in the work place

Lesson Learned: Prejudice

Everyone is prejudiced against something.

Everyone suffers from discrimination at some point in their life.

Don’t write someone off because of it.

Earl Warren

George Wallace

Understanding of history helps shatter stereotypes

Harriet Tubman

209,145 African Americans served in the Civil War, 37,000 killed

Wasps

Lesson Learned: Importance of

Dreams and Goals in the

workplace Setting goals is one of the first steps to

success because it helps you determine FOCUS

Set long term and short term goals for work

What are the goals of the organization?

Focus of my goals were how could I be of assistance to the Team i.e. Flight Crews, Department Heads, and Commanding Officer

Don’t be constrained by your job description

Lesson Learned: Within You Are

the Seeds of Greatness

Average person frequently under estimates

themselves

Professional competence levels the playing

field

Competence also means the ability to learn on

a continuing basis

Develop magnificent obsession with doing a

good job

Results are far reaching, you never know

who’s watching you

Greatness Continued

Do I have the necessary skill set to do

this job or solve this problem?

If not, what do I have to do? Take a

course? Network?

Do I need to form a team to work the

problem?

What type of competencies will the team

need?

Lesson Learned: Persistence

Key Trait of successful people

Adversity is preparation for greatness

You’re going to lose a few battles focus

on winning the war

Study how others in the past, particularly

in your career field, have coped with the

unforeseeable and the seemingly

impossible

Lesson Learned: Know Yourself

What if you’re the problem?

Many times we’re our own worst enemies

Know your strengths and weaknesses

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz said: “Great companies need both a visionary leader and a skilled executive.”

Know which you are and delegate the other

Lesson Learned: Know Yourself

“In my view, naval personalities all into three general categories. There are the daring warriors who live for glory and for battle: John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, Jr…come immediately to mind. Such men, as once was said in a fitness report on General Patton, “are invaluable in war but a disruptive influence in peacetime.” Then there are sailors who are equally courageous but more prudent—less dramatic leaders in both war and peace…The last and largest category is made up of reluctant warriors who leave their civilian professions to go to sea in time of war. They bravely – and often brilliantly do their duty, then… return to civilian life.” John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy.

Mark Moyar Op Ed

Sensing-judging – rely on 5 senses

Prefer structure and standardization, doing things by

the book and maintaining tight control

Problem with tasks that frequently change and risk

taking

Intuitive - thinking personalities

Quick to identify the need for change and to solve

problems by venturing outside the box

Could be disruptive to organization

Lesson Learned Right Mental

Attitude Place needs of team over personal –

Win/Win

Certainty in the mission you’re trying to accomplish

Resolve in doing whatever it takes to achieve your goals

Need to work on empathy. To often those at the top levels don’t quite understand the sacrifices and hardships of those at the bottom

You need to both understand this and at the same time motivate people

Right Mental Attitude

Loyalty – up, down, sideways

Learn the Communication style of your Boss

Character

About daily behavior and decisions being

aligned with a mission.

When character is absent a person seems to

stand for whatever is politically or financially

expedient

Right Mental

Attitude

Intelligence exists solely to support the war

fighter/decision maker

Available technology always lags behind

what is needed in a current crisis or war

The intelligence architecture is always out

of date

Never fall into trap of thinking you know it

all

Play well with others

Lesson Learned: Faith

Multi Layered

You have to believe you can do it

Need to have a belief system that puts things into perspective for you

History provides excellent examples

Tuskegee Airmen

Marines at Battle of Chosin Reservoir

Believe in yourself, even when you think no one else does.

Tuskegee Airmen

Conducted 311 missions for the 15Th AF

179 Bomber Escort missions

On only 7 missions did they lose

Bombers (total 27 lost)

"Nothing's difficult. Everything's a

challenge. Through adversity to the

stars. From the last plane to the last

bullet to the last minute to the last man -

we fight. WE fight! We FIGHT!“

Marines Battle of Chosin

Reservoir November 1950 Korean War

appeared almost over

UN forces had pushed NK back across 38th Parallel toward the Yalu River

At that point thousands of Chinese swarmed across the river and surrounded the Marines.

20,000 UN Forces vs 120,000 Chinese

Battle Cry

"Retreat, Hell! We're just attacking in a

different direction!”

"They're on our right, they're on our left,

they're in front of us, they're behind us; they

can't get away from us this time."

— Lt. Gen. Chesty Puller | Chosin Reservoir,

Korean War

“We’re coming out with our wounded, with our

dead, with our equipment and with our

prisoners. We’re coming out as Marines.”

Battle Cry

Casualty Figures*

China - 25,000 dead; 12,500 wounded;

30,000 frostbite casualties

United Nations - 718 dead; 192 missing;

3,508 wounded; 7,500 cold-related injuries

Lesson Learned Mentors

“Some of us have great runways already built

for us. If you have one, take off. If you don’t,

understand it is your responsibility to build one

for those who follow you.” Amelia Earhart

There are negative and positive mentors. Can

learn from both.

There is a changing of the guard where you

become the mentor.

Will always need mentors no matter how

senior you are.

Lesson Learned: Bloom Where

You’re Planted

“If a man is called to be a street

sweeper, he should sweep streets even

as a Michaelangelo painted, or

Beethoven composed music or

Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should

sweep streets so well that all the hosts

of heaven and earth will pause to say,

'Here lived a great street sweeper who

did his job well.” Martin Luther King

Greatest Collaboration Story

Never Told United States Space Command initial

DoD Cyber Lead

Eligible Receiver

Moonlight Maze

Scope of Cyber Problem

DoD experiences 41 million scans,

probes, attacks a month (2007 there

were 43,880 incidents in the whole year)

Intrusions into critical infrastructures

increased by 17 times over the past 3

years

$113 Billion is average cost of resolving

a single cyber attack.

Cyber crimes now take 33% longer to

resolve than 5 years ago

Nation States

Motive Economic or Military

Organized Crime

Motive: Financial Game

Terrorist/Extremists

Cause Support

Hackers/Hacktivist

Motive: Publicity, Watch it burn

Trusted Insiders

Motive: Revenge, Financial Gain

Threat Actors

Scope of Cyber

Problem

“It’s only a small step to go from

disrupting parts of the network to

destroying parts of the network, If you

think of our nation, our financial system,

our power grids – all of that resides on

the network. All of them are vulnerable

to an attack like that. Shutting down that

network would cripple our financial

systems.”

General Keith Alexander former director

of the National Security Agency, and

commander of the new US Cyber

Command

Challenges

No one wanted to be bothered with me. (LLs Prejudice and Bloom Where You’re Planted)

I did not have a strong computer background (LLs Seeds of Greatness and Mentors)

Had to determine what was the role of the Intelligence Community in the Cyber Field (LL Importance of Dreams and Goals)

Challenges

Encountered numerous set backs (LL

Persistence)

No one believed the intelligence

community could agree on a solution

(LLs Faith and Right Mental Attitude)

Two most important traits I had to apply

towards solving problem (LL Know

Yourself)

The Business of

Intelligence

Exploitation &

Processing

Analysis &

Production

Dissemination Determination of

Needs

Collection

Types of Intelligence

Signals Intelligence

Imagery Intelligence

Human Intelligence

Geo-Spatial Intelligence

Open Source Intelligence

Other Technical

Intelligence

Customers

The nation’s leaders, policy

makers, armed forces,

homeland defense, and law

enforcement

Intelligence in Motion

What We Do

How We Did It

Command Representatives

Reminded people what their mission

was

Focused on solutions

Daily Reports

Presentation to Heavies

Committee Chairs

Action Items Follow Up

Focus Areas

Intelligence Collection

Data Bases

Reporting

Final Thoughts

I am honored to know that my ceiling

became the floor for the next

generation. All of us stand on the

shoulders of those who came before.

Questions?

“Be sure you’re right, and then go

ahead”

--Davy Crockett

Gail Harris

Author of A Woman’s War Available on Amazon.com

Harrisg44@aol.com

Address: Second star to the right, then

straight on till morning.