Desert Helicopters and Operational Efficiency

EverydaySpy Podcast

Andrew Bustamante

Spy, Learning, Spies, Thinking, Human, Cia, Intelligence, Espionage, Education, Lifehack, Social Sciences, Advantage, Edge, Unfair, Science, How To, Humint, Secret, Growth, Business

4.7 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everyone wants to do more with less, faster than before, and without any mistakes. So why doesn't it happen? Andrew found the answer while flying with a dozen blacked-out helicopters over a barren desert. And today, you get to learn the same truth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage.
0:07.0	Freedom! Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.
0:21.6	Right.
0:23.6	One of the hardest parts about working in the private intelligence sector is the lack of efficiency.
0:33.6	Now, don't get me wrong.
0:35.6	Everyone values efficiency, right? Every client, every customer, and every
0:41.0	business I work with wants to be efficient, but for some reason, the theory and the reality of efficiency
0:49.2	are rarely the same. Now, in 2009, CIA put me through an operational efficiency course that was designed
0:56.8	to take best practices from the Fortune 500 world and apply them to government. The training course
1:02.7	was super interesting. I got to read case studies from subway restaurants to Toyota, Lego, and
1:09.2	Motorola. And I was pumped to apply everything that I learned
1:13.6	and use it to help shape the future of CIA. But it didn't take long before I realized that there was a
1:21.1	massive barrier in applying corporate efficiency strategies into CIA.
1:34.0	Now, efficiency is defined as achieving maximum productivity with minimal resources.
1:42.6	The entire practice of efficiency is based on the idea of limited resources and maximizing each resources output.
1:49.0	But the problem was that CIA has nearly unlimited resources, so the core purpose of efficiency, maximizing output with minimal resources,
1:54.0	was invalid right from the beginning.
1:57.0	As long as I was working inside CIA,
2:00.0	I knew I was never going to be able to make anything
2:03.5	efficient. Now, fast forward to 2013. It's my last year at the agency, and I'm in charge of a joint
2:11.4	covert action operation with the U.S. military. Now, when multiple federal organizations have to
2:17.4	work together in the field,
	...

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