John Braddock > Quotes

“That’s the chain of thinking: D-A-D-A. Getting data leads to analysis. Analysis leads to a decision. A decision leads to an action. Simple. That’s how thinking works.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“If thinking doesn’t end with action, it’s useless.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Actions, no matter how small, commit us to a particular path.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“The first question should always be, “What kind of game do they think we’re playing?”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Because secret data starts a process that leads to certain kinds of action.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“If thinking doesn’t end with action, it’s useless. Taking action is why we think.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“We live in a fog of uncertainty. Good thinking removes some of the fog. Never all of it.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“The best way to win a zero-sum game is to be good at positive-sum games.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Inside every Positive-Sum Game, some people have more power than others. Some people make more important decisions than others. Some people decide what the rest of the group will do. Inside every Positive-Sum Game, someone is the boss.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“Without good analysis, we can’t make good decisions. Without good analysis, we can’t even figure out what our options are.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Data-Analysis-Decision-Action chain.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Thinking is cheap. Action is expensive.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“When you put the two strategies together, it looks like this: The protagonist builds an alliance to defeat the enemy. The enemy builds an alliance to defeat the protagonist.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“Living with ambiguity, as you learn in the CIA, is how you survive. So is good strategy. Good strategy means using thinking tools effectively. Choosing the right option. Making the right decisions.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“But reasoning goes backward. Which is why most people don’t do it. Plus, reasoning backward is complex. It’s complicated. It’s unwieldy. It takes more effort. It takes more time. It takes practice to get it right. But reasoning backward is essential. Reasoning backward ties together imagination and action. Without reasoning backward, you’re shooting in the dark. You’re imagining and acting along a path that may not makes sense. You’re putting yourself at risk. Without reasoning backward, you’ll end up with a bad strategy.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“To understand the person across the table, you need to understand the types of games they want to play.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“A Zero-Sum Game looks like this: Whoever wins the Zero-Sum Game gets the people, places or things. Whoever loses the game loses the people, places or things.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“Maybe, you want to be boss. If so, you’ll need to understand three things about strategy: You can’t have a strategy without an Endgame. If world domination is your Endgame, your Endgame will conflict with lots of other people’s Endgames. And being boss of that Endgame will conflict with lots of other people’s ambitions. Which means you’ll have to reason backward through a lot of Zero-Sum Games. To win those Zero-Sum Games, you’ll need to play Positive-Sum Games. You’ll need lots of mutually-beneficial alliances. Inside your Positive-Sum Games will be Boss Games. Especially inside your alliances. Somebody will make the most important decisions. You want that person to be you. So you can decide how to win the Zero-Sum Games. So you can be boss of your Endgame. Strategy is looking forward and reasoning backward. Backward through the Positive-Sum and Zero-Sum Games you’ll need to play. All the way back to today. Strategy is imagination and reason. But building a strategy isn’t the end. In getting things done, building a strategy is not even the midway point. It’s almost the beginning.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“And an alliance is a Positive-Sum Game.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“How Bin Laden strengthened himself on 9/11: Bin Laden gained believers in a Caliphate (Strengthened the Caliphate). Bin laden firmed up his position as Caliph if a Caliphate came to be (Strengthened his position in the Caliphate’s Boss Game). Bin Laden attracted new recruits to Al-Qaeda (Strengthened Al-Qaeda). Bin Laden became the unassailable leader of Al-Qaeda (Strengthened his position in the alliance’s Boss Game). How Bin Laden weakened his enemies on 9/11: Bin Laden created distrust in the Pax Americana (Weakened the Pax Americana). Bin Laden lessened the perception of U.S. strength and leadership of the Pax Americana (Weakened the U.S. position in the Pax Americana’s Boss Game). Bin Laden sowed distrust in the alliance between Arab Rulers and the United States (Weakened the U.S.-Arab Alliance). Bin Laden caused allies to doubt U.S. leadership of the U.S.-Arab Alliance (Weakened the U.S. position in the alliance’s Boss Game).”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“If they don’t do a good job collecting data, filtering it, prioritizing it and combining it with existing knowledge, they won’t make the right decision. If they don’t make the right decision, it doesn’t matter how much they spend on action. They’re doing the wrong thing.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“My mistake was that I believed his Endgame was similar to mine. But it wasn’t. He didn’t care about saving lives. Or fighting terrorism. Or the Pax Americana.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“passive.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide To Taking Risks

“Whatever and whenever it is, every Endgame is a Positive-Sum Game.14 Which means every Endgame has three things: People A place Things to sustain it. Because it’s a Positive-Sum Game, an Endgame looks like this: The Endgame is what you imagine to be your end. It’s what you imagine when you look forward all the way to the end.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“Thinking, in its simplest form, looks like this:”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“You’ll notice something interesting about the way scientists think: they don’t start with data. They start with a hypothesis. Then they go to the data.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“Fortunately, there’s a shortcut. All our interactions are only three kinds of games: A. Zero-sum B. Positive-sum C. Negative-sum Just three. Zero-sum games dominate the history books. They’re conflicts. They’re when one player can only gain what another player gives up.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking

“With strategic questions, you game them out. You predict what the other side will do if you do X. If you do Y, you imagine how they’ll respond. You put it all together and choose the best path forward. You build a strategy. Which isn’t difficult, if there’s a predictable path for the other side.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“Positive-Sum Games need three things: People, and A place, and Things Positive-Sum Games need all three.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Strategy

“The first step to winning a zero-sum game is to know it’s coming. It’s why spies work in peacetime. To be a tripwire. To give an alert when peace is about to become war. It’s why the CIA was formed in the first place.”
― John Braddock, A Spy's Guide to Thinking