HUMINT

When competitive intelligence practitioners consider the sub-discipline of ‘intelligence collection’ – i.e. the systematic collection of raw data and information for intelligence purposes – the focus tends to be on questions such as: How can we gather more information, and gather it more quickly? What additional, usually Internet-based, ‘feeds’ and other resources are available to us? What are the best applications and search tools? What filtering technologies can we use to improve our effectiveness (or, more honestly put: How can we ensure that we haven’t missed anything?)?

Rarely is there any in-depth discussion about what I believe to be the most critical ingredient in the raw information mix; human sources. Why? In part because we, or at least those of us whose thinking and actions are rooted in Western-based cultures, are much more comfortable with quantitative data than we are with ‘softer’, qualitative information. People lie, or otherwise (sometimes unwittingly) deceive us, and often what they might tell us is ‘unproven’ or unreliable; or so goes the refrain. Thus we tend to be suspicious of feelings, opinions, rumours, assumptions, and impressions; typically, we assume that these things just do not stand up as ‘evidence’. Senior managers in particular want information supported by ‘facts’. Anything else, in the view of many corporate leaders, amounts to little more than hearsay; and executives are not paid – nor are intelligence analysts for that matter – to base hard decisions on soft information. The irony, of course, as that these same executives will often place great trust in what they are told by family, close friends, colleagues, and their friendly investment bankers (which recent events have shown is a big mistake), despite the fact that the information that is shared is seldom verified.

Although one can easily spend hours debating the pros and cons of human-source intelligence (HUMINT), there can be little doubt that the information and insight senior executives require regarding the intentions and plans of competitors and other key players is often unavailable without HUMINT. Consider your own company’s secrets: who, apart from employees, subcontractors, suppliers, and others who may be directly involved in a confidential development project or plan, actually know the detail? It’s unlikely to be posted on a website. And let’s face it, open source (or public domain) information is seldom complete, almost never up-to-date, and no more reliable than that which well-placed human sources can provide. Technology can, and does, help us hear and see, but it doesn’t help us smell; only people can do that.

While it is not necessarily a decision-maker’s job to assess the credibility or reliability of a source – particularly a human source – it is his or her responsibility to ensure that any intelligence input under consideration includes a strong HUMINT element. Reports based on capabilities alone are not sufficient. That’s easy. A threat, however, is the sum of the capability plus the sum of the intent. Information about the capabilities - financial, material, technologies, human resources, etc - of adversaries, customers, suppliers, and alliance partners may, at best, indicate what they can, or are likely to do; but it hardly serves as proof about what they will, or are planning, to do. This is how former US Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms put it:

“This idea that satellites … and all the rest of it–all those technical things – they’re Jim-dandy when it comes to … bean-counting mostly…. But it doesn’t tell you what’s inside [a rival leader’s] head; it doesn’t tell you what he is going to do....

Thus, there are at least three sets of questions managers should repeatedly ask themselves when reviewing intelligence product:

1. Has the information been verified by HUMINT sources?
2. To what extent can we believe it?
3. How credible are the sources; have they met the tests for reliability typically applied by our intelligence collectors and analysts? And what was the context (telephone conversation, meeting at a conference or trade show, etc.).

Even the best HUMINT is imperfect. But so, too, is a news report, a company’s annual set of accounts (remember Enron), a corporate or government press release, and much else that competitive intelligence analysts usually rely upon when preparing their assessments. The job of a business leader is not simply to integrate intelligence reporting into his or her thinking (and ultimately policy decisions), but to know and understand the very sources upon which analysts have based their conclusions and judgments.

One final, related note: even the best analysts cannot guarantee the accuracy of their estimates or warnings. Consider the scene in the film Pearl Harbour, ten years ago, where Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is pressing a Captain Thurman of Naval Intelligence for information regarding the location and planned destination of the ‘missing’ Japanese fleet. This is what follows when Thurman suggests that Pearl Harbour, the most distant target from Japan, is where he suspects the Japanese will strike:

Nimitz: So, sir, you would have us mobilize the entire fleet, at the cost of millions of dollars, based on this 'spine-tingling' feeling of yours?

Captain Thurman: No, sir. I understand my job is to gather and interpret material. Making difficult decisions based on incomplete information from my limited decoding ability is your job, sir.

The rest, as they say, is history.