NEXT BOOK: Work Like A Spy

Work Like a Spy: Business Tips from a Former CIA Officer. J. C. Carleson. Porfolio. 208 pages.

In Work Like a Spy, author J.C. Carleson applies lessons learned from her years as an undercover CIA officer to the business world. Quite simply, the techniques used in the clandestine world are broadly applicable, universal methods for getting what you want from other people.
In the business setting, you may be seeking a new job, a promotion, a big sale, or a regulatory ruling in your company's favor. Whatever it is that you seek, someone has the power to give, and this book will teach you new strategies to get it. Broken into three parts, Work Like a Spy includes an introduction to the basic skill sets used by CIA officers, clandestine methods that can be applied at the organizational level, and techniques that can be applied to specific business situations.

When J. C. Carleson left the corporate world to join the CIA, she expected an adventure, and she found it. Her assignments included work in Iraq as part of a weapons of mass destruction search team, travels throughout Afghanistan, and clandestine encounters with foreign agents around the globe. What she didn’t expect was that the skills she acquired from the CIA would be directly applicable to the private sector.

It turns out that corporate America can learn a lot from spies—not only how to respond to crises but also how to achieve operational excellence. Carleson found that the CIA gave her an increased understanding of human nature, new techniques for eliciting informa­tion, and improved awareness of potential security problems, adding up to a powerful edge in business.

Using real examples from her experiences, Carleson explains how working like a spy can teach you the principles of:
• Targeting—figuring out who you need to know and how to get to them
• Elicitation—a subtle way to get the answers you need without even asking a question
• Counterintelligence—how to determine if your organization is unwittingly leaking information
• Screening—CIA recruiters’ methods for finding and hiring the right people

The methods developed by the CIA are all about getting what you want from other peo­ple. In a business context, these techniques apply to seeking a new job, a promotion, a big sale, an advantageous regulatory ruling, and countless other situations.

As Carleson writes, “In a world where infor­mation has a price, it pays to be vigilant.” Her book will show you how.

Here's a column Carlson wrote for CNN.

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