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LTG Michael T. Flynn, USADirector

23 January 2013

C O M M I T T E D T O E X C E L L E N C E I N D E F E N S E O F T H E N A T I O N

One Mission. One Team. One Agency.UNCLASSIFIED

“When you’re riding a dead horse, the best thing to do is to dismount”

However, in Washington DC, we often try other strategies:

• Buying a stronger whip

• Changing riders

• Saying things like: “This is the way we’ve always ridden the horse”

• Appointing a committee to study the horse

• Increasing the standards to ride the dead horse

• Appointing a “tiger team” to revive the dead horse

• Changing the requirements & declaring that “this horse is not dead!”

• Hiring contractors to ride the dead horse

• Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed

• Declaring that “No horse is too dead to beat!”

And finally,

Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position

Washington Tribal Folklore

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The Defense Intelligence Agency

VISION: One team of skilled professionals providing our

military and national security leadership with timely intelligence.

PRIORITIES:

• Defense Clandestine Service

• Reshaping Defense Analysis

• Recruiting, Retention and Professional Development

MISSION: DIA is first in all-source defense intelligence to prevent

strategic surprise and deliver decision advantage to warfighters,

defense planners and policymakers.

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YESTERDAY:Traditional, hierarchical,

regional, centralized, weeks

and months, worked well in structured

environments, information is discrete

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TODAY:Fluid and complex, transnational, hybrid,

decentralized, distributed, crowd-sourced, days

and minutes, multi-nodal, difficult to discern,

smaller window for decisions

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The imperative to change

“We‟re transitioning from a decade of war, a complex

and uncertain security environment looms, and as we

look toward the future each service in our total joint

force faces fundamental questions about their

identities, their roles, and their capabilities.”

- General Martin Dempsey, CJCS

Joint Warfighting Conference 2012

Intelligence must remain a strategic advantage for our nation

Lessons learned from a decade of war demand it:

• Gain a more thorough understanding of the cultures and environments in which we operate

• Recognize shortfall of spies contributed to ignoring tribal and cultural realities

• Implement strategy to meet military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) needs

• Increase importance of Cyberwarfare capabilities, ISR, and undersea systems

• Increase access to expeditionary ISR platforms

• Promote the fusion of information and reduce compartmentalization of intelligence

• Improve training to enable focused, intelligence driven operations

• Introduce new legislation to bolster interagency ties

- CJCS Enduring Lessons, Vol 1 June 2012

http://www.blogs.defensenews.com

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Amid profound transition...

Winding Down Direct Combat Roles

Rebalance toward Asia-Pacific

Aspiring Regional Peer Competitors

Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges

Cyber Operations

Arab Awakening

Economic Uncertainty

“When the rate of change outside

is faster than the rate of change inside…

the end is near.”

- Former GE chairman Jack Welch

“Even if you are on the right track,

you will be run over if you just sit there.”

- Will Rogers

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Do we understand the change

WORLD POPULATION

1950

3.4 BILLION

2000

6.1 BILLION

2020

7.6 BILLION(Estimated)

SO WHAT:• Lack of arable land, access to

food, water, and energy at risk

• Unstable governments struggling

to provide for their people

• Resource competition driving

social unrest

• The rise of transnational

groups expanding

WHAT:“Asia and Africa will account

for most of the population growth

out to 2025…the „youngest‟

countries, where under-30

represents 60% of the

population or more, will…

be in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

- National Intelligence Council

Global Trends 2025

SOURCE: UN Data

2030

8.3 BILLION(Estimated)

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INFORMATION REVOLUTION

WHAT:“A new set of social actors—

super-empowered individuals

and even criminal networks...

empowered by their wealth and

an array of national and

transnational contacts…

help leverage „transnational‟

outcomes across national and

organizational boundaries.”

Global Trends 2025

SO WHAT:• Technology and the cloud

provide the crowd a voice

• The network is the new`

weapon system

• Bandwidth is the new class of supply

• Data is our ammunition

In 2005*…Facebook did not exist for most

Twitter was still a sound

The cloud was in the sky

4G was a parking space

Applications went to colleges

LinkedIn was a prison

By 2020…the number of

Internet users

is expected to

double to over

4 billion

*Information taken from That Used to be Us, by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Today214 Jihadists are

using Twitter

One has over

53,000 followers

Do we understand the change

UNCLASSIFIED

In 1980First 24/7 news network

IBM’s PC still under

development

Mobile phone network

in its infancy

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Why we must succeed

• Prevent strategic surprise

• Understand rising regional ‘near-peer’ competitors

• Overcome Anti-Access/Area Denial strategies

• Counter enduring extremist threats

• Ensure decision advantage / confidence

• Weather fiscal uncertainty

Defense Intelligence Agency

You cannot fight, wage, or win war without us

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Thoughts on

Strategic Leadership

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Your organization – what you control

Your environment – what you don’t control

Your output – how you take control

Ability to see yourself, your environment, and your ability to make a difference

Flynn’s Model on Strategic Leadership

Understanding

KnowledgeInnovateImplement

Lead

Strategic and Political Framework

Self:Visualization

CultureValues

Key components

• Moral courage

• Teamwork

(give credit to others)

• Have an ability to compromise

• Winning spirit

• Loyalty up/down/laterally

• Compassion (time of crisis)

• Energy is a combat multiplier

• Understand up/down

(outside / inside)

• Need to do versus nice to do

• Outreach (private, intel,

media, public)

• Teach, coach, mentor

Self: your values and beliefs

Work environment: what you create

How you create output

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Flynn’s Model on Strategic Leadership (Self)

Be a lifelong learner

Humility at the senior most levels of command is important –

no matter how senior you get, it is not about you…but the mission

We should be unapologetic about our values

Things to remember:• Trust – Can you trust too much?

• Teach, coach and mentor – Why is this important?

• Communicate creatively – Writing, editing, reaching out

• Squint with your ears – “I never learned anything while I was

talking”

• Avoid the role of chief problem solver – “Never tell people how to

do things. Tell them what needs doing and they will surprise you

with their ingenuity” George Patton

Understanding

Knowledge

Strategic and Political Framework

Self:

Visualization

Culture

Values

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Innovate

Lead

Implement

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Managing / balancing time: Yours and your staff’s

Trust and harmony – If you cannot create these conditions,

you just might fail

Building a robust brain trust – Who do you include?

Clones, cronies, trusted agents, agents of change?

Things to remember:

• Use humor well

• Be decisive and exude confidence

• Maintain open-mindedness –

Flexibility versus inflexibility

• Observe yourself – How do others see you?

• Give power away and make it stick

• Be generous and magnanimous –

What does servant leadership mean?

Understanding

Knowledge

Strategic and Political Framework

Self:

Visualization

Culture

Values

Flynn’s Model on Strategic Leadership (Environment)

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Innovate

Lead

Implement

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Flynn’s Model on Strategic Leadership (Desired Outcomes)

Relationships between commanders at Combined/Joint levels

matter – This is what accomplishes the mission

Institutions get what they reward – Look for ideas elsewhere,

we may not have the best ideas

Dempsey Doctrine: When you ask for guidance and get

none, you should be prepared to say, “Unless otherwise directed,

I’m going to execute X”

The single biggest deficiency of senior leaders is lack of reflection

time – Instead we are reactive and tend to get “contained”

At every possible point along the path your career takes

you, reenergize your leadership capabilities

Understanding

Knowledge Innovate

Lead

Strategic and Political Framework

Self:

Visualization

Culture

Values

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Implement

18C O M M I T T E D T O E X C E L L E N C E I N D E F E N S E O F T H E N A T I O N

One Mission. One Team. One Agency.

DIA is the indispensible element of the military dimension

of our national security posture

Questions

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