Bad News Is the Only Useful Intelligence

"Since what you’re looking for is mismatches, a general rule is that bad news is the only kind that will do you any good. To thrive in any form of maneuver conflict, you must seek out and find data that don’t fit with your current worldview and you must do this while there is still time. Otherwise the world will change—or more likely your adversaries or competitors will change it for you—and you will find yourself disoriented…"

"It bears repeating that if you cannot or do not spot mismatches, and generally this means finding bad news, your orientation becomes detached from reality."

"Those who know the situation in the marketplace serve the role of spies for the leaders of modern companies. They will sometimes be bearers of bad news, and, if you follow the Sun Tzu tradition, they will bear this news to you while there is time to act. They are saviors of the company and should be recognized and rewarded as such. True, it takes a strong leader to admit publicly that a position that he or she championed is now wrong or outdated. But in this day and age, companies without strong leaders are doomed, anyway. Those readers who are…"

"Sun Tzu put it in the last chapter of The Art of War: No reward is more generous than that for a spy … There is nothing…"