評論
打印
The spying trade
間諜這一行
Success by stealth
“隱”者為贏
What business executives can learn from intelligence officers
企業管理者所能從情報官身上學到的
Work Like a Spy: Business Tips From a Former CIA Officer. By J.C. Carleson.
書名：《像間諜一樣工作：前 CIA 特工教你“生意經”》作者：J.C. Carleson
Trading Secrets: Spies and Intelligence in an Age of Terror. By Mark Huband.
書名：《行業秘密：恐怖時代的間諜和情報》作者：Mark Huband
SPIES are often wrongly presumed to work in a shadowy and exotic world. In fact they are more like unusually crafty bureaucrats than James Bond. Their skills would be quite handy for business executives, according to J.C. Carleson, a former CIA officer. In “Work Like a Spy”, her gripping layman's guide to spycraft, she shows how adopting an intelligence officer's mindset can make managers more efficient and better at handling people.
人們常常認為間諜這份工作神神秘秘、認為他們總是活動于異國他鄉，其實這種想法是錯誤的。實際上，與詹姆斯-邦德相比，他們更像是狡詐非凡的官員。前CIA 特工J.C. Carleson認為，間諜所掌握的技巧對于企業管理者來說相當受用。在《像間諜一樣工作》一書中，她為大眾介紹了間諜所掌握的技能，內容十分引人入勝。她為我們講述了運用情報官的思維方式是如何會讓管理者更有效率、更好地管理人力資源的。
In her eight years undercover, Ms Carleson ran agents in hostile countries, getting them to risk their lives to steal secrets for America. Targeting and recruiting such people offers lessons in what might be called “strategic networking”: gaining information about customers and competitors. How do you make contact without seeming pushy? What is the hook, and what are the incentives? It turns out that offering consultancy fees and lavish entertainment rarely works; appealing to the ego is far more effective.
在她八年的臥底行動中，Carleson帶領特工在敵國活動，她讓手下冒著生命危險為美國竊取機密。這些特工人選的尋找過程和招募過程會給我們些許啟示，這些啟示在管理中可被叫做“戰略性人脈網”，即了解有關顧客和競爭者的信息。如何在不顯得莽撞的前提下與人溝通？引魚上鉤的“鉤”是什么？鼓勵對方進一步配合的措施是什么？結果證明：提供好處費或奢侈的款待很少能奏效；投其所好遠遠更加有效。
While steering clear of real secrets, Ms Carleson gives an accurate account of how intelligence officers operate. Her “strategic elicitation exercise”, in which she pushes readers to get random information from a stranger, is particularly well described.
盡管Carleson繞開了真正的秘笈不談，但她準確地描述了情報官是怎么工作的。她對“戰略導出練習”的描述尤其出色，在這種練習中，她迫使讀者從陌生人那里獲取任意信息。
In a trade in which deceit is a tool, knowing when to be honest is important. Ms Carleson describes the ideal CIA officer as a “Boy Scout with a secret dark side”. Her terse remarks on ethics sound convincing, not preachy. She explains, for example, why fiddling expenses leads to instant dismissal in the CIA: if you cheat your country out of money, you may betray its secrets too. Readers doing business in places where sleaze is endemic will find these points instructive. It is wise to work out in advance the red lines you and your company will not cross—and make sure everyone involved knows what they are.
在以欺騙為手段的間諜行業中，知道何時誠實很重要。Carleson把理想的中央情報局官描述為“表面老實，但有著不為人知的陰暗面”。她對倫理學所做的簡潔評論聽起來很有說服力，但并無說教意味。比如說，她解釋了為什么在中央情報局，如果一個人在公司開支上做手腳，就會被立即開除—因為如果一個人騙了國家的錢，他就可能也會泄露國家的機密。如果你經商的地方欺詐行為泛濫，你就會感覺這些觀點很有啟發性。事先制定好你和你的公司不會超越的“紅線”—并且確保所有規定涉及到的人知道這些“紅線”是什么，才是明智的做法。
While Ms Carleson's book highlights the skills of individual intelligence officers, Mark Huband's “Trading Secrets” gives a glimpse of what spy agencies actually do and how they are evolving to combat new 21st-century threats. A former journalist who now runs a security consultancy, he argues that undercover agents are often most useful not when they are spying on a country's enemies, but when they are talking to them. He gives new details about the role that Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, commonly called MI6) played in opening channels of communication with the IRA in Northern Ireland, and with Colonel Qaddafi's regime in Libya.
Carleson的書突出了單個情報官的技能；至于間諜機構到底是干什么的、又是怎樣參與到打擊21世紀人們所面臨的新威脅中的，Mark Huband所著的《行業秘密》讓讀者得以一窺其貌。曾經是一名記者的Mark Huband現在正經營一家安全咨詢公司。他認為通常來說，臥底最有用的時候，不是他們暗中監視一個國家的敵人之時，而是他們與其交談的時候。對于英國秘密情報局在與北愛爾蘭的愛爾蘭共和軍和與利比亞的卡扎菲政權打開了信息交流的渠道中所起的作用，作者給出了新的細節。
Mr Huband also deals with fiascos, such as the political misuse of the sketchy intelligence available about Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes. Spies rarely provide solid answers, he says, but offer confusing bits of a jigsaw puzzle of unknown size and shape. At best, secret intelligence removes an element of surprise from foreign affairs, but it rarely makes it clear what to do.
Huband也會談到失敗的例子，像對于薩達姆的武器計劃，情報人員得到的情報并不完全，結果這些情報被政府誤用了。他說，間諜很少會提供可靠的答案，他們只會提供零零碎碎的令人困惑的信息，至于那些零零碎碎的信息所拼成的“拼圖”有多大、是什么形狀，誰也不知道。至多，秘密情報能讓外事工作少遇到一些意料之外的事情，但很少會讓人清楚該做什么。
The picture he paints is tantalisingly incomplete. His reporting, based on his years as a journalist, hops across decades and between fronts, chiefly in the “war on terror” . He concludes that spooks are “awash with more information, insight and knowledge than ever before”, but that the “intrinsic power” of intelligence has waned. One reason is that some of the finest spies are being lured away by the private sector. It greatly rewards those with a background in secret government service—and not only because spycraft has given them exceptional people skills.
Huband所描繪的圖景并不完整，但很有誘惑力。他的報道基于他多年當記者的經歷，內容跨越數十年、穿梭于不同的戰線、主要集中在“反恐戰爭”方面。他得出的結論是：“現在的間諜所能獲取的信息、所具備的洞察力和知識比以往任何時候都要多”，但是情報的“內在力量”已經衰減。原因之一是有些最出色的間諜被私營部門挖走了。私營部門會特別獎勵那些有在秘密政府機構工作背景的人—不只是因為間諜工作賦予了他們超乎常人的與人相處的技巧。
