Work Like A Spy: Business Tips From A Former CIA Officer - J C Carleson (Portfolio)

If the title conjures up images in your mind of you decked out in a slick black tux, sipping a martini, shaken, not stirred and utilizing snappy repartee on you business competition with a hot babe on your arm, sorry to ruin the delusion.

Yes, author J C Carleson did depart a private sector career path with Starbucks and Baxter International to spend eight years as an undercover officer with the CIA, Work Like  Spy: Business Tips From A Former CIA Officer, is not a recruiting tool the Agency. In Work Like a Spy Carleson makes a case that the techniques utilized by spies to develop new assets and gather useful intel are transferable to the private sector.

Carleson illustrates the techniques by utilizing laundered, real world examples of from her time spent undercover; then places similar circumstances that occur every day in the business world. The case can certainly be made that a multitude of successful businesses have been built on a foundation of having critical information about not only the competition, but of other successful ventures. The most difficult part of that equation is how to go about developing the sources and resources to gather that information.

While  Work Like a Spy provides a variety of techniques and tactics for developing businesses information sources, the devil is not in the details, but in the execution. Carleson can’t make you a smooth operator, but she may help you hone critical skills like intuition, listening skills and developing an attitude for action.