Just when you thought you’d ran out of good reasons to tell your significant other why Sunday’s game is a can’t miss event, here’s a thought – there’s actually a lot national security professionals can learn from their favorite professional sports teams. A quarterback making winning plays on game day and an FBI agent analyzing intelligence may not seem like two peas-in-a-pod, but there are more similarities between these two professionals than you might think. The stakes are high, the pressure thick, and athletes and analysts have long known there’s a lot to learn from studying each other’s plays.
The topic of government meeting sports was on the agenda for a recent MorganFranklin Pivotal Plays lecture. Bruce Allen, executive vice president and general manager of the Washington Redskins, and Shawn Henry, Executive Assistant Director, Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch, FBI, talked about the commonalities between their professions. Here are a few take aways:
1. Passionate people are attracted to both careers.
It takes a special drive to win in both sports and security. In competitive fields, there’s frequently a thin line between making the cut (and getting the job), and being passed over. Inexplicable as it may be, passion can make a big difference. What motivates you to put in the extra practice time or spend the extra hours, even if others aren’t or you don’t see immediate results? Passion and love for what you’re doing, regardless of how far away the reward might be.
2. You can’t be afraid of losing.
Fear can be a paralyzing thing. But in today’s era of persistent conflict, zero risk is no longer an option. In football, no pass is a sure thing – there’s always a chance for an interception. The pros realize the risks, and make their decisions accordingly.
“I assess risk every single day,” said Henry. “Sometimes being inactive is a risk. You have to weigh out the options.” So if you play it safe and hope you’ll succeed, you probably won’t.
3. The media keeps you humble.
Remember the days when people put blind faith in our national security system to do the business of keeping America safe? Right… While aspects of national security remain classified, many of the decisions made by the defense department and national security agencies are the fodder of congressional hearings and public scrutiny. If ever today’s national security professionals wanted to sit on the laurels of a thwarted event, they’d have another journalistic inquiry questioning the victory. And every professional athlete knows the sting of a negative headline, pointing out how they blew the winning play.
4. You’ve got to have a strategy.
With the possible exception of your kid’s little league team, professional sports teams are built on winning strategies. Weeks before games athletes are analyzing their opponents, learning new plays and practicing them. Going into game day every moment is a well-orchestrated event, if things go as planned (and they don’t always). We all know the intelligence and security industries are built on strategies, from the National Security Strategy to the National Military Strategy, there are a number of frameworks that go into building the intelligence mission. But just like sports, even the best strategy may fail, or have to adapt to changing conditions.
5. The public doesn’t have all the information.
Whether it’s classified, sensitive or just plain a secret, there’s a lot about professional sports and national security that isn’t commonly known by outsides. Much to the chagrin of their fans, sometimes teams will place a close hold on certain information, including the details of what is really going on with injured players – they don’t want to reveal unnecessary weaknesses. The stakes are infinitely higher in national security situations. As much as the public demands transparency there are simply some details that are too dangerous to reveal – which is why we have a system of classified information and security-cleared experts to do that work.
At the end of the day, as exciting as being a national security analyst or professional athlete might seem, they’re jobs, with many of the mundane realities that all of us find in our career of choice. No one will refute the reality that in national security, the stakes are higher – lives, not playoffs, hang in the balance. But the similarities, as well, are too great to be ignored – from the importance of teamwork to the role of coaching, leadership and game plans, professional athletes and national security experts both know the importance of winning and how their individual contributions can spell success for their organizations.
Many professionals say the skills they learned playing team sports help them succeed on the job – do you agree? What “lessons learned” do you apply?
