Jim Miller has worked for four decades on a combination of private and public sector initiatives focused on addressing a wide variety of national security threats. He has held numerous positions within the Department of Defense including serving as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and has been awarded the DoD’s highest civilian award four times.
In this OODAcast, we discuss a wide variety of topics including:
- How to use red teaming to plan for emerging threats and opportunities
- How to bridge the gap between planning and execution
- Lessons-learned from 40 years of working with top strategists and thinkers
- Developing a new generation of experts to inform policy and strategy
- How the first DoD Cyber Policy was developed and how it contributed to addressing the cyber threat
- Emerging national security concerns and the global threat landscape
Podcast Version:
Official Bio:
Jim Miller is President of Adaptive Strategies, LLC, which provides consulting to private sector clients on strategy development and implementation, international engagement, and technology issues. He is a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations.
As Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from May 2012 to January 2014, Dr. Miller served as the principal civilian advisor to the Secretary of Defense on strategy, policy, and operations, working to strengthen relations with allies and partners in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and to reduce the risks of miscommunication with Russia and China. He served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, from April 2009 to May 2012. For his accomplishments, he was awarded the Department of Defense’s highest civilian award, the Medal for Distinguished Public Service four times, twice by Secretary Gates, and by Secretaries Panetta and Hagel.
He also received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Award. Dr. Miller was present at the creation for CNAS, serving as Senior Vice President and Director of Studies from 2007 to 2009. He previously served as Senior Vice President at Hicks and Associates, Inc. During the 1990s he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Requirements, Plans, and Counterproliferation Policy, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Duke University, and senior professional staff member for the House Armed Services Committee.
Dr. Miller received a B.A. degree with honors in economics from Stanford University, where he played tennis for a team that won several national championships. He earned Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Additional Resources:
OODA Network Interview with Jim Miller
Additional Resources:
A Practitioner’s View of Corporate Intelligence
Organizations in competitive environments should continually look for ways to gain advantage over their competitors. The ability of a business to learn and translate that learning into action, at speeds faster than others, is one of the most important competitive advantages you can have. This fact of business life is why the model of success in Air to Air combat articulated by former Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd, the Observe – Orient – Decide – Act (OODA) decision loop, is so relevant in business decision-making today.
In this business model, decisions are based on observations of dynamic situations tempered with business context to drive decisions and actions. These actions should change the situation meaning new observations and new decisions and actions will follow. This all underscores the need for a good corporate intelligence program. See: A Practitioner’s View of Corporate Intelligence
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This post dives into actionable recommendation on ways to optimize a corporate intelligence effort. It is based on a career serving large scale analytical efforts in the US Intelligence Community and in applying principles of intelligence in corporate America. See: Optimizing Corporate Intelligence
Mental Models For Leadership In The Modern Age
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Cognitive Bias and the errors in judgement they produce are seen in every aspect of human decision-making, including in the business world. Companies that have a better understanding of these cognitive biases can optimize decision making at all levels of the organization, leading to better performance in the market. Companies that ignore the impact these biases have on corporate decision-making put themselves at unnecessary risk. This post by OODA Co-Founder Bob Gourley provides personal insights into key biases as well as mitigation strategies you can put in place right now. See: An Executive’s Guide To Cognitive Bias in Decision Making
OODA On Corporate Intelligence In The New Age
We strongly encourage every company, large or small, to set aside dedicated time to focus on ways to improve your ability to understand the nature of the significantly changed risk environment we are all operating in today, and then assess how your organizational thinking should change. As an aid to assessing your corporate sensemaking abilities, this post summarizes OODA’s research and analysis into optimizing corporate intelligence for the modern age. See: OODA On Corporate Intelligence In The New Age
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This post discusses standards in intelligence, a topic that can improve the quality of all corporate intelligence efforts and do so while reducing ambiguity in the information used to drive decisions and enhancing the ability of corporations to defend their most critical information. See: Useful Standards For Corporate Intelligence
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Broadly speaking, a weapon is anything that provides an advantage over an adversary. In this context, data is, and always has been, a weapon. This post, part of our Intelligent Enterprise series, focuses on how to take more proactive action in use of data as a weapon. See: Data is a Weapon
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The best business leaders are good at spotting falsehoods. Some joke and say the have a “bullshit detector”, but that humorous description does not do service to the way great leaders detect falsehoods. Bullshit is easy to detect. You see it and smell it and if you step in it it is your own fault. In the modern world falsehoods are far more nuanced. Now more than ever, business and government leaders need to ensure their mental models for detecting falsehood are operating in peak condition. For more see: Fine Tuning Your Falsehood Detector: Time to update the models you use to screen for deception, dishonesty, corruption, fraud and falsity
