Double-Edged Swords and the Lack of the Golden Eagle Concept: How NSA Mistakes Made Snowden a Global Hero

The world’s most famous whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has been on the top of all media news these days. His revelation of the classified information from NSA made him so popular that he even has the chance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize when the professor of Umea University nominated him recently.

The story revealed more information than just the public story of the NSA’s surveillance program and there are several management lessons learned. NSA had plenty of management mistakes that lead the organization to such dilemma.

 Mistake 1: The Lack of a Panoramic View

Panoramic view is the first and one of the most important stages of the golden eagle strategy. Having a sharp eyesight which is not based on a panoramic view is a popular mistake that most managers make these days. Focusing on one aspect while the other dimensions are neglected is results in a dilemma that can be a fatal challenge.

 NSA focused too much on its own surveillance program to spy other countries that forgot the concept and nature of its organization. NSA managers forgot that they need an insider surveillance program as well, and it happened when they neglected the panoramic view. They focused on some dimensions too much that they forgot the other necessary parts of their business.

NSA forgot that they are dealing with two double-edged swords in their surveillance program: a spy and the technology. These two important assets act like double-edged swords and are not necessarily the friends, as in some particular cases the harmful edge is more effective than the serving edge.

Spies are human being and sometimes unpredictable; they have been chosen among many people due to their specific character. They are adventurous, risk-taker, flexible and gained some particular skills throughout their career, but like any human they also have a flipside. In the lack of panoramic view the NSA directors forgot that they are dealing with such people and these people need a specific insider surveillance program that I guess NSA had that program but was performed it poorly. Have the NSA had the panoramic view, they could prevent the information leakage before happening.

Mistake 2: Outdated Psychology and Reliability Test

I have previously discussed the importance of the character of entrepreneurs and the essence of the golden eagle farm which is based on the character of people we incubate. Without a doubt any intelligence service in the world is putting worth on the character of their employees and agents before hiring them and let them in. They need specific people, as they have to do the most sensitive job in the world.

The Psychology is inevitable part of human resource and most companies used job psychology in their HR department when hiring employees. It is the same case when dealing with an intelligence agency and they will surely have psychology tests. With the help of psychology and reliability test they make sure that the person fits the job, does not disclose any information, stays loyal with them and acts as he/she should in the organization. But why did NSA fail in their tests?

Psychology and reliability tests fail for some people. One of the most popular cases in which these tests fail is when the person under the test have deep knowledge in psychology tests and can manage the answers to get a result with specific character. It is the same case with the reliability tests and the use of devices such as lie detectors is make no assurance of the results. For instance, lie detectors can be simply fooled by making a hard math calculation or a countdown of large and difficult numbers in mind that eases the body rhythm. It seems that CIA and NSA failed at least in their HR management besides their panoramic view.

Mistake 3: Lack of Vast Home Range

NSA highly lacked the vast home range. It is quite obvious that they were not prepared for these days and they really lacked vast home range. The golden eagle manager prepares the organization for the crisis time. The crisis management is one part of the vast home range in the golden eagle strategy and the chaos in NSA after the disclosure and having no escape plan from the dilemma was quite evident. It seems that they never thought of their worst case scenario at all.

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