Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and death spy stories and
the amazing devices and operations that made them possible. Now let's get started.
One. Welcome back everyone. Well, today we have a great guest,
Mark Polymeropolis. That's po l y M E r O p O U l
O S. Who is he? Well, he was in the CIA.
He was in intelligence. We're going to find out more about him. But
a second. He was the author of the book called Clarity in Crisis Leadership
Lessons from the CIA. Clarity in Crisis Leadership from the CIA, Mark Polymopolis.
You can find it on Amazon and everywhere else. He's retired from the
Senior Intelligence Service excuse me ranks in twenty nineteen after serving twenty six years in
the INTELLI his community in operational, field and leadership assignments. He is an
expert encounter terrorism, COVID action, human intelligence collection. Mark is one of
IC's most intelligent, most highly decorated field officers and has owned a unique leadership
style based on decision making under pressure, inclusivity, camaraderie, and competition.
All the above. His book Clarity and Crisis Leadership Blessings with the CIA was
published in June twenty twenty one, just came out, folks, you definitely
want to grab a copy. Mark schools to pass on this knowledge to the
private sector who can benefit from his unique experiences serving his country in the hot
spots of the world. Folks, I'll tell you a lot of times,
a lot of the lessons these individuals have learned do translate very well in the
business world. Hey, and even in the everyday world. You'd be surprised.
Before we get started. To make sure to share, subscribe, hit
that I like button. You know, we like it. That's not wasting
any more time. Welcome Mark to the show. Welcome sir, thanks so
much, Thank you for being here. That guess first and foremost. Thank
you for your service as well. No, I know, thanks, I
really appreciate it. And you know you get I have to give you huge
kudos for pronouncing money in correctly. It's always a case fourteen letters, you
know. When I grew up playing ice hockey, my jersey had that.
You know, it's kind of an inverted you. So when the letters went
all around. But I'm a great storyteller, so this is gonna be fun.
I'm gonna start with a story. So when I was in the Middle
East, and you know, I think it was in two thousand and six
exactly. I can't tell you where, but the presidence briefers called me on
the secure line. I was at a field station overseas. They said they
were going down to brief George W. Bush. I'm pretty psyched about this,
you know. So I'm a you know, I'm a mid level CIO
off star as a manager of one of our field stations. But he wanted
to know my analysis on a situation. So I wait for hours by the
secure phone. They call back and this is the President's briefers. They said,
yeah, we you know, we went down there. We kind of
brief from on the PDB. I said, how to go and they said,
well, he really spent the whole time trying to pronounce your last name,
so you know, we didn't even get to the part about what you
were saying about the situation in the region. So, you know, I
love telling that story because my name has always been a challenge. Now,
I guess your background is Greek and your family, Yeah, so I was.
I was actually born in Greece as well. Mom's American, my dad's
Greek. But my dad, who was a university professor at Rutgers University,
he actually went back after he received his PhD in the deep in the United
States, he went back to do his conscription. He was a he was
a conscript in the Greek military in his early thirties, and so I was
born in Athens. Of all the things, he was a very unhappy conscript,
I'll tell you that much. I can't imagine. So, and Greece
is beautiful too, so for sure, you know, one of the things
that you know, you know, you always trying to think about your journey
in life. And you know, I was lucky because every summer we go
back, and my dad was a professor, so we'd have two or three
months on the Greek islands. And then even he had a he had a
sabbatical in Algeria in twenty ten. So I'm sorry, not twenty ten when
I was ten, so you know, in nineteen I was, that was
nineteen seventy nine. So off I go alone. My mom puts me on
an airplane. My dad's in Algeria, and I go when I was ten
years old, and I go fly through Paris by myself, and I spend
a month with my dad traveling two thousand miles through the Sahara Desert. We're
like, we're sleeping in oasis, is riding camels. I thought I was
Lawrence Arabias. So if you want to get you know, you kind of
go to your origins and how you get to a place like the CIA.
And I think back on those experiences because just doing kind of crazy stuff.
So my parents were great. They really exposed me to a lot of things
that was unusual. So it's their fault that I joined the CIA. Was
telling that. That's actually gonna be my second to next question. But I
do remember, I think Greece was had not a role per se. It
was kind of like a role they didn't want to have during the world the
Cold War. Oh so I was trying to take over it, and there's
a big mess going on over there right there was they were trying to contain
the spread of communism in the US. Was well part of the part of
the Marshall Plan and so you know, but then you know Greece, you
know, it did have kind of a you know, a struggle with leftists
and communist elements, but it's a really it's another interesting part of my journey
because you know, you can there's lots of different arguments for and against this,
but the US administrations at the time really supported the Greek right wing governments,
and the CIA was blamed for a lot of things there. It even
led to you know, extreme anti Americans sentiment. Our station chief there was
assassinated, and so there's been some bad stuff that happening in Greece and ultimately
a lot of Greeks don't have great views towards towards the CIA, which has
changed a lot. But my dad was one of those. And so so,
you know, one of the amazing kind of points, and I talked
about it in the book a lot of you know, it was it is
a book when I talk about kind of family value is one of my leadership
principles, but it's when I talk about having an organization that cares about its
people. I remember, you know, George Tennant, it was Greek,
you know, my former director. I came back from Iraq and I was
being awarded a pretty prestigious intelligence medal, that Distinguished Intelligence Medal for some of
my efforts, you know, in two thousand, early two thousand and three,
and so We're at our headquarters here in Langley, you know, Langley,
Virginia. And my father comes to see me receive this medal. And
I talked to George Tenant earlier and I said, look, my dad is
not a huge fan of the CIA, and Tennant said, you know,
an only way he could have goes I got this. So he takes my
dad aside before the ceremony. They spake in Greek alone for fifteen minutes.
Tenant takes the time to do extraordinary. My father comes back. He has
tears in his eyes, and I said, you know, what did you
talk about the director? And he said, you know, dip with that
and greed nothing. He wouldn't tell me. I see Tenant later on and
I said, what did you say to my dad? He had tears in
his eyes and Tenne said, well, you know, I only talked him
briefly for you know, ten minutes or so, but I told him you
were a hero. And I got choked up. And so it's an amazing
story because just this small gesture, it's a leadership story. The small gesture
by the then head of the CIA did so much to almost repair a part
of the relationship I had with my father, that wasn't so great. And
afterwards, now even now, and I talked to him, I said,
you know, dad, do you still like the CIA goes No, no,
no, I don't like to see it. But I like George Tennant
Wells. Those little things really that make a difference in leaders aren't incredible.
And that's what, you know, that's what I really took from that.
I mean, George W. Bush used to do this, you know,
take take five, you know, twenty seconds out of your day, write
a little note to somebody, you know, make sure to just acknowledge people.
And this is everybody across the board, you know. And so you
know, there's things that leaders can do which really don't take a lot of
time and effort, but goes such a long way in building these cohesive teams,
and so often you don't see people do that. So I kind of
I wanted to mention that my book. I certainly did. You know,
if you if you can find things that are easy to do as a leader,
you better do those. There's a lot of hard stuff that happens later
on, but get the easy stuff right. That's a great point, great
point, and it's so funny. Whatever your politics folks aside. I mean,
George Bush should have that. People used to say a lot of times
you did do that. He did the little things, and he took the
extra step every so often. And some other presidents have too. With a
Democrat or Republican, doesn't really matter that they did. To some of them,
you can tell the comments were made by staffers or people in general.
He stopped and took a picture with me, or he signed this, or
even athletes, right mark, even athletes will sometimes you can see the difference
between one who will come up and sign and some people who'll take the extra
time to go out there and do the signatures and whatnot. It's really interesting
to see that I agree and get, you know, and it's something that
you know, maybe it's not something you would kind of just you know,
you're not certainly born with this, but well you can practice it as long
as you understand it. Don't be aloof you know, you know, you're
not better than anybody else, certainly not in government work. So you know,
I was I was watching TV to getting ready for a big, you
know, big Red Sox game in the night playoff game, and I saw
Kyle sh Worber their first base when walking around the streets of Fenway just signing
autographs. Wow, and who does that? And so but because he gets
it. You know, he's from Massachusetts' so he's in Massachusetts native. But
that's the kind of stuff I love to see because you know, and that's
what really resonates with employees, with people with fans, you know, kind
of all across the spectrum, and so so much so much want to talk
to you about our leadership too, because they're so much more complicated. But
before we get to that, when you said you were in Iraq, I
think you said, we got the Were you in the military or the CIA?
So so you know, I did seven operational tours with CIA, and
so I spound out, you know, and one of the things look at
so I'm part of the generation and so when I talk about it serving a
rock in Afghanistan, I'm not special. Everybody did you know? And on
the operational side, we you know, not only did we you know,
have to we should we want to two and so ultimately, uh, you
know, boy, what was the journey I was in? You know,
I started off in Afghanistan. I went in in February and March of of
o two, so not on one of the first teams, but early on
down to Kandohar. I later returned. I was a base chief in Afghanistan
for an entire year from twenty eleven to twenty twelve in eastern Afghanistan along the
Pack Afghan border, and then sand went in between that, you know,
I spent about half a year in I Rock. You know, first before
the war, I was living with the Kurds up in the northern I Rock.
And then I got pulled for a mission to go in with kind of
naval special warfare, the Navy seals for the high value target hunt. And
as the as the war was kicking off, and uh, you know,
in what March April of three, and so a lot of time you know,
as we call it in the sandbox, but even more so a lot
of time in war zones. And that's just, you know, that's something
that I enjoyed doing. I was not in the military before, but I
got good at those kind of kind of situations and and ultimately it really kind
of you know a lot of the example, a lot of the war stories
I have from my book on Leadership really stemmed from those times. Because again
the book is about cloudy crisis, which means how to lead during times of
ambiguity when you don't have situational awareness, you know, And I, all
of a sudden by the end of my career. It's interesting, at the
beginning of my career, I wasn't a great leader. I became a really
good leader at the end of my career, probably not unlike a lot of
others. But all of a sudden, I realized that, you know,
those times of uncertainty and ambiguity, that was my happy place and I really
felt comfortable, and I kind of dissected why so I came up with these
principles. But a lot of it was from times in Rock, Afghanistan,
Syria, other places where you know, there was East Africa where where things
weren't so you know, it certainly wasn't Europe. I never served in you
know, Paris, Berlin or London, to the great regret of my family,
you didn't missed out special and everybody else would you formil Did you ever
bump into David Tyson back then? Well so not, you know, not
in Afghanistan. I knew him after that, you know, certain you know,
there's a there's an incredible book that is out called First Casualty, which
which has incredible details of his uh his his role in Afghanistan. Who was
you know, and he was and it's it's very sobering, it's it's it's
a lot, you know, it's interesting. I always found him to be,
you know, he he epitomized everything I talk about my my book,
which is humility. You know, we do extraordinary things, but you know,
sometimes bad things can happen to and and and he's a he's a very
humble man, still is of course. And that's it's a it's an incredible
book. Heck of a story. And uh yeah, so you know,
so so there's you know, there's the director of Operations is actually fairly small.
So when I say I know everybody, I don't know everybody, but
you kind of know everybody, you know, So you know, I think
there's more special agents in the New York Field Office of the FBI than there
are c I A. Case officers around the planet. Really it's a very
small service, and so you really do know everyone. But that's what that's
one of the things that makes it great because that feeling is of the feeling
of camaraderie that feeling of family that that we we we fight like hell,
it's like brothers and sisters fight like hele and but boy, you know,
if you come at us from the outside, people get angry. Let's do
this. Let's do a timeline here. So I don't do is when was
the first time you took a leadership position? You mentioned you were a manager.
Was that the first time you took a leadership position? So you know
the way it works at the agency is you know, so I was,
you know, so interestingly enough, I got recruited into CI as an analyst
out of graduate school. I went to Cornell University and so I came in
on the analytics side and worked there for about two years as an analyst before
I realized I wanted to go on the operational side. And that's when I
went down, you know, to our training course, to the most unsecret
facility on the planet, which I can't even talk about but everybody knows.
Uh, we're still not supposed to talk about the ludicrous. But but ultimately
then I, you know, then I you know, I was trained as
an operations officer and so off I went primarily into the into the Middle East.
So the first several assignments you go is just a line because of a
street operations officer. That's where you learn the trade. You know, our
jobs the spot assess, develop, hand, recruit, and then handle agents,
spies and so you know, you do that all around the world,
and but you learn your you know, you learn the trade, and so
sometimes you go to high camera intelligence environments. Sometimes there's a big counter terrorism
threat, sometimes a little more benign. You can recruit a lot of folks
and then you know, after several years, you know, maybe at the
seven seven to eight year mark, you start you go into first line management
and so maybe you're the deputy of a small station, maybe you're a branch
chief back at headquarters. But then then you start managing. And really the
interesting thing is, you know, CIA doesn't do great leadership training or not
like the military where you go off for a year. So if you serve
twenty years in the US military, you have two solid one year assignments to
go to staff colleges. You go off to you know, National Defense University
or Command of Staff College, you know, whatever it is across all the
services. CI doesn't do that, and so you know, you can have
great case officers who can be really crappy leaders. You can have mediocre case
officers who become great leaders. But ultimately, one of the things I talk
about, you know, certainly, and this is you know, I mean
a lot of the book is self deprecating. There's a lot of humility involved.
But I was not a great leader at first. I turned into one.
And if I look back at those times, the first leadership positions,
and you know, I kind of WinCE and think of the mistakes I made,
not not ideal, but you know, you kind of you kind of
get through it. How important was I'm assuming this says all the way through
your career, but how important was having emotional intelligence? Being able to identify
emotions, identify body language, and all those cues that you see talking to
your the people who work with you. Sure, So there's there's two aspects
of this. One is your employees and the other, of course, is
the agents we handle. And it's really different because and but but but nonetheless,
let's start with just your employees. I mean, you know, look,
look, they're the the you know that the CIA kind of the biggest
trait, the biggest character trait we value is integrity and so and it's a
it's an interesting job because a lot of times you're off working on your own.
So if I'm going to go meet an agent on the street, no
one's with me. You know, I'm exchanging information or I'm a painting information.
Perhaps I'm paying this individual a tremendous amount of money at times. But
but you have to have that integrity. Then you come back and you have
to write it up on a cable. You tell your fellow officers, you
know, your mates in the station, tell your boss obviously, but everything
is based on integrity. So it's how you really conduct yourselves is critically important.
And just have that sense of honesty. You also have to admit failure
of mi mistakes. That's okay. You know, failing is okay, But
then of course you have to you have to kind of self correct with our
agents. It's it's it's you know a little bit different in the sense of,
you know, it is a bit of a more manipulative process. So
you know, we have recruited someone. This is a foreigner who's spying to
the United States. They're doing it for a host of reasons, maybe ideological,
maybe monetary. You know, maybe they hit the glass ceiling in their
foreign ministry, and that's why they're working with us. But whatever it is,
there is a bit of more manipulation you do with the people we're handling,
and that's that's because you want to keep them alive. Your dedication is
to keeping them safe, but you also want them to continue providing information.
But it's a really different dynamic in terms of you know, the people you
work with, your fellow college at CIA, and then then your agents as
well, although you know, what is sacricant on both is, of course
the safety of everyone involved. How about people who are tough to deal with
sometimes in their blind and work, I'm assuming the operators a lot of times
can be type A. I guess it's usually the that goes around, right,
What a great question. So look, so I have such a you
know, it's a bunch of type A you know, alpha male, alpha
females in a super hyper competitive environment. So it's really important as a manager,
as leaders to harness that. And so you know, there's and and
and Actually I talk about it in one sense of one of the leadership principles
I call it employ the dagger. But it has to do with fostering healthy
competition, not unhealthy competition, but healthy competition. And the way I did
this and I think it was really successful. I used to and I'll just
I'll tell you exactly what it is. I used to do a stand up
morning meeting when I was a manager. And so you have a bunch of
type A folks. Everyone is competing for what well, well there is you
know there. You know, you're in a country and you want to recruit
agents. So they're out in the streets trying to find those those those folks.
It's it's it's a sales job. It's the same thing. You have
to bring in new business. And so how do you how did I get
them to to, you know, have healthy competition. Well, I would
do something called a stand up morning meeting where instead of me telling them what
to do, I would ask them what did you do last night? What'd
you do last night? And then you know, sometimes people have to take
a night off and we work at night. That's what you do as a
CI officer. But it's pretty clear when someone's not pulling their weight, and
then that peer pressure from the group is what motivates them as opposed to me
coming down on them. And that's how I really kind of try to harness
these type A type A personalities and it really does work. Uh and and
what happens then the whole the whole team kind of rises, the prem rises,
everybody rises the top because it's a healthy competition with each other. Well,
I have to forgive me my memory sometimes isn't the best, but I
remember this reminds me a lot of baseball like a manager, because I'm looking,
I'm thinking of the Red Sox. I can think of one year when
they had Big Poppy, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. I can't remember.
This has some other big names too during that time. But you have similar
behavior patterns, right, You have a lot of these egos floating around and
trying to get it and you have to work everybody together. I see it
more with the Yankees, especially when they start getting new people in. Oh.
Yeah, they have a lot of stuff they have to deal with.
Do you see a comparison there, Well, I do, so, you
know, look, I'm a baseball nut, and so you know with the
book, it's funny. So some people when they come up and they said,
I loved your book on the CIA. Some people say, I loved
your book on baseball, and then others say, I loved your book in
Baseball and the CIA because there's tons of baseball analogies in this book. You
know, it's my favorite sport. I think it's the similarities are so extraordinary
where you have to deal with, you know, failing all the time.
So if you hit three hundred as a baseball player, only only ten players
in the National League this year hit three hundred, that's that's it. But
I mean they fail seven out of ten times. Well, same thing in
the espionized business. So we're going out to try to recruit new agents.
You got to overturn rocks. You got to find those, you know,
agent candidates who have the right kind of metal and the right motivations and perhaps
vulnerabilities to decide to spy for the US. So it's the same kind of
thing that you fail a lot in trying to find these these these folks.
So I think that there's there's comparisons, of course on back, but there's
also comparisons, as you said, on ego, there's there's you know,
it's to me, it is it it's a you know, it's a it's
pretty hard to hit KRB ball. It's also hard to recruit a Russian.
You know that's true. You know that reminds me of it. And I
can't remember this book memories just going to heck, there's an old book that
talked about big sales and the book was talking about copiers. This is years
ago when they were selling copiers, if you remember, and the copiers like
thousands of dollars. This is a big sale item. But it reminds me
of baseball in the sense and the same thing I guess as espionage recruitment because
you would only you would talk to ten or fifteen people, but you only
get one sale out of those ten or twelve, fifteen people. But you're
always looking for the one sale because that would make you a stential amount of
money. So this kind of translates into the sales world as well. It's
exactly the same. And that's I think why a lot of you know,
CI case officers when they retire, they go into things like, you know,
sales or business development, because they're very good at that. They're very
good at reading people. They're assessing folks. But also you have to have
that kind of intestinal fortitude to fail and just pick you know, pick yourself
up by your bootstrats and keep going. I mean, you know, I
you know, if I would go to a diplomatic perception, I'm trying to
you know, and there's three hundred people there, I'm going to meet every
single one of them, and I might walk away, you know, oh
for three hundred. The next night, I might go out and I might
find one or two or interesting, and maybe I'll call them again, and
you start that process of seeing if they have what it takes to work,
you know, clendestinely for the United States government, but you've got to overturn
a lot of rocks. It's the same thing, and you have to have
that intestinal fortitude to to you know, get up every day and and keep
at it. You know, there's there's there is something to be said for
you know, just you know, for it's the same thing. You know,
if if you're in a slump as a baseball player, you know,
in one hundred and sixty two game season, you know, baseball players will
go oh for twenty oh for thirty and not even think twice about it,
you know, and well the will the regular mere mortal would be you know,
having a nervous breakdown at that point. But they just know these things
happen. Just keep at it, you know, you keep on grinding through
it. And so I think that's they're really the professions are so similar.
That's why there's so many baseball analogies in the book. Yeah. Actually,
I'll keep it on that refrain for a minute, because I know in sales
as well, you need to have a long term mindset, even as a
manager, right, you have to be able to think, I'm going to
start planting seeds for recruit and I'm going to plant seeds for sales. I
may not be able to close this deal today, but if I start getting
at least my foot in the door talking to the people, getting some kind
of rapport developed, is that important too? That is everything because at the
end of the day, you know, I'm a US government I was the
US government official, so I you know, I represent the United States government.
So let's say I meet I'll just say a Chinese official at a diplomatic
perception. Look, it's how I act. So what do you want to
do? You want to you know, you want to be a good representative
of the United States what we believe in. You want to still be discreete
as well, so you know, what I'm not going to do is follow
this guy around or gall around for three hours and have everybody in the room
see me. You want to make enough of an impression, and perhaps you
meet them over time. But maybe that person's not ready. Maybe that person
has some inklings that they want to buy on to the United States, you
know, system and government, but they're not ready. But you know what,
then then they go on ten years later, they are another reception and
they see an American official and they think themselves, you know, I remember
Mark. I remember that guy Mark. He treated me really well. He
was discreet, he was polite, and he showed respect for my people and
my culture clearly, you know, he took the time to learn my language.
And you know what, maybe maybe I do want to talk quietly to
an American and so so it's exactly right, you plant those seeds. Everything
is based on relationships. And I would tell this to my officers all the
time. I certainly tried to, you know, do this myself, because
of course, you know, you have to be the role model for everyone
who's working for you. But it's how you act, you know, and
how you comport yourself is so important. Because again I always would tell people,
you know you you know, you're you're not here just as in a
lot of time. Of course, you're in undercover c O officer of you're
representing the United States government, and that's a really big deal, and that's
something that should be taken very seriously. I always certainly did you know,
the last thing you want to do is go to some diplomat of perception and
get drunk to fall in your face. You know you've embarrassed, you embarrassed
in the US. Why not act professionally, you know, you know,
because you represent what I still believe is the greatest country on Earth. And
uh, and so that was always really important to me. Again, folks,
we're talking to Mark Polymeropolis. You can find its p O L y
M E r O p O U l O S. The book is Clarity
in Crisis Leadership Lessons from the CIA twenty twenty one just came out a few
months ago. Again, Clarity in Crisis Leadership Blessings from the CAA really a
fascinating conversation. But elso reminds me of Mark about the situational awareness a little
bit, because I see a lot of individuals that I've spoken with have been
operators in the CIA, have been special forces that have worked in the Special
Activities Center and things of that nature. But one of the things I hear
about it is a lot of times blending in, and in today's society we
see kind of a weird Some people are trying to act like they are aware
of this and they say, you will be a gray man. But sometimes
you just can't fit in this certain country. It just won't work. But
you can blend in culturally, you can blend in by learning. How does
that fit in this? Well, it's everything. I mean, what a
tremendous question, because at the end of the day, what I always would
want my officers to be is not only the smartest person in that country,
but someone who knew the culture and who knew the language. And it does
so much for you for so many reasons. So let's start with Well,
first of all, the blending in part is huge. So our job oversees
as a CA officer, oftentimes you were there not as a CA officer,
you're you're there as in a covert capacity because our job is to spot,
assess, develop, recruit, and handle agents spies, and so you have
to be able to be on the street, no matter what you look like,
and blend in. Well, I'll tell you, if you speak the
language, if you know the culture, certainly, if you can read street
signs, for God's sakes, you know, you know, you're you're gonna
you're gonna blend in so much more. But there's also the part of just
you know, being comfortable in that foreign environment. So let's say, in
my circumstance, you know, those of us in the nearest operations we learned
Arabic, But what does that really mean? As you learned about the Arabic
language, for sure, if you always learned about Arabic culture and history,
religion, so so as you go to a country you were able to really
converse with the people and and identify with them. I remember one time,
you know, and uh uh, and you know, I was dealing with
someone. You know, the Bath Party was a very dominant political party in
Iraq for years and years, and I remember talking to an Iraqi one time,
the first time I had met this man, and you know, I
said, I said to him, I said, let's talk about the difference
between the Syrian and the Iraqi Bath parties. And he looked at me,
he said I can't believe I'm talking to an American about this, And I
said why, I said, well, I'm stunned you took the time to
learn. I said, well, I really know the history of it,
so let's talk about it. What does that do we immediately developed or with
the person you're speaking with. One of the great things that I found about
CIO officers is they really took the time to do this, and our foreign
intelocerateurs at the very least would really respect that. We really wanted to kind
of get to know the country, you know, where they're coming from.
Because ultimately, I'm not saying I'm better than them. I want them to
do something for the United States government, but I'm not saying I'm better than
them. And I took years to get to know you know, their their
culture, their language, and their history of their religion. So I think
it's absolutely critical that is that the number one trait for a CIO officer is
to be able to to really immerse themselves in the countries you know, where
they go, because at the end of the day, I would always want
to tell the US ambassador and the embassy, my guys in Gallas know the
street more than anyone here, and I'll never forget. I'll tell you one
last girl, I'll never forget. There was a congressional delegation one time.
I was serving in the Middle East. Then Nancy Pelosi can with a huge
congressional delegation, and the US ambassador literally said to her because she said,
what's going on here? She said, go talk to the deputy station he
said. The bachelor said, go talk to Mark palm Wopples. He knows
this country. And then that was one of the proudest moments I had because
I write down and like, we got this, and it's true. That's
amazing, that's cool, it's interesting. I know I've done some work.
I we'll mention who for what, But it required getting to know individuals are
a particular country. And what I was doing was going to coffee shops,
taxi drivers, uber drivers, and just hey, tell me a little bit
about your What did you guys have for breakfast around here? What do you
guys do for this? And then you started creeping into other questions like what's
the police when you call somebody? If somebody robbed your house, what do
you do? And you started learning and I remember doing some work for the
regrets to the cartel stuff, And it was amazing how you started getting information.
I didn't even ask all of a sudden, Oh, my cousins,
do you want to speak to it? He's part of the cartel. No,
I don't want to speak to him, but I just need to.
It's interesting keep telling me more about it. Did you find that sometimes when
you develop a port a, people open up to you absolutely, you know,
and that that's you know, that's the beauty. And so there's so
many different types of information that I would need. So first of all,
obviously I would need the plans and intentions of X y Z country as president.
Well, I'm not going to get that from the folks in the street.
But what I will get is, hey, you know someone who was
hanging around the house the other day and I'd be like, ah, really
okay, or there's there you know we've had I was, you know,
my family was in situations where we're in the Middle Eastern country there's riots in
the streets, but we've become so close with our neighbors they would say,
we'll protect you. I mean, there's there's a hundred different reasons why this
is important, and because because ultimately especially in the Middle East. I found
with the our world and and with Arabs in general, who I I just
you know, developed this incredible closeness and affinity for is that family and personal
relationships are everything. I literally would have have individuals. So you know,
as we recruited someone from x y z our country, oftentimes they would tell
me Mark, I'm not even doing this with the United States. I'm doing
this for you because you spent time getting to know me and my family,
and I believe in the United States. But this is because of you,
and so you know, that's why these personal relationships are are so important.
And and you know again it's the quote that the quote, you know,
you know the SAI case officers got to know the street and especially when we
go to third world countries where there is so much instability, uh, because
you don't know. I never wanted my officers. I never wanted for myself
to be stuck at a US facility, an embassy, of military base,
whatever, you know. And God blessed the US military. And I have
tons of friends who have served, but you know, sometimes friends might be
like I served for a year at a US military base in Saudi Arabia and
my response would be, you don't know anything about Saudi Arabia. Now,
if you told me you lived on the local economy, that's one thing.
But boy, we got to be out on the street and you got to
know you know, uh, you know, you know that city, know
that country more than you know. I hope I would want my officers to
be the smartest person in that country. Period. That's a great point.
And those bases are like little Americas. They really don't they don't get a
whole lot out of it. You know. It leads me to I guess
another question in regards to people are probably going to be saying, well,
listen, you're you're a twenty six year veteran the CIA, you're well educated,
you probably didn't make very mistakes, any mistakes that you've made as a
leader, and you stood out for you Oh boy, word it again.
And so one of the things that I was I'm very clear about in the
book, certainly clear about when I just want to do leadership talks and when
I speak is that I have had tremendous success and I've had tremendous failure.
So I was I will say, you know, in my basement, you
know I'll go down there with a scotch at night and look at all those
metals that you know on my shelf gathering gust. And it doesn't really mean
anything, frankly, because you know, you know, it just those are
things in the past. But you know, some of the failures I've I've
had have led to the losses of agents, have led to the loss of
life of CIO officers. I screwed up a lot, and I also succeeded
a lot. And I say that, you know, kind of in a
flat tone, because that was the career of someone who just you know,
was kind of in the arena. I certainly tried to learn from failing.
Uh, but but I had, you know, I went through some tremendous
adversity. Uh. You know, I had to stand up in front of,
you know, a station of four hundred people and tell them that one
of our colleagues was just killed and an operation that we ran that was extraordinarily
horrible, and even in dealing with his family and something I'll never forget,
and you know it, it tore me apart. I remember when I was
promoted to the Senior Intelligence Service that's the equivalent of general officer rank in the
US military. So I'm there and even in the promotion ceremony, my parents
are there. It's a this is a tremendous deal in the CIA to rise
up to what we call SIS, the Senior Intelligence Service. And all I
could think about was that, you know, an operation, you know,
years earlier, where I made some mistakes and someone had died. Uh,
and so uh, you know, it's a it's it's a it's a it's
a job. It's a profession where you know, really bad things can happen
sometimes. And so you know, I'm not I always I have tons of
friends who are former seals, current seals too, but for former seals,
and I always joke at them. I said, you know, you know,
you guys, when you go through BUDS training, you get your book
deal and then you and you know, you're pound your chest and let's go
charge the hill. That's their leadership. That's not what I talk I love
those guys, but that's not what I talk about in the book. I
talk about. You know, one of the principles is adverse. I call
it adversity is the performance enhancing drug to success because I always talk about you
have to really hit rock bottom and fail before you can really grow as a
leader. And that's certainly was the case for me. So you know,
my book is not it's a it's a it's certainly certainly it's a lot of
humility involved there. But I went through some really hard times and some really
great times, and you know that's the nature of the business, you know,
unfortunately it can be pretty unforgiving at times. That's the great thing about
your book is it's it's row in a sense. It really does doesn't gloss
over things. It gets really specific in detail, just like we're doing right
now and talking about it. Obviously really in touching the tip of the iceberg,
folks. But still you get into a lot of practical application I don't
always see in leadership. You see a lot of maxims being thrown and a
lot of generalities. Hey, you got to motivate your people, and that's
at the end of it, you know, buy them an apple or something,
and it's just kind of what do I do with this? But you
actually got much more specific in the book, which was cool. Sure,
So so I take nine principles. You know that again I've learned on the
streets of the Third World and it's and it's how to lead in times of
crisis, you know again that place where my happy place was when kind of
the crap hit the fan. But it's But so when I go through them
and each principle, they're basic. But then what I'll do at the end
of the section is I go through a checklist and I will engage with the
reader or the listener now or if I'm doing a speech, and say,
okay, this is what I said. Tell me a time where you you
know, you know, I'll go over a principle. I call it the
blue guy or the blue gal. And that's the idea that you know that
you have to identify and cultivate those indispensable members of your team, and you
have to do two things with them. You have to reward them for success.
You have to involve them and your planning. And I go over examples
in my kind of former, you know, line of work. So these
would be the support personnel. We're running a high value target operation in a
rock. We we capture one of the remember the former the deck of fifty
five cards. These are Saddam's henchmen. We capture one, we get all
sorts of praise it's it's you know, it's splashed all over you know,
every news outlet in the in the world. And so we're all thinking,
we're kind of pretty pretty kind of a bunch of bad dudes doing this.
But you know what, what about the support person now, who helped us,
they should be just as just as rewarded. So but I so,
so I'll go over a principle like that. But then as I engage,
I'll say, okay, for you the listener right now, you know who
in your organization and your business unit is the gluegal or the glue guy.
I did this speech, this, this exact talk for a bunch of Fairfax
County teachers of all things. And what I love about the book is I
made this applicable. One of my stepbrother he's an er doctor in Brooklyn.
He's like, your book better be applicable to a librarian, like, don't
don't give me this stuff about all the former intellencepecops folks, like it's got
to apply to everybody. So what I did is, at the end of
each principle, just like this, the glue guy, the glue ass With
these teachers, I said to the teachers, who's your glue guy, gluegal
and immediately administrator raised our hand. They said, it's the it folks,
our computer folks at Fairfax County one hundred percent right, you got it.
And so that's why I want to engage and have it be really practical,
because if you walk away from this and you kind of you know, you
go over the you know, the practical steps. And then my contention is
when times are tough, you're going to be able to be a much better
leader. You're gonna have the confidence to make decisions when when in the past
you wouldn't. Great points and it rs it binds me also a baseball where
sometimes we can be it can be dangerous because we can get a little too
over confident. I know they talked about the CIA decades ago when they went
into the Bay of Pigs. Some speculate they got a little too over confident
with past missions prior to it. I think it was operation It wasn't just
cause that was way after, but there's a couple of other operations prior to
the Bay of Pigs where they've had very successful. It was really quick they
eliminated that They've got whatever they wanted to do. The overthrow and then came
over to the Bay of Pigs and it didn't work. But even in baseball,
right, you have a hot streak and maybe you get a little too
cocky, or you win a ballgame, you crush them ten to two.
I don't know by you, but I've seen a lot of games when they
went ten to two, I'm not too excited about the next game. Is
I'm worrying? Right? Are they a little too overconfident now? But oh
my goodness, it's exactly right, you know. That's that's that's another principle
of mind from the book. I call it humility is best served warm.
And so my contention is, you know, you better not believe your own
hype, you know, and because really, you know, great leaders own
mistakes and learn and pour one scapegoat and deflect, and so don't believe in
your own hype is a critical piece because we can have tremendous operational success and
the next day something catastrophic happens. You know, I give this, I'll
tell you a story. Uh, and it's it's you know, it's it's
from the HarperCollins is like every time you do a podcast, don't tell every
story in the book. No one's gonna buy the book afterwards. But this
is this is a great story. I was. I was serving in an
operational unit in which, you know, and we had we had a critical
mission, which was, you know, to protect the homeland, protect the
United States from from al Qaeda from terrorist attack, and so our job was
to it was was in essence, to to you know, find those responsible
for planning and then uh, you know, conducting attacks and stopping them from
doing so in any way means we could. So what in an operation we
ran with the US military, we unfortunately, and this was overseas, we
incurred what's called sivcast civilian casualties. So there were some civilians injured in an
operation to take down serious terrorists. But that that that that that kind of
that point of civilian casualties is something that that CI takes really seriously. It's
it's kind of that area where where it's an absolute no go and so and
everyone's pissed at us for this. The White House is mad, the senior
CI leadership is mad. So I go as as the head of this unit,
I go up and I brief the CI leadership team, which unfortunately is
about forty people in a conference room all staring at me because I've screwed up,
because are my team screwed up? And and and so and and there's
there's a point of this about humility. So what I walked in there,
but I did a couple of things. I walked in. I explain what
happened, you know, and and then I said, these are the four
things that we did wrong. And by the way, this is all on
me. I'm the leader of the of the unit, so this is my
fault. Nobody else is. And these are the five six things that we've
done immediately before this meeting to fay to this so it never happens again.
So I took ownership. I told them what happened, and I and I
put the I put the you know, the fixes in place already. And
as I stopped the briefing, I said, any questions and that this is
at the time, you know, the director of the CIA, the deputy
director, the whole leadership team is silent. And they said no, And
so I left. And as I walked out, I was like, oh
my goodness, I'm I'm in Troupmann. Get relieved for this. You know
that that didn't go well. But a very senior operational Uh uh. My
member from the director of operations came up to me, a senior leader,
and he said, hey, that was that was really good. And I
said why. I said, well, because he owned it. And the
fact that there was no questions means a they know that you took responsibility for
this, and that's the idea of kind of extreme ownership. And then you
fixed it, and so we have confidence in you to move forward. And
I walked back down. So then my my my leadership has confidence to me.
I go to my team and the team is also worried too, and
I said, what happened? I said, well, I took response.
I knew people on my team screwed up, but I didn't I didn't throw
them under the bus. I said, I took responsibility. We're gonna be
fine, We're going to fix this, We're going to move forward. And
so what happens there you build this incredible loyalty with your staff, so so
you know, and that's the whole point of humility. We're in this incredible
kind of rock star unit that's doing great things to protect America. We screwed
up, we owned it, and then we moved on and So that's why
I always say, you know, just be careful, you know, in
terms of how you know, how you walk down walk down those hallways.
Don't believe your own hype all the time. Humility is a really good trade
to have. Absolutely make a great point. I mean, a lot of
especially in today's society, we see a lot of deferring of blame and not
owning up to our own mistakes. I think a lot of people are afraid
to make mistakes in today's world. It seems like, well, I mean,
look, the only way you're going to you know again, it's my
contention, is the only way you're going to succeed as a unit, to
see as a leader, is to fail and then and then you have to
learn from it. But that adversity, it's okay, you know. Here's
some baseball analogies. So in two thousand and three, New York Yankees beat
the Boston Red Sox four games to three. Aaron Boone hits a walk off
in game seven. In two thousand and three, two thousand and four,
the Red Sox are down three games to none of the Yankees but Kevin Malar,
who incidentally is a classic blue guy who played for the Red Sox utility
player gets up and says, we're going to shock the world. And they
go and they win four straight games to beat the Yankees. But my contention,
and this is this is kind of a this is you know, it's
not it's you can understand so much as there's no way they win an O
four if they hadn't failed in O three. That team was so tough that
even in O four they were down three games to none, They're like,
we already hit rock bottom last year, you know, and and so and
so they had that kind of intestinal fortitude and that that kind of mental makeup
to succeed and and and win four straight. And look, I always talked
about Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team. Okay, you
know, so you got to just pull yourself up. You're gonna fail sometimes,
gonna go through adversity, and it's it's how you react is really what's
going to define you. I guess my last question again, folks. The
book is called Clarity and Crisis. The author is Mark poly Moropolis. Mark.
My last question would be risk taking. Some people get little scared about
risk taking, Burt, Does that define a good leader? Is there the
times we do take risk, at times you don't. How does that work
well? For I mean, so so you know, everything about CIA is
taking what I call smart measured calculated risk. So in what we do on
running operations is there's always risk verus gain. So you can't recruit and handle
a spy being terrified of getting caught, even though we're going to do everything
possible. Sometimes they get caught. There's diplomatic incidents unfortunately. Sometimes you know,
it can be you know, terrible result with the with the with the
agent we have, you know, perhaps jail or even kill it. But
there's always that risk. You mitigate it. You take smart calculated you know,
measured risk. But in kind of the in the world of espionage,
that's a risk is everything. And uh and so you know, if if
if, if, if you can't handle that, you're in the wrong line
work. And some people can't that's okay, you know, but I mean,
take a look at their raid on a Badabad, you know, the
raid to capture Asama bin Laden. There was a the confidence level of kind
of the sea your leadership with the US government was that he about sixty percent
he was there. It's pretty extraordin I mean so, and I give President
Obama again in a non partisan fashion, I give him a lot of credit
for giving the go ahead and that operation when there's when people said there's a
sixty percent chance and there's a forty percent chance he's not there, and we
just launched a raid into Pakistan. Holy crap. You know there's going to
be hell to pay for that. So but you see, you take smart,
measured calculated risk. And you know what I would tell my officers all
the time is operations sometimes fail. But if you can explain to me what
you did and you had a thought process going through, then I'm okay with
that. It's it's it's times where you kind of ignore, you know,
certain you know, standard operating procedures, or you take shortcuts where you can
get in trouble. But if you know. But but my contention is,
you know, you know, risk is something that should be absolutely kind of
embraced again in my old line of work, but you can think even now.
So I love I do a lot of talks with small businesses or entrepreneurs,
and they love this stuff because that's what they do. They take risk
all the time. And and and you know there's there's a leadership principle I
have that's called win and Oscar and the whole idea that is, as a
leader, you have to stand up and people are looking at you all the
time. It's really important how you kind of uh uh comport yourself, especially
when times are tough. So I give, I have all my stories of
operations in the Middle East and the war zones. A small business owner,
an entrepreneur one time said to me, he goes, you know what,
you know when I had to win an oscar or I had to stand up
in front of my employees and said, I can't make payroll. I'm sorry,
but it might be And I said, oh, you mean like that
week. He goes, no that day like I you know, and so
but but you know what, I got up there and I said, like,
we might not be able to pay you today, but we're going to
get through this. I can promise you. And so you know, there's
that, you know that the idea of risk taking, I think it can
be in lots of different lines of work, but I think this, you
know, my book and the leadership principles are kind of kind of it's very
self explanatory and how you can really take smart and measured calculated risk and succeed.
And you're gonna fail sometimes, but hopefully you're going to succeed a hell
of a lot more. Absolutely again, folks, the book is Clarity and
Vices Leadership Lessons from the CIA, and get a kindle, audio book and
hardcover. I tell you like to read it, I go either way.
Mark, thank you so much again for taking the time to be with us
today. Thanks. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. It was so
much recovered. And again we only touched the tip of your iceberg of your
book. That's right. So there, well, Harp will be happy.
I didn't give away the whole time. That's right. Many more stories in
the book. Thanks again, Thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to
share, subscribe, and hit that I like button. Catch you next time.