After reading about Pirates, I decided to read a little something on leadership. The book I grabbed was Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin (Amazon affiliate link). The book is by two SEALs that worked together in Iraq came back back to the U.S. and started their own Leadership consulting firm.

The key concept is willing to take ownership of not just the successes but also the failures. The key example is the commanding officer, Jacko Willink, “publicly” accepting a horrible failure of a mission, as the ultimate owner of the failure even though several others who made mistakes offered to take the blame. At the the end of the mission it was him not making sure everything was done right that caused the problem, and he owned knowing it could cost him his career.

There are were other things covered. Topics through the book included planning. Keeping the plans simple. Empowering the teams to be able to decentralize their command structure. Lead from the top down and the bottom up. Having disciplined Standard Operating Procedures, that allowed the team in the combat zone the freedom to adjust to the current situation.

The biggest take away though was one scene when Lief Babin was involved in Hell Week, part of SEALs training. The section was on “there are no bad teams, just bad leaders”. The SEALs leading HELL week as trainers showed this by swapping the leaders of the winning and losing race teams. The leading one brought the losing team up to challenge his old team every race after.

The trick was setting way points in the course, and pushing them to each one. Don’t worry about the course as a whole, just the next goal, and let that build to the end.

The other thing I liked about the book, it would show the concept of the chapter in the battle area, broken down in principle, and then finished in a business environment.

The authors at the end said there is nothing really new in the book, just a new way of looking at the concepts. I know I followed some of the concepts in the past, and I picked up a few new ones to go forward with.

One I’ve put in to practice already is the concept of way points. While that wasn’t the goal of no bad teams just bad leaders, it did stick out. I’ve put it in to practice with my classes. While there is still a lot to go, I just have to go from way point to way point, and not worry about the next way point until I get to the one I’m heading for now. I don’t have to worry about the Degree at the end of my current program. Just the last 2 classes before I get to the degree. Of those, I only have to worry about the current class I’m in. Id on’t have to worry about all 12 weeks. Just the week I’m in. And break that week down in to manageable segments.

It really has lifted some of the stress I was feeling.

* Update 2024-10-01: changed to Amazon Affiliate Link, which I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

I recently read Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly (Amazon affiliate link) it was an interesting book.

It’s a book written in the 90s looking at the history of pirates during the golden age. It talked about some of the romantic myths that raised up around the golden age, and how those myths came to be.

The book shows how pirates lived and died, the difference between Privateers and Pirates. How the line between the two types could be blurred. And, what eventually lead to the down fall of the golden age of piracy.

The most interesting case, though one of the smallest in the book was Captain Kidd. Who was commissioned as a Privateer (complete with letter of Marque), crossed in to Piracy to appease his crew, and paid the price for it at the end. The political intrigue was a nice twist in the rope too.

What really lead to the end of the golden age of piracy was Hunt Teams (multiple ships hunting the pirates down), clemency (though some pirates went back to their former ways),  and visible reminders in ports of what happened to captured pirates. Countries not being at war led to some of the downfall too.

But the thing is, things had to change before piracy ended. The defenses put up around ports and along the gold trails didn’t do much to stop or deter the Privateers or Pirates going for the gold. For example, Henry Morgan’s attacks on Porto Bello, even though there were 3 castles protecting the place, it still fell to Morgan.

Ships carrying arms didn’t do much either, other than anger the pirates. It wasn’t until Naval vessels put on acts as either other Pirate Ships, or as merchant ships, that having armed sea going ships mattered.

The book did give some interesting history lessons, and gave some ideas that could be re-applied to cybersecurity to secure the Net Today. Think of the Internet as the Sea, and hackers as villainous pirates.

I also know I’m not the first person in InfoSec to read the book and draw some parallels between our industry and the Golden age of piracy. Adam Hogan talked about this a few times. I saw his talk at Bsides Columbus in 2017.

While a history book on pirates, it does give some ideas as to how to change how we’re doing InfoSec today. It was worth the time it took read, and gave some interesting thoughts on how to deal with the problems InfoSec faces today.

* Update 2024-10-01: changed to Amazon Affiliate Link, which I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.