Actionable Intel: “Dry hole! What’s Next?”

It’s time to talk about my old friend actionable intelligence. This is one of my favorite things on the planet and in my experience is often what makes it all worth it. What am I talking about? Well, let me give it a little context.

Imagine you are in Baghdad. It’s 120 degrees and you are rocking about 60 pounds of gear. You and your team have been planning this operation for several days or even weeks. You have rehearsed it countless times. Everyone was ready and have even been looking forward to this operation. You all knew what you were walking into and why you were going. It’s GO TIME! Door breached using a simple GP charge, everyone flows into the room and hits their points of domination. One up, Two up, Three up, Four up…..crickets.

Wait what? Where’s the target? Where’s the bomb making materials, weapons cache, training camp, propaganda making supplies, the bad guys? Where’s the bad guys damnit? They’re not there. In fact there’s nothing there. It’s what we called a “Dry Hole”. All that planning, prepping, last calls home, all of it. For what? Did we just waste the last however long on nothing?

Then it happens. A little kid as you exit the target building approaches you and your team. He tells you that the bad guys bounced out a day ago in the middle of the night. He also tells you that his uncle, a block away knows them, and can tell us where they are. YAHTZEE! Actionable intel baby! Let’s roll! You talk to the uncle and find out he’s being threatened by the same bad guys that you are looking for. He also tells you that they are hiding upstairs in the very building you and your team are in. Guess who went home with 7 detainees that day! Winning!

So, what is the point right? Well, how many times have you planned, prepped, and gone to execute something, only to run into your own “dry hole”? All that effort with no pay off can be a pretty gnarly morale crusher, unless you keep your eyes open for that actionable intel.

You see, just because you didn’t achieve that goal on the first attempt, under the conditions that you initially set, doesn’t mean you can’t still achieve it. Think back to the example that I used and lived more times than I can count. Even when we identified it as a “dry hole” we were already learning. If nothing else we knew where the bad guys weren’t right? So we can already start taking forward action by leaving that building.

Then when we are presented with that actionable intel we are already equipped and ready to rock. So that prep time was definitely not wasted.

The last thing I want to point out is how critical mindset is here. Trust me it is easy to get hit hard when things that you planned out all the details on don’t shake out. Believe me I’ve been there….LOTS! But that’s not a good reason to have a catastrophizing mindset. Instead of thinking about how this particular plan didn’t work I’d challenge you to immediately ask yourself what’s next.

At the end of the day, did your goal change just because this plan didn’t work out? Probably not. So, look at what you learned, be glad you are prepared, ask yourself what’s next, and then go after that actionable intel!