To be learning in schools and local control and School Boards are one of the best ways to be able to do that to get elected. So, you know tina and i cofounders just felt like parents needed a voice and we could help them to find that voice Tiffany Justice cofounder of moms for liberty. Well stand thanks so much for joining me a congratulations on your new book right risk, a users guide and you know, i really enjoyed reading that, you know, so im such a big fan of Transformational Leadership and its really a playbook for transformational leaders of all types whether ceos or diplomats or in the military or just have a noble cause so, you know, really my first question to you and youve written some great books. Whyd you write this one . Yeah, its great and first thanks for the kind words keith someone who has lived with risk and done it in business and done it in the state department. You know, thats a bonafidees. I really appreciate. Here it is switching. I spent a life like most of us trying to learn about risk. Yeah starting at west point. They try to teach you about risk. You studied military. Issues and things and then as youre a leader through life and in combat you deal with risk. Yeah, and i came to conclusion. I didnt do it very well. And i really didnt know why there are all these formal processes for measuring risk to mitigating it and then the outcome was often not what i wanted. Yeah, and i extrapolate that farther i watched for. Yeah other organizations or nations the same thing is true. We we have this science of dealing with risk, and then almost every time were swinging a curveball when its a fastball, right . And so i thought id take a look at it and see if i could write something that might be helpful to people. Well, you know the thing i really enjoyed about the book is you took a few stabs. That cant do in the classic mathematical analysis, you know, and the one where you like, you know, hes like 499 and and its an art right and you know, this this month is pearl harbor, you know, eighth anniversary of pearl harbor and you and ive talked about this offline that you know, if theres gonna be a next one. Its probably going to be a digital pearl harbor. You know, how do we prepare . How do we mitigate for that . Kind of risk . Yeah. I think the first thing is to understand what that risk is. Yeah, because we are the most connected society in history, right . And therefore in many ways the most Vulnerable Society memory. I would argue that if you turn the electricity off in a major us city for a number of hours, it would go to. Almost postapocalyptic activities pretty quickly. Yeah, and if you had been able to take out our information just our internet. Mmhmm connection think all the things that wouldnt work are banking our daily lives, you know, we lived and so we are dependent upon things that we sometimes forget that we are dependent upon right so we start with that basic reality that its pretty important to us and then we say well, how will it get attacked . And the answer is we dont know. It could be attacked digitally from someone in a basement of a third world country. You could be attacked by a nation state. It could be physically attacked right people could actually go to take out keynotes. And so because its impossible to accurately predict exactly. Yeah the time or nature of the attack what weve really got to do is understand. What will we do when we are attacked, right . How are we going to be able to be resilient enough right so that can take a hit . Pick ourselves up and keep going. So its its avoiding that fragility that we often talk about. Yeah, thats so key. You know when i was running economic diplomacy at the state department. One of our Urgent Missions was to really defeat. The Chinese Communist parties master plan to control 5g because it looked like it was inevitable. And one of the things that i think it was out of the box thinking of the state department, at least thats what they told me was. I brought it 12 folks from the private sector entrepreneurs and technologists and results were in an exact you met many of them you were on the docusign Advisory Board. And and teamed him up with the Career Foreign Service folks, you know, i call it a 60 60 deal both parties get the best part of the deal and it was amazing to see the folks coming in from Silicon Valley. They had so much respect for the Foreign Service officers and the Civil Service because they could see that their true north star was National Security. They also could see they were super smart. They could speak four to seven languages, you know, they rotated countries and all that and and you know, youve heard me say it many times if you see one of these Foreign Service officers or Civil Service just like you would somebody like you in the military you thank them for their service because really on some heroes and it was a really magical thing and turned out to be a High Performance team. So my question to you is in terms of building a High Performance team how do you use risk to help build that Performance Team and then you know, what are some of the advantage of a High Performance team then dealing with risk, right if you consider risk, we we tend to think of it as the intersection of the probability of something happening in the consequences of it does right if i go up on the roof, whats the probability . Ill fall off and if i do will i get hurt but think of it differently think of now mathematically as product of threats we face times our vulnerability to the stretch and the result is risk. Yeah if you could do away with all the threats in the world. Yeah, you dont got an authority about right . But you cant we dont live in that world. Right and we dont control those threats, but we do control how vulnerable we are. And so we have agency over. What we know how we communicate how we interact. Yeah, and so when you talk about marriage of the state department and private sector what i would argue you were first doing which you were eliminating blind spots you were bringing in diverse right . Sometimes we talk about diversity and we say well thats genders or different. Sexual orientations or racist . Its different perspectives, right . Its ensuring that your blind spots right are covered. And thats one of the things i learned in Silicon Valley is diversity of thought is the callus for genius, right . Thats exactly right if you dont have that you are automatically vulnerable because you places that that threats can come in. So i think that starts and then the next one is communication right think about the times in history. We write in the book about failures of communication one of which was the failure of the light brigade, you know the famous charge of the light brigade occurs because a message is sent from one commander to another and its misunderstood. Right . And so these 600 light brigade camera men ride most to their death, right and it was just a failure to effectively communicate we say well communications easy. We got cell phones you got internet we can do meetings but reality communication is hard. Yeah, not only do you have to the physical ability to communicate you have to have the willingness to communicate, right . And if you take people in business traditionally where people in the state department or people in the defense department, those arent just different groups. Those are different cultures, right . They are different languages right in afghanistan. I would sit down with pashtune elders and they would have big turbines and beards and and faces, you know that that reflected a tough life. Yeah. They had a different language than i did a different religion. They had a different life experience, but it was evident to me. Yeah, and so we understood that we had this gulf. When i was in defense department, and we dealt with the state department. Were all speaking english. Were all americans. Theoretically we ought to be able to perfectly communicate, but it was such different cultures. Yeah that you could talk right past each other not know it right and thats true in in almost every business and whatnot. So i think understanding how important communication is and then how hard it is. Yeah, so youve got to not only be able to focus on it, but youre going to be able to measure whether youre really communicate right . You know when i was reading about that section in the book it made me think back early in my career when i was in General Motors. So my first job i was a production forming on a chassis line a cadillac second shift. And about 50 of cars coming off the line. Were going to the repair bin. And by the way, this is when cattle that this was in the late 70s cadillac was known as the standard of the world and i went and i complained to the superintendent. I said man. This is supposed to be great quality and he goes im going to teach you something, you know because he kind of was mentor for me and he goes im gonna take you these different meetings. What i would watch is this it would go up to the next level id say. Oh we have these three quality issues. And it will go up to the plant superintendent. Oh we have this one quality issue. Then it would go to the vp of cadillac. Its a you know, were working on some quality issues and then that next summer. I watched the new york treasurers office, which was the staff for the board of directors and i could see it going up then to the vp and it said our quality is good that it goes the executive vp and it goes or the standard of the world and then i saw go up to the board and its we have no competition and i learned that and the other thing also that i learned is you know, this is back when General Motors said one point five million people. There was not a lot of diversity authority. It was inbred and so i really believe that was one of the causes for to lose such a great leadership position. But anyway, i can totally relate to that. So let me ask you this. You know trust is big. It means so much to me and and we actually use that to defeat chinas master plan to control 5g we in a building the Clean Network alliance to democracies succeed countries. 200 childcos and we made that our strategic positioning because every time i talk to my foreign counterparts they say, you know chinas really important to us, but we dont trust them. Tell me what role does trust play and Risk Mitigation and many of the things you talked about in the book. Yeah, well, you know, we used the word trusted. Sometimes it gets cheap. And yeah, it is so sacred if you think what a lack of trust does. Yeah, is it increases transaction costs right if im going to deal with you and i dont trust you or know you im going to check what you say. Im going to have my lawyer along were going to do all of these things. And so we add cost to it. Yeah. And so when we trust each other we can cut all of that out. Yeah, but trust doesnt come simply because someone says trust somebody it comes from interaction over time. Right what i found in the military forces you had to force elements to work together. Yeah, so they build up some shared experience, right . And trusted i think to a great degree comes from establishing credibility from your proven competence, right your integrity. Yes relationships you build. Yes. I used to always tell the counterteris force those three things were sacred. Yeah, we protect those you will have the trust of people we need their support of right and so when you talk about reducing risks, being able to trust certain things means you can focus on the things that you cannot trust, right . So if in a military sense if you dont have to worry about your flanks right and your rear you can focus forward. Absolutely if you dont trust the people on your left and right or the people to your rear you got to look everywhere right . And thats true in business. Its true in in the world. So what you did the Clean Network is you expanded the trust the number of partners you basically covered americas flanks and our rear so we could then focus on a limited number of external threats, right . And and i think that that is something weve got to in every walk of our our nation and business. We got to focus on right. Absolutely. You know, i i always say its most important word in any language, you know, you do Business People you trust you partner with people you trust you certainly love people you trust and you know, it was interesting because when i heard that from my foreign counterparts, so remind me back at docusign where i would stand up, you know in front of employees were Advisory Board say were not in this offer business. Were in the trust business and certainly 5g was that and certainly a lot of the the things that were dealing with in terms of the techno authority terraneism from from china, you know one of the things you know, weve got a lot going on these days right and the Foreign Policy world and you know when you have an adversary. You know really bad actors on the planet. And they dont live by a set of those trust principles things like integrity or transparency respect for rule of law or property or human rights or the planet. You know, i you know, how do you deal with that . What it what are some of the things you could do . Yeah. I think the first thing is again. You look inward if if you think of the range of crises that arrives in our lives whether its a financial crisis or a Natural Disaster or a pandemic. Yeah about 80 of what you do in response to that is the same crisis to crisis and we say no it isnt. Yes it is you start by communicating effectively right get correct information out on a timely basis to the people who need it up and down. You have a clear narrative. Yeah, heres what were trying to do. Heres were aligning on that. You have to overcome inertia. So you have to be able to act. Yep, and sometimes overcoming inertia means youve got to stop things that are going in a certain direction, right . Youve got to be able to bring in diversity so you dont have blind spots, right, but also be aware of and overcome your biases. Yeah, youve got to be able to do things in a timely fashion ie is we know something done too early or too late is often, right counterproductive, right . Theres got to be leadership that pulls all this together. Show my response is if you focus on making your organization, and that nations just a big organization. Yeah, we make ourself strong. Yeah, then almost any threat that comes is reduced to those things unique about that situation, right because we can handle most anything right . So if its a pandemic, okay, we will focus on pandemic unique right items and and vice versa and i would argue an external threat like the chinese the russians. Yeah. To that same category when we are fragile internally. Yes when were politically divided you dont have trust. We dont communicate effectively, you know, then suddenly we are vulnerable to things that we wouldnt otherwise be vulnerable right to normally exactly, you know, one of the things i loved about your book and you know as youre talking right now, im picturing that framework that you drew and i can i can picture you like going to whiteboard like going to this say hey, heres the framework how you analyze, you know, risk and and mitigate it and you hit and all those key all those key elements and i always find that those frameworks for me just like you said youre you know, hey, youre kind of dealing with the same thing. Its just the situations different and if you have a framework like that then you can develop pattern recognition, which kind of turns the instinct which actually helps you move fast because a lot of times join a lot of time to react i i could certainly see it in Silicon Valley. But yeah, i mean you run a special forces. I mean im like nothing compared to what youve experienced. I wish wed had you then but you remember the day you came to my company. Yeah, and you sat down and you said heres what you got to do boom and well we did banetta for 10 years and we looked at this week on why didnt we come up with that in a decade because you you put a framework out and said this is the where you got to fit in the things you got to do. And by the way, thats the same framework. I just been using company and company then using the state department. Were usually never yet. Its working great now thats thats a key thing the way that framework came out was this yale immunologist and i became friends and what she did was she came over and said i think counterinsurgency is like the human immune system that better way its and i remember like i said, i know nothing about the human immune system. What do you know about counterinsurgency . And she says i dont but i just have this gut feeling. And so she it was a family analogy. I was perfect. Yes, so it was and so we came out with the realization that things like hiv aids dont kill anybody. And you say well wait a minute. Its deadly. No, it weakens you your immune system so that your vulnerable right and so organizations that are flawed internally that dont communicate right misaligned on their have poor leadership. Or cant overcome inertia, right they become vulnerable to anything, right . They dont need a strong competitor to come and take market share, right they are going to fall to a weak competitor, right or any number and so that model is all a way of saying weve got to make our risk immune system, right . We got to make our organizations healthier, right and then we can be durable. Yeah. I mean, youre absolutely right. Its really its basically focus on the home front, right and and that trust is a it is the lubricant in that engine for miss Risk Mitigation. Thats right, right, you know was it was really interesting to see . You know reaction from some of the state Department People when i said hey strategic positioning truck. Theyre like, well what strategic position i said . Well, well the reason why you do it is to deposition your competitors and a reason to do that is the set traps, right . I mean, its all military analogies youre not talked about before and the value of that strategic position is the delta between your position the other your opponents position as got to be true. It cant be a fake granted either at the high ground. Or or you dont and any also dont have to be faster than the barrier. You just have to be faster than the slowest person right . You dont have to be be perfect. And you know, we looked at those trust principles with china. That theyve been using against us, you know if i could steal your intellectual property if i can use slave labor coalfired power plants not have to be transferred. Well be every time and so we just did is we just flipped them on her back and we use those trust principles against them to build unity. And and ended up being continuity of policy because that unity was key for security blanket. Against retaliation yeah a nation like china which is rising economically and militarily and is pretty unified politically at least externally . Is a frightening prospect and a threat but theyve got some real vulnerabilities. Yeah, and almost the principles of judo work because yeah, they throw their weight around the world, right . They frighten people, right . And they also they come after resources they do things and so they create an antibody like response to them, right . So what you were doing is just simply unifying the antibodies. Yeah and taking that thing right try again that theyre negative momentum. Thats right the things that they that they do that scare people. Yeah. Yeah, because they they scare a lot. So let me ask this we always talk about mentorship, you know, and you know. Its the Global Mentor Network is means a lot to me. Youre in our pilot series. Its about mentoring that next generation of transformational leaders. You know, the question everybody wants to know. Is you know, what advice would you give not to those aspired transformational . But what advice would you give to a young stamber crystal with regard to risk . Yeah looking back. You know, youre 21 years old or however, i think of the tough things in my life where things have gone very badly. Yeah and when they came out right they came out right for several reasons one because i had clear sense of who i was yeah, and even when i would be buffeted by something that that the second was Close Relationships i had a network of friends starting of course with my wife annie, you know well, but with other friends who were those relationships were Even Stronger than i realized and in the moment when i needed to right they were there like youre accountability brothers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then more broadly not close friends, but people that i had a level of trust with an interaction with right and they became allies at the critical moment and that sort of thing so. Although many of the things that you face in life are fairly unexpected and they can be pretty powerful. Yeah, if youve got that kind of a network around you as you know from the Mentor Network and youve got a certain sense of you are that for them. Yeah if they are that for you then suddenly youre extraordinarily more safe. Its the principle of nato or any other right the idea of article 5 if somebody attacks one of us theyve attacked all of us, absolutely and if youve got friendships who when you are needy right . Maybe theyre not going to attack anybody, but theyre going to come for you. Theyre going to come take care of you. You know it and when youve got that almost nothing is something its anything you cant withstand right . I think people are most vulnerable when you feel alone. Absolutely. Look at veterans who commit suicide or whats not they often feel. As though theyve got nowhere to turn nowhere to turn to no shoulder grab onto. And so i think that thinking about that increases decreases risk. Yeah, because youre just more stable. Yeah, you know, its interesting because i think about thing we talked about many times about dealing with that china bully is that if you know, weve all been bullied probably at some time in our life and you know for something i learned when it confront of bully they back down, but they really really back down when you have your friends by your side and i mean to have that to have that feeling there. And you know, so speaking of of covid in the pandemic that you know, that is forever changed the world and and one of those big ears is in the area of supply chains, you know, we experience it pharmaceuticals. Were experiencing now and semiconductors. You know, we were fortunate to onshore tsmc 12 billion dollar largest sanchore in history and it grew to about 250. Now 250 billion dollars a Us Investment and jobs and so what id be interested is your perspective from a National Security side . How important are those supplies james . How important is that for our National SecurityEconomic Security and then what advice would you give to ceos who have a lot of those tied up and in various places . Yeah, i think theyre critical because first for finished goods that are manufactured somewhere. Often all of the supporting manufacturing there. So its harder than just moving a single factory. Youve got to get all the suppliers available to because if you were if you are dependent upon. A foreign location for any part of it. Youve got some level of dependency, right . So we say were going to move things. Its hard but in some cases, i think we have to build the capability to do that. But there are other things we cant move we cant move rare earths and things like that where they are mined somewhere else. Weve got to create the ability to have secure change right much of my career my early military career was focused on ensuring that oil would flow from the persian gulf around the world and the United States, right thats less true now, but the reality was theres always going to be something right that globally we need right now my argument is that pure capitalism is going to seek the lowest cost and it wont always be balanced with geopolitics, right and so up a corporate leader will go to make that most inexpensive way to get goods. Yeah, but that will put us in vulnerable locations in many cases. And so i think weve got to get a melting. I think the United States has got to get a bit of what id call industrial policy. Yeah that says certain things have got to be here other things have got to be with secure supply lines absolutely with allies and at the end of the day, i dont think globalizations did it shouldnt be yet. Its just too important. But i think that that means youve got to have that network of trust. Absolutely what your allies abs trusted business partnered partners around the world. Absolutely, and you know, you know thing weve learned about globalization. It assumes everybody plays by the rules, right and we all believe in the free market, but when you have somebody not played by the rules, the market is no longer free. It becomes a full market. Well, im telling you i could talk forever with your stan and i just want to congratulate you again on that book. I love the book. Im recommended it to all my friends. I know youve got a really really busy schedule and really thanks for imparting your wisdom inapp book and it would i you know, like the first time i met you i just wanted to hear the war stories, you know, i mean, im just like go tell me some stories and theres plenty in there. So is its good from a playbook standpoint, but its a page turner all in one. So thanks so much stan. We appreciate the time appreciate you being on cspan and you know, have a have a happy holidays in a merry christmas. Thanks for your friendship keith. All right. Today we are talking about and i am going to start with you question as always. The question for today is why does the u. S. Become a global empire . Ok. Why does the u. S. Become a global empire . And why did the u. S. Become a global empire . Ok. Why did the u. S. Become a global