#ThinkfullyHabit: See Red
How often do we think we’ve understood the whole picture, only to find out our perspective has been one-sided and we’ve missed something? Red Teaming came about during the Cold War as a way of looking from the enemy's perspective. It was used to get people to put themselves in the position of the enemy in order to think through the less obvious and unanticipated scenarios that could then be planned for.
Think of it as a form of method acting, or of walking in the shoes of the competitor or enemy. It has been established as a key way to reduce risks and improve outcomes in the military and in cyber security in particular, but the idea is relevant for us all; especially in organisations or cultures where there tend to be fixed ways of approaching challenges or problems.
“By employing a red team, institutions can get a fresh and alternative perspective on how they do things. ”
WHY?
It works because it forces alternative perspectives to be considered. In fact, NATO refer to the technique as ‘alternative analysis’, which emphasises the point that it’s about deliberately and rigorously looking into the alternative reasons, rationales and courses of action.
When done with intent, it can be treated as a great tool to investigate the value and strength of an idea or plan. It provides a way to legitimately challenge assumptions, check logic, assess the strength of evidence, consider alternatives, test ideas, reduce surprises and guard again human bias. It is successful because it helps prevent us from overlooking problems, missing the gaps or being blinded by our bias or false assumptions. The key thing here is to actively go looking for the problems.
And if we can’t get our own red team looking at what we’re working on, the very least we can do is call on one or two others to rigorously look at our ideas and interrogate them for us.