Book Report – Work Like a Spy by J. C. Carleson

We should ask questions but not be too nosy. Be friendly but not boisterous, confident but not arrogant, charismatic but not flashy. If these sound like tips you’ve read in a sales newsletter, it’s probably because you have. J.C. Carleson perfected these tactics as a CIA officer and shares them in her terrific book, Work Like a Spy. The reader learns that everything they’ve worked on to be effective in sales has prepared them for a future career as a secret – no, wait… double! – agent. In both fields, one must know their competitors inside out, avoid predictable canned pitches at all costs, and even have “the ability to manipulate perceptions.” She goofs on cocky officers who go about things all wrong: using her name too often and “[emphasizing] their points by reaching out and gently touching my arm, as if the physical contact would add gravity to what they were saying.” Carleson knows a creep when she sees one and she knows how to rip them a new one, too.

A chunk of the book is like hardcover boot camp through which Carleson drills the reader on concepts such as strategic elicitation, which “involves asking benign, non-alerting questions that eventually reveal information that likely would not have been given had you asked directly.” Next time you’re on an airplane, try and find out where Mr. Elbows was educated – high school, college, grad school, whichever – in a roundabout way. Or go to an ethnic grocery store or restaurant where you’ve never been before on a particular mission (the author recommends trying to get a Russian bartender to tell you his favorite color). Fun, right? Perhaps more importantly, what we might learn is that crowbarring private information out of complete strangers is tough work, especially when we don’t have a government funded sack of cash to encourage our target to fess up. For a stranger to reveal something about themselves – be it as harmless as the name of their first pet or as potentially revealing (and explosive) as for whom they plan on voting in a divisive election – the agent must know how to take down proverbial walls in an era when building literal ones is, um, being seriously discussed by some.

If you think you’re a good judge of character, Carleson would likely be happy to throw down a $50 bet against it. Her belief and experience say that misguided overconfidence is more likely the reality. The good news is that the reader can take this slim self-help guide and work on his/her listening and rapport-building skills, learning to connect with people using “mental discipline and greater self-awareness of internal biases.” She says that the best spies are great listeners and know how to become completely dialed in, even mid-speech, such that they can pinpoint the moment they begin to lose their audience. And while the line between appropriate manipulation and outright deceit gets blurred, the author helps us maintain our integrity by always coming back to the genuine goal of understanding others and solving knotty problems, making this well worth the time to read. Of course, during this sweltering summer, you could always just head to the multiplex to see how Jason Bourne plays the game.