The Common Sense Way

By Pete Blaber

In this book you’ll learn what I learned and what many other common sense leaders across the ages have learned before us:
-What is "common sense"
-How our brains "make sense" of what's going on around us
​​​​​​​-How to use common sense to motivate, inspire, and persuade
-How to keep cool in a crisis and make sensible choices about what to do next
-How to use common sense to select the best people and build the best teams
-How to create a common sense of shared purpose and direction
-How to Live, Learn, and Lead the “Common Sense Way.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Blaber
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578876740

Pete Blaber

Pete Blaber commanded at every level of one of the most elite counter-terrorist organizations in the world during most of recent history’s most significant military and political events (Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq).In 2006 he retired from the military and transitioned from leading elite combat teams around the globe, to leading elite corporate teams for one of the world's largest and most innovative Biotechnology Companies.“After 21 years of using the term ‘common sense’ to describe the way I lived and led in the military, this was the first time I actually paused to ponder what ‘common sense’ actually is and why people seem to recognize, respond to, and appreciate ‘common sense leadership’ whenever they experience it. I didn’t have to look far to find the answer. The answer is both all around and inside us. It’s not political, or religious, or philosophic. It’s biologic. Biology reveals that life always finds a way. It’s the "Common Sense Way.” In 2015 I left my job as a Biotechnology executive to write this book.“In 2018, while still working on this book, I decided it was time to pressure test the “Common Sense Way” in the living laboratory of real-world experience, so I started an international company that adds armor protection to any type of vehicle (e.g. cars, trucks, vans, buses, etc.). The idea behind Adding Armor is to create a “Mobile Safe-Room” that protects the vehicle’s passengers from would be attackers (criminals, terrorists, active shooters, and anarchists) while also providing “peace of mind” that cannot be attained in an unarmored vehicle. In today’s world, adding armor to protect your family, friends, and colleagues is common sense. It’s the ‘Common Sense Way’”.Pete was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. He has an MBA and an MS in National Security and Strategic Affairs.

Book preview

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Security Disclaimer:

This book was submitted to the Department of Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review on April 16, 2020. It was returned with redactions on January 28, 2021, resubmitted for redaction challenges on February 12, and cleared for release to the public on March 25, 2021. The book took five years to write and over eleven months to get reviewed and cleared for release.

CLEARED AS AMENDED

Jan 28, 2021:

Department of Defense

OFFICE OF PREPUBLICATION AND SECURITY REVIEW

In an effort to protect specific organizations, operations, and/or the individuals who took part in the events covered in this book, there are a few instances where I had to use pseudonyms for people and generic names for military organizations such as the one of which I was a part. To comply with Department of Defense redactions I had to adjust some descriptions of pictures and events as well as the exact date and time they occurred. The security-instituted adjustments to this book were minor and did not affect the way the stories were written or the lessons that were learned from them.

Finally, combat is just like life, no two individuals see it or experience it the same way. The insights I share in this book are based on my perspective and the perspective or those who were with me. If a sentence or paragraph seems to be missing some level of context-specific detail the reason is more than likely to protect the operational security of those involved.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government. The public clearance of this publication by the Department of Defense does not imply Department of Defense endorsement or factual accuracy of the material.

Title

Copyright © 2021 by Pete Blaber

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used

in any manner without written permission of the copyright

owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

For more information, address: [e-mail]

First Edition June 2021

Book Design by Alan Barnett

Copy Edited by Pam Susemiehl

www.peteblaber.com

ISBN: 978-0-578-87674-0

Table of Contents

Preface

Why and Where I’m Writing This Book

Introduction

What is the Common Sense Way?

Part I: Making Sense of Leadership

Chapter 1

The Journey: The Common Ground upon Which We Stand

Chapter 2

What’s Wrong with the Way?

Chapter 3

The Journey (Part II): The Biology of Sense-Making

Part II: Building on Our Foundation of Knowledge

Chapter 4

Learning Emotional Intelligence from the School of Fish

Chapter 5

Identification Friend or Foe: How to Make Sensible Choices in Complex Unfamiliar Situations

Chapter 6

Freedom of Choice to Learn: How to Go With the FLOW

Chapter 7

Climate Change: How Common Sense Leaders Create a Healthy Leadership Climate

Chapter 8

Asteroid the Way: The Way versus the Common Sense Way

Notes

Preface

Why and Where I’m writing this book

I’m writing this book from an off-the-grid cabin at 6,700 feet in the rugged alpine wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Steep, cross-compartmented ridges cloaked in a canopy of old-growth Ponderosa and Jefferson pines surround the cabin. The terrain, altitude, and lack of road accessibility combine to provide for and protect a wildlife ecosystem that has remained mostly unmolested by man and machines in modern times. Trail cameras offer my only visual evidence of its stealthy inhabitants: large, lumbering black bears, muscle-bound mountain lions, schizophrenic pigs, and condors to name just a few.

Not a day has gone by over the past six years while working on this book that I didn’t pause to appreciate the wildlife, the wilderness, the land we call America, and the principle of freedom upon which they all stand.

1300 Cabin Pic BW

Off-Grid Cabin in Sierra Nevada Mountains

Staring out the front window as the sun’s first photons touch the tops of the tree-lined peaks, it is with the same frame of reference that I reflect on my own life and leadership journey as I write the final chapters of this book.

I am the fortunate benefactor of what I have come to believe is one of life’s most esteemed privileges: that of leading fellow humans across continents, cultures and contexts.

Leadership, like life, is a privilege. Not for those we lead, rather for those of us who are fortunate enough to experience and learn from it. I’ve had the privilege of leading inter-agency and international teams while serving in the military; and leading Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, and Research & Development teams while in Business. With privilege comes the responsibility to pay something back. If reciprocity is the currency of human interaction then knowledge is the gold standard that determines its worth. The value of what we give or what we get from any human interaction depends on the knowledge our brains learn from it.

The stories and lessons shared in this book were learned, implemented, and vetted by the living laboratory of real world leadership: from combat operations on five continents, to the boardrooms and back offices of cutting-edge Global corporations, and through the collective wisdom and knowledge of some the greatest leaders in human history. Everything I know about leadership is the byproduct of all of the brains I have had the privilege of interacting with and learning from throughout my life and leadership journey. I point this out up front to ensure I give credit where credit is due and to ensure I tell each and every one of them, Thank you.

Although the culture of my former military Unit is one of quiet professionalism that values humility over self-aggrandizement, that same culture also instills an innate sense of responsibility to contribute to the Greater Good of our country and species. I believe that the best way to balance this tension is by sharing my experiences and the corresponding lessons on leading, learning, and living life to the fullest via this book. Accurately understanding and sharing lessons from the past is an essential step for gaining insight into and preparing for the future.

The stories that follow are mine; the lessons belong to us all.

Introduction

What is the Common Sense Way?

King Leonidas: Then what must a citizen do to save his world when the very laws he has sworn to protect force him to do nothing?

Queen Gorgo: It is not a question of what a Spartan citizen should do, nor a husband, nor a king. Instead, ask yourself my dearest love, what should a free man do?¹

May 2003, 0330, desert hide-site just outside Tikrit, Iraq. On guard shift monitoring capture operations while standing inside the sunroof/gun turret of a specially modified SUV. Continuously fidgeting to find comfort and fend off the freeze. One of six all-terrain and undercover vehicles positioned as part of a patchwork security perimeter based on the cover and concealment potential of the surrounding sea of small and medium-sized sand moguls. Pitch black but for the crisp blinking brilliance of the stars overhead.

Desert_HideSite_Night_Pixel_edited

Desert Hide-Site

Movement. Human figure walking in the desert about a hundred meters straight ahead. He’s heading this way. Iraqi soldier? Bedouin? Ambien zombie? Armed? Trigger aware. Thumb on safety. Thermal site centered. What the? In pitch darkness we all lose face. His silhouette, speed, and gait inform his fate.

Hold your fire, he’s friendly, I updated the others over the radio.

Stump, I whisper-yelled, what in the flying foxtrot are you doing walking around outside the perimeter without telling anybody? Sorry about that, Panther, he responded unapologetically, a call came in for you on the Iridium Sat-Phone but the signal was too weak so I had to find some high ground…I wasn’t worried because I figured you’d recognize my finely sculpted statuesque physique. Stump’s 5'6" 180-pound frame explained his name. Who is it? I asked. "The caller ID says ‘Office of the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon’…maybe the Secretary of Defense was watching the Predator² video during last night’s capture mission and now he wants to know more?" In this case I knew better.

Hello, this is Pete.

Pete? Can you hear me, this is Tom? Tom worked for Paul Wolfowitz who was the Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2000 to 2005. The Deputy Secretary of Defense (colloquially referred to as the Dep Sec-Def) is the second highest-ranking civilian leader in the Pentagon, essentially the chief operating officer for all four branches of the U.S. Military.

I can hear you loud and clear. Go ahead, Tom, I whispered. Pete, I had no idea you were on a mission, he whisper-responded. In combat zones whispering is common sense, like yawning it’s also contagious.

No worries, Tom, all is quiet right now, I can talk. Okay great, I actually have two things, the first is operational, I want to know if you have any feedback you can share with me on how the Iraqi-American cultural advisors are working out for you and your teams…we’re getting serious push-back from the Joint Staff³ here at the Pentagon on the costs and the lack of usage, he added.

I have plenty of feedback, Tom, and it’s all good, I began, but before I share it with you I need to thank you and your boss for everything you guys did to find, in-process, and then fly the Iraqi-Americans over here in time for us to take them with us before we crossed the border. Someday you’ll have to tell me all about it over a beer but right now I just want to tell you how grateful me and my guys are for everything you did. Happy to help, Pete. Do you have any examples you can share?

Of course, I replied, and then explained that it started with all the little things they did that made them so indispensable, whether it was reading roadway signs to help us find our way, or reading the expressions on civilians faces to help us find the enemy. Having someone with us who understands the people, the places, the history, and who can also translate that knowledge through a common cultural lens is a huge competitive advantage.

Our experiences in Afghanistan taught us to think of them as our eyes and ears as well as our voice because without our eyes, ears, and voice we couldn’t make sense of what was going on around us. When we were interacting with the Iraqi people and they were with us we felt extrasensory, when they weren’t we felt senseless.

I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing from other units? I added.

Unfortunately, Pete, your guys ended up being the only ones who took the Iraqi-Americans across the border, he replied and I went speechless. My mind immediately hyper-linked to the Jessica Lynch debacle a few weeks earlier where an entire convoy of Army Supply trucks took a series of wrong turns because they couldn’t read the highway signs and unwittingly drove directly into the enemy infested city of Nasiriya (March 23rd, 2003). Not only could they not understand the highway signs they couldn’t understand the Iraqi people, some of who were jumping up and down and screaming at them to warn them of the hornets’ nest they were obliviously driving into. By the end of the day, twenty-nine Americans were dead.

Tom, I highly recommend you do whatever it takes to get the rest of the Iraqi-Americans attached to the key ground units A-S-A-P. My suspicion is that most of the operational commanders either had no idea they were available or no idea of how much they’d actually need them once they crossed the border. I guarantee you they do now and if given the choice they’ll do everything they can to get the Iraqi-Americans attached to their units before they begin occupying the big cities.

Will do, Pete, but at this point I’m even more concerned about Ambassador Bremer and his staff at the Coalition Provisional Authority⁴ (CPA). As you’ve probably heard Mr. Bremer and the CPA are taking charge of the entire effort to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure and the Iraqi government. Tom went on to tell me that the CPA plan, did not see the need for Iraqi-American cultural advisors. According to the plan it would be too much of a logistic burden to transport, house, and feed them. Tom then asked me if we could spare one of our cultural advisors to assist Ambassador Bremer and the CPA.

Of course, I reassured him, my guys have been advocating for the use of the Iraqi-Americans as civilian liaisons in the cities since the day we began our infiltration. I would later learn that between 50 and 100 American citizens of Iraqi descent volunteered to risk their livelihoods and their lives as cultural advisors. They came from all walks of life and many of them possessed valued professional skills and experience (e.g. city managers, engineers, bankers, realtors, and retailers to name just a few). All of those we interviewed to deploy forward into Iraq possessed the ability to translate and share those skills via their impossible-to-teach knowledge of Iraqi and American culture, language, and history.

I told Tom that even though it was a huge operational loss for our team, we had no issues going down to one cultural advisor so the CPA could have someone to help them understand and communicate with the Iraqi people. I’ll head down to CPA Headquarters in Baghdad tomorrow with Saif (one of our cultural advisors) and then… Boom.

Mortar round, twelve o’clock, two thousand meters, one of our sentries⁵ whispered with urgency over the radio.

Call you back later, Tom, I explained as I disconnected the satellite phone and reoriented my weapon and my senses outward toward the horizon. To Be Continued.

Reflections/Lessons Learned

What is the Common Sense Way?

We’re all fugitives from the law of averages: tornados, tsunamis, and terror attacks; car crashes, crime, and cardiac arrest; asteroids, anarchy, and Armageddon. Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing so there’s no substitute for the prepared mind. In a survival situation only one thing is certain, whether we live or whether we die depends on the choices we make in the context of the moment we make them: to panic or pay attention, to fight or flee, to shoot first or question what we see. Choosing is how we humans adapt.

The rigid and non-adaptive leader making choices based on emotions, plans, or a disconnected chain of command is a disciple of death. Whether you’re crossing the Iraqi desert with your team, or the hall for an urgent meeting with your boss, or a busy street with your family and friends, the argument of this book is that our individual and collective freedom to make sense of what’s going on around us and sensible choices about what to do next isn’t a matter of philosophy, or politics, or religion, it’s a biologic necessity. Conscious awareness enables us to live, learn, and lead the Common Sense Way.

The Purpose of this book is to change the way we the people think and speak about leading and organizing. The Common Sense Way promotes a new way that can radically enhance the way we learn to adapt to complex problems and opportunities as well as the way we lead and organize to accomplish any purpose.

The stories and lessons that follow will challenge all leaders, young and old, new and experienced, high-level and low, by illuminating a provocative new way of evolved thinking based on the biologic and evolutionary underpinnings of Common Sense. It’s the Common Sense Way.

What follows is an overview of the Common Sense Way and some of its key concepts as a preview of what’s to come in the rest of the book:

What is the Common Sense Way? Although its framework of concepts and principles are new, the biography of this idea is as ancient as life on earth. Common Sense has been developed, honed, and validated over 3.9 billion years of intensive focus group testing also known as Evolution by Natural Selection.

How it works: Both a method and a mindset, the Common Sense Way is a pattern of human behavior naturally selected over the evolutionary eons that uses knowledge of patterns (patterns of nature, patterns of human nature, and patterns of history) to empower and enable our brains with freedom of choice to make sense of what’s going on around us and sensible choices about what to do next:

Movement. Human figure walking in the dessert about a hundred meters straight ahead.

Knowledge of patterns of nature such as light, the laws of physics, and DNA make sense of the way all life on earth survives, thrives, and evolves. What is in nature is in human nature, we are these patterns.

In pitch darkness we all lose face.

Knowledge of patterns of human nature such as how we think, how we choose, and how we behave make sense of the way our 99.5% shared DNA enabled nervous systems co-evolved with nature to survive, thrive, and evolve. And knowledge of patterns of history such as our memories, ancient recorded wisdom, and our genetic codes make sense of the way our species got to where we are today, freedom of choice and freedom of speech to make sense of the world around us and sensible choices about what to do next:

His silhouette, speed, and gait inform his fate.

The human brain operates by the same common sense principles as the universe from which it evolved. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed and no matter how hard our brains try they can’t make something out of nothing. All we got is what we got. It turns out we can learn a lot. As discussed in Chapter Three every pattern we’ve ever learned, every face, every place, every tune, every taste, every scent and every shape is physically present in our brains as our foundational knowledge of patterns:

Stump’s 5'6" 180 pound frame explained his name.

What’s the biologic benefit of learning knowledge of patterns? Learned knowledge of patterns provides our brains with options and options provide us with freedom to choose between them based on the adaptive stimulus of what’s going on around us:

Hold your fire he’s friendly.

The choices we make in the context of the moment are the catalysts for Natural Selection. In the process of Natural Selection when a particular response to environmental change leads to increased survival and reproduction these responses tend to spread throughout populations over time. Our ancestors chose the Common Sense Way or we wouldn’t be here today.

1300 theory-of-the-evolution-of-the-human-silhouette-of-darwin-vector-id1138168300 (1)

Charles Darwin taught us, it’s not the smartest, or strongest, or most intelligent that survives, rather it’s the one who adapts to changes, and one of Nature’s most successful adaptive patterns is biomimicry. We don’t have to be the first or fastest we only need to recognize a pattern as advantageous then learn to adapt by mimicking it and putting it into action fast. As the stories in this book reveal the Common Sense Way provides our brains with a competitive advantage:

It’s the way our ancient ancestors successfully spread and expanded humanity across the globe.

It’s the way explorers, inventors, and entrepreneurs changed the world with discoveries, developments, and ideas that upon reflection seem like blinding restatements of the obvious (e.g. the earth rotates around the sun, washing our hands prevents the spread of disease, computers like people are smarter when you connect them).

And it’s the way thousands of generations of common sense leaders—many of whose names we’ll never know—sacrificed their livelihoods and their lives to take care of their people and ensure they survived, thrived, and evolved. It’s the Common Sense Way.

Fifteen, fifty, and 500 years from now technology, culture, and the environment will have changed drastically, yet our 99.5% shared DNA-enabled nervous systems will take thousands of years to vary in the slightest. Which is perhaps another way of saying if the way we the people choose to lead and organize our governments, our corporations, our legal, economic, and criminal justice systems is to endure to the benefit of the human species than the way must conform to our most biologically inherent human trait: freedom of choice and freedom of speech to make sense of what’s going on around us and sensible choices about what to do next.

And here’s one of the coolest things about the Common Sense Way. We don’t need a special degree or pedigree to live and lead the Common Sense Way. We have everything we need etched inside each and every strand of DNA in each and every one of the 30+ trillion⁶ cells that make up our bodies and brains. All that’s needed to put it into practice is conscious awareness of how to access and operationalize it in the context of the moment when you need it the most.

To accomplish its purpose the book is formatted with three goals:

To share knowledge of a new way of thinking and speaking about leading and organizing.

To put the new way in context by sharing real-world stories and the common sense lessons learned from them.

To ensure the Common Sense Way makes sense.

1) The first goal of the book is to share knowledge of a new way to think and speak about leading and organizing. Once the human brain etches a neural pattern of thinking and behavior (e.g. when we wake, what we eat, how we get to work, whether and why we wash our hands, how we lead and organize, etc.) it can be tricky business trying to change it. Even when we intuitively understand a pattern doesn’t make sense (think of dates and mates, smoking and drinking, eating and exercising) it can seem like a hopelessly Herculean battle to change or break free from it⁷.

Here’s the good news. The ability to learn new patterns of thinking and behaving is biologic. Anyone can do it at any time during their lives. Human learning depends on metaphor, time and feedback. To invent an atomic clock someone had to invent a sundial first. Metaphor is how the human brain learns knowledge about one kind of thing to make sense of another. Time and feedback tell us if the knowledge we learned actually makes sense.

The biology of our brains explains how it works. When new metaphors are incorporated into our prior knowledge they physically change our brains at the neural level. Words matter. They’re the concept tags our brains use to recognize, encode, store, and make neural sense of what we experience. Words activate the way our brains frame the world so new frames require new words. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.⁸

To change the way our brains think about leading and organizing, the Common Sense Way proposes a transformational reframing of most traditional leadership metaphors (e.g. orders, plans, disconnected chains-of-command, etc.) by introducing the new metaphors and principles of the Language of Common Sense.

Intro_Table

2) The second goal of the book is to support the first by putting the Language of Common Sense into context with an eclectic series of never-before-heard real-world stories from my leadership journey across continents, cultures, and time.

People are rarely motivated to change deeply entrenched thought patterns and behaviors by reason alone. Changing is a choice. We choose to change. The most powerful way to motivate and inspire