Perhaps you have a small cadre of analysts, just one or two who are falling behind, or a team of mid-level and senior analysts. In that case, analytic development, which focuses on individual skill or knowledge gaps, is more suitable for you. Our goal is to develop full-fledged, properly trained, professional political analysts. Let us draft a proposal tailored to your needs. 

Political Analysis is Science More than Art

There are few formal education programs that educate or train political analysts in the way they are needed by intelligence agencies, national security councils, foreign ministries, and corporate entities with an interest in the geopolitical sphere.  We take courses on politics, research methods, and writing at university, but we're never taught to combine them in quite the way political analysts need to. Moreover, the academic writing structure is different than intelligence writing!

​The Sage Institute is attempting to fill that gap through our training  and  analytic development support. We are particularly interested in a new cadre of political analysts learning to take their "self" out of their analysis. Analysis is more science than art. Process matters. Opinions, rhetoric, bias, assumptions, and illogic have no place in sage political analysis. We want to create an elite body of political and intelligence analysts who are professional in their work and unassailable in their expertise. If we want a better informed world, we need better trained analysts. Full stop.

Our Method

Mastery of Learning
Mastery of learning is an educational philosophy focused on mastering steps of a process or particular expertise before moving onto the next stage of learning. It is about filling in all the puzzle pieces (or at least 90% of them!) before moving onto the next puzzle. At Sage, we are process-oriented and detail-oriented. We want to find the missing puzzle pieces developed over a lifetime of learning and fill them in - whether those missing pieces are knowledge, skill sets, or confidence.

For more on Mastery of Learning, watch the 10 minute TED Talk by Sal Khan.
 Diagnosis
To begin analytic development, we start with diagnosis. ​Our diagnosis process breaks analysis down into four (or more) stages, including knowledge acquisition, assessment, analytic ability, and delivery. We build in a small deliverable for each stage, such as a short conversation, into the client's work process. This helps us determine the strengths and weaknesses of each individual at each stage. We can then figure out why those weaknesses have been difficult to master. Diagnosis is often the most difficult stage for managers who are struggling with an analyst's skills because a failure at any stage along the analytic path looks like an overall failure. Indeed, we've found that so-called "bad analysts" are usually quite good at something! 

Development
Our analytic development program is about working with individuals or small teams to build the analytic capability of each person. Once we've completed the diagnosis step, we develop processes, activities, guides, or worksheets to target those areas. We keep managers informed of our assessment of strengths and weaknesses so that they can play upon each analyst's strengths as those analysts develop their weaknesses. All analytic development work can be built into the work process of the office or can take the form of separate projects that ultimately aid the goals of the office. The goal is mastery of every stage.