Praescient attended the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) President’s Circle Dinner in New York City on November 14, 2016. The dinner brings together supporters from the defense, intel, and commercial sectors, and also includes an annual award ceremony. This year’s award recipient was General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) as well as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

During his remarks, Gen. McChrystal focused on the importance of teambuilding within both the military and civilian context. One of the key points he made was that leaders fail when team members don’t know the decision space allocated to them. When subordinates don’t know the boundaries of what they are allowed to and expected to accomplish, they tend to do the least amount of work. If, on the other hand, subordinates know which decisions are entrusted to them and the end result they are expected to achieve, they feel empowered and challenged. They stop focusing on rules and boundaries and start focusing on meeting the mission.

Praescient embodies the spirit of military empowerment in this respect – trusting our employees to do right by our clients, partners, and company in representing the values and abilities that the community has come to expect of Praescient Analytics. Our technologists are guided by a simple principle: providing the best support possible means you intimately understand your client. You know their fears, their ticks, their desires, and furthermore you know what they actually need versus what they assume they need. Praescient empowers and expects our technologists to assist our clients in helping them define, structure and resolve their challenges. This is why recruitment is so essential: our employees must be able to operate independently, obtain a high moral fabric, and harness an astute professionalism to know how to navigate our client through the confusing, overwhelming big data industry atmosphere. Fortunately, we’re proud of our ability to recruit and retain this exact talent.