The rights and duties of citizenship in the US is a neglected subject. As we’ve discussed elsewhere in this site, citizenship education is not taught very rigorously. Natural born citizens get almost nothing, and immigrants are presented with the brief list of Dos and Don’ts. Neglect of citizenship education has bad effects on a society.

So a new book, The FBI Way, by Frank Figgliuzzi, is welcome.

Figgliuzzi worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was, for many years, in charge of internal audits. He had to ensure that agents behaved the right way. It was not enough that they caught criminals. They had to do it properly — with none of the Dirty Harry tactics that are favored in cop movies.

Figgliuzzi has now shared his guiding principles in a book that condenses the FBI code of conduct down to seven principles — all beginning with “C.”

Figliuzzi has condensed the Bureau’s process of preserving and protecting its values into what he calls “The Seven C’s”. If you can adapt the concepts of Code, Conservancy, Clarity, Consequences, Compassion, Credibility, and Consistency, you can instill and preserve your values against all threats, internal and external.

The book could easily have become a whitewash job, with the FBI’s successes highlighted and its faults ignored. The FBI has had some high profile failures in recent years. But according to reviews of the book, Figgliuzzi takes an honest look at those failures and recognizes they came about through neglect of the “Seven Cs”:

Unafraid to identify FBI execs who erred, he cites them as the exceptions that prove the rule. Part pulse-pounding memoir, part practical playbook for excellence, The FBI Way shows readers how to apply the lessons he's learned to their own lives: in business, management, and personal development.

The book in brand new in January 2021. The Congenial Iconoclast will be reading it in the days to come and sharing more details.