Book of the Month: Primal Intelligence by Angus Fletcher

What do Special Operatives and William Shakespeare have in common?

Much more than you’d imagine.

Angus Fletcher’s Primal Intelligence explores the power of narrative by breaking down the skills used by our country’s best-trained dynamic problem-solvers who write and re-write their stories to achieve desired objectives while operating in intense, dangerous situations where sometimes lives are at stake.

Fletcher, a Professor of Story Science at Ohio State University’s Project Narrative with Philadelphia roots, first appeared on my radar after I listened to his episode on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton. An academic with a background studying stories and neurons, Fletcher’s theories question some of the developmental trends taking over our educational system, like how we train individuals to think like computers rather than think like our natural selves. As our world continues to push toward logical intelligence through technological advancements and a dependence on AI (a logical system he states will never replace human capabilities), Fletcher and his colleagues at the U.S. Army’s Special Forces believe the key lies in the evolutionary skills humans developed that have been taught out of formal educational settings.

Here Fletcher describes how we use the four primal skills to tell our stories:

INTUITION initiates your story by revealing what’s exceptional about you and your world.

IMAGINATION grows your story by developing exceptionalism into an integrated past and by developing the world’s exceptions into a branching future.

EMOTION maintains your story by revealing when your past is fragmenting or your future is narrowing.

COMMONSENSE directs your story by revealing when you need to change course—and by helping you choose which future branch is best for your current situation.

The lack of development of these primal skills, as observed by Fletcher and his associates, has led to a decline in street smarts among potential military recruits, emerging professionals, and college students which they claim goes back to elementary school (3rd grade to be exact) where creativity is replaced by the urge to master large quantities of information and patterns. In sports, it would be like studying the chalk board or practicing a step-over around a cone without ever facing a defender in a game situation.

Fletcher’s book details his existing research in studying narrative and his collaboration with the U.S. military for improving the training of primal intelligences, which he also successfully implemented with common citizens after his time with the military.

Here, Fletcher writes about how Special Forces develop imagination by recognizing a specific goal then plotting for multiple ways to achieve it, which he compares to climbing a mountain or writing a story.

First, most people don’t have a single long-term goal. The typical order issued by an untrained commander is some version of Capture the hill and don’t get anybody killed. This order contains two objectives—which are in tension. It invites confusion, friction, and fiasco. Yet it’s the way that most leaders think, whether in business, health care, education, or anything else. If you ask for their plans, they will give you a list. One Fortune 500 CEO informs me that he has no fewer than fifteen primary objectives, all essential to success.

Second, most people don’t develop many possible paths. They go all in on Plan A. Even leaders claim to have a Plan B, it’s usually vague—or Plan A, lightly tweaked. When Plan A breaks—and Plan A will break—the only hope becomes half-Plan B or Plain A with fresh paint.

So it is that most of us waste our lives aspiring to ascend many heights with one climbing technique, falling prey to what Operators call undefined strategy, limited tactics. Strategy is your long-term narrative. Tactics are the short-term plots you hatch along the way. To consistently reach your goals, strategy must be precise and your tactics flexible. Which is why Special Operators strive for defined strategy, unlimited tactics.

So what’s the connection to Shakespeare?

Special Operatives are trained to use primal intelligence to break existing rules and patterns because most combat experience has unknown unknowns, requiring Operatives to be flexible and create new ways to solve ever-evolving problems.

Many of our history’s greatest creators—Washington, Franklin, Van Gogh, Emerson, Tesla, Curie, Einstein, Armstrong, Angelou, Jobs—in to addition Special Ops, have referenced Shakespeare’s work in helping them unlock their own imagination. Because in his later career, Shakespeare began to write characters who explored intuition, imagination, emotion, and commonsense, allowing story to be a transmitter for exceptional information. Fletcher relays his research on the psychology and science of literature, including a path through Shakespeare, in his previous books Storythinking (2023) and Wonderworks (2021). His work is what garnered the attention from the U.S. military, something he first admitted as peculiar, until he learned the similarities in what he was studying and what Special Operatives have tried to teach recruits for decades.

Primal Intelligence contains insight into some of the activities Fletcher uses to help individuals and teams across all professions and walks of life, among them, salespeople, coaches, and school-aged children. The strategies are explained in a simple way so that the every day person can regain the mindset of a Special Operative eliminating an over-reliance on technology and structure, returning to a time when our skills more closely connected to our natural environment.