What the NSA’s former director wants CEOs to know about navigating a dangerous world

In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady shares highlights from a conversation with Michael Rogers.

The big leadership story: Budget airline execs ask the Trump administration for help.

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Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. What does it mean to be agile during these volatile, fast-moving and often dangerous times? Fortune co-hosted a CEO dinner with BCG in Chicago on Thursday where we talked about opportunities in AI, along with the realities of driving change in a more complex threat environment. Here are some highlights from the group discussion and my on-the-record conversation with Admiral Michael Rogers, former head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, who’s now a senior advisor at Brunswick Group. As he put it: “We have to optimize ourselves to deal with a high level of uncertainty, a high level of complexity and a low tolerance for failure by the people that we work for.” Some advice: 

Understand the administration’s agenda. “I encourage everybody to read the 29-page national security strategy this administration wrote,” Rogers said. “They have laid out exactly what they’re doing, and they’ll tell you exactly why. Trump doesn’t care about previous relationships or historic norms. He will tell you, ‘What I care about is what generates value for the citizens of our nation.’ …You cannot be distracted by the rhetoric. You’ve got to focus on what he’s trying to achieve.” 

Understand how the war has changed. Brute military force was the U.S.’s strategy in the past. “Now, we have........

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