Trusting Women: The Future of Irregular Warfare...

The economic engine of successful countries and the single family household, is typically the result of a dedicated and conscientious woman.  If your organization is planning to be more resilient and capable of continued growth, then make sure you have women in the most strategic Operational Risk Management (ORM) roles possible.

You may already understand why and there is continuing evidence that men, are just not the ideal person to be in certain positions of decision-making and other skilled business professions of the future.  The stories and the examples flow from the most clandestine and remote regions of Africa, to the valley associated with Silicon.

Women are now breaking through new barriers in all types of roles and in places that traditionally they have been forbidden.  Here is just one example of a trend to grow rapidly from Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post:

Only the swamps of Florida stand between two female soldiers becoming the first women to ever graduate from the Army’s famously difficult Ranger School.  The women have completed the school’s Mountain Phase, and will move on to the third and final phase of training, Army officials said Friday.

The women are attending for the first time as part of an ongoing assessment by the military about how it should better integrate women into combat roles in the military. It follows a 2013 decision by Pentagon leaders to open all jobs in the military to women by 2016.

When you really think about what the future roles of the new 21st Century Army and the trends of our asymmetric threats, are not women our best strategic weapon?  Irregular warfare will be dominating most days of our human conflicts into the future and women are well equipped to be the leaders of this trend.

Yes, there is evidence that earning the "Ranger Tab" requires physical stamina.  Simultaneously, the elite Army course requires superior problem-solving skills and adaptive intuition involving teamwork, where women excel.  Now you are starting to see why, it is vital to have women on any high-performance team, whether in the Hindu Kush or on the Internet front lines of "Achieving Digital Trust" with the next generation of our youngest knowledge workers.

Irregular warfare is warfare in which one or more combatants are irregular military rather than regular forces. Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare, and so is asymmetric warfare.  Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric warfare approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities, in order to erode the adversary’s power, influence, and will. It is inherently a protracted struggle that will test the resolve of a state and its strategic partners.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the term itself.^[6][7]

As the future conflicts evolve into our pervasive digital domains and require the collection and analysis of relevant information on the front lines, women are the strategic choice.  History tells us clearly, that this is the case.  It is this kind of intellect and patience for building and sustaining relationships, that so many policy makers have recognized, across both public and private sector operations.

So who is just one good example?  Our future strategy must include the development of armies of women with the skills and talents of leaders like Sheryl Sandberg:

Sheryl Kara Sandberg (/ˈsændbərɡ/; born August 28, 1969)^[3] is an American technology executive, activist, and author. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. In June 2012, she was elected to the board of directors by the existing board members,^[4] becoming the first woman to serve on Facebook's board. Before she joined Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google and was involved in launching Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Before Google, Sandberg served as chief of staff for the United States Secretary of the Treasury.

You see, the Fortune 500 is now starting to wake up, to the reality of the current state of corporate "Irregular Warfare".  The ability to erode the competitions power, influence and will, is just the beginning of the conversation in creating reliable and growing shareholder value.  When you really start to evaluate the entire success of the Silicon Valley ecosystem or even the future economic engines of unknown villages across our globe, you begin to realize how it is driven and continuously being improved, by the skills and superiority of women.

So what is just one good example?  Our future strategy must include the development of armies of women with the strategic foresight of Opportunity International:

Opportunity International Trust Groups help entrepreneurs break free from the limitations of poverty by promoting solidarity and maintaining accountability.  Trust Groups consist of 10-30 entrepreneurs, mostly women, who meet once a week to share personal and business advice, receive financial training, and vote on loan-related topics.  Trust Groups build a safety net by guaranteeing each other’s loans -- if one member defaults on a weekly payment, everyone else must cover the costs.  This method has led to a loan repayment rate of 98%.

Vicki Escarra joined Opportunity International in 2012 as US CEO. Previously she has led several major initiatives to create a long-term strategic plan, rebrand the organization, streamline operations and increase global fundraising by 30 percent in 2013 to expand the organization’s work around the world. Before joining Opportunity International, Escarra spent six years as president and chief executive officer of Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization. Prior to Feeding America, Escarra spent nearly 30 years at Delta Air Lines Inc., where she rose to chief marketing officer. As one of the highest-ranking women in the aviation industry at the time, she oversaw $15 billion in revenue and led a workforce of 52,000.

When you hear a woman like Vicki, Sheryl (or Cheryl) talk about providing our organizations large and small with the training, education and the "Trust Decisions" to create and sustain growth, you can only imagine what is really possible.  If you have ever had the lucky chance to work with a woman like these three for months or decades, you understand the multitude of advantages.  You understand the reasons, why having women on every high performance team is imperative.  You can see their outstanding results.