Digital Overmatch: Senior Leaders Survival…

“These three qualities of trust decisions—rules-based; fueled by information; mathematical—allow us to embrace an understanding of trust that rejects both instincts and emotions. Instead, trust (or the absence of trust) is and always has been the resulting sum of a rules-based, information-fueled calculation.” —Achieving Digital Trust -Jeffrey Ritter

On the asymmetric battlefield unfolding before us, how will you assess your final outcomes?

The digital velocity of our day-to-day “Trust Decisions” are accelerating past our own cognition. Yet we are now beyond what the sensors are showing us. What is True?

overmatch - verb

over· match | \ ˌō-vər-ˈmach\

overmatched; overmatching; overmatches

Definition of overmatch

transitive verb

1 : to be more than a match for : defeat

2 : to match with a superior opponent

How could a “Software Development Kit” (SDK) in the hands of our contracted outsourced digital engineers, become our greatest vulnerability?

The tens of thousands of organizations utilizing software from SolarWinds now understand, that a supply chain “Back Door” exploit, motivated by pure espionage, is just the first sign of a match with a superior opponent.

How will Sunburst, Sunspot, Teardrop or even Facebook or YouTube, become your greatest adversary in the near future?

The failure of your own Third-Party suppliers “Software Quality Assurance” process, combined with your own organizations business aspirations to more quickly satisfy your Customer, Constituent or Senior Leaders emotions, will be your next “Operational Risk Management” (ORM) challenge. (Read this last sentence again, slowly.)

How might you, as a vital individual in the accelerating digital process to Understand, Decide and Act, make even higher quality “Trust Decisions”?

• Ask more informed questions with your OPS Risk Subject-Matter-Experts side-by-side.
• Realize that the speed of your decision, could jeopardize your own organizations livelihood.
• Know the rules and monitor human behaviors, that can jeopardize intended outcomes.

When software, the Internet and people are combined, your risk exposure expands significantly.

In 2021, the “Quality Assurance” steps you take along your path, will make all the difference. Is the light “On or “Off”? Is the number a “Zero” 0 or is it a “One” 1? What is True?

The outcomes of your future endeavors will continuously rely, on the complexity of the environment you are operating within and the discipline you shall require to survive there…

Predictive Intelligence: Imagine the Catalyst…

 

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

— Albert Einstein

When was the last time you found yourself preparing for something that has not happened yet?

Why were you thinking about it? Was it fear?

What did you fear? Was it the potential for a significant loss event? Loss or change of what?

How will you prepare in such a way, that it gives you some assurance that the potential loss event will not occur? Or if it does, the outcomes will not be a total catastrophe:

Definition of catastrophe

• 1 : a momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin.
• 2 : utter failure.
• 3a : a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth.
• b : a violent usually destructive natural event (such as a supernova).
• 4 : the final event of the dramatic action especially of a tragedy.

How might you prepare proactively with your Team, to alleviate fear and to provide greater confidence of action?

What particular environment are you thinking about right now?

Is it Land, Sea, Air, Space or Cyberspace? Will the Catalyst for the loss event you fear, begin in plain sight? Will you see it or hear it coming? Or could it be silent and invisible?

How will you know when it has started? What indicators or changes might you measure, to give you some early warning?

Your imagination has not been exercised hard enough or long enough. You will be vulnerable and you shall experience loss at some point.

Can you imagine working along side trusted people or colleagues together to imagine your fears? Will you Understand, Decide and Act? As a team…

How might you devote a few hours per week to the people, processes, systems and external events that you fear?

Your proactive strategy will make a difference. A purposeful journey of imagination each week will increase your “Proactive and Predictive Intelligence”.

Now imagine that a person on your particular team is your Catalyst. How will you make “Trust Decisions” to imagine what they might do or how the person will make a mistake? How could the persons actions become the genesis of a real catastrophe?

Wake up. You are vulnerable today. The proactive time and the degree of effort and resources that you devote to your own Operational Risk Management (ORM) shall make all the difference.

Between a life of trusted possibilities or one full of continuous despair…it is your choice.

Onward!

SPRINT: Confident Actions of Trust Decisions…

As our view remained certain in Arlington, Virginia in the summer 2020, the nation is now poised to embark on a new and historical SPRINT.

Senior Leaders across America, have much on their minds, before our nation embarks on its next Four-year challenge.

Now it is time to set into action, the “Operational Risk Strategies” that will now be required for these next vital phases of our change.

The question still remains on how much time will pass, in your particular organizational SPRINT. Will it be minutes, hours, days or even a month?

While there will be uncertain future events that will occur, your particular team of OPS Risk professionals shall be there, to effectively brief you on your choices ahead:

0. - Assemble and prepare your team.

Who will you determine is the person to lead the team of 8 to 12? What skills and knowledge shall they possess as Risk Management prerequisites, in order to be of value to leadership, the team and the enterprise? Why will you utilize the tools you have chosen for your mission?

I. - Map your course.

How might you explain your mission and the professionals you have selected? What questions will your expert professionals ask to achieve the desired outcomes?

II. - Sketch the problem-set and research.

Who might your team enter into dialogue with to better understand the terrain. How will they actually determine the real issue that needs to be solved? The problem. Draw, interview, write, edit, interview, write, edit, Draw. Repeat.

III. - Decide.

How might your team make the decision that lies before you? What pictures will you show your Senior Leaders so they understand? Will the Storyboard exemplify the most true version of the problem-set?

IV. - Prototype.

Who might build the answers to your quest for a solution? What tools will they utilize for the fabrication of the prototype? How will they take it on a trial run?

V. - Test.

Where might you find the right environment and people to see how our designed solution performs? 

Who will be the end-users that actually utilize your prototype in the real world? In real-time to capture the solutions brilliance and to document its errors.

Trust Decision

This design process works wonders for Senior Leadership. It informs decision-makers with the context and knowledge they require, to make a confident Trust Decision…

Reengineering: Our Next American Decade Together…

As you stand before the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. on this January 2021 evening, what are your thoughts?

When you walk down the sidewalk towards the AT&T building in downtown Nashville, what comes to your mind?

After you contemplate these two physical building locations, now think about the virtual scale of the digital SolarWinds software hack?

Our greatest adversary in a world full of Evil and continuous “Asymmetric Warfare,” is a Noun:

Definition of complacency - noun

1 : self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. When it comes to safety, complacency can be dangerous.

2 : an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction.

Operational Risk Management (ORM) has never been more vital, as our next decade opens before us in the United States.

People, Processes, Systems and External Events shall be our focus and our major problem-set in the U.S. Public and Private Sector.

Where does it begin? How will we as Americans unite to overcome complacency? When you wake up tomorrow, start with the thought of another word in the dictionary.

This time, we must counter our adversary “complacency” and be proactive to show a sign of action:

Definition of reengineer - verb

1 : to engineer again or anew : redesign

2 : to reorganize the operations of (an organization) so as to improve.

Our lost values and the speed of our digital world, has incrementally overtaken us. We must now realize, that we have a new opportunity before us.

First, we must Understand. Decide. Act. We must Reengineer. We must demonstrate Integrity.

Second, who do you know in your circle of human relationships that could use a hug or a “Thank You” today.

And how might you together, make your levels of “Trust” grow even greater?  How might you work side-by-side to eliminate any sign of complacency?  To improve the quality of _____?

You see, as Americans, we shall have continuous pride on what we have accomplished so far.

The rest of the globe is counting on our future.  Onward…

2021: Trusted Wonder & Onward...

The glory of Christmas is behind us and you have experienced its "Trusted Wonder". Yet now we are on the “Doorstep” of a New Year, like none other.

2021 is before us and we now find ourselves planning, organizing and storing away what was the year 2020.

As you reflect back on the last 365 days, what are the most joyous events or memories you shall never forget?

Hold on to these forever.

Our world is resilient and it is only your thoughts and your actions, that will continue to make such a proactive difference.

What choices will you make? Why will you choose certain actions?

You see, your Faith will continuously guide you. Who shall you follow?

Always remember, in the midst of sadness, or hardship or turmoil in your life, there are always those trusted people who will stay beside you, no matter what.

Who is on your left? Who is on your right?

"You still have a long life journey ahead of you. Your unique path will continue to have tremendous moments of joy and also times of extreme challenge."

Yet follow your heart, use your skills and God given talents, to make a continuous difference. You are on a purposeful mission…Onward!

Take the time this weekend to reflect on your reasons and your significant purpose.

Then activate your talents to navigate the obstacles and to discover the wonders of your life destiny.

Look up, 2021 is now before you…