Destination Unknown: Explore, Adapt & Learn...

What is your new destination? How will you get there?

The business climate in your particular industry is adapting to the latest global change upon us in 2025. What are you implementing now, that will change the processes, business rules and positive outcomes for you in the foreseeable future?

Creative activities to adapt to your particular new approach to customers, clients and followers requires new thinking. It may achieve your primary destination, yet how long will it take to arrive?

As you “Go-to-Market” in your particular industry sector in 2025, what new innovations and strategies will be in place? Have you thoroughly prototyped your solutions and discovered their results? What have you learned?

Was your industry launched in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, NC or Dearborn, MI? Your business is going to require more than one “Maverick” to achieve your future destination on a timely basis.

You will require exponential unconventional thinking. People who are “Nonconformist”, “Dissenting” and “Iconoclastic”.

Why?

How many years have you been running your business this way? In the same cities, with the same labor pools, absent of any new thoughts of creativity.

When was the last time you financed a new product launch with a brand new sales force?

Perhaps you have a tradition of doing business with the same old Legal Counsel, Accounting firm, or hosting systems of Information Technology services. Are you using the same suppliers for talent acquisition? Look where you are today.

"Are you capable of creating a new “Business Unit,” that will shed the past and test the future of your organization and your industry? Then do it."

The future of your business and our country requires it. Your particular contributions to our economic livelihood, persistence and longevity, needs your new ingenuity and continuous resilience.

Head out there.

Explore. Adapt. Learn.

Onward!

Infinistructure: Who Knew What When...

Who knew what when? This is the question of the last few months as we now embark on the path towards recovery.

The Operational Risks that have plagued our aging county, state and federal institutions are growing and the convergence factor has brought us even bigger systemic organizations "Too Big To Fail."

While many will be side tracked by the need to deal with the toxic assets still on the books or in sinking agencies the "Zero's and One's" don't lie.

The information, digital evidence and just pure data audit trails will remain for many to be caught, charged, indicted and then sent before a jury to decide their fate.

Managing risks in the enterprise today takes on many flavors and within several departmental or enterprise domains of expertise.

Whether it be the C-Suite, legal department, the IT department, Internal Audit, Security department or even the Operational Risk Management Committee the "Zero's and One's" don't lie.

Think about how much time the people behind organizational malfeasance spend on trying to cover their tracks, clean up the digital "Blood Trail" of their crimes and wrong doing all the while knowing that someday, a smart investigator or forensic examiner will connect the dots. Game over.

Regardless if you are two paid-off programmers who have been enforcing the "Business Rules" in their software by the boss or an internal threat actor does not matter.

Whether they are copying, stealing, altering or damaging the digital information within the organization does not matter; these Operational Risks still remain constant.

The resources and the money devoted to continuous due diligence, monitoring and preemptive strategy to Deter, Detect and Defend the digital assets of the enterprise need to grow dramatically to stay ahead of the curve.

The best way to figure out “What to do” and “How to do it” will require outside assistance. Moving your digital assets to be professionally managed makes sense for economic and other financially prudent reasons.

Yet this migration away from large numbers of people managing and maintaining your information technology infrastructure internally and on your payroll is just the standard "outsourcing" strategy right?

It has it's own set of 3rd party supply chain set of risks. After your next incident who will be asking: Who knew what when?

Many private sector and government enterprises who are augmenting their COOP and the economic strategy of "Cloud Computing" have realized the smart course of implementing and migrating to managed services and infrastructure suppliers.

"How can the utilization of an "Infinistructure" with the knowledge and application of a legal compliance ecosystem in your enterprise mitigate the risks associated with bad actors, unprepared personnel and the digital loss of key evidence?"

Stay tuned for more on this later. In the mean time remember this.

All of the newest technology, fastest AI computers and neural networks enabled with encryption and secured physical locations will not be enough to save your institution from Operational Risks.

It is just one more piece of the total risk management mosaic, that will still require the smartest people and the most robust policy and processes imaginable.

Who knew what when? This will continue to be the biggest question of the next decade.

operational risk

Private Sector: Proactive Continuity & Protection of Critical Infrastructure…

Before 9/11 who at your organization was responsible for the continuous “Continuity of Operations“ for the business?

Last time your Board of Directors had their quarterly or annual meeting, was your compliance with the U.S. CII Act of 2002 on the agenda?

You know, the Critical Infrastructure Act of 2002 (CII Act):

“Under provisions of the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 (CII Act), information that is voluntarily submitted per those provisions will be protected from public disclosure until and unless a determination is made by the PCII Program Office that the information does not meet the requirements for PCII. If validated as PCII, the information will remain exempt from public disclosure.”

Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) is information not in the public domain and related to the security of CI or protected systems by either physical or computer based attack that harms commerce in the United States or threatens public health or safety.

Today, who in your particular organization is responsible for the PCII Program and are the entities that submit information:

• Private Sector companies
• State, local, and territorial government entities
• Working groups comprised of government and private sector representatives

"It is well known that over 85% of Critical Infrastructure is owned and operated by these organizations in the United States."

Consider this thought.

AI is increasingly being powered now by the Private Sector. Crypto mining is powered by the Private Sector. There are 16 more key CI Sectors.

The companies that are in your city, county or state that are directly tied to your Critical Infrastructure to provide Water, Electricity and Natural Gas, Emergency Services, Healthcare, Information Technology and Transportation are all components of the on-going safety and security of your community.

Who in your organization is responsible for the key relationships of all of the CI entities that you rely on to operate and serve your community each day?

Is it your CISO? Is it your CSO? Is it your CFO? Is it your CIO? Is it your COO?

If you don’t know that answer in your Board of Directors Meeting then add this to your To-Do list with your CEO.

Here are four key areas of focused leadership in your role to build resilience of Critical Infrastructure Protection in your organization:

> R_ecruiting

> E_ducation

> N_etworking

> S_haring Information

After you and your RENS team have prioritized "Critical Infrastructure Protection" and the safety of the American people at your organization, how will your own leadership be visible and proactive?

Never forget!

Team Learning: Innovation Navigators...

The discipline of “Team Learning” has been present with sports and education, corporations and small businesses since the collaboration of people who have engaged in mutual dialogue.

“In a remarkable book, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, author Werner Heisenberg argues that “Science is rooted in conversations. The cooperation of different people may culminate in scientific results of the utmost importance.” By Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization page 238

How will you excel into the future and continue to learn within the ranks of your particular organization?

• By sitting in a classroom?
• By watching a lecture?
• By working alone on a project?
• By creating outcomes without any potential beneficiaries feedback?

Before the “Learning Organization” was born, these kinds of activities and behaviors were the key ways people were educated and taught new skills.

As time passed and the benefits of “Team Learning” began to evolve, each participant was proactive in several key behaviors and activities.

After discovering the benefits of mutual dialogue and discussion with small groups of people who could actively participate together, the “Learning Organization” was launched.

How might you and your team of fellow leaders work together to learn from each other?

You see, if you are engaging in a true dialogue with trusted colleagues in a small group there are tremendous advantages in creating collaborative hypotheses.

The hypothesis building together creates the pathways and navigation for innovation.

“Innovation Navigators” working side-by-side on the testing of a mutual question gives each other the opportunity to learn from the relevant expertise of each other. The IQ of the team is now greater than just the individual."

What journey will you now embark on with your “Learning Team?

A new solution. A new product. A new method. To solve what?

That is not up to you to start the process.

It shall rely upon the answers from potential beneficiaries and how effective you are in asking questions with others on your team.

What is the problem to be satisfied? What is the problem to be solved?

Once your team truly knows the problem-set, the “Team Learning” shall begin…