Cognitive Diversity: Humility in Decision Advantage...

 “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” George S. Patton

Creativity in our fast paced world is even more of an essential element, as we move to working in geographically dispersed locations across the globe.

No longer will you have your leader stopping by your office each day, or leaning over your work station, or across the table at “Peet’s Coffee” to show you how it’s done.

As a leader, you shall encourage the utilization of an individuals own way of solving the problem-set assigned or the persons own process they employ, to reach the expected outcomes.

How else will you discover their new found creative ways and the exploration of innovative and extraordinary solutions?

What if you are an individual working alone in the realm of collecting new found information, that will be applied in the future to prospective targets?

The research skills and knowledge you have learned, is not implemented like a specific manufacturing assembly line.

When you are assigned the role of applying your own cognitive functions in a landscape of continuous change, to arrive at a desired outcome, this requires “Instinct”.

A natural or inherent aptitude, impulse, or capacity to use your own creativity, skills and knowledge, to achieve your assigned outcomes.

As a leader, you shall excel in painting visual pictures, describing what results looks like, sounds like and what indicators will provide you the assurance, you have arrived at the desired outcomes.

How else will your students, your employees, your constituents, your customers know that victory is present?  That you have arrived at your intended destination.  Received the required compensation for your required deliverable.

How much “Cognitive Diversity” do you find in your team?

As a leader, you shall leverage all resources to combine skill sets and mind sets, to gain a “Decision Advantage”.

Think about your “Humility” as a leader.  How will your team describe you, when you are gone…

Team 34-32: Amalfi Coast Imagined...

 UAL 550 departed LAX at 9:30AM.  As the B738 climbed to 9500 feet and made the turn East over the blue Pacific ocean, the eyes were moist.  What an extraordinary week.

How might we enjoy another week together like this one?  Full of dialogue, exploring and so curious, about the future.

How might we replicate the experience sharing information and our true heart felt emotions?

Our pledge shall be to replicate this more often now.  We have the resilience required to achieve greatness, positive outcomes and proof that we will “Go Far” together on this journey.

What have we learned?

The power of Trust shall not be under estimated.  When you realize that our decisions and questions are not being second guessed, you are well on your way.  That person next to you, or behind you, is looking to your leadership.

Once you realize that as a fellow Leader,  that your Trust Decisions are for the benefit of the team and not only yourself, you are well on your way.

How might you as a leader, assist or encourage a fellow team member on their current mission?

How might you as a team leader actively listen and ask relevant questions to better “Understand”, before you “Decide” and then “Act” with confidence?

Why have you gained Trust in your fellow members of our tribe?

“In calculating trust, each of us also makes mistakes. Sometimes you will fire your engines and make decisions without enough information, or with information that later proves itself to be untrustworthy. You may rely on someone to help you make your decisions or rely on their opinion, only to discover that person was not a good choice.

Through our mistakes, we refine how we calculate trust and update and revise our trust decision process, make new rules, and change what elements to take into account and how to measure them.” - - Jeffrey Ritter - Achieving Digital Trust

This was a valuable week of learning.  Use what we have learned, to be even more Resilient.  

The challenges ahead will not evaporate.  The behaviors will not always meet our predictions.  

Yet one item remains certain.

Our Team Trust is one…

Perseverance: Achieving Your Destination...

Walking down this path for the first time, it was unfamiliar.  There was no way to know what obstacles and challenges were ahead.

Yet, in your head, the education, learning and training was coming quickly into your conscience endeavor, to achieve your destination.

Looking up, there were all the signs that the direction was correct.  All the indicators and intuition said the journey would just take longer than expected.

perseverance
per· se· ver· ance | \ ˌpər-sə-ˈvir-ən(t)s
\
Definition of perseverance
: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness

It was uncertain how or when the intended destination would be in the horizon, yet there was complete faith that whenever that arrival did occur, open arms would be witnessed.

Your future is bright.  You have so much to look forward to.  You must keep persevering.

One item is probably certain.  You will not ever forget your Instructor.  Your Teacher.  Your Wing man.  Your Buddy.  Your Brother or Sister.  Together you learned what your strengths are and how to survive until the next test of life.

So what is over that next hill?  Across the chasm after that?

There is only your Future.  Your Journey.  Thank you for allowing the time to listen.  To learn.  To really know you.

Onward!

Human Factors: Minds Eye of Risk...

Flashback to 2007.  There seems to be some continuing debate out there about the concept of adopting a strategy of "Protection" vs. "Resilience".

The question is whether to focus your resources and assets on preemptive or adaptive missions.

Whenever organizations adopt the guards gates and guns mentality as a high ratio of deployed assets and presence, it does have a deterrence effect.

Having a high profile, showing your hand and creating a visible barrier to obtaining the desired target(s) can have a positive outcome.  However, it must be in greater balance with the ability to be agile and to adapt to human factors.

Resilience represents a layered approach with multiple contingencies and the mindset that even the highest walls, stealth technology or deepest oceans will not prevent catastrophic failure from a future occurrence.

The topic along with the Critical Infrastructure nexus has been discussed in depth for almost the past decade. Grants, studies and academia have found this "Protection" vs. "Resiliency" debate worth writing about:

"The goal of this working paper series is to point out trajectories of the concept of critical infrastructure resilience in theory, policy, and implementation. On the one hand, “resilience” may just be another policy buzzword; but on the other hand, it might indicate a shift in perception and priority of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences. Indeed, the Critical Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) has recently recommended to the Homeland Security Advisory Committee (HSAC) to “Promulgate Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) as the top-level strategic objective - the desired outcome - to drive national policy and planning.”

Defined broadly as the ability of a system to withstand to and recover from adversity, resilience is increasingly applied to larger social and technical systems. Stress and adversity are experienced not only by individuals and groups, but also by organizations and institutions. In the context of increasing natural and man-made threats and vulnerabilities of modern societies, the concept seems particularly useful to inform policies that mitigate the consequences of such adverse and potentially catastrophic events."

While each of the authors in the white paper cited above from George Mason University in 2007 have their unique perspectives on the topic being discussed, yet Lewis J. Perelman, Senior Fellow
Homeland Security Policy Institute, in Washington, DC gets the prize:

"The allure of resilience is stoked by the contradictions and thorny tradeoffs inherent in traditional concepts of ‘national security’ in an age of increasing social-technical complexity, transnational ‘globalization,’ and ‘asymmetric’ conflict. Certainly, ‘homeland security’ has realized, since 2001, both political impetus and bureaucratic mass. Nevertheless it has been fraught by a tumultuous and yet unresolved quest to reconcile legitimate but competing social objectives:

• Security against attacks vs. security against natural disasters, disease, accidents, etc.;
• Intelligence operations vs. privacy;
• War-fighting vs. human rights, civil liberties, the rule of law, etc.;
• Needs for secrecy vs. needs for information sharing;
• Federal responsibility vs. state/local/private authority;
• Centralized command and control vs. communal collaboration.

As the debate continues on a hard vs. soft policy perspective Perelman identifies one of the key components of Operational Risk Management. Human Factors.  His suggestion of adding human factors to the equation for risk is critical to the issue:

Risk = HF(Threat x Vulnerability x Consequences)

where HF is a function of the “soft” human factors that translate the “hard,” physical parameters of engineering failure into human perceptions, emotions, and behavior.

Human behavior and the perception of risk continues to be at the center of the overall discussion. Socially, what is more of a threat?

Loss of the use of a half dozen buildings, an entire city or the Internet itself. Is the threat a hurricane, a radiological device or the most deviant virus known to date?

The perception of "Risk" as being in the eye of the beholder is not new here. The policy being shaped across the globe however, is moving rapidly towards a mindset of agility, adaptiveness and endurance.

That alone, should be the clue that "Resilience" will remain a major facet of the risk strategy paradigm of choice again in the next decade...

Our Future Together: Trusted Life Journey...

What does our future hold for us? It will be an outlook that we decide. Every minute, of every day you see and learn more about your particular outcomes, your ability to understand.

Yet it will be your decision to act, at the right moments in your journey, that will make all of the difference.

Success and a joyful life is a mosaic of dedication, purposeful work and tremendous faith.

We have achieved a combination of all of these and we are only about three quarters of the way there, to our final destination.

At the foundation and throughout your memories of the hours, days and years of the past, what do you remember? As the most challenging and as the most rewarding times?

Sitting there in the bright sunshine overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with a slightly cool breeze, thoughts of our journey together so far, were consciously present.

In the reflection of all of those countless thoughts, only one person stood out. You see, your faith in that one person, will make all of the difference in your life.

Who will you Trust as you descend into the depths of the Ocean together?

Who will you Trust as you ascend to the top of the Mountain together?

Once you have found this Trusted companion in your life journey, look up…and never let go!

Intelligence-led Investigations: DecisionAdvantage...

"Whoever wishs to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results." --Machiavelli

Operational Risk incidents are surrounding us on a global basis. The continuity of operations in the rescue and relief efforts in Beirut. The security of privacy information and Internet politics with Google and 3+ other global companies. A growing threat while Islam converts continuously flock from across the globe, to conflict zones. The economic integrity of global banking with new rule-sets and continuous funds transfer oversight.

All of these Operational Risk Management (ORM) challenges, require the same intelligence-led investigations, to establish the ground truth and then to enable an effective "DecisionAdvantage."

When does information that is collected, become a violation of a persons privacy or legal rights? At the point it is collected from a source or at the point in time when it is analyzed by a human?

Intelligence-led investigations today include the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) automated Internet Bots, to troll the Internet and Open Source content (OSINT) for the collectors to find what they are looking for. This begins with a hypothesis and then the development of an algorithm, to carry out the automated mechanism for collection.

These Intelligence-led investigations also include the use of new forensically sound methods and proven procedures for collection of digital data, from a myriad of technology platforms including laptops, IoT's and cell phones.

These methods have been proven and certified in the forensic sciences for decades and follow many of the legally bound and court tested rules associated with evidence collection, preservation and presentation.

Digital Forensic tools and 21st century capabilities enable global enterprises, law enforcement and governments to not only discover what they are looking for, but to use this in a court of law to verify the truth.

The monitoring and collection of information associated with people begins various intersections with the context, relevance and legality of storing it, analyzing it and when to destroy it. What is at stake?  The ability to do this effectively inside the walls of the global enterprise corporate headquarters, the Regional Fusion Center or buildings off Rt. 123.

"DecisionAdvantage" is a term that promotes the connotation of competition, safety or defeating an adversary, yet only one will apply as you begin to understand the environment and the circumstances under which information is being utilized for one or the other.

If you are making decisions on the most safe and ideal drop points for water, food and medical triage supplies in a Middle East or an African nation, decisions are being made with information collected from satellites, humans, and perhaps the national geological scientists at CalTech.

It isn't until you take all of these elements into context and establish relevancy with human brainpower, that you will make an informed decision to give you an advantage of improved safety and security to achieve your objectives.

Investigators or Analysts are leveraging the use of 21st century software, hardware and telecommunications cloud infrastructure to more efficiently arrive at the answers,.  They utilize the hard hypothesis or questions being asked, and must improve their training, education and awareness to the associated human factors.

Predicting human behavior is difficult if not impossible.

What is more realistic is the utilization of AI systems to assist the human in trying to achieve "DecisionAdvantage".

"History, by appraising...[the students] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future." --Thomas Jefferson

Cultural Cognition: The Velocity of our Future...

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination” - Albert Einstein

In the culture that you are part of, there are Trust Decisions being made in seconds based upon rules.  Yet your particular culture has evolved over time, also because of the affinity that your culture attracts other people, just like you.

The question is, who do you really aspire to be?

“How do you make trust decisions about people, associations, tools, or their value when the information upon which you will rely is increasingly digital and intangible?

In a global culture in which digital trust is under attack and degrading, how can you build and engender old-fashioned human trust with your customers, business partners, associates, and employees?” -Jeffrey Ritter - Achieving Digital Trust - P. 21

When you enter the realm of a culture that is constantly being recorded, digitized, captured, communicated and transferred, the behaviors and thoughts of people will be studied.  They will be analyzed and they will be judged.

What are you doing today to learn and improve how you operate in a digital world?  How are you making decisions between trust, and pure risk?

Our cultures are rapidly evolving towards “Artificial Intelligence” and tool sets to assist humans in making more informed decisions, faster.  Why?

Quality and Velocity.

What made you decide to learn Mathematics?  How did you decide to become a Software Engineer?

What made you decide to learn the Law?  How did you decide to become a Lawyer?

You like rules don’t you.  You have a hard time living in a world, where the rules are being ignored or broken.

How fast will you be able to adapt to the change in the “Digital Ecosystems” that mankind has created on our Earth?

The truth is, you and your organizational culture is already in the midst of an “S” curve and you must now “Grow or Die”.

To improve and adapt in a world, that is accelerating and whose velocity is reaching light speed requires new tools and mechanisms to assist us in our “Trust Decisions”.

For those cultures and situations where trust is at stake, the utilization of technological inventions will evolve and grow as the standards for evaluating the truth.

We as humans are already at a point where we are trusting digital devices and machines, more than we trust ourselves.

The Safety, Security and Velocity of the evolution of our Digital Future is at stake.

Now is the time for our cultures to recognize, question, learn and improve how we engage with our machines, our software, our Mathematics and our Law.

It is now all about our TrustDecisions…

Outsourcing: New Consideration for Protecting Trade Secrets...

In a dialogue at an industry conference, the topic focused one afternoon on "outsourcing information-based services". The executives were comprised of some of America's largest companies and most valuable brands including Nike, Starbucks, Wells Fargo, Microsoft and Visa.

As the discussion turned to the information security and intellectual property concerns, the mood began to change. Should we be engaging in offshore and outsource contracts with companies who are not based in the United States? What about the rule of law in those countries? And that is when his hand went up. It was more of a comment and less of a question:

"Any US company considering an outsourcing relationship with a foreign counterpart or business entity needs to revisit The Economic Espionage Act of 1996. The theft of trade secrets and corporate espionage is the number two issue at the FBI and for good reason.

Unknown to many; our trade secrets, brands, ideas, formulas, algorithms and software code are being stolen by criminals all over the globe and right under our noses."

The problem begins with a naivety or ignorance of the current definition of Trade Secret:

The definition of the term "trade secret" under the EEA is very broad. As defined at 18 U.S.C. § 1839, it includes, generally, all types of information, however stored or maintained, which the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep secret and which has independent economic value:

(3) the term "trade secret" means all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if --

(A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and

(B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by, the public.

The impact on the US economy is staggering:

Economic Espionage is as real a threat as terrorism or global warming. But it is subtle, insidious and stealthy. Even if the United States finds the will to come to grips with the many threats it faces, this silent, invisible hemorrhaging of intellectual know-how and trade secrets could deliver the death blow to our pre-eminent place in the global economic world before we even wake up to the magnitude of the danger.

In the pursuit of saving a few percentage points in profitability, we could actually be losing money. The Board of Directors are looking at results and Wall Street demands that you get a handle on volatility. The group of saavy executives acknowledged that the Operational Risk does soar when vital transaction processing is carried out abroad. However, it is risk accepted for various types of outsourced operations.

The question remains, how many US companies have software code being developed for various applications being deployed across the globe for the benefit of our own economy? In your next meeting with your CISO, CIO or head of Risk Management, read the latest intel on intellectual property theft and discuss it with your General Counsel.

Make sure you have a sound outsourcing plan and the countermeasures to keep your precious zero's and one's safe and secure. It's an issue of National Security as much as it is a strategy to boost the corporate bottom line...

Decision Advantage: Purposeful Journey to Wonder…

One of these days, you will be looking back on the year 2020 with memories.

The history of your life, is all about what you have learned yesterday, what you have decided to do today and how you are going to act into the future.

One truth is certain.  It is not going to be easy.  It will be a long journey full of Challenges.  Expectations.  Rules.  Wonder.

At some point, you will realize that you are in control of certain aspects of life’s milestones.  Yet the many stages that you will always have a question about, will only be revealed if you believe.

Believe that your journey is purposeful, even on those days you may be in wonder.  What you are understanding in the hours, days, weeks and years ahead, will be vital to you at some point.

What skills are you refining today?  Where are you gathering more information, to put it all into context, when you decide to move forward?  How will you use these skills, combined with the insights to make a real difference.

Guess what?  You don’t have to do this all alone.

There are resources of all types, waiting for you to believe in.  To utilize now, for your own “Decision Advantage”.  Why are you so hesitant?

You will reach a point, where you have an experiential sensory moment, that takes your breath away.  It may take the form of something you see, you feel, hear or even smell.

Yet this is the time to reflect, to learn.  Look up.  It is all part of the blueprint, just for you.

May you have so much Wonder in your life…

Incident Response: Leadership of Security Risk Professionals...

Leadership of Security Risk Professionals (LSRP) begins with a thorough understanding of the current state of the “Organizational Pulse” of the corporation.

Global Enterprise Business Resilience does not just happen overnight, after the CEO sends out the first Crisis-based e-mail alert.

It happens because the Organizational Pulse of the respective silos of responsibility, have been actively learning for years about their People, Processes, Systems and External Crisis Events.

Simultaneously, as the leaders of the Security and Risk domains within the enterprise “Ask”, “Listen”, and then “Clarify” or “Verify” vital information, the organization learns.

Global 500 public organizations, small private businesses and non-governmental organizations have true stories and cases that are considered a security risk crisis.

Confronting a crisis and incident response in one organization will be completely different at another, based upon the type of organization, number of employees, geographic locations and their senior executive process for dealing with a significant disrupting event.

The following question was asked at “Company A” and the top answers were:

What are the top five incidents/events that could cause a significant crisis within your organization?

• 
Fire or Flood
Violent weather/damage to facility
• Workplace violence
• Industrial accident
• Terrorism

"When the question was asked a different way, to a different group at the same company, the results were even more telling:"

What are five incidents/events that have caused your organization significant crisis in the last three years?

• 
Counterfeit products or major disruption in the supply chain
Alleged ethics violation of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
• Geopolitical unrest in key overseas markets
• Extended loss of personnel at a manufacturing plant due to COVID-19
• Data Breach/intellectual property theft by a nation state

Senior executives charged with a “Duty of Care” in todays global enterprise, require new thinking, enhanced skills and relevant solutions to improve crisis leadership.

What is your current readiness factor for the potential of environmental or natural disaster, supply chain disruption, economic espionage, ethics scandal, data breach, employee kidnapping, sabotage, terrorism, workplace violence and other legal risks?

For example, the HR recruiter is more focused on the security risk of hiring a person with a criminal record of violence and substance abuse problems. The Chief Security Officer (CSO) is more focused on the physical and information security of facilities and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) may be more focused on daily operations and securing the resilience of the supply chain.

Throughout the enterprise the functions of physical security, information security, legal and financial liability have all become specialized and these same security risk professionals, have become subjected to the potential for a blindside incident.

“Leadership of Security Risk Professionals” (LSRP) is for industry practitioners to “Cross the Chasm” of crisis leadership...

4th of July: Celebrate the Feeling...

As the wind caught the United States Flag in the early evening light, the Pacific Ocean was in the air.  Stepping back and looking up, a prayer was repeated, for our great Nation.

On this eve of the 4th of July birth of our American Republic, we stand proud.  As an American, you really never understand what that really means, until you leave it; for weeks, months or years for travel somewhere else in this world.

You see, it is a feeling that comes over you.  It is real.  And you can only feel it, if you leave our great country and travel to other places.  Many Americans have no idea what this feeling really is.  Yet, for those of us who have been to Africa, or Australia or Europe or the Middle East, or Asia or South America, or the Moon, you understand.

What is this feeling?  You start to feel it when you touch down on the tarmac and your plane pulls up to the terminal at IAD, LAX, DEN, DFW, ORD, or JFK.  As you walk into Border Control and Customs and you pull out that beautiful Dark Blue Passport, with the Golden Eagle on the cover, it starts to grow inside you.

You say to yourself.  It is good to be home...

For the millions of Americans who have served in our Armed Forces, or other government service overseas this feeling is overwhelming.

The millions of Americans that travel abroad for business or vacations will also feel it.  If they are gone long enough, or depending on where their geographic destinations happened to be, while they were gone.

Yet the feeling goes even a step further.  Especially, if you are an "American Patriot".

When you truly understand American history and what it truly means, in our vast world of Nations, looking at our "Stars & Stripes" alone, makes you shed a tear.

This Independence Day, celebrate the feeling...

TrustDecisions: Understand, Decide, Act...

From the Board Room to our modern day asymmetric battlefield, Jeffrey Ritter’s Achieving Digital Trust will open eyes. It provides us with a reference model that management and software architects have been seeking. The survival of the Internet as we know it is currently at stake. This book provides a look into the transparency of «Trust Decisions» and how ensuring digital truth will shape our global governance for decades to come.

"How do you decide to trust digital information that is intangible and cannot be lifted, opened, or flipped through?

What questions do you need to ask to conclude that trust is justified in both digital information and the sources from which you acquire the information?

How do you make trust decisions about people, associations, tools, or their value when the infor- mation upon which you will rely is increasingly digital and intangible?

In a global culture in which digital trust is under attack and degrading, how can you build and engender old-fashioned human trust with your customers, business partners, associates, and employees?

Flooded with digital information, devices, and the capacity for others to question decisions, how can you make better decisions, choose the superior alternatives, and reduce the number of decisions that “just take the risk” because of data that is missing or not proven to be reliable?

Can achieving digital trust be proven to be good business and create new wealth in a global, 24/7/365 marketplace that demands increasing velocity while also increasing the risks of living digitally?" 

  Page 21 Achieving Digital Trust:  The New Rules for Business At The Speed of Light - Jeffrey Ritter

Are you reading this on your Macbook?  iPhone?  Or on one of the dozens of variations of devices using the Android Operating System?  Why?

Think about the origin of the words you are reading.  Are they manifested from the brain of a human who is typing the words on a keyboard?  Or could it be a computer creating this digital content purely from some form of artifical intelligence?

How would you judge the trustworthiness of this digital information, if you could verify that it was written by a person vs. a machine?

All of us make split second decisions on who and what we will trust.  By the way it looks.  By the way it moves.  By the way it smells.  By the way it sounds.

Now, make a slight shift in your mind set to the mechanism we define as "Advertising".

How do you as a human, accept and process an advertisment in a cognitive way?

cog·​ni·​tive | \ ˈkäg-nə-tiv
Definition of cognitive

1 : of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering) cognitive impairment

2 : based on or capable of being reduced to empirical factual knowledge

Why are advertisements necessary on the televsion you watch?  Do you every find yourself muting the advertisements?  Do you record all of your shows on the DVR so you can purposefully Fast Forward through the Ads?

At the same time, you may have a brand, company or person that you respect and trust.  You are loyal to that brand, company or person for several reasons.  Much of that has to do with "TrustDecisions".

When you read the words in a book by an author with their name printed on the cover, do you value and trust what they have written?  It depends on the author, right?  Who is that person and do you trust that what they have written is worth consideration.

We all have our own trusted sources of information.  Our Go-To authors.  Our news feeds.  Our verified intelligence.

Now visit this company on the Net:  Primer.ai

Now that you have reviewed the company Primer, and you see and think you understand their product solutions, the people behind the software solutions, the investors in the company, what do you think about next?

After all, a web site is just an Advertisement right?  Your Decision to Trust has all to do with words written, colors used, visual pictures and even sounds (think music).

Based upon what you have read and see, do you trust the products and services of Primer.ai?

Based upon what you have read and see or feel or hear, do you trust your Doctor, your Priest, your Lawyer, your Bank, your Airline, your Employer or your Digital VPN?

You see, most people do not even think long enough about the origins of trust or the origin of their own trust in something or someone.  Unless you are in the business of research, questioning or creating hypotheses on an hourly basis.

Unless these can also mean the life or death of another person and/or the factual truth of something not present to the naked eye, your hearing or your taste or smell.

hy·​poth·​e·​sis | \ hī-ˈpä-thə-səs
\
plural hypotheses\ hī-​ˈpä-​thə-​ˌsēz
\
Definition of hypothesis

1a : an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument
b : an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action

2 : a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences

3 : the antecedent clause of a conditional statement

When you encounter the conscience world before you, whether it be Face-to-Face with another human, with written words by an author, by the spoken words of an advertisement or news broadcaster, think more deeply about this.

• "Every transaction creating wealth first requires an affirmative decision to trust.
• Building trust creates new wealth. Sustaining trust creates recurring wealth.
• Achieving trust superior to your competition achieves market dominance.
• Leadership rises (or falls) based on trust (or the absence of trust)."

 Page 35-36 Achieving Digital Trust:  The New Rules for Business At The Speed of Light - Jeffrey Ritter

Now that you Understand, it is time to Decide.  Then you must Act... 

Fathers Day 2020: Reflections on Being There...

After 32 years of experience as a Husband and a Father, the emotions are again heart felt this Sunday, June 21, 2020 on Fathers Day here in the United States.

Reflecting back to last years thoughts here, the feelings and emotions are renewed and could not be said much better.

One year later however, our world has been enduring a global pandemic.  We have all witnessed the tragic loss of so many from this Covid-19 virus and on "Fathers Day 2020", the only words truly relevant are; be smart and be safe!

This year, we all have even more perspective on what it means to be a cohesive family.

As a Father, there is nothing more rewarding and wonderful than to see your own child become a parent.  To see them finally understand the joy as a new parent, whether Mother or Father.

Yet, when you look back at your own life and remember your own Father or Mother as a parent, what comes to mind, while (s)he was in your life?

Look up.  Close your eyes.  Envision them at your most memorable Birthday Party or graduation, celebrating with you.  Think about them holding you, when you were hurt or just plain hungry.  Do you have this memory?

Until you finally become a devoted parent, you can only imagine the true weight of your new role in life.  You will ask yourself each day, how could you be even better?

There really is no school per se on being a parent, even though there are plenty of YouTubes or educational videos to teach you how to swaddle your baby or set up a 529 College Fund.

Yet there is one goal that you can always aspire to achieve as a Father or Mother.  To be faithful to your new role in life!

Finally, to be even better.  To be there.  To say "I Love You" to your child whenever possible...

I Love You Taylor and Connor!

Finding Ender: Leaders Undiscovered in 2030...

Our global institutions in the public and private sectors are adapting to the change precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic.  The U.S. government is five months away from a Presidential election.  Our United States, are being challenged with a spectrum of known threats and emerging adversaries in both the physical realm and ever so pervasive in our digital domains.

"On its face, Ender’s Game is an engrossing and diverting story of heroism for science fiction fans. But it is more than that; it is also a parable for defense policymakers who are confronting the multifaceted problem set of recruiting, training, educating, and retaining military personnel capable of fighting and winning the Nation’s wars in a time of technological change and international volatility."

Finding Ender: Exploring the Intersections of Creativity, Innovation, and Talent Management in the U.S. Armed Forces -By Susan F. Bryant and Andrew Harrison

War:

• 2a : a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism
• b : a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end

It is a challenging world we live in here on planet Earth right now, in June of 2020.  Yet one factor we must not lose sight of, is our true abilities to Understand, Decide and Act.

Our nation and our leaders can achieve new levels of creativity.  The ability to remain proactive and to find new answers to new found problem-sets.  In the heart of almost every human, is the desire to contribute.  The sense of purpose each day that gives a person hope.

If you are a Leader somewhere, in a "Capital City" or on the front lines in an austere environment on earth or in space, you must remain vigilant.  We are counting on you for our countries future and for our children.  Those young minds who are yet to know what their real role will be in life.

When you look into the eyes of a new born baby, in their first week of life, what do you see?

You see the beginning of a person who is ready to learn.  A person who is absent of bias.  A person who is without any skills.  A person who is without ambitions.

This new born baby is ready to be the next Curie, Chodos, Hadid, Thatcher, Allen, or Amos.

This new born baby is ready to be the next Einstein, Picasso, da Vinci, Lincoln, Tyson, or Mandella.

This person is capable of being so creative and becoming a true contributor with purpose, if only we will allow it.

In the year 2030, what will our world be focused on?

How will we change the way we utilize our institutions of learning, our military and our governments to provide the systems and the environments for the innovations of our next generations?

Godspeed Colin!

National Security: LC-39A and Beyond...

As SpaceX launched two U.S. NASA Astronauts into orbit on Saturday from LC-39A, many of us were joyful.  We are experiencing the outcomes from a long journey back to true collaboration, between government agencies and the private sector industrial complex.

The new problem-sets ahead of us and the continuous ability for dual-use technologies to span both the government sector and the commerial markets will be challenging.  One thing is certain.

We will persevere in this "Infinite Game" and the U.S. will utilize the best and the brightest methods of innovation to achieve our ambitions for space travel ahead.  Our imagination will carry us far beyond any horizon we can visualize, especially in creating more effective public-private partnerships.

How might a "Moonshot and Beyond" way of thinking across America, accelerate us towards a new future state?  What will we do to utilize the way our brightest minds think and do almost everything different today?

The combination of decades of experience with "Baby Boomers" integrating with the ingenuity and "Will Do" aspirations of our new Generations that are just getting their wings, is our real opportunity.

The opportunity to forge substantial break throughs in engineering, software development and a variety of autonomous vehicles.  The opportunity to develop expendable sensors and low cost tools, to continuously protect our nation.  The chance to put a man on Mars and beyond.

Legacy platforms of the past, that have kept us from a true technological revolution, must finally go to the grave.  Our National Security and livelihood now depends on it.

Open minds and investment capital in the hands of the right organizations, will propel us into a future we all know is possible.  Academia fusion with venture mind-sets builds the stage for innovation.  Yet what real-world problems from government and industry can be solved?

The emerging use-cases are vast and requires only our continuous imagination...

Memorial Day 2020: Understand | Decide | Act...

Walking through Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day weekend is a stark reminder of the Operational Risk Management challenges we have faced these past 19+ years.  One example can be found in the budget at the Pentagon, on how to defeat the IED.

Billions of dollars are devoted to the strategies and tactics to keep U.S. "boots on the ground" on foreign lands from becoming KIA, an amputee or another invisible wound such as Traumatic Brain Injury or Post Traumatic Stress.

Regardless of the dollars devoted, many grave markers in Section 60 have birth dates in the 1980's and 1990's.  Standing there remembering Neil, a tear rolled down a cheek and the wind quickly blew it away...

"Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday which occurs every year on the final Monday of May.^[1] Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.^[2] Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service^[3]."

If you are currently in the military we will thank you for your courage of service on Veterans Day, as we have before.  This day however, is for those in the U.S. forces who have died while serving.

Simultaneously, we must thank all of the other "Operational Risk Management" subject matter experts.  The "Quiet Professionals" who operate everyday in the shadows.  We hope that their decisions will continue to be the right ones.  They live each day with the burden of managing risk decisions, that could send another U.S. patriot on their way to Section 60 or a remembrance "Star" on the wall at Langley.

Whether you are a Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Family or Friend, this Federal Holiday is your day of memorial to your loved one(s).

Some would say that our country is currently at a degree of War.  Even though there is no official written declaration, that has been written and published to the world.

Yet, these three words, in this order, and in that continuous "Chain," means everything to those who have served and will serve our United States. 

    > Understand.

    > Decide.

    > Act.

Until the day, that all our military and all of our true "First Responders" decide, that America is no longer worth fighting for, these three words will consume them.

Thank you for being there...

ORM: Your Life Could Depend On It...

"In America, we celebrate the virtues of the quiet hero--the modest man who does this duty without complaint or expectation of praise; the man who listens closely for the call of his country, and when she calls, he answers without reservation, not for fame or reward, but for love."  John McCain - This I Believe

Is it better to be smart, than lucky?  Be prepared: know your limits, know your surroundings and be safe. Your life and your team depends on it.

Thinking through the risks you will take on your next mission, in business and personally, can sometimes provide new insights and learning for a more positive future.

When was the last time you and your team, worked through all of the potential hazards or risks to a particular project? Are you just operating on luck?

Deliberate Operational Risk Management (ORM) uses a verified process, that can be applied in many day to day scenarios.

Whether you are in the Board Room, the Conference Room, the Locker Room or the Ready Room, you have to think ahead about your intended mission and plan for all contingencies.

In general, these are the key steps to the ORM process:

• Identify hazards:  Conduct an operational and preliminary hazard analysis.
• Assess hazards:  Determine the degree of risk in terms of severity and probability.
• Make risk decisions.
• Develop controls for the hazard to reduce the risk while determining residual risk. Once the controls are in place, make the right decision to determine whether the risk is acceptable for the benefit.
• Implement controls:  If the benefit of the mission is worth the risk, apply the controls to the lowest risk level.
• Supervise:  The decision maker should enforce the controls set and remain alert for changes.

Anticipate the risks and hazards. Prepare for the possible. Prevent the inevitable.  Share relevant stories.

"The most sobering story came from the next person in our circle, who told us about a kayaking trip he took on his 21st birthday. Again, the notice was short, and he didn’t give himself time to prepare.

The river got choppy shortly after he and his friends began their adventure, and his kayak flipped. Rolling over in a kayak is a common occurrence, but he was not adequately trained to recover. After three failed attempts to right himself, he reached for the pull cord to get out of his kayak.

The pull cord was nowhere to be found. In his haste to prepare for the trip, he had tucked the cord inside the rubber skirt of his kayak.

“At the time, I thought, ‘that’s it, I’m dead,’” he said.  He had been submerged for about 45 seconds.

He changed his mind a few seconds later and tore frantically at the kayak’s skirt to free himself. After struggling for several more seconds, he pulled himself out and swam to safety."

And maybe even more important, relive those times and events where it all came apart and you were in danger of missing the deadline, losing the game, or risking injury or worse.

That is when you truely realize, that "Operational Risk Management" (ORM) is something that has to become almost second nature.

Your life and your colleague to the left or right of you, could depend on it...

Mother's Day 2020: Are you a Daughter or Son?

Every year when "Mother's Day" approaches in May, our thoughts for her, are ever more present.

Mother's Day is just not another special holiday designed by a greeting card company or a florist.  It is also a day of reflection.  It is a day to say thank you.  It is a day of wonder, that is different for each one of us.

If and when you are having that baby and you are now a Mother for the first time, you understand.

You have experienced even more, what that truly means.  You begin to learn what it was really like for your own Mother to raise you, teach you, forgive you and love you.

Most likely, in the first few minutes after a baby is born, you as a Mother start to realize the miracle of life itself.  You may one minute be totally in love and then minutes later totally in fear.

When you think about your own Mother and your life so far, you realize that you are part of her.  You may have some of the same looks or color of eyes and you are so much more.

Think about it.  What is it about you, that makes you like your Mother, yet she didn't really teach you, it's just innate?

One thing is certain.  You alone have the ability to become who you really want to be.  No matter what or how your Mother taught you or treated you growing up.

Guess what.  If you are reading this now.  You are enough.  If you are a Son or a Daughter, your life is completely up to you.  Who you are becoming and who you will be in life, is enough.

One more thing to remember.  Your Mother's love for you, will always be there.  Even after she is gone.

Love you Mom...

OS!M's: Where is Your Courage Today?

Fear is a paralyzing condition. What sometimes can paralyze some people, often motivates others. Think about it. What are you afraid of?

When was the last time you felt so paralyzed with fear that you either couldn't move or it pumped you up so much that the adrenaline took over and made you do things that you never thought were possible.

"Where is your courage today? Hiding out for the day it seems safe? You are going to be waiting a long time. There is no such time or space where it is safe. In the board room or on your battle field, the world is looking for leaders and people with courage. Often times the answer is action, regardless of the threat. This in itself is a sign to show your foe that you are aware of the threat and will not only respond, but retaliate.

It takes courage to pursue the unpopular agenda. Whether it is to save lives, save investors, or save precious physical or digital assets, the game is the same. Those who decide to do nothing in the face of an obvious threat have nothing but paralysis. Those who decide to do something dig deep to find the purpose and justification for their actions. Once you find courage, it's very hard to turn the other way. Paralysis becomes so foreign that whenever you feel even a little unresponsive, you compensate the other direction almost by instinct.

If you spend enough time around courageous people it starts to rub off on you. If you still don't have the bug, then you must not be surrounding yourself with those who can take fear by storm. What are you afraid of?"

As Steve Farber would say, you need some more OS!M's....

Once you have enough of these to know that you won't freeze, then you are well on your way to really making a difference on this rock.

If you are not there yet, then now is a good time to start speeding up your OS!M's.

FIRST Responders: Our New Age of Learning...

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
― Brene Brown

What will we learn during this COVID-19 crisis?  How did we learn as a result of the incident known as 9/11?

Our vulnerability this time, is far beyond scanning luggage and the new processes for ID check or travel analysis.  Brene Brown has been trying to educate us, in so many important ways.

In all our years of an "All Hazards" Homeland risk management philosophy, what have we learned?  How will we Assess, Prepare, Respond and Recover even better, from this point forward?

What have you discovered about your organizations ability to adapt, innovate, create and change during this first quarter of 2020?  Will you even survive?

One key item may have revealed itself in your experience so far.  How would you improve your organization, when it comes to "Incident Response"?

One truth is, that our individuals who have a "C" in their title acronym, (CEO, CSO, CIO, CTO, CISO, CMO, CRO) have been challenged in new ways.  These same leaders have not trained enough, or long enough in this past decade.  Complacency is now becoming apparent again.

Our leadership skills have all been exposed to the vulnerabilites of people, processes, systems and external events.  We have been caught off guard on a spectrum of challenging global incidents just these past 24 months.  A crisis spectrum that spans our physical world.  Also to our invisible virtual digital world.

Our growing "Incident Response Spectrum" is wide and vast.  It still requires specialized skills and knowledge to address the kind of change, that will now increasingly be required, in Fortune 500 Global Companies, Mid-Market INC 500 emerging businesses and especially, our Small-Medium Businesses (SMB).

How will we continuously Adapt, Create and Change from this point forward?

You almost could have predicted, how well our cities and our local municipal governments would fare in the COVID-19 crisis?  An invisible threat vector.  How?

Look at just one example.  How well have our cities and Critical Infrastructure organizations performed during their "Incident Response" from the dozens of Ransomware Attacks?  Digital malware, that has plagued our cities these past few years.

Ask Baltimore, MD about their particular learning curve, on what they have learned since discovering their own vulnerabilities.  How they discovered the real value. of effective Incident Response.

Look at another emerging example.  How well have our U.S. companies been exercising their "Incident Response" plans with disruptions to our Supply Chains?  Issues with the availability of critical equipment and commodities, that previously would never have thought to be so vital to our ongoing response?

America.  This new era going forward, is going to be about our innovation age all over again.  It will be all about creativity.  And it will be much more about dramatic change.

Most of all, it will be about finding grace.  About our compassion.  You see, we are Americans.  Our endurance and our leadership, is inherent to our people and all of the U.S. organizations, that will rise up to meet this crisis and others in our future.

So what?

Our Incident Response and Security Teams will be learning even more now.  Our organizations will be "Up Skilling" or "Skilling Up," with new found tools, processes and policies.

Our supply chains will become even more resilient.  Our Critical Infrastructure and essential services will be gearing up for the "W" curve of recovery.

So what will you be doing to innovate and create a new mechanism to make us even better?

How will you do it with grace and compassion while working towards collaboration with others, instead of just being competitive?

Our American tragedy, will not just be about how many people have died.  This alone is enough.

Yet, it will be about our FIRST Responders.

This new spectrum of FIRST Responders, is so much wider than you ever realized.  Who is a FIRST Responder in your organization?  In your entire community.

The skills and knowledge of our FIRST Responders from this point foward, must improve, will expand and we will do this all together.

This next paradigm, is about Communication, Cooperation and ongoing Collaborative Education.

Will you join us...

Single Points of Failure: Interdependencies Unknown...

Organizations such as WashingtonDCFIRST exist in our Nations Capital to address the need for a coalition of private sector companies and people to work on being proactive, not reactive.

"Defend Forward."

This requires leadership to focus on the critical interdependencies you share with your large corporate neighbor down the street or around the corner.

Do you both share the same Central Office from Verizon? Do you have the same pumping station for DC Water? Do you have a shared sub-station for power from Pepco?

If you do, then you both know some of your Single-Points-of-Failure.

While you may never be able to establish walls, or fences high enough and virtual ICS locked gates to totally protect your single-points-of-failure, you can create an architecture that deters attacks and detects changes.

And if you do have an alert or alarm go off, then you must investigate the incident no matter how insignificant it may be. Those organizations who believe that they are not in the bulls eye of some worthy adversary, should pay attention:

• Shape behavior  - The United States must work with allies and partners to promote responsible behavior in cyberspace. 
• Deny benefits  - The United States must deny benefits to adversaries who have long exploited cyberspace to their advantage, to American disadvantage, and at little cost to themselves. This new approach requires securing critical networks in collaboration with the private sector to promote national resilience and increase the security of the cyber ecosystem.
• Impose costs  - The United States must maintain the capability, capacity, and credibility needed to retaliate against actors who target America in and through cyberspace.

Your competitors and even your neighbors realize that this game, is not always about eliminating threats to your own corporate assets. It's about making sure that the attackers choose a much more vulnerable target than your own...

Experiential Learning on Easter: 2020 & Beyond...

There you are.  We have been waiting for you.  You are a miracle and we have so much to learn from you...

As you experience your day, look around.  Look up.  Our world is an amazing place to live and to experience life.  Yet full of so many challenges, along the way.

How will you learn about all of the parts of life that are invisible?   You will only know more about it by experiencing it and by encountering all of the heart break and hopefully all of the joy.

You see, learning something new and experiential learning, is how you will grow each day.  This is not in inches or feet, this growth is exponential and infinite.

Have you read the book about how to ride a bicycle?

Don't worry.  You won't have to, as your Mother, or Father or even your GrandPa or GrandMa, will be there to guide you.  They will be there to help you balance.  They will help you learn, by experiencing it together.

You will first find out, that it is not easy.  That you will encounter falls and some tears.  You will feel the pain.  Yet at some point in your experiential journey, one day, you will feel the joy.  You will feel the freedom.  The wind in your face.

Those who have a birth day in 2020, are joining a world that is under seige right now.  They will not remember.  Yet it is all of our love and our faith together, that will allow you to endure.

We all will be watching you grow.  Taller yes and we wonder who you really are.  Who you will eventually become.  We know that you will be a curious one.  You will seek new knowledge and learn new skills, just as your closest teachers have experienced with you.

Yet always remember, so much of the joy, faith and wonder of your life, will come from places you can not see...and can only feel in your heart and thoughts...until someday you get there on your own.

Godspeed on Easter Sunday 2020!

Crisis Leadership: Our Unison of Human Endeavor...

For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun!
Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way.
In the wilderness.
Rivers in the desert.  --Isaiah 43:19

On this particular Sunday in history, look around. Who do you see?  Who is looking to you for answers?

What are you doing to anticipate?  To Prepare.  To Activate.  To Respond.

You see, our current state, is an opportunity to act.  By all of us.  In "UNISON".

If you have learned anything in these past several weeks to a month, this particular crisis has uncovered our gaps.  Our weaknesses.  Your vulnerabilities.

So what are you going to do about it?  Today, tomorrow and the day after.  To Act.  Do you not see it?

Your family and closest friends are watching.  They expect your leadership.  They want your expertise and your experience.  You have the skills and the knowledge our country needs this week.  And the next week after.

It will require your inner strength.  It will test all that you have trained for.  It will be the actions you take soon, that will ensure our future.

What will you do this week to make a difference?  With your family, with your neighbor, with your colleague, with your organization, with your country...

You can see it in your minds eye.  Remember, there are others who will be there to support you, to assist you in your "Human Endeavor".

Our resilience is so much greater than you realize.  We are listening...we have the courage to act!

24: Lessons in Resilience...

Flashback to 2007.  It's going to be a busy day for Jack Bauer this season. Last night's episode of 24 ends like this:

9:58 A.M.
Numair completes work on the suitcase nuke. One of the guards sees the TAC teams and gunfire erupts. Ray ducks to the ground. Amid the shooting, Numair detonates the nuclear device.

From where he is, Jack can see the mushroom cloud in the sky.

The White House team is in shock. Wayne orders Karen to put the entire military at the disposal of the Los Angeles response teams.

9:59 A.M.
As CTU watches the video in horror, Milo alerts them to a warning from the FBI. An Arabic phrase was overheard at one of the detention centers. Nadia translates it: “five visitors.” There are four more nuclear weapons out there.

The WMD scenario is now being played out by focusing on the infamous "Suitcase Nuke" that has been talked about for years. The question remains how the remaining part of Jack's day will go now that he will be searching for four more devices during what is certain to be mass panic. And whether the incident is of the sudden magnitude of this 24 thriller or the sudden onset of a contagious virus, our hospitals and healthcare system will be immediately challenged.

Continuity of Operations and Contingency Planning is starting to get the funding it requires in the healthcare systems across the globe. We can only hope that it comes long before the first wave of Pandemic or the radioactive WMD event.

What would happen if you woke up at 2 a.m. with chest pains but the area hospitals were overwhelmed because of a COVID-19 outbreak? What would happen if you couldn’t get lifesaving blood work because the labs couldn’t process the results or your health insurance provider couldn’t process the authorization? What would happen if you were scheduled for surgery but the computer network containing your patient records was down due to a computer virus?

These are just a few of the scenarios that keep business continuity planners at hospitals and healthcare organizations across the country up at night and focused on the task at hand. Healthcare is the one thing you hope you will never need, but when the time comes, the availability of healthcare in this country is often taken for granted. Business continuity planning (BCP) professionals in the healthcare industry want to keep it that way.

This is a clear example of where the Critical Infrastructure sector we call Healthcare and it's sister the First Responders / Emergency Services Sector, is still behind in funding and increasing it's resilience to sudden disaster. Public - Private partnerships are working with diligence on an "All Hazards" mindset to help address the lack of preparedness in many of our metro regions.

It's vital to really understand the mission for not just the healthcare sector, but the government, law enforcement and first responders combined:

MISSION: To provide a forum that fosters communication and cooperation between industry and government security, law enforcement and emergency responders at the federal, state, local and tribal level to protect America's citizen's and critical assets.

It's been said that we could never be totally prepared as there will always be some degree of residual risk in any prudent planning or testing exercise. The only real truth is that working towards the worldview of increased Business Resilience creates a different perspective.

Business Resilience
Even resolving these shortfalls and misunderstandings really is only part of the picture when seeking to create true resilience – we really must focus more broadly than on the technology and the facilities. Business resilience should be our goal. IBM has articulated its concept of business resilience as:

“The ability of an organisation’s business operations to rapidly adapt and respond to internal or external dynamic changes – opportunities, demands, disruptions or threats – and continue operations with limited impact to the business.”

The paradigm shift from a defensive posture to an offensive posture is the first leap of faith. To see the opportunities and upside not just the cost of protection and overhead. Mitigating Operational Risks, thinking through all possible contingencies and creating new strategies for the future success scenario is what this mindset is all about.

I wonder what's going through Jack Bauer's head right now? Defense... I don't think so.

Human Factors: Pandemic Fear & Y2K...

"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."  --Bobby Knight

Organizations are running around looking for quick answers to COVID-19 "Pandemic Planning."

Is this the next SARS? Many agree that it is not the same threat and more are convinced that specific losses to personnel, will have significant long-term cascading effects on other operational risk factors.

And yet there is a standard and lessons learned waiting for any organization who wants to increase it's overall "Business Resilience", regardless of the origin of the "Virus."

Organizations who are now waving the panic flag for increased resources and funding to address the future of our current "Pandemic," should look closely at the behavior that drove them to the brink of another bug problem two decades ago, known as Y2K.

A world wide panic, millions of dollars invested in redesigning software applications and then at the apex of the millenium, a huge sigh of relief.

And in the after action reporting and for the next two years, an Internet revolution was born. Our applications were reengineered and the next generation of innovation was born, for companies to serve customers in ways they had never dreamed.  We can do it all over again.

A strategic investment today in "Pandemic Planning" and Continuity of Operations, will have the long-term benefit of creating a stronger, resilient and more survivable organization. In fact, this time the emphasis will not be so "Tech-Centric" but "People-Centric".

Who is "Core" to our business? What processes are necessary to run the business and who are the people we really need to support those processes?  Now is the time to truly understand your "Team of Teams".

Everytime you run a new preparedness exercise or test your contingencies, you are learning how and what, are the fundamental items that have been overlooked.

The real "Human Factors" are in play this time. That makes it more unpredictable and more unreliable.

More importantly, perhaps it becomes necessary to put your employees through some of the most stressful training they have ever had to endure. What if?

Imagine telling your "Core," they can't leave work for the next month, instead of ordering them to work remotely.

What people do you have on your team, that will give up that much time and isolation from their close family members? The fact is, you won't know, until you see them under fire.

You won't know, if all of the training and preparedness has made any difference, until you see your people perform under the most demanding and emotionally challenging circumstances.

You better start now. And you should be prepared to see some of the most shocking human behaviors you have ever witnessed.

The people you never expected to be heroes will be. The most brave and macho people on the outside are often the first to run and hide.

Fear is a phenomenon that enables some and paralyzes others. Your job is to find out how it affects those you choose to lead your organization, during the multiple waves of "Pandemic Attacks" just over the horizon...

Operationalizing Defend Forward: A Paradigm Shift...

In light of the recent and overwhelming global state-of-affairs, it is now timely to enter into a dialogue on operationalizing "Defend Forward".

Is it possible to increase your organizational, personal or nation state resiliency to the active threats you can't yet see, hear, or feel?  You understand that it depends on what the adversary actually is and what medium or environment it is operating in.  So here are just two examples that are difficult to see and detect with only the naked eye:

1. Ransomware
2. Coronavirus

Number One is a threat operating in a virtual environment of vast Information Technology infrastructure propagated across the Internet by adversaries who seek to infest a host and produce a potential outcome as the threat infects vulnerable computing assets.

Number Two is a threat operating in a physical environment of vast geographical and human-based populations propagated across our planet Earth by biological adversaries who seek to infest a host and produce a potential outcome as the threat infects vulnerable human assets.

Fortunately Number One does not have a "Zoonotic" origin.

"Defend Forward", entails the proactive observing, pursuing, and countering of adversary operations and imposing costs in day-to-day competition to disrupt and defeat ongoing malicious adversary infectious campaigns, deter future campaigns, and reinforce favorable international norms of behavior, using all the instruments of national power." --Dr. Erica Borghard

Think about your particular 1) organizational, 2) technological and 3) human-based ecosystems.

How much have you invested in operationalizing a "Defend Forward" strategy for all three?

You see, in the year 2020 and beyond you will need to be thinking differently.  You will need to be investing in a cohesive and strategically balanced Operational Risk Management (ORM) paradigm.

Yes, paradigm.  For those of you reading this, who do not understand the true definition, look it up.

What is currently going on in "Cyberspace" is not that much different than what is going on in our current "Healthcarespace".

Yet one is commanded by human behavior and the other one is commanded by human behavior.

Godspeed Mother Earth!

Scenario Vs. Resource Planning: All Hazards...

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value" --Albert Einstein

This article by Saul Midler on Scenario Planning Vs. Resource Planning recently caught our eye and for a good reason. The link between Corporate Risk Management and Operational Risk Management is Business Continuity Management. Brilliant!

More importantly as he indicates:

"The danger of undertaking an operational risk assessment before the BIA / RDA activity is that a business case may be built to remediate the biggest operational risk without realising that impact or the consequence is low. This is essentially defining a solution before identifying a problem.

Think about 9/11 where 320 companies FAILED to return to business, 2800 workers DIED and 135,000 workers lost their jobs. By contrast a number of organizations did recover and continued operations. These include:

• Cantor Fitzgerald who lost 658 staff and resumed operations two days later;
• Marsh & McLennan with 3,200 staff over 8 floors;
• Morgan Stanley with 3,500 staff over 17 floors;
• NY Port Authority with 2,000 staff over 23 floors.

New school thinking saved these organizations. No one could possibly have thought of the scenario that two airplanes could cause structural integrity failure of both World Trade Centre skyscrapers resulting in the collapse and complete destruction of the precinct. The businesses that did survive did so because they adopted a resource loss philosophy that included office facilities, technology systems and, of course, staff.

While the scenario of airplanes being used as weapons of mass destruction is not a new concept for planning purposes, (in fact it was hypothesized long before 9/11) the fact is that organizations today have adopted an "All-Hazards" mind set. As a result of the new worldview, "Business Continuity Management" as previously mentioned, has provided a much needed conduit between Corporate Risk and Ops Risk."

What does this "All-Hazards" mentality mean for the cure to unplanned disruptions or untested scenarios? It means that you move to the proactive side of the line and away from the reactive mode that so many organizations are still coping with. The old "It will never happen" to us syndrome.

Global 500 public organizations, small private businesses and non-governmental organizations have true stories and cases that are considered a security risk crisis. Confronting a crisis in one organization will be completely different at another, based upon the type of organization, number of employees, geographic locations and their senior executive process for dealing with a significant disrupting event.

The following question was asked at “Company A” and the top answers were:

What are the top five incidents/events that could cause a significant crisis within your organization?

• Fire or Flood
• Violent weather/damage to facility
• Workplace violence
• Industrial accident
• Terrorism 

"When the question was asked a different way, to a different group at the same company, the results were even more telling:"

What are five incidents/events that have caused your organization significant crisis in the last three years?

• Counterfeit products or major disruption in the supply chain
• Alleged ethics violation of Foreign Corrupt Pracctices Act (FCPA)
• Geopolitical unrest in key overseas markets
• Extended loss of electricity at a manufacturing plant
• Data Breach/intellectual property theft by a nation state

The company is a multinational manufacturer of communications components. Senior executives charged with a “Duty to Care” in todays global enterprise, require new thinking, enhanced skills and relevant solutions to improve crisis leadership.

What is your current readiness factor for the potential of environmental or natural disaster, supply chain disruption, economic espionage, ethics scandal, data breach, employee kidnapping, sabotage, terrorism, workplace violence and other legal risks?

Throughout the enterprise the functions of physical security, information security, legal and financial liability have all become specialized and these same security risk professionals, have become subjected to the potential for a blindside incident.

For example, the HR recruiter is more focused on the security risk of hiring a person with a criminal record of violence and substance abuse problems.

The Chief Security Officer (CSO) is more focused on the physical and information security of facilities and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) may be more focused on daily operations and securing the resilience of the supply chain.

How will you provide your senior executives with the knowledge, skills and strategic solutions that enables global enterprise business resilience for years to come?  Leadership of Security Risk Professionals...