Rapport: Risk of Relationships...

 As you travel the world on business or around your particular county neighborhood, do you ever experience true “Rapport”?

You know it when you hear it, see it or you feel it.

When you encounter an employee working at the desk of your favorite airline, at your grocery store and your local banking branch, do you ever experience true rapport?

rapport

Noun rap· port | \ ra-ˈpȯr

Definition of rapport

: a friendly, harmonious relationship

especially : a relationship characterized by agreement, mutual understanding, or empathy that makes communication possible or easy

Is it the persons own words, their actions or their behavior that this particular person caught your attention?  One might find themselves wanting to revisit this establishment, business or professional service instead of one of the competition.

Brand loyalty or repeat business or the ability to get one customer or client to tell someone else about that customer encounter is what rapport is really all about.

It is all about building long lasting relationships. It is about using true rapport.

How excellent are you as a Senior Leader in your organization at using rapport with employees or new potential clients?

You may have heard some of the classic lines utilized in the past, depending on the business. If you heard: “What brings you in here today?” You might think you just walked into a Ford dealer.

If you heard: “Did you find everything you were looking for”? You might think you were in the aisle at a Gelson’s market.

If you heard: "How might we exceed your expectations today"? You might think you were working with someone who really cares about your needs, your individual requirements.

The entire brand experience with you and your organization from the first phone call, the first web site visit or E-mail inquiry or the first in-person meeting is at stake.

Building rapport shall begin on the first encounter with another person and it shall continue throughout the entire lifecycle of the relationship.

How might you start any initial meeting with another person to give them that feeling of rapport on your 2nd visit, a 3rd encounter, or every encounter by phone, e-mail or in person going forward?

The shareholder, stakeholders or owners of your organization are counting on your Senior Leaders in the business enterprise, to build the brand and grow the numbers.

The 20% at the top of your organization are most likely to be excellent at the Art and Science of rapport. Leadership really is about making everyone else better.

Remember, "Operational Risks" in your business or organization includes People, Processes, Systems and External events.

What are you doing to utilize the 20% of your people to reduce risk in your business, as your next generation of "Senior Leaders" model the true power of Rapport…

Metadata: What, Who, Correlate...

As you scrolled through your digital feed today on your favorite Social Media App, what did your finger stop and pause upon?

Was it a particular person you were connected with, who was posting a question Poll?  Why this person?

Was it a specific topic of political interest with a headline that caught your attention? Why this topic?

Was it a picture of your favorite place in the city you live in?  Why this picture?

Maybe it was a combination of all, so you then took the time to do some more research, some background, to try to satisfy a curious state of mind that took over your thinking.

What questions did you seek answers to, in your journey to satisfy your own curiosity?

You are exactly the kind of person the state or private entity is watching and measuring.

Cookies and metadata are their tools:

 

Metadata means "data about data". Although the "meta" prefix means "after" or "beyond", it is used to mean "about" in epistemology. Metadata is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data; it is used to summarize basic information about data that can make tracking and working with specific data easier.

So what?

The person on this web page or in this rental vehicle, or this retail store has this “name associated” with the user name or mobile device they have carried within 5 feet of the digital sensor:  John Doe’s iPhone 11.

Whether he is on the browser visiting the web page or has the small radio frequency (RF) device in his pocket, it is being measured.  It is being correlated.  It is being shared.

You see, John/Jane Q. Public for the most part does not care.  He does not think about it.  She is unaware of the implications of the ip, location or metadata they are sharing in their own home, in public locations, or the workplace.

With whom?  The answer to this question depends…

Mother’s Day: Our Journey Together…

As a toddler child, the 2nd Sunday morning of May in the United States you could always find us as kids, starting our Mother’s Day celebration at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

It was a wonderful day of celebrating our faith and family gatherings to honor our Mothers.

Once as a young First Grader, you know you certainly appreciated your Mother for all kinds of tasks in daily life. Helping you get dressed for school, making your breakfast, packing a lunch in a brown paper bag and taking you or walking with you to the bus stop, a quarter mile away.

At this stage of your own youth, there is little thought about all the challenges your own parents endured, now that you alone are growing up so fast, since the day you were born.

Decades later, after you are married and you have become a parent, your own “Mother’s Day” celebration takes on a whole new perspective.

As young parents with our own elementary age kids, our Mother's Day always started at McLean Bible Church and then perhaps a picnic afterwards at our local Great Falls Park, along the Potomac River with all the Spring wild flowers in bloom.

Reflecting back, when you achieve the parental milestone of your own personal 2nd or 3rd Mother’s Day holiday, you discover you are now much more focused on your child, through a whole different “Mother’s Day” cognitive lens.

You think, how will I teach them? When will I have the means and ability to prepare them for all of the challenges of life on their own?

Their own first losing soccer match or striking out in the little league baseball game. Their 3rd Grade report card. Their own first romantic crush and break up.  The future “Sorry to Inform You” letter(s) from an anticipated college or service application.

"Who will they become? Now as a parent, you will ask yourself this question many times, as a Mother and/or Father in your lifetime."

As you grow older yourself in life as a parent with teenagers, you begin to reflect back on your own life and what your Mom and Dad experienced, as you grew up as their Son or Daughter.

Mother’s Day is about the endless journey of life, being a responsible parent. It is not a flat and easy trail to navigate.

The parenting experience will be long and full of challenging ascents, curves and also so many exciting descents.

As a Parent and a Mother, you know all about responsibility. Pure Joy. Faith. Dedication. Sleepless nights. Fear. Courage. And most of all, “Love” no matter what…

Character: Professional Experience Metrics...

What does having professional experience mean to you? At what point do you go from being someone without experience, to a person that has professional experience?

The category or area of profession has all to do with making the rules and setting the bar higher or lower for people to say they are experienced.

Some work professions simply ask you to take a long examination and achieve a passing score in order to say you have professional experience.

Other professionals realize that no matter how many tests you take, it will never prepare you for all of the challenges you will encounter ahead.

Yes, first you may have to go to some kind of skills building and educational courses to gain the fundamentals. Yet it is the hours and days of time in the actual performance of the work that is measured in many professions:

• What about a Pilot? How do they measure their experience?
• What about a Fireman? How do they measure their experience?
• What about a Surgeon? How do they measure their experience?
• What about an Investment Advisor? How do they measure their experience?
• What about an Instructor? How do they measure their experience?
• What about a Baseball player? How do they measure their experience?

Every category of industry, work professions and individuals placed in charge of the production responsibility, the successful outcomes, and the safety and security of others is especially measured on their levels of professional experience.

How many Hours or how many Incidents or how many Encounters or closed Deals or Games Played?

You see, experience is really about how many hours and other metrics you have practiced and tested your own abilities in the actual work. Good days and bad days. Yet there is so much more.

It is also about the Positive outcomes of the work performed. It is also about the Negative outcomes of the work performed.

Being experienced in a profession means exactly what is widely measured in that particular role or position.

So how do you make a decision on who to select as your next (name a position or role in an organization or group)?

A persons “Character” is also a key factor and measurement on total professional experience. The noun, not the adjective or verb.

CHARACTER noun

: one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual.

: the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation.

What is most complex about humans working in so many different professions, is the Experience to Character ratio.

How much Operational Risk will you accept, with the Experience:Character ratio in your organization or team? E100:C100.  E75:C50.  E100:C0?

How will you perform in your professional life? Who will you Trust?

Life Long Learning: 86 Seconds & Beyond...

As history unfolds before our eyes in April of 2022, what is on your mind about your future?

If you knew you only had about “86 seconds” or less, before a nuclear ICBM hit your metropolitan city in the USA, what would you think about? Would you say a prayer?

“WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - Russia properly notified the United States ahead of its test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, adding it saw the test as routine and not a threat to the United States.

Russia said earlier on Wednesday it had conducted a first test launch of its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, a new addition to its nuclear arsenal which President Vladimir Putin said would give Moscow's enemies something to think about.”

How you act and what you say to others will make a difference in your life. What will your particular ideology be and why?

Definition of ideology

• 1a : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture
• b : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
• c : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture
• 2 : visionary theorizing

"How you think and perform, to accomplish relevant and important tasks in your family, your career and your community is always in your control."

1. Take a step back in your particular time line. Open another tab in your browser and navigate to Google Maps. Look up the address of the house you grew up in.
2. Go to the imagery view and the photos from Maxar Technologies satellites and the Google photos and then you can actually travel along your old road. Pivot around. See what your old neighborhood looks like these days or in years past.

Remember? When you used to climb that tree in your front yard or ride your big red "Schwinn Typhoon" bicycle down that rough dirt road you lived on for so many years?

This is where your ideology and you're thinking about life began. Where you fell and scraped your knees and you learned to swim in the lakes with your best friends.

“Where and how far have you traveled, since those early days of your life? Who have you been influenced by and where and how did you learn what integrity really means?”

Your particular human history so far in April of 2022 is not the end. There is still so much to see and so much to know in your life, while you still have time.

How will you continue to learn and who will you spend time with in the days and years ahead?

What will you “DO” to make some difference with a stranger or even to just buy food for others you might care about?

You see, each second, each minute and each day is yours to make your own "Trust Decisions."  Who will you become…

Holy Friday: Rising Grace...

On this “Holy Friday” we pause to reflect and to remember. To read about our history and to observe all of our actions.

“Coming before the crowd one last time, Pilate declared Jesus innocent and washed his own hands in water to show he had no part in this condemnation. Nevertheless, Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified in order to forestall a riot.”

What will you do today to think and decide about your life?

How will you try to make a difference while you have time with others, who are so curious and eager to learn?

Our world is at War on the surface and so visible to all. It is simultaneously fighting in continuous Digital Asymmetric Warfare across our globe almost invisible at the speed of light.

Why?

Our families, our neighborhoods, our small groups, are still searching for the true “Grace”.

This kind of “Grace” does not come from our Treasury. It does not come from our manufacturing or service companies. It does not come from our Governments.

Definition of grace

1a : unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification

b : a virtue coming from God

c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance

This form of “Grace” has its origin in our own hearts and in our minds. It comes to us in the form of thinking and doing.

Who or What do you care about this “Holy Friday” that will have divine assistance?

Does it come from your mind and heart?

Does it focus on someone or something other than yourself?

Stop.

If you in your words or your actions are creating hurt, harm, distress or fear, just Stop.

Your next thoughts shall be to create “Grace.” How will you accomplish this today and your time ahead?

Who will you care for today? Who will you feed today? Who will you protect today? Who will you say kind words and thank you to today?

Pause your life for a few hours today. To Read. To Learn. To Feel Safe…

Relate: Trust Decisions in Action...

On a cloudless afternoon overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Catalina Island seemed within an arms length in the distance yet at least 30+ miles away.

Dophins were swimming in the distance. A few people were exercising their dogs over the narrow trails. The temperature was almost 80 degrees and there was a kind breeze.

As we walked together on another short journey towards the cliffs along the shoreline, a real wave of happiness came over me. She was wearing her flip flops and I smiled...

Life is interesting and every stage of it has new learning, new challenges and new opportunites that we could not ever have imagined.

When you begin a dialogue with someone you have never met, or known for decades, verbally or written, how do you begin it? To enhance the potential relationship.

As a leader in your organization, who requires a team mate to take on a new set of initiatives or tasks, how do you approach them?

Human Factors are in play when ever you are building a brand new relationship or approaching a new acquaintance or referral to potentially take on a new project.

Building long-term and successful relationships personally and professionally over the course of a lifetime, is both "Art and Science". It takes years of training, learning and practice.

"When you think about building any new relationship personally or in your organization, think about the “Relate.”

What will be your approach? What words will you use to gain that persons attention and to start to build your own bridge of trustworthiness?

Whenever you want to begin a new relationship personally or professionally, take the time and build your effective strategy. You probably only have one smart chance. Maybe only seconds.

Designing and delivering the ideal “Relate” to another human being has to have relevance. It must be thoughtful and it is even slightly obvious that you have done your careful research.

The dialogue you enter into with another person has two opportunities:

1. It has the ability to enhance trust and build the relationship.
2. It has the ability to erode trust and decay the relationship.

If you spend enough time around someone who is a “Master,” you shall see and hear the art and the science of graceful dialogue.

It builds trustworthiness and it provides an enduring foundation for the long-term relationship.

Practice using a well thought out “Relate” and study its abilities to influence a new acquaintance, a new partner or a new stranger on the airplane or in your work ecosystem.

You just might change your life to use more valuable “Trust Decisions” and truly enable yourself with long-term relationships…

bon voyage: Web3 Generation Security...

Software developers must have a few thoughts in 2022 and beyond, about the design of public web sites or internal corporate systems.

Many of them are taught these software architectures over the course of a long career in information technology. Or a few hours watching YouTube.

When you setup your particular login account with an online site for the first time, do you ever ask yourself how they decided on this particular process step-by-step for your login credentials?

For example, is the sign-in page to your account requesting an E-mail address for your user name? Or your phone number?

Why?

OR is the sign-in page to your account requesting that you create a unique User Name that is “NOT” your E-Mail address?

Why?

In either case, most login info is validated, before you get to see the box to type in your password. Or Maybe not.

So what about the login page that has your E-mail Address and your Password fields both on the same page? One underneath the other.

You see, software developers have designed their site a particular way for a reason. Is it standardized rules in the company, city, state, or GDPR country?

Or is it something else. :)

Now, we all should have something called Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled ON for your login as well. If your site does not have it or does not require it, you have to ask yourself.

Why?

Perhaps some of you carry around a little device on your key ring (or not allowed) that has a PIN number to open it, then a little LCD window that shows a 6 or 7 digit number that is constantly changing. You know who you are. “I am not using an Authenticator that is on my phone, designed by the same people who created the web site.”

"And then there is this: You'll receive only one verification code each time you request two-step identity verification by text. See Privacy Policy and Mobile Terms and Conditions for more information. Message and data rates may apply."

Some of you have given up. Enough is enough.

Why not just let the computer USE MY FACE as a way to open up the use of this device or this web site? After all, my ears sticking out, are actually very unique and the FACE ID software will not ever be confused.

Are you winning or losing in Web3?

Godspeed!

Human Behavior: Witnessing Salvation…

When you accelerated through the career ranks of your organization and you achieved all of the goals and challenges in front of you for a year or two, what typically happened?

You were promoted.

Now, when you were given this new title or rank this usually included new responsibilities, new relationships to be managed and in some cases a feeling of additional power within the organization.

Then what happened to your self-esteem?

This confidence and satisfaction in oneself is a valuable topic for dialogue in developing great leaders. Especially when together we witness a leader whose behavior is unjustified and abuses their given power.

Human behavior will not ever stop surprising us, even after we think that we have seen it all:

1. Just when we think we have witnessed all of the good in life, we see an act of kindness and good will that we never saw before. We stand there in amazement as we watch salvation in real-time.
2. Then there is the daily news. You read a story about an act of pure evil and you ask yourself, how could another human being actually do something like that?

Whether the truth is on the front page of the Washington Post or from a witness who tells the story from their first hand experience in the room, or on the front lines, how will you act? More of #1 or #2.

The self-choice of actions you take next and the demonstrated evidence of your own behavior is an indicator of your true character. Of who you really are as a human being, operating in your organization.

Over the course of your tenure with that logo on your business card or the patch on your shoulder, never forget your true character.

You have the opportunity to continuously perform and who your colleagues will follow, that your organization is proud of each day for all of your excellent actions.

“As you build your own “Self-Esteem” and confidence and satisfaction with oneself, remember #1.”

Your team or organization as a whole, will rise together to acknowledge your kindness, empathy and yet your faithful ability to accomplish so many important milestones.

Thank you for being #1. Onward!

Transparency of Actions: Building Organizational Trust…

Is paranoia and the secrecy of strategic actions by a senior management leader a major vulnerability in your organization?

The Operational Risks associated with your paranoid “Need-to-Know” culture, could lead to the failure of key management initiatives or even the latest offensive launched on your competition.

Whether you are a leader of the largest country in our world by area of land mass, or you are the Chief Executive Officer of a growing enterprise, your future success leading the organization truly lies in the hearts of people.

Have you recently launched a new policy or company strategy that has taken much of those on the front lines by surprise?

Are you invoking a new “Go-to-Market” strategy in the field without the majority of your Board of Directors to support your new ideas and actions?

The failures of People, Processes, Systems and the risks of certain External Events will eventually lead to your Operational demise. The destruction of a home for so many. It could take weeks, months or possibly years.

While your authoritative and brute force tactics from the Top begin to unfold, your employees and followers are losing faith in you. They are beginning their own plans to exit the organization and escape your toxic paranoid attitude.

Unfortunately, your own ego and the fog of your imagined legacy is ultimately what will lead to your organizations slow and painful failure.

"How might you change this and keep your upward trajectory in the marketplace and across the globe before it is too late?"

It begins with mending and growing relationships that you have ignored. Relationships that over the years have stood next to you and behind you waving your flag.

Time is running out. As a leader, the admission that you have taken the wrong course and made paranoid decisions without collaboration of other key leaders is a starting point.

You and your Board of Directors need to Understand, Decide and Act. Very soon.

How might a “Backwards-from-Perfect” approach in consultation and consensus with your strategic partners make a difference in the hours and days ahead?

The historic legacy you leave in Wikipedia and in all the hearts of the people in your particular tribe of followers, is now before you.

It is now time to become more transparent, generate a series of active “Trust Decisions” and to deliver the actions to save the heart and soul of all that they believe in…

Acceleration: Discovering Velocity...

 Acceleration is a factor of physics and the rate of change of velocity with respect to time. 

The act or process of moving faster has several factors in play for the vital safety and security of attaining the planned mission.

How might you apply the correct control of your velocity in the next few seconds in order to avoid a crash and your forward momentum?

Once you have accelerated to your initial destination, what shall you do to achieve a successful journey as you navigate the challenges ahead of you?

How will you turn and adjust your velocity just at the correct time, to avoid the obstacle just seconds ahead of your intended path?

What you will learn over your hours, days, weeks and years of experience, is that you will fall and you will crash.

The question then remains, what have you learned and how quickly will you recover?

Even after decades of accelerating and reaching the greatest milestones in your life, there is a reason why you are still alive.

You are continuously in pursuit of the correct velocity in order to learn, to compete and to truly complete your intended mission here:

• There are millions of words written in important books that are centuries old and yet you have not read all of them.
• There are thousands of wonderful mountain peaks around our globe and yet you have not ascended to the summit of all of them.
• There are hundreds of beautiful coral reefs below one of Earths oceans and yet you have not descended to the depth to see all of them.

You still have so much to accomplish in your particular process at the correct velocity, in order to achieve the safety and security of your mission:

MAP >> SKETCH >> DECIDE >> PROTOTYPE >> TEST

Each one of these methodical steps, in a continuous process of accelerating at the right moment in time, will see that you witness your intended destination.

Repeat this often and discover your own Velocity…Onward!

Insider Threat: Web 3.0 Wild West...

The Insider Threat is an Operational Risk that will never go away. It is without a doubt going to be a continuous issue for the Board of Directors, Corporate Management and shareholders for years to come. 

Fortunately, justice has recently sent a clear message about the continuous threats of Intellectual Property Theft and more. Whether you have an unknown system admin working against you because they didn't get a raise last year or the corporate espionage ring selling secrets or identities it will continue to increase over time.

"Economic espionage is the act of stealing company trade secrets with the intent or knowledge that doing so “will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent.” 18 U.S.C. 1831(a)(1). The Act also prohibits attempts to steal trade secrets with the intent or knowledge that doing so will benefit a foreign government. 18 U.S.C. §1831(a)(4). Typically, economic espionage is directed or sponsored by a foreign power seeking to secure sensitive trade secrets or business information from U.S. based persons or entities."

This has to do with the new generation of new employees who have grown up using the Internet and downloading Apps or open source software. It's still the digital wild wild West and the policies and ethics workshops are nothing more than a compliance officers single strategy of justifying their existence. 

The Web 3.0 is changing these employees attitudes about sharing everything. Many of them come to the organization with a profile on Facebook and don't have any qualms about sharing their own private information. The leaks to the press on major M & A deals should be enough evidence that even good old fashioned ethics are in jeopardy.

The Insider Threat in a Web 3.0 world is not only here to stay. It is just getting started...

Fortitude: Presidents to U.S. First Responders...

On the 3rd Monday of February in the United States, our country takes a day to reflect. To remember, and acknowledge and to honor our American Presidents.

It is a federal holiday specifically honoring George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was the first president of the United States.

Teachers in schools may focus on student projects around our US Presidents and the dawn of our Republic. A form of government in which “supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives”.

This day of pause, celebration or study of history shall also include a tribute to all of our “First Responders” across our great nation. Those men and women on the front lines of our democracy that are always on watch. Those who are in action each day, to defend our freedom and our Republic from disasters and evil.

As the pace of the economy across the globe includes new inventions, new technology and new laws; our governments must work in synchronized step with all of our First Responders.

Those individuals who are consistently scanning the horizon, analyzing dashboards of continuous streams of new sensor data, researching the changes in our respective environments and Areas of Responsibility (AOR) to better understand.

Yet these individuals require more. The First Responders who 24 hours x 365 days are continuously Understanding, Making Decisions and Acting in order to address the continuous integrity and constant peace of our great nation, require more.

"Our U.S. First Responders require a continuous set of resources, innovative new tools and training to apply the leading solutions for the United States security, response and resilience. From Liberty Crossing to NORAD. From Pennsylvania Ave to Pacific Coast Highway.

How might a small group of First Responders gather in a particular geographic area of our country to research, develop and deliver new valuable innovations to protect our Republic?"

How might we include industry and academia in an acceleration of information exchange and testing of new prototypes?

One good example is the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) that is again taking place primarily in Southern California over the next six months. Activities will focus on the examination of capabilities by public and private sector stakeholders in the following areas:

• 
Critical infrastructure security, threat mitigation, and incident response
• 
In-service engineering, maintenance, and sustainment of surface fleet and expeditionary combat systems
• Port and maritime domain awareness, data fusion, and decision support
• 
Augmented and virtual reality modeling, simulation, and digital engineering
• 
Unmanned systems applications, implementation, and countermeasures

Yet whether we are creating new learning environments for our First Responders on Land, Sea, Space and Cyber domains, we shall always remember.

On this Presidents Day 2022, Americans who are true First Responders will continuously seek out new opportunities to learn more.

They will collaborate to test and innovate their own new ideas and inventions to preserve our Republic. To make their own neighborhood even more safe and secure.

They will act with bravery and their own fortitude, just as George Washington did and all those who have followed him…

Curious: A Desire to Learn...

On a scale of 1-to-10, how curious are you as a person? Before you quickly answer this vital question, let’s look at the definition:

curious

adjective

cu· ri· ous | \ ˈkyu̇r-ē-əs

Essential Meaning of curious

1 : having a desire to learn or know more about something or someone

curious, a neutral term, basically connotes an active desire to learn or to know.

When you think back on your latest encounter with another person at the corporate event, meeting or Zoom, the latest social gathering, who was the dominate orator? How many open-ended questions did they ask? How about you?

Or if you think back on the total clock of minutes during the conversations, how much was one or two people dominating the time talking, yet never asked any questions of the others present?

Having a curious dialogue with another human is an art, coupled with some science.

It is vital to ask yourself about your own curiosity. Why?

Is your own self-desire to be heard, getting in your way of being more curious and learning?

Is your own ego and self-centered focus on your agenda, an obstacle to your ability to learn or to truly know more about, what the individual you are in dialogue with believes or knows about a particular subject or topic?

You see, your own lack of curiosity may be the reason you are so frustrated. So lonely.

The true “Art” of being more Curious takes time to perfect. So that you do not become annoying to the others you are talking with at the next corporate or social gathering.

“The key word in the definition is “Desire”. If you lack the active desire to learn, then you are still a long way from getting to a place where you are truly more curious.”

At the same time, your own lack of transparency will also create questions by your colleagues of your reliability factor. Of your trustworthiness.

"How might you become more curious and simultaneously more transparent, so that others you are in dialogue with, will trust you and want to reciprocate with their own valuable information?"

One-to-one dialogue with another person will have different challenges, than a leader who is talking with their own team. You will need to practice these on a regular basis so that your curious behavior doesn’t create negative results.

Your total Human-to-Human experience practice, can be done with pure strangers in just minutes. Yet maybe with people you see or encounter on a regular basis and who are not really friends or your real work colleagues.

What about the person at your local market, who you choose to check-out with and so you can chat for a minute or two? Maybe it’s your favorite teller at your bank. Perhaps it is your lobby door person or security guard?

Start the dialogue with: “It is great to see you again.”

Ask a relevant “Open-ended” question: What, How, When, Where…

Become a better listener : "Developing influence requires effective communication, and effective communication begins with listening.

Listening is command central for effective communication. No other skill is as powerful or as necessary for developing understanding− and for communicating a desire to understand.

Perhaps the most common block to effective communication is impatience. So whatever your objective or agenda is, suspend it long enough to focus on what the other individual is saying and feeling. And display patience."

End the dialogue with: “It was great to talk with you again.”

Be interested. Be interesting. Be Curious!

Now you are well on your way to a life of “Continuous Learning” as a true leader…

Cyber Reality: Quest for the Digital Castle...

On this Saturday morning the prayers are silent. For family, friends and also for the subject matter experts in business and the U.S. government.

They have been waking us up again to the reality of the Operational Risks we now face, to our ubiquitous digital-based economic infrastructure.

The message is clear to those insiders, who have been trying to defend our "Digital Castles" against tremendous odds of these seemingly invisible threats. Is it really, game over?

The short answer is yes. The current mindset should be, that every major business of valuable interest in the eyes of the enemy has already been compromised or soon to be. It is already too late. The stealth digital code is currently waiting in the shadows of your organizations hundreds or thousands of digital assets.

Whether it is the aging Dell Tower Desk Tops still running on Windows XP somewhere or the latest Android PDA/Apple IOS devices tethered to the corporate network does not matter. Your adversary has control of when and where to begin the attack on you and your organization.

So if this is the reality of the global state-of-play, in both the business world and also to government, what should the risk management strategy consist of going forward? How could we ever get to a point of advantage over those who seek to do us harm?

So internally, the prudent corporate business strategy should be for your General Counsel and the CIO of your organization to be already preparing themselves for the day that they will step before the press conference microphone to disclose the material breach of the companies intellectual capital or theft of assets.

They should already know, that it is just a matter time and not a denial that it will ever happen on their watch. If you are a Board Director and you still have not had "The Talk" with management about this stark reality, then you too are complicit in the scheme to present your stockholders and stakeholders with a false sense of confidence that you are safe and secure.

The new normal for forward thinking organizations is already being implemented for adverse events. The Crisis Management Team has already exercised the "Data Breach" scenario numerous times.

Your General Counsel and Chief Information Officer have rehearsed and practiced their testimony before opposing and adversarial questioning of your organizations information security processes.

The company subject matter experts are more than prepared to submit evidence of their best practices, industry standards compliance and previous tests of due diligence. The stage is set for the court room battles ahead:

The quest for the "Digital Castle" has been going on for years. Are you awake now or still living in a dream of denial on your state of achieving a Defensible Standard of Care…

Wonder: Leadership in Action…

Leadership of “Small Teams” to accomplish extraordinary and challenging tasks or milestones has been written about for centuries.

The Leader of your team has certain assets and capabilities for creating the team "Wonder" that others see as worthy of following. The Leader has something the team members admire or, by joining the team, they know they will gain new knowledge or wealth of life experience.

So what is it about this Leader and this particular Team, that has created your ambition to try and join its ranks?

Why will you pursue the hard work and learning the skills to be known by your Leader and your fellow team mates, as a valuable addition to the team?

How does this “Team Leader” recognize those who will perform to baseline expectations and those who will make a valuable contribution to the overall mission?

Are they too tall or too short? Are they too young or too old? Are they too light or too heavy? Are they too sharp or dull? Are they too this or too that.

True Leaders realize from their own experience and continuous Recruiting, Educating, Networking and Sharing information (RENS) with new potential team members that it takes time.

How much time?

“Leadership of Teams” who have seen hundreds if not thousands of potential additions to a team, they will tell you this. "You can never judge anyone on your first impression."

It is not until each one of the new people for this particular team endeavor are provided with a proper orientation, skills testing, extensive training and actual opportunities to perform, that you will learn about them.

Will this particular person be worthy of becoming a long term and valuable team mate and continuously performing with excellence?

We shall find out and see what they are truly capable of in their knowledge, skills and their own ambitions to perform as fellow team members.

How long will you test and train them before you realize that your potential team player is not worthy of the continued time and resources with your team?

Days. Weeks. Months. Years?

You know as a True Leader, that you must finally make an informed decision. You must continue to invest your valuable resources in this individual or you must ask them to leave the team. This brave decision will benefit both of you.

Leadership of “Small Teams” of professionals will continuously have those who think they have found something new. Some new insight or formula that will change everything.

Do you ever experience "Wonder"...

The second, the minute, the hour or the day is ahead of you, when you too will finally realize that you will achieve your objective milestone. Or you might be unable to achieve it.

Whether it is the game or race, or the professional team working relationship, you must make a decision.

Yet never forget, that the wonder of learning will only make you Stronger, more Wise, more Knowledgeable and even more future Resilient...

Onward!

Madison Ave to Llewellyne Ave: Digital Warfare on our Doorsteps…

Complex Irregular Warfare, whether "Asymmetric or Hybrid" will be exponential into the next decade and shall consume our Earth and beyond.

John Q. Citizen who is walking down the street in Syria or Europe, Africa, Asia, South America or Kyiv already is more aware of this fact.

“Hybridity ... is characterized by the interpenetration of a wide range of non-state actors including any combination of insurgent or terrorist networks; organized crime groups; social groups such as clans, tribes or ethnic groups; and ideologically or religiously motivated organizations; all of which may be backed covertly or overtly by states and/or legitimate businesses.” 

Schroefl and Kaufman,

“Hybrid Actors,” pp. 862, 867.

This is still about our digital modern warfare, not focused or about the next variant of a biological weapon.

Asymmetric and hybrid warfare is not new and it has been operating on Main Street USA for a decade or more, yet most people are apathetic or complacent as they walk down the sidewalk starring at their latest digital communicator.

Who knows more about you as a person? The people on Madison Avenue or on Amphitheatre Parkway. These forces working together to better understand you as a behavioral thinking machine and to Win, are beyond your typical John Q. Citizens comprehension.

Now take this Asymmetric or Hybrid foundation and apply this to our next 24 hours and to the next 12 months. What you read and what you hear and what you see on an LCD screen, is the modern digital battlefield. In the USA. In Ukraine. In China. In North Korea. In Iran. In the UK.

The corporate and business battlefield has now spread across our other 16+ Critical Infrastructures, such as energy pipelines and beyond to hospitals, schools and universities, water and electric utilities, local government municipalities and vital federal government agencies.

The attack surface has now spread to our homes, apartments and where ever you may connect your little LCD screen to the Internet, for your Work From Home (WFH) strategy.

You see, that little black or white or blue communications box sitting there on your desk, credenza or table in the storage room, with little blinking lights is actually part of this digital global battlefield. You as a citizen soldier now need to do your part.

The Router/modem/Cable box sitting inside your own domicile or business, is the entry point for our modern global adversaries. It is your Duty of Care and your mission to defend your Family, your Community and your Country.

You can realize your own vulnerabilities in order to respond. To increase your resiliency. To upgrade or update your own digital hardware and software, in order to Deter, Detect and Defend, all those we care for in our daily lives.

The so called “Critical Infrastructure” is in your hand, in your business, in your home, and you and your own family are part of this hybrid warfare. Wake up!

From Madison Avenue, New York City NY to Llewellyn Avenue, Fort Meade MD, to the deepest, darkest parts of the World Wide Internet, a continuous Digital Global War is being waged 86,400 seconds per day…

Fearless: Over Your Horizon...

How will you be changing your focus in the coming year and over your horizon? Will you make a concerted effort to change some aspect of your life?

Many people declare some kind of resolution after the New Year begins January 1, so others will see them in a different light. What is yours?

What if you continued your life with more courage and a tenacity in following a faith that has lasted thousands of years?

People who together work towards living and demonstrating the life that exhibits what being a follower of Christianity truly means.

Some will make a resolution to lose weight and stop eating beef. Others will say they will stop something else, that they know and realize is so harmful in their life.

"What if you just did a 180 degree turn and instead of being so focused on “Stopping” the bad habit in your life, you became devoted to “Starting” a new behavior."

A new discipline. Starting to “DO” something that you know will be good for you.

In 2022 how might you start a new course, a new habit or a new process to improve your mindset and your outlook on life?

You can start this without declaring it out loud to your family, friends and neighbors.

How about reading or listening about it with your headphones on, for a 15-30 minute time, on a regular basis. On the Metro, on the plane or by yourself early in the morning, or with trusted others in the evening together.

There will be some significant outcomes from your focus and your new discipline. You just might be in wonder at what they are, as they begin to reveal themselves to you.

The first part of this is to declare that you will set aside your time on a regular basis. Will it be certain days of the week at a certain time frame of the day, in your daily schedule of life? The second part is to repeat and never give up.

Recently, a trusted woman who was working on a mutual project years ago with us came back into our life view. She had just written a book about her faith and her new discipline. It was now on Amazon and we exchanged a few quick e-mails.

The book arrived soon thereafter and I started reading it. As each page was turned, it is clear to me that Jennifer is truly someone that we shall learn from. How to be a real “DOER." How to have even more discipline in our prayer, as we go to work and care for our loved ones each day of our lives.

Beyond being a single mother and a professional in her entrepreneurial career, she has made enlightened decisions and started actions in her life over four years ago. This has taken her on a rewarding new spiritual and experiential journey.

In 2022, how might you start your new discipline? Whatever you may choose, Do it with devotion and be Fearless.

Disaster at 5280: Contingency Planning & Relief in 2022...

As our 737-900 descended over the Rockies into DEN yesterday, there was a clear view of the front range and the Boulder Flatirons in the distance. Snow storms were only 48 hours away, and yet as the extreme winds buffeted our plane we admired the city at 5280 ft.

Only a few hours later as we drove around NW Denver, the smoke started to became apparent. Little did we know that communities just North of us, were on the verge of an unpredictable local catastrophic disaster.

The winds had picked up and now you could sense something was very wrong with the wall of dark smoke blowing East at 75+ miles an hour.

Then we saw the local news about Superior, and the immediate evacuations as the roaring fire headed due East from Rt. 93 and the foothills just West of Superior and Louisville.

24+ hours later, it is still not quite over and we have witnessed 500-1000 homes and a hotel along with some other local businesses incinerated, as fire crews worked through the night to save lives and get people to safe havens.

Once you as a human, come so very close to pure disaster and witness the shear power of mother nature and her ability to devastate everything in her path, of the fire, and the wind or the water…you realize you are never going to be totally prepared.

In 2022, let us all agree, that we can only devote more time to understand, making more informed decisions and acting quickly to our respective rapidly changing events, incidents, threats and inevitable crisis.

Through every disaster across America, there are valuable “Lessons Learned” and for us as humans to respond in productive and heart felt outcomes.

Here are a few quick ideas that may be worthy of consideration with your family:

1. How might you and yours set up a digital “Cloud” account in Box or Amazon or Google or Protonmail, to upload and place copies of your most vital personal .pdf or scanned documents, home insurance, tax records and even business/financial information?
2. How might you place a fireproof lockbox/safe within your house to place physical documents, Passports, Birth Certificates and other unreplaceables (jewelry, medals, keys) or legal information that may take weeks or months to replace?
3. How might you and your spouse/partner practice with other family members, in other cities across the country, on contingencies and family actions, just in case Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Floods or Wild Fires and even Earthquakes occur without warning?
4. What types of insurance coverages have you added to your policies to include certain types of disaster scenarios, that have a likelihood of occurring in your particular geography?
5. Once you have established the baseline for 1-4, how might you improve your planning by exchanging the plans with your other trusted family members and asking each other important remaining questions?

As the local “Denver News” helicopter flew over the remains of these neighborhoods this morning, one could only wonder why some houses were spared and others next door were completely gone with only a chimney remaining?

“Our First Responders and local businesses are still in the first 72 hours of this disaster and yet you can see the sorrow and the emotions on everyones faces.”

Colorado and other NGOs across America will assist in the days ahead and we will grow stronger and more prepared for our next crisis as the snow showers and storms finally arrive here…

Godspeed Colorado in 2022!

Seasons Greetings and 2022...

We have learned a tremendous amount of new Operational Risk knowledge in 2021. As we celebrate this holiday season and move into 2022, it is imperative that we reflect on what we have learned.

We must take this new found knowledge and use it to mitigate the ever changing threats to our family, friends, institutions, organizations and business units.  To become even more Resilient.

We are reminded of the great book by Stan Davis and Jim Botkin titled The Monster Under the Bed. They talk about how Knowledge is information put to productive use.

And they talk about getting from Knowledge to Wisdom:

Wisdom: The ability to judge soundly and deal sagaciously with facts, especially as they relate to life and conduct; knowledge, with the capacity to make due use of it; perception of the best ends and the best means; discernment and judgment...

Operational Risk Management is about true knowledge management and so much more. It is about Learning, with the goal of gaining and retaining Wisdom.

It is about using advanced methods and technologies to detect threats far in advance, so that the proper risk mitigation strategies can be put in place.

Operational Risk Management remains an evolving discipline in our corporate institutions only because we have not yet decided on the exact taxonomy and definitions, for each facet of its breadth and rapidly changing depth.

Once we accomplish greater discipline, it will become more pervasive across most aspects of our business foundations.

From the Board Room to your Third-party risk management (TPRM), we will see Operational Risk Management (ORM) having a real impact on our collective “Wisdom".

Seasons Greetings and in 2022, we must all look for ways to gain more wisdom and to further develop the methods and systems for keeping our most precious assets safe and secure…

R3: Team Leaders On The Front Lines…

Now that you and your team have finished the mission strategy planning for 2022, how might you simplify this for those on the front line who work outside the building?

When you really understand what the product/solution does and you truly believe the benefit of someone using it, now what?

Your team may know the strategy and the “Why now”, yet will you still be wondering where all of the budget allocations have gone, after the first six months of your budget cycle?

What if you focused on a small part of your team, who you might name your company “Operators”. 

You know, the people who are eager to get out the door everyday to go see and solve problems for themselves. The people that will be responsible for the implementation of the product, the tool, and the solution on the customers premises in their environment.

"The team of “Operators” in your organization who are actually accountable for the final results."

Hopefully your organization has at least a 3:1 ratio of “Operators” to “Bean Counters”.

3-Operators to 1-Bean Counter, just might give you a chance of making your mission strategy work.

In our global world of business these days, the relationships are your Ground Zero.

Without effective relationships that exist and are continuously building rapidly across your intended target zones, you will have a much longer wait for your positive and smiley face of EBITDA.

Developing and growing “Relationships” is perhaps one of your greatest Operational Risks ahead of you, as the Leader of your particular team.

Having learned a simple yet “Never Forget” acronym from a few very wise business instructors (Randy & Wendy) many years ago, consider this:

R3 = Relationships >>> Results >>> Revenue.

Guess what? It is something the “Operators” will actually understand and since you have 3 times more of these people on your front line team, they must have their own business strategy acronym that they will be able to remember and execute on:

1. Operators that are developing meaningful and effective Relationships are your way to mission accomplishment.
   
2. Operators who realize how to produce tangible Results that can be measured are your way to mission accomplishment with end users, customers and clients.
3. Operators will see Revenue if #1 and #2 are successful.

R3 is your execution layer on top of the “Bean Counters” PEST, STEER, SWOT or any other planning acronym they might use in the “God Pod” upstairs or down a long corridor of the outside view offices in the E-ring.

In order for you as the field Team Leader, to truly better understand how to improve the “Revenue” and mitigate the Operational Risks in your business entity, you have got to get out on the front lines with your Operators.

To see and experience the real “Relationships” and the actual “Results”.

Where will your next “Senior Leader” tour of duty take you in the field of your Area of Responsibility (AOR)…

Managing Operational Risks: On the Wall at 100 Ft...

After days taking in the magnificent sights at 100+ feet below the surface off Grand Cayman Island, we were reminded how Operational Risk Management is prevalent in even remote places like this.

Take for example the mandate for using dive computers, as a guest of Wall to Wall Diving. For those not initiated with Scuba Diving, you might not realize that "sensors" are utilized in measuring potential threats to your life from something called "The Bends", or decompression sickness.

Giles Charlton-Jones and his wife Deanna from Wall to Wall Diving use a combination of proven Operational Risk Management processes and tools to reduce the risks to their clients. They do this because their small business is no different than that of a Fortune 500 company. As the owners and primary shareholders of any organization, it is the law in most cases to provide Duty of Care.

Decompression sickness, (DCS), diver's disease, the bends, or caisson disease is the name given to a variety of symptoms suffered by a person exposed to a reduction in the pressure surrounding their body. It is a type of diving hazard.

Dive computers perform a continuous calculation of the partial pressure of gases in the body based on the actual dive profile. As the dive computer automatically measures depth and time, it reduces the need for the diver to carry a separate watch and depth gauge and is able to warn of excessive ascent rates and missed decompression stops.

Many dive computers also provide additional information to the diver, for example, the water temperature, or the pressure of the remaining breathing gas in the diving cylinder.

The key point is, that these sensors attached to each diver, help Deter and Detect potential threats associated with decompression sickness. This even includes a calculation when it is safe again to fly on an airplane.

Like other manufacturers in the high technology systems sector, SCUBA (Self-contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) has it's own champions of companies who focus on the latest tools and solutions to help you manage risks. Who plan for future threat scenarios based upon collected intelligence over years of experience.

Suunto is just one example of a Finnish company, who have been developing instruments for measurement and sensors for various outdoor pursuits. Whether it be on the mountain at 20,000 ft. or underwater at 125 ft..

Weather and our Earths environment will always play a part in the daily risks mountaineers and divers face and who are proactive with the use of the correct tools, so they can operate in a more safe and secure manner.

Yet without the investment with “True Professionals” who have years of the relevant training, decades of experience and brilliant intuition, all the best tools will never be quite enough.

“How often do you encounter situations where the new threat intelligence collected and the automatic warning alerts have not been enough, to keep you out of harms way?”

As a global Fortune 500 company, the Board of Directors represents the interests of shareholders, as oversight owners of the company, in optimizing value by overseeing management performance on the shareholders' behalf.

The Board of Directors responsibilities in performing this oversight function include a Duty of Care and a Duty of Loyalty.

A Director's Duty of Care, refers to the responsibility to exercise appropriate due diligence in overseeing the management of the company, while continuously making OPS Risk decisions and performing other vital mitigation actions.

It remains refreshing to witness that even on a small island in the British West Indies, that the owners/operators are true professionals who are applying the practice of “Operational Risk Management” (ORM) in their own small employee-owned business.

First, they utilize it each day because they are Professionals. Second, they do it instinctively, because they know that it can mean the difference between life and death or predictive harm in an organizations daily operations.

As we near the end of another year of growing risks in 2021, we say congratulations to all of you who have found the science of “Operational Risk Management”.

Thank you to all of you, who have applied your own professional services “Art”, to make our world, more safe and secure in 2022! Godspeed!

Grateful: Appreciate, Reflect and Communicate...

Now that you have had a few days and been challenged to reflect on what and who you are grateful for in your life, how will you change?

The “Thanksgiving” holiday brings out some of the most interesting behaviors in people. It is now a time to reflect on what you have learned about the others in your clan, your community or your own household.

How might you take the words you acknowledged while talking to people about your“Gratefulness” and now putting those sentences into something more positive?

Rewarding outcomes for others and for yourself.

If you said you were grateful for your work/job as an example, how might you enhance the work you are doing each day to use your job as a platform.

A work platform for increased quality to create, design and deliver better solutions that provide an even more valuable result, for someone or some entity.

Is your work just one step in a multi-step process? How might you make the process more efficient, more effective or even more reliable?

If you said you were grateful for your family, how might you improve the relationships you have with your siblings, your cousins and even your Mother or Father?

What is just one way you could show your family member, that you trust them, love them and appreciate their continuous contributions?

Will you change your behavior going forward, based upon all that you have learned this past week?

Will you acknowledge your own thoughts and feelings about others, yet make the changes necessary to improve your important and vital relationships?

These two words “Thank You” are far more powerful, than you may ever realize.

These words are the beginning of a dialogue about something that is important or so vital to you.

Acknowledge it in a way, that the other person truly knows you are grateful.

Grateful adjective

grate· ful | \ ˈgrāt-fəl

Definition of grateful

1a : appreciative of benefits received

b : expressing gratitude grateful thanks

2a : affording pleasure or contentment : pleasing

b : pleasing by reason of comfort supplied or discomfort alleviated

Look them right in the eyes when you say it, or even with an appropriate emoji. If you have been successful, you will know it. Hopefully, they will acknowledge your kind words in some way.

Our personal and work environments are moving so rapidly and the ability to slow down just enough to actually Appreciate, Reflect and to Communicate effectively, is such a continuous challenge. Yet worth every minute of focus.

“Thank you” for all that you are doing, to make this place more effective, more livable, more comfortable, more enjoyable, more laughable, more loving, more faithful and more peaceful. You know who you are…

Metadata: Guardians on the Front Lines...

Continuous Continuity (C2) in your particular enterprise is a priority you shall not just focus upon during our U.S. Infrastructure Security Month.

Last week here, we reviewed Ten Steps your organization can practice on a regular basis to enhance your focus on Continuous Continuity and simultaneously your overall Operational Risk Management (ORM).

Let’s circle back to a few vital areas to emphasize as we increase our production and consumption of corporate or organizational “Data”.

Of Metadata. “Data that provides information about other data”.

The details on the creation date, time and application generating these words as they were originally written, is just one small example. What about the actual platform and the browser that was used:

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:94.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/94.0

Screen Resolution: 1680 x 1050 (pixels)

Browser Dimensions: 1005 x 853 (pixels)

Cookie Status: Enabled

You understand that the data you can’t see on your screen and the data you may not even care about, is present, and that the metadata is being collected by some entity somewhere.

The amount of data and the speed of data is now overwhelming our global digital world we live in the year 2021 and beyond. The question remains, So What?

If you are a seasoned General Counsel (GC) today with a Fortune 1000 organization doing business on a global basis, your Blackberry :) must be "buzzing" every few minutes. Just the legal risk alone being encountered will always be a factor of the number of deals, the number of employees and the growing number of countries you are operational.

As a corporate GC of a global enterprise, you have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the enterprise from all adversaries, such as the rogue employee, the government regulator, competitors, digital hackers, nation states and all of the plaintiff class actions.

The Rule of Law in your organization is in your hands. How you transfer the "Talking Points" on ethics, compliance and legal messages to your employees, partners, suppliers and adversaries is ever more critical.

The true effectiveness of your relationship with internal partners such as your CEO, CFO, CSO, CISO and Internal/External First Responder leadership could mean the survival of the company itself.

When was the last time you as a GC took the “Ethics," “Compliance” and "Rule of Law" program directly to your employees in face-to-face sessions?

How might you provide your employees, partners or 3rd-Party suppliers with the first hand opportunity to meet, greet and engage with the General Counsel of your particular enterprise?

By doing this, you are directly engaging with the people on the front lines, to be our "Guardians" for your company and to build trusted relationships with all of them.

Get out There.

(C2) to Secure your Enterprise: Here are ten steps to Practice Continuous Continuity...

Here are ten steps to Practice Continuous Continuity (C2) to Secure your Enterprise: 

1. Develop and practice a contingency plan that includes a succession plan for your executive team. 

2. Train backup employees to perform emergency tasks. The employees you count on to lead in an emergency won't always be available. 

3. Consider creating offsite crisis meeting places for top executives and operational teams. 

4. Make sure employees—as well as executives—are involved in the exercises so that they get practice in responding to an emergency and following orders in potential chaos. 

5. Make exercises realistic enough to tap into employees' emotions so that you can see how they'll react when the situation gets stressful. 

6. Practice crisis communication with employees, customers and the outside world. 

7. Invest in an alternate means of communication in case the phone networks go down, including wireless devices. 

8. Form partnerships with local emergency response groups—firefighters, police and EMTs—to establish a good working relationship. Let them become familiar with your company and site. 

9. Evaluate your company's performance during each test, and make changes to ensure constant improvement. Continuity plans should reveal weaknesses. 

10. Regularly test your continuity plan to reveal and accommodate changes. technology, personnel and facilities are in a constant state of change at any company.

Organizational Design: Transition Speed into Action...

How would you change the design of your organization in order to accelerate your transition speed into action?

Now that you have just completed the phase of creative solution development that has produced five new designed prototypes, what is next?

How fast will you be able to put these into action with others on the front lines?

When might you and your organization deploy a cadre of people who have a single mission?

The “Mission Leaders Team” shall take the new designs and will be putting them into the air, onto the cloud server or in the hands of the true operators, who are in the game each hour of each day.

You see, your problem is not the pace of your innovation within your organization. It is the ability to more rapidly apply what you have learned, from all of your failed experiments in the field. It is the current design of your organization that requires new change.

Your ability to get the new tangible answers into operation with your most talented and able people is your next summit. Your next finish line. Your next destination. Who are these people?

The five new prototypes shall be demonstrated and documented with quiet care, so that you might expand the testing, the experiments in new environments. Why?

To learn faster than your adversary. To achieve market dominance before your competition. To deliver solutions to those in need just-in-time.

As the "Mission Leader" in your organization, you shall design the methodology and the process for others to view in real-time.

Allow each other to see, feel and witness the outcomes of the idea, the invention or the intended solution.

So what?

The transition phase is now before you. Take it and deploy it across the organization to those geographic locations that will allow you to learn faster. To decide with new insights gaining speed with the correct operators in the field.

Understand. Decide. Act.

Repeat.

Let us know what you learn and when you learn it. We might just be able to take this and apply it to our own team, in our own Area of Responsibility.

Now get out there…Onward!

Presence: In Operational Risk Encounters...

“It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates his presence to men.”

 --C. S. Lewis

What is on your mind this Sunday?

It is in the journey and the life of Clive Staples Lewis that many of us could identify with these days. Growing up and baptized in the Church of Ireland, he lost his faith in his adolescence.

As a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and fellow author, C.S. found his way back to Christianity in his mid thirties just as World War descended on England and Europe.

As you encounter the daily "Operational Risks" of our respective lives as they unfold before us each day, is there a presence? Will it be a phone call, an e-mail or text message or even a voice across the news channel that suddenly impacts us?

The information sent to you will change your mood, change your behavior and affects your soul. Yet how will you respond?

Quiet the voice in your conscious mind and seek His presence in us, for our real answers. 

Have you ever been introduced to someone who you met and spent some time with, that made you wonder why, you were so hopeful to spend more time with them? Why?

What was so different about their presence with you?

You see, what you feel and you are experiencing, is the journey towards hope and true belief.

When C.S. Lewis entered Oxford in 1917, it was only within months that he was commissioned into the British Army and was headed into the First World War.

Even through 2 World Wars, Lewis was an accomplished writer with 30 books and also worked 30 years with Magdalen College, Oxford. He died at the age of 64.

Now as we approach our “Thanksgiving” in the month of November and we are around our families and all the friends we cherish with our thoughts, come before His presence.

As Natalie Grant sings the lyrics in her song, at the “Sound of Your Great Name:"

“Every fear, has no place, at the sound of Your great name.”

“The enemy, he has to leave, at the sound of Your great name.”

Thanksgiving and this Christmas as days on the calendar, are far more, than a single annual holiday in America.

It is a continuous feeling, you shall experience, by encountering His presence…

Onward: Inspire. Connect. Empower...

When you walk into a room full of trusted colleagues or are announced on the stage before a group you call your “Tribe” how do you feel?

Is it a positive experience or a negative experience?

Building a culture with people who will truly interact and collaborate in short time frames is vital to our survival.

Creating, designing and delivering solutions at speed, to identified problem-sets, is our “Mission Leaders” greatest endeavor in 2021 and beyond.

Whether the words -Werx, -Hack, or innovation are in the dialogue is less relevant than the delivery of the correct mindset for leadership, to evolve the movement.

Our world is seeing the revolution of societies reaction to governance, whether effective or ineffective.

We see the outcomes of the right or the wrong governance behavior in words that invoke thoughts of threat or of opportunity.

Hypersonic. Quantum. Over-the-Horizon. Directed Energy. Digital. Blockchain.

How might your group, team, cohort or organization better understand the effects of governance on human behavior?

How might your team accelerate the discovery process to the delivery of valid prototypes, to solve our greatest challenges ahead on our Earth and beyond?

What is possible for humans is inherently different than other biological systems that have evolved here over time. Remember the word “Amygdala” as we proceed through our evolution.

Yet the opportunity for leadership, is to sense the change and not fear the uneasiness or the forthcoming change coming their direction.

Leadership shall embrace the difference, the culture that will evolve over time to ask more questions about the “Weak Signals” being detected and whether fear is present.

Listen to your heart. Feel what your true mentors are writing and telling you about the change ahead. Understand that our level of trust will mean everything.

Get out there! Explore. Ask questions. Design solutions for you that will lower your fear of the future.

Inspire. Connect. Empower.

Onward!

Mission Resilience: Our Digital Trust in 2050...

“If we are to prevail as a civil, global society, designing and achieving digital trust is now a necessity. We must find the courage to move beyond what seems to work today but actually is crumbling. We must move beyond merely shoring up our defenses with stronger, more robust spending. Instead, we must begin anew, replacing what is with what needs to be—a robust, dynamic, interconnected, digital space through which we can communicate and live as a global society. In doing so, we can improve our confidence in our decisions and the decisions of our leaders.”—Jeffrey Ritter-Achieving Digital Trust

Our organizations across Corporate and Major Metropolitan areas of the world are at the epicenter of our trust.

It is Cybersecurity Awareness month in the United States in October again and the number of Ransomware incidents is rising on a daily basis. Cryptocurrency is being used on the “Dark Web” to complete transactions that go well beyond the purchase of digital keys, to unlock stolen and encrypted data from those digitally frozen municipalities, hospitals, and other vital corporate Critical Infrastructure entities.

The CIA finally has a “China Mission Center” dedicated to the continuous analysis and proactive geopolitical actions to protect the invisible, yet ever more present digital influence operations across the Internet.

How will the challenges of our "Digital Domains" change from their foundations of open communications and collaboration to major systems disruption and loss of trust?

How might we proceed community-by-community both online and face-to-face, to raise the level of integrity and confidence in our accelerating digital age?

Our future for a trusted and civil global economy will depend upon our respective confidence in the digital world we all have created this past two decades.

The algorithms and the software code have largely been written by humans, who are still so capable of making errors.

The opportunity for us all, is to increase the quality of our digital world and to better manage the forensic initiatives that will still lie ahead of us.

In the Board Room, the GSOC Center and every desktop where humans type on keyboards in a protected building, located off Chain Bridge Road near Georgetown Pike, the challenges will continue to rise.

Writing the descriptive words for an all-source PDB or coding in the syntax and semantic language known as Python, our technology tools remain open to exploit.

Our digital trust relies on the people with decades of hands on experience and the people who will design the software to run our growing infrastructure of tomorrow.

Mission continuity and operational resilience is the next digital wave of innovation required to build trust across our cities and across continents. 

Critical Infrastructure Protection must remain pervasive, engineered into all that we design and deliver with Confidence, Integrity and Assurance…

Innovation: Entrepreneurial SPRINT…

Are you ready to embark on a new endeavor in your particular work or volunteer organization? Then how might you utilize an “Entrepreneurial SPRINT” methodology to more effectively accomplish your desired outcomes in National Security?

If you even develop a multi-step process to take you down an agreed upon series of collaborative actions, you will be well on your way to a more valued set of results.

Consider a focus on solving a unique problem-set that exists in your own specific Domain, Industry or Organization.

Work alongside a team partner or small group to experience the empirical evidence of answers to your questions, hypotheses and the information discovered and collected as you proceed.

Create a design SPRINT that accomplishes your agreed upon steps in a specified time frame, 4 or five days in-a-row, or 4 consecutive weeks within a month.

Utilize a proven and open-source hybrid methodology from intellectual thought leaders in the realm of innovation such as Jake Knapp or Steve Blank with Strategyzer AG. All have published a multitude of information on tools, systems, process and models to consider.

Here is an example for just one reference:

1. Map/Target
2. Sketch/Solution
3. Decide
4. Prototype

The process steps are the key to your unique journey of innovation. Two people or a small team learning together, as you interview likely beneficiaries of your proposed solution. 

Learning the potential end-users real opinions and comments is vital. What the “real problem” is, that is keeping them focused and that they are eager to solve.

How might you incorporate this type of “Entrepreneurial SPRINT” into your own organization, so that you can capture the true essence of what the customer seeks?

Your Team is going to learn together the Who, What, How, and Where your design for a solution to a more well defined problem-set, that will make a real difference.

What is vital to remember in your place of work or within your organization, is that the methodology is proven. It works for students in college, employees in Fortune 500 companies and volunteers in non-profit organizations.

“The ambition and the hope for all of us, shall be to increase our skills, our knowledge and share relevant National Security learning and information”…Onward!