The Great Conversation: Recent Episodes
The Great Conversation
If you are walking in a garden, and you can see, you will note the interconnections between land, air, water, and seed. It is an ecosystem. In your garden, if you pay attention, you have circles of influencers in your life all around you potentially interconnecting with each other in powerful ways. You are giver and receiver in this garden. Your mindset is to flourish. Not to fear, not to go it alone, but to connect in. And you will see that these circles of influence are interconnected and interlocking. They are the compound interest of a relational investor. This is a Great Conversation with Dr. Daniel Hallak, author of The Trust Circle and Ron Worman, The Sage Group.
Across every civilization, from the Nile to Wall Street, humans have built pyramids. Some were carved from stone, others from policy, process, and PowerPoint. But the shape persists.
Why?
Perhaps it is because the pyramid is more than a structure—it’s a belief system. It’s how we make sense of scale. It’s how we create order out of chaos, meaning out of complexity, and continuity out of uncertainty.
And yet, for most people, life is lived not at the apex, but somewhere in the middle layers—where the weight is felt most intensely, and where the opportunity for real leadership is often overlooked.
In this great conversation we’re going to explore that middle space. The place where most of the world’s work gets done. The place where influence is earned, not granted.
And to guide us, we have someone who has lived inside pyramids both ancient and modern—organizationally speaking—and has written a remarkable book about how to navigate them with purpose, clarity, and courage.
Christopher Stitt is the author of Scaling Pyramids, a #1 bestseller in Public Affairs, and the CEO of Crisis Lead leveraging over 25 years in global security, crisis management, and law enforcement. He’s spent his career helping people at the lower and mid‑levels of their organizational pyramids find their voice, their agency, and their path upward—or outward—with integrity.
“People don’t need a spreadsheet of reasons to trust you. They don’t want another pitch deck. Another promise. Another polished lie. They are waiting for a signal. And what is the most powerful signal:
"I see you. I hear you. You matter."
Jack Barsky, a former KGB spy, did not learn this in Harvard Business School. He learned it from his tradecraft as a spy.
In the Great Conversation, we navigate intention, truth, and trust between the two worlds. And we end with a question about legacy that many of us can learn from.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…
Shakespeare
And so it goes with our professional lives as well. The way we enter the business world and how we exit has an “In-between” that establishes the story we one day will tell.
This Great Conversation is between two men who have been on that Path to Value™. They share their thoughts, learnings, and their plan for joining together to help others on that journey.
Ron Worman of The Sage Group and Dr. Mark L. Vincent, author and founder of Design Group International, Society of Process Consulting, and Maestro-level Leaders discuss their shared values, learnings, and purpose that led them to join forces on the owner’s Path to Value.
A “Washing Machine” sits in each company ready to toss you into a cycle of doing. If you let yourself and others enter it, you have shut the door on the full potential of the humans who have come alongside you to create something of value. These people have a conscious or unconscious need for meaning in their lives. If you are the leader: by title or by ownership, you have a choice to make. You can recognize that each person is searching for alignment and see your role as inviting them into your journey, or you can determine what you can extract, and mine it until it doesn’t produce the return you need.
What kind of builder are you?
This Great Conversation suggests that there is a way to build for value that does not subtract from another. And that ultimately this path can change you and our world.
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The world spins off wheels (models used by any human organization to achieve success in the market). But what if the wheel begins to slow or suddenly stops?
In this great conversation we face the existential question: Are we ready for the change that is upon us? This change is multi-faceted. The change is a wheel that can release the energy of the market, the organizations within a market, and the people that help push and pull it into significance. But it needs leaders who see the change and help others through it.
We want revolutions in the wheel, not a conflagration.
In this Great Conversation, we immerse ourselves in the variables and potential root cause of this change. A strategic "integrator" joins us. Someone who has spent time in the military, consulted with Fortune 500 companies, and consumes data that speaks to the evolving socio-economic road ahead.
Automation scares people. Always has. And it should if you are waiting to see what happens next.
As we conversed and I reflected on the technology transitions I have been through for the last 50 years, I realized this is the perfect time for every leader, including me, to lend a hand. The perfect question came to mind: Can I help others on this AI Path to Value™?
Read more: at The Great Conversation
‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’— Attributed to George Bernard Shaw“Isn’t it time to stop holding people accountable?”
You are a leader. You take on a role called owner, executive, or manager. Or you are part of a team. You are trying to get things done. And you have laggards among you. What is the common response"?
Hold them accountable!
This is a logical next step. Measures of performance. And if you aren’t measuring up, bad things happen. You have been there. It starts with a conversation. Then when that doesn’t work, talk with HR. Maybe they can help. After all, in this culture of litigation, it doesn’t hurt to document. And you find yourself and your company accelerating down the path of correction. After all, you need to “hold them accountable”. A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) may follow. And it screams to the employee and to their peers, that you have now been given a path to exit, not a path to value. Someone has to pay for this lack of accountability.
And this is where a Great Conversation with Aaron Schmookler, the founder of The Yes Works, creates the foundation for a new idea.
Aaron has a company that promises to unleash your people from this death spiral. It seeks to provide agency to the worker and to the business. And the agency starts with the gift of clarity. Owners and leaders: Are you clear what your mission is? Have you articulated that to your people? Do they know how they contribute to your definition of success? Do they know what the reward for that success is? Do they understand it, want it, and have the skills / capacity to achieve it?
If so, then they are personally accountable to themselves! As Aaron might say: “The greatest kindness one can give another is agency over the consequences of their actions.” When we err, it is a learning. When learning is applied, we grow. When we grow, we have taken a step on a path to value.
This demands a great conversation with your leadership team. It just might be the beginning of a reformation in how you identify, onboard, and mentor your people until they are unstoppable.
In this Great Conversation podcast we excavate the human and organizational need for better. For organizations that employ people, this is about the alignment of people, purpose, and organization. We turn to one of the former leaders responsible for learning and development at Microsoft. We learn about the “data-informed” approach that transformed technology leaders that has been transcended with a significant developmental innovation at WiLD Leaders: the ability to measure personal, team, and organizational trust. Once measured a "Map to Better" can be realized.
Most of us have experienced the gnawing doubt of our purpose. Few have leaned into that doubt and set out on a journey of exploration, knowing they are seafarers navigating the risks and opportunities of the voyage.
This Great Conversation is with a woman who pursued formal education in business and economics at Harvard. It became her future core competency. She is now acknowledged as a thought leader in macroeconomic analysis and multi-asset capital allocation.
But before that she said the great “Yes” to a passion centered in music earning her Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as an Artist Diploma and a Master’s degree in vocal performance. She has won honors and accolades from international competitions and been featured as a soloist at the Kennedy Center.
Now Anna Rathbun, CFA, CAIA is the Chief Investment Officer of CBIZ, Inc. (NYSE:CBZ), a leading professional services advisor to middle market businesses and organizations nationwide.
Anna and I spend our time getting to the Yes of her journey which leads us to a discussion of the journey of the business owner. We agree it is a journey that transcends the P&L. It is a journey of the wants and needs of another through relationship and trust. (See the podcast “The Key Performance Indicator We Don’t Measure…But Should”.)
And trust, according to Anna, is fragile. It has a face, the other. It has a heart. And it has a mind. And this unique chemistry cannot be parsed or siloed. If we only focus on profit optimization, we will not build a sustainable and lasting relationship with our customers, suppliers, and employees.
The bad news: we are in a time of shifting business models and shifting value systems for world markets. And that will impact the business owner here at home.
The good news: if we harness what we know about ourselves and others, we can navigate these times to advantage both.
Anna will be speaking on Thursday, January 30, 2025 at The Economic Update Breakfast at the Madison Centre Building Conference Center in Seattle, Washington. I will be there to meet her, physically, for the first time.
Anna oversees a team conducting global economic research. She also produces the CBIZ Small Business Employment Index and the CBIZ Main Street Index, which are proprietary indices that keep a pulse on the small business employment conditions and other Main Street trends in the United States. Anna’s opinions on global economic and market trends as well as monetary and fiscal policies are sought after by media outlets, and she is a regular guest contributor on Fox Business, CNN Money, Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall Street Journal and others. Anna is also an experienced professional in alternative investments, focusing on private equity, private credit and private real asset investing for institutional clients. With a unique background that embraces both finance and the arts, Anna is dedicated to the issue of financial sustainability for organizations serving a mission.
Enjoy this conversation with this master of the “Yes” in Life.
If you are a data driven organization and measures of performance are important to you, it might be helpful to understand the measure that influences all other measures…. This great conversation is about cracking the code in creating a persistent measure of organizational trust that impacts the engagement and performance of your people.
To paraphrase our guest:
Leadership=Trust.
Now you can measure it.
Now you can build it.
I have often said that worldview is a predictor of behavior. What is a worldview?
A worldview is the narrative you absorbed through your family, education, and experience that act as a toolbox of beliefs, assumptions, and values elements. by which you interact with the world. It is the story of you and your place in the world.
The Great Conversation is really about worldview creating the soil for ideas and actions that change the world.
This great conversation starts with a young man who was seeking his place in the world from humble beginnings, oldest of seven kids in a lower middle class family that often struggled. This formed the foundation of responsibility and the agency that life could be better.
He could have gone into professional baseball after his junior year in college, but had the foresight to see the lure of the game was not going to pay off.
He finished school, and like many of us, took a job to pay the bills. The first one was with a general contractor. The second one was in sales. Each of them was formative. However, he was a voracious learner. He dove into books by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger about value investing. He quizzed his father-in-law about commercial real estate. This created the foundation for his venture into commercial real estate.
And the rest is a fable you must listen to because he went from a net worth of $50,000 to a portfolio of business interests between $15-$20M in 14 years.
Along the way he left his mind and spirit open creating the opportunity for mentorship and learning.
And now he is giving back by seeking to upgrade others as he himself was upgraded by his mindset and fortuitous connections along the way. Operation Upgrade is all about him identifying the learners and providing tools and a hand as they strive to see the possible upgrades in themselves. ..
This was a great conversation with a man with a worldview that is upgrading the world around him.
In 2022, 39% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States were enrolled in college or graduate school.
The total cost of attendance for a four-year degree includes tuition and fees, room and board, books, supplies, and other expenses. In 2022-2023, the average annual cost of attendance for first-time, full-time undergraduate students was:
- Private nonprofit institutions: $58,600+
- Private for-profit institutions: $33,600+
- Public institutions: $27,100+
Most students borrow money to attend college, with the average federal student loan debt being $37,850. The standard repayment plan for federal student loans lasts 10 years, but the average student borrower spends closer to 20 years paying off their loans.
The median annual salary for a college graduate with a bachelor's degree is around $77,636.. (after 4 years and an average debt of $38K)
This is the context for a discussion with a retired tradesman, Dennis Hamon. Dennis successfully sold his plumbing business a few years back and since that time has been serving his industry through the Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, Contractors Association. (PHCC).
He himself was that 18 year old kid who was always dreaming and always learning, but was not attracted to formal education. He was one of the 61% who did not go to college.
Instead he was mentored and apprenticed by tradespeople that helped shape his character and work ethic. And it eventually led him to building a successful practice.
Now he has a podcast, “Dennis the Apprentice” that is intended to be one of the vehicles that allows him to keep investing in the next generation of plumbers. He is also on the board of directors of the national PHCC and is helping shape the growth trajectory of the PHCC Academy, a comprehensive contractor life cycle education model beginning with workforce development.
Through the great conversation, he helps us understand the risks and opportunities in the plumbing industry. These will serve the next generation of plumbers represented by those 18 year old kids who have been taught to believe the only way to a quality life, a $100,000 annual salary and professional career development is through a 4 year degree.
If you love to learn, are accountable, love to help people, and fix problems that are important to them, then this might be the profession for you. And you get paid to learn it with many companies offering compensation based on your performance.
Plumbing services professionals are the doctors of the home. Educated, certified, professionally licensed, and well compensated. And they don’t spend 4 years to get a $50,000 job with a $50,000 debt hanging over them.
Enjoy this discussion with a great entrepreneur, and statesman.
Your team is in the room. It is a strategic moment. High risk, high reward. And you are the team leader. How do you help them navigate this moment of risk and opportunity?
This is happening in board rooms, executive management team meetings, and in organizational teams throughout your company. Do you have the language, processes, and tools embedded in your people so they can meet the moment that matters?
A different mindset is needed. One you vet for before hiring. One you ensure is part of the onboarding process. One that is persistently refreshed and used.
In this Great Conversation, we tease out whether Dr. Gav Schneider might have the recipe for this and whether it can break out from being a “security” program and into the mainstream toolbox for leaders up and down the corporate ladder. It is called “Presilience”.
Enjoy another Great Conversation on the future of work.
We had a great conversation with the Founder and CEO of The Demand Creation Institute, Sean Stormes.
Sean had the good fortune of leading a Continuous Quality Improvement initiative within a Fortune 500 company. This led him to the world’s authority Dr. William Edwards Deming, the father of the quality movement. Deming was credited with revolutionizing Post World War II Japan’s manufacturing industry and making Japan one of the most dominant economies in the world. In 1951 the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers established The Deming Prize that recognizes organizations that have implemented systems that promote quality, and individuals who have made contributions to quality. It is one of the highest awards int the world and the longest running national quality award.
This formative experience led Sean to explore the world of variation, a symptom that eventually leads to defects. Once he began researching, he saw variation at every level of a company.
He saw variation in the articulation of purpose.
He saw variation in the articulation of value to the client.
He saw variation in the alignment of purpose, quality, and value throughout the company culture.
To add fuel to the fire, he also saw an epidemic of sameness. He could take any number of company websites in any market and see no substantial differences.
Finally, he saw that the measures of sales performance lacked the means to create a compounding effect, limiting the scale and impact of the company.
Sean’s passion for excellence in demand creation creates the context for all of this.
Enjoy this great conversation and then begin to question all the elements that add up to creating more from your go-to-market efforts.
I have seen it before. So have you. A disconnect:
- with your people
- with your stakeholders in your market
- with your prospects and customers
- with your board
And most important of all, you have compartments within you that are silos of excellence but are not integrated into a highly compelling story of you.
We invited Chris Hare, the Founder and Principal of The Storied Future, to our Podcast to discuss his journey in creating a story for himself, his company, and those he serves.
This portion of his quote next to his picture, above, grabbed me:
“I have the privilege of working with values-driven C-Suite leaders who have the audacity to believe they can bend the future to their will.”
We discuss what “values-driven” means as well as “bend the future to their will”, and why they are both key in creating a storied future personally and professionally.
Chris is highly transparent. It is because of the psychic pain he experienced that he was able to use this as a powerful transformational tool for others.
As the founder of The Sage Group, a value transformation firm, I know how powerful “story” is in building a successful company. This is more than marketing. This is an existential and strategic tool for those that dare to think they can change the world.
Enjoy this Great Conversation.
Ron Worman, The Sage Group
Markets are ecosystems. They are unique to geographies, economies, and weather (seasons of change).
Market participants later find they need to be represented as a single voice in representing their needs to the government or to coalesce around industry standards to uplift the quality of their industry.
For example, the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) was born in 1955. The original members were meeting to share information with each other and to adapt the security regulations that were coming out of the Department of Defense. Many had come to their security positions from the FBI, which was frequently asked after the war to perform security surveys of industrial sites.
Just as ASIS was launched to represent positional security authority within organizations, the Security Industry Association (SIA) founded in 1969 as a trade association representing global security solutions providers, including manufacturers, service providers, and integrators of electronic and physical security equipment.
Two associations representing two different groups within a common ecosystem.
Many more associations have been introduced within this market representing different interests and groups.
Interesting enough, no one as yet connected the vital information from each source into a single syndicated channel.
We talked with Michael Gips, JD, CPP, CSyP, CAE, the President of the recently reimagined Life Safety Alliance (LSA). He has served as both the Chief Security Officer and Chief Global Knowledge and Learning Officer for ASIS International, where he oversaw Learning, Content, Certification, Standards & Guidelines, Production, Enterprise Security Risk Management, and other departments. He developed the CSO Roundtable, an organization that includes hundreds of the most senior security executives at the biggest corporations around the world, as a membership group within ASIS. He also served as editor and publisher of Security Management, where he authored hundreds of articles. Mike is also a senior advisor for Cardinal Point Strategies, a senior advisor for the Network Contagion Research Institute, and a Partner in the Knowledgebase of Insider Threats. He also serves on the advisory boards of several organizations that provide technology and services in government security, executive protection, violence prevention, and emergency geolocation.
A highly networked, highly knowledgeable, and highly generous man.
As you listen to the conversation, you will see the hub of syndicated information he is attempting to aggregate, organize, and distribute as well as his vision for connecting the authors of the content with the moments that matter in the security market. If achieved this will be not only a content aggregator, but also a relationship generator which is the foundation of industry innovation and change. For those who join in this ground floor opportunity, it may represent a unique reciprocal opportunity to be at the table as a new syndication of relationship and content emerge.
Enjoy the conversation.
In the security industry, the ideal posture is to be proactive. To do this, requires a relationship with people, processes, tools, and the core values of the client.
And ideally, the client is now able to identify risk, analyze and assess that risk, and then mitigate the risk down to an acceptable level.
If this is true, how do you assess the methodology and the core values of a vendor before they take on this central and significant task?
We have a discussion with the co-founder of TorchStone Global, David Niccolini. David discusses the "Business of Before" in the context of their code of ethics. You can see why the company has won numerous awards and the respect of key industry insiders.
As a reference, the key elements of this code are:
Above All, Do No HarmWe endeavor to do no harm, and we actively work to do good. That statement might seem trite to some, but to those associated with TorchStone, we mean it sincerely. We try hard to form relationships of trust with the people with whom we work. We do all we can to develop and maintain that trust, to uphold professional standards, and to take full responsibility for our actions.
Gut CheckWe refuse engagements or recuse ourselves from situations that do not pass these simple gut check questions: 1) Is this going to cause harm to someone or something? 2) Is this activity lawful? 3) Would I be comfortable if this work was made public? We expect and demand that employees and associates will consult with TorchStone leadership immediately if something seems amiss with any relationship or project.
We Honor the Dignity and Worth of All PeopleWe deeply believe in the dignity and worth of all people. We treat others with respect, and we do not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind. TorchStone will NOT assist in any investigation or provide any services (paid or pro bono) that may have been requested with the intent to kill, injure, suppress, stalk, or harass an individual or group. TorchStone will NOT conduct any operations or provide any services that violate others’ rights or any fundamental freedoms. TorchStone will NOT use deception, coercion, or threats to obtain information or provide services. This reinforces that above all, we at TorchStone strive to do no harm.
We Follow Laws and Regulations, and Foster Ethical RelationshipsWe respect the laws and regulations wherever we do business around the world. TorchStone assesses and mitigates the risk of potential physical, cyber, and reputational threats through lawful open-source information collection, principled executive protection, and sound security consulting. We do not take on any work that may infringe upon another person’s or group’s fundamental rights. We are honest and transparent in our discussions with employees, partners, and clients about what we can and cannot do. We build positive relationships free from corruption, bribes, kickbacks, or any other unethical activity. If potential conflicts of interest arise, financial or otherwise, we immediately consult with all parties involved, both internal and external, to transparently discuss the situation and to identify, together, the best way forward.
We Welcome DiversityTorchStone is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer for all qualified candidates. We welcome and support people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
We Play Nice in the SandboxWe respect our competitors. While we are focused on growing our company, we want to do so in a way that reflects our values. We want to compete with our competitors fairly and honestly.
How Can We Be Better?In order to improve, we need to know when we are falling short. TorchStone supports a culture of trust and encourages speaking-up when something is not right. We are all human. This means that not only are we fallible, but also, we have feelings. It does not feel good to tell someone when something is not working, nor does it feel good to receive that information. We recognize that speaking up in these situations takes courage, and listening takes humility. We value that courage and are committed to humbly listening to feedback (the good, the bad, and the ugly).
Enjoy the Conversation!
When you have conversations with others, are you trying to win? Trying to defend a position?
Then, perhaps, you might be stuck.
In this Great Conversation with social researcher and author Michael McQueen, we learn what is is to be Mind Stuck, and how we might discover a new way to see and be seen.
This impacts you personally, professionally, and, in the end, influences the course of our organizations and our world.
We create tools. The tools help us off load burdensome tasks as well as act as highly leveraged fulcrums to expand our energy and minds. These tools have helped us create. They have helped us build. They have helped us cure disease. They have helped us mitigate threats, from both human and animal.
And now we have artificial intelligence. However, many of the implementations are failing because we are deploying management and process thinking from the industrial age.. Ironically, in the era of the machine we have become one.
Our great conversation with Brian Evergreen, author of Autonomous Transformation: Creating a more Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, is enlightening as we pause to consider our next steps on our path to value; as individuals, businesses, and the world.
We are all on the journey of becoming. And we hope and pray, that at the end of the journey we are whole. For all of us that means being loved for who we are. And to get there, we need to establish trust in ourselves and in others.
Trust. Could it be the foundation of everything we touch? Are we not all builders? And if so, wouldn’t we want to build all the relationships we have in this life on top of a platform of trust? And wouldn’t it make sense if that same platform that builds those relationships would be the fuel that drives innovation and change within the organizations we live and work in every day?
This is a great conversation that holds nothing back. This is not an easy fix; especially if you do not have a roadmap. This conversation is about that roadmap that will create the scaffolding that will help you build a beautiful business and a beautiful world.
Words are an attempt to articulate reality. The reality that was yesterday. The reality that is today. And the reality that is tomorrow.
Words can be a weapon. They can bully, demonize, and destroy.
Words can embrace, energize, and elevate.
If these bookends are true, then what is the area in-between that seems to be moved by one or the other?
I have a great conversation with Chris Westfall, author of Leadership Language where we attempt to uncover the nuances of language that describe our internal journey as well as our impact on others. We learn that words matter. And our conscious use of them can help raise others up and moving in a positive direction. In the end, the observation and measurement of leadership is about how you show up and constructively influence those around you.
Chris urges us not to see leadership as conceptual. It is not an information exchange. It is not technique. It is about an understanding of oneself. And then authentically showing up for and with others.
The book is fast paced, pithy, and real. This great conversation may change what conversations you will have with yourself and others.
Enjoy.
Lives of quiet desperation. We have been pulling on the quote from Thoreau for awhile in our great conversations. Our great conversation on the Future of Work with this dynamic and inspirational leader may provide you the nudge to seize this moment to recognize your impact on others and help create an engaged culture of impact and purpose with your team.
Whenever you attempt to capture knowledge it is useful to understand that it is a snapshot in time. Very little of what we learn will survive as true given the unique nature of change. However, it is a platform for growth as long as you have access to the real time experiences of change that are occurring. We explore this idea in this great conversation with a security consultant attempting to create a bridge between the rear view mirror and the road ahead. The conversation applies to any market anywhere. Enjoy the conversation.
Imagine being tasked to develop a first class talent and organizational management platform for one of the most respected companies in the Fortune 100. A company with a vision, mission, values, and goals that is highly respected in the industry, with a CEO who looked to his leaders to articulate those things in a very specific way.
And now you have been with this company for 20 years. You have worked for 4 different CEOs and 5 different Human Resources executives. Everything has changed and nothing has changed. You still have a rapidly growing need for the best people, in the right seats, doing the right things.
It took a very special person to take on this challenge. One that had an academic background in Organizational Psychology, a consulting background in strategic change management, and a practical background as a global corporate executive.
The man is Allan Church, Ph.D. who is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Maestro Consulting. I sat down with him and had a great conversation about the nature of leadership, talent management, and organizational change.
I was able to hear about the Great5, a program that was in response to his CEOs admonition that people remembered compelling slogans. It stood for the core dimensions used throughout all the work the company does when assessing and developing future leaders. The dimensions are imbedded in the Great5 competency framework articulating the top five competencies needed to go from being a good leader to a great leader. They are:
- Growth reflects a person's curiosity and ability to learn from novel situations by constantly pushing outside their comfort zone and helping others to learn and develop.
- Relationships involves building and maintaining trusting relationships across organizational boundaries by modeling integrity, transparency, and authenticity and being respectful and inclusive of others.
- Execution is the energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration an individual brings to motivate others to action and to accomplish ambitious goals, and it is simplifying complexity to drive quality results.
- Agility involves adapting a person's style and approach to an ever-changing business environment, managing pressure, and embracing and championing change to drive transformation.
- Thinking reflects how an employee brings in and uses external insights (business, customer or consumer, industry, global), thinks creatively, and takes a long-term and holistic perspective to make informed decisions.
And this was just one of the many innovations Allan was able to cultivate and lead.
We also had a great conversation around the measures that matter to the CEO and the executive team. One of the most compelling examples of this, is the incredible journeys of the leaders that went through the program resulting in 16 former executives becoming Fortune 500 CEOs.
What does it look like to create a path to value? What does that really mean?
I have been having great conversations for over 20 years that have informed my physical leadership events and my podcasts. I have pursued people who have ideas that might change their market and perhaps change their world. I have taken the position of learner within these conversations. I don’t interview, I consume.
It has been an incredible journey. The physical leadership events would average 150-350 attendees and, before the pandemic, were taking place across the United States. Then we pivoted to the podcast and have been recognized as being in one of the top 1% of podcasts today.
But I have never had someone ask about my role as founder of The Sage Group and author of our value transformation methodology called “The Path to Value”.
In this great conversation, I turn over the learning to Dr. Daniel Hallak, who connects human capital with strategy and execution to create organizational value. Daniel is one of my recent interviewees and based on his expertise, is highly interested in how The Sage Group extracts insights from our research to create a highly differentiated and strategic business plan that creates value for the owner and the stakeholders.
I must admit, I was a little bit nervous. My clients know I like to stay behind the scenes helping them create the strategy as well as execute it with and through their people.
Since we take a whole company approach, I shed light on the efforts to improve a company’s silos of excellence through subject matter experts without such a strategy. For those of you who focus primarily on those silos, this is not to dismiss you. It is simply that your subject matter expertise is best leveraged with an overall strategy in place.
For those who specialize in selling companies. This is not to dismiss you. You have your place and your value. But for my clients, by the time they get to such an event, the value has already been expressed, and the identification of the future buyer has been understood. We stay focused on the value that is realized and how it can be sustained through our people, processes, and tools within the new acquirer’s organization. People are too important to allow them to become mere expressions on a spreadsheet.
I urge you to hear me: This is my path. There are many paths to the mountaintop. This is the one I have chosen, and now am expressing through this great conversation.
Your path to value and your expression of success is one of the most important journeys you will ever be on. I am honored I have been able to walk your path to value with so many of you.
I would quickly describe “burn out” as exhaustion. But that is too simple. How did you become exhausted? It seems that there is this incredible stage we go through while heading toward exhaustion and part of it is being actively disengaged from our purpose and settling for a frantic and numbing execution of droll work.
Then what would be “Burn In”? It can mean a lot of things, but in this context I might leverage one: Burn-in can imply a lasting or permanent impression on someone or something. What could we “burn in” to prevent “burn out”?
There are some people who hit their bottom in life and rise out of it with a new-found perspective and purpose. Such was Sally Clarke, author, speaker, researcher, and, what she calls “Human Leader”.
Her two books, Protect Your Spark: How to Prevent Burnout and Live Authentically and Relight Your Spark: How to Heal and Evolve after Burnout, were inspired by her own journey.
When you speak with her you realize it all bubbles up to teaching people how to flourish, thereby making “burnout” redundant.
I walked away with a sense that work is a true blessing, and the art of work involves trust, purpose, and belonging.
Enjoy this Great Conversation as we connect between Seattle and Amsterdam on this podcast.
I was visiting a prospective client the other day. We went out to lunch at one of their favorite restaurants. The waitress came up to the table and, as always, I asked what her name was. She replied and I shared mine. I thanked her and asked about her day and then we continued the ritual of ordering our drinks and our meal. I did the same for the person who kept replenishing my water.
The prospective client later shared with my partner that the exchange felt “odd” to him and implied I might have been putting on some form of act for his benefit.
Isn’t that interesting?
I know what it feels like to be invisible. Do you? And do you strive to ensure you do your part to acknowledge those who cross your path if just for a moment? More importantly, those who interact with you, or serve you, or are in a professional relationship such as your co-workers and your employees?
This Great Conversation is about another form of being invisible. It touches many different people usually because of their skin color, their attire, their sexual orientation, their lifestyle…It is insidious because it is deeply rooted in how we were socialized from birth through our cultural stewards like educators, media, and ideological leaders.
The Invisible Generals, written by Doug Melville, is purportedly a story of rediscovering his family’s legacy. And that is true. It is an extraordinary story of his ancestors journey through a "Forest Gumpian" encounter with some of this nations most pivotal moments; from the Civil War, through WWI and WWII. We see his great, great, grandfather Louis, becoming the trusted servant of one of the Civil War’s most trustworthy generals who happens to be friends with Ulysses Grant and then find him holding Grant’s son on his lap as he heads to the White House. We see Louis’ son Ben Sr. (aka Ollie) being recommended to enter West Point, and being stalled by a later president buckling to the politics of the day. But, because of his performance and service with the Buffalo Soldiers, a term used by the native Indians who fought the segregated black soldiers in the American Indian Wars, the same president made him a commissioned officer.
We then hear about Ben Jr.’s path to West Point, and the grueling isolation of his time there. Later he would establish himself honorably in WWII. You might have heard of his exploits with the Tuskegee Airmen. The Airmen's success in escorting bombers during World War II – having one of the lowest loss records of all the escort fighter groups, and being in constant demand for their services by the allied bomber units.- is a record unmatched by any other fighter group.
Along the way we learn about a unique mindset that refused to be a victim of their circumstance. Refused to become an invisible statistic. We will “infuse the system to diffuse the system” was their motto. They saw themselves as free, independent people who wanted to live up to the American dream, rather then play down to the role of victim. Their actions became their testimony.
This Great Conversation inspired me. And because Doug Melville chose to share his lessons learned for all of us at the end of the book, it can become a primer for your own pursuit of resilience in the face of insurmountable odds, and the inevitable recognition that life can be very unfair. But for Doug and his ancestors, they are mere stones guiding you on your path to value.
Love it or hate it, the term “Holy Grail” is often used in life and business to describe something that has always been unobtainable. The pursuit of the “unobtainable” takes patience and indomitable faith.
The pursuit of a leadership development program that can crack the code of an organization’s people, lifting them to a new level of engagement with the organization’s vision, mission, and purpose, feels unobtainable, especially given the millions of dollars invested and the meager measurable return on investment it has produced.
This Great Conversation with Dr. Daniel Hallak of WiLD Leaders, gave me hope in this “impossible” dream. Perhaps it will for you too.
Who am I?
We answer this question through different stages of our lives. And much of our life is in the business world. It is natural, therefore, that a great deal of our quest becomes learning a craft. And this is where many of us remain the rest of our working lives. This is not a bad thing. The best in us dive deep into this pool of knowledge and are found to be valuable in life and business as a result.
Some of us make a turn. We become leaders of the craftspeople. If we are good at this craft, we learn to go deep into each of our craftspeople leveraging them to create organizational outcomes that matter. We become, over time, maestros.
If we have a long tenure as an organizational leader, we might find ourselves in a third turn. One that leverages all our gifts, our wisdom and our ability to opportunistically see the future, before the future throws us a curveball.
These three turns become the subject of a Great Conversation with Dr. Mark L. Vincent. Mark has spent a large part of his career as an Executive Advisor and Process Consultant walking alongside accomplished executives in the third turn of their careers,
Mark has founded Maestro-level leaders, Design Group International, and the Society for Process Consulting, authored numerous books, including the most recent, Listening Helping Learning, and contributes original content through a variety of channels. Most recently he was involved in the launch of Mygrow North America, an application for growing emotional intelligence in individuals and organizations.
His white paper called: The Three Turns of an Executive Leader was what prompted me to call him to have a great conversation. He is working on turning the invaluable content in this paper into a book.
Whatever turn you are currently in, you will find Mark’s ideas compelling and useful as you become a hero in your own journey.
“Who dares wins” is a motto made popular in the English-speaking world by the British Special Air Service.
The motto has also been used by twelve elite special forces units around the world that in some way have historical ties to the British SAS.
But the title of this blog and this Great Conversation is different. It is used as a tag line by our guest after every one of his posts on LinkedIn and in his new book. He would say, we win when we no longer fear to tell the truth.
The author I speak with in this Great Conversation, Robin Horsfall, was a boy soldier at fifteen, a paratrooper at seventeen and an SAS soldier at twenty-one. He fought in five wars as a front-line soldier, was a Royal Marine Sniper and a top bodyguard. He was also one of the UK’s first Paramedics and ran clinics all over the world. He once built a medical center in the middle of the Guyana Jungle, but there is more.
Robin has been in front of the events leading up to the Ukrainian conflict and writing about it. At one point he had close to 1,500,000 people following his every word. And he has ended every one of his blogs with the phrase: “Who dares shares”.
In the age of polarized social and political voices attempting to cancel one another, Robin is truly daring to get the truth out about this conflict that impacts the future of western democracies and values.
After a time, he was asked to compile his journey into a book. It is called Slava Ukraini! Who Dares Shares.
I continue to read Robin’s posts on LinkedIn that now transcend the Ukranian conflict. He truly desires a world that is free, but as a warrior he understands the need for good to stand against bad.
Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine!) Who Dares Shares. Another Great Conversation.
“It is said that what matters most is not your date of birth or your date of death but the hyphen that signifies the life that is between the two. We live in the - Between - a mysterious place to be, full of grace and surprise and unknowns.”
So goes the introduction to Love Songs from the - Between -; a daily journal through the year that helps you see the road; what is behind, what is ahead, and what is in front of you as you step through life. It is a great way to start or end your day. I have taken nuggets from each day and applied them to my walk. Such as this one from today, October 10, 2023:
“May you be ever-curious,
a master of great questions,
an explorer of great universes-
not just a sightseer
dashing from one marvel to the next
but a deep sea diver
exhuming treasures hidden
uncovering gems long lost,
not just a tourist
skimming the readily accessible
but a deep-space pioneer
discovering stars hitherto unknown.”Join me as I sit by a virtual and imagined fire with a taste of something, something, by my side, and reconnect with an old friend, Benjamin Martin in a great conversation. We traveled through Europe together as young men and aspiring authors; and I had a front row seat listening to the kind of songs that you will find in his new book.
Profile: Benjamin was a technology executive for over 35 years. He now serves as the Board Chairperson for the Celebrant Foundation and Institute and teaches courses in funeral celebrancy. He also is a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant specializing in life celebrations, weddings, and milestone moments. He continues to add to his published works that include Prayers on the Road Home and Masters of Change.
“Serve Honorably. Drink Honorably™”
Inspired by a previous Great Conversation with author Michael Trott (The Art of Protecting the Leader), we caught up with his latest venture: Four Branches Bourbon. Imagine the heart, mind, and fortitude in launching a new company, and a new bourbon. It would take a Hall of Fame effort and Hall of Fame help to do it. We have a great conversation with the men representing the four branches of the military, the four grains of their unique mash, and four hearts who continue to want to serve. “Serve Honorably. Drink Honorably™"
Well done Rick Franco, U.S. Marines, Michael Trout, U.S. Airforce; Robert Casey, U.S. Army; and Harold Underdown, U.S. Navy.
You can learn a lot about life by studying how you and others make decisions. If you think about it, our life is a series of transactions of value. In a transaction, there is the possibility of a yes, a no, and the ever so dangerous maybe. Why dangerous? Because a “maybe” can indicate a problem with your criteria for value. It can speak to a lack of readiness. It can indict you for your lack of courage or confidence. Whether you are a “buyer” or a “seller” in your life’s transactions, pay attention to the process by which you engage your world. In this second great conversation with the CEO of a Sales Training Company called M3, we get more insights into the psychology of a true profession called “sales”. Listen then tie it into your own life.
We are largely motivated by self-interest. If we are acting as a buyer, we want the best product at the lowest price. But we also know that lowest price may not be the answer to our needs. If we are acting as a seller, we may be motivated to “win”. But how do we define this term? Now let’s pull back and see if there is a connection between these two notions and the behaviors of the buyer and seller. There is a beautiful ending to this story… listen and see if you can find it!
In our Great Conversation Podcast, we begin with a statement:
“Welcome to The Great Conversation where Ideas Matter.
Ideas shape markets.
Ideas can change the world.”
I originally decided to open with this to reinforce my passion for pursuing people and ideas that ultimately impact our lives.
But hidden in this opening is another premise: that a leader is needed to activate the idea.
A leader is someone who determines that an idea does matter and intentionally helps to activate the idea in the world through their interaction with others.
In this sense, the idea becomes a “manifesto”; a declaration of their intent so that others can rally around it, feed it, nurture it, and “manifest” it into the world.
There is another hidden premise in this opening: that all humans have agency, i.e., that no matter how difficult and narrow our choices are, we are the final arbiter of our experience on this planet. We can choose our mindset. Some choose to follow an idea. They are the “crazy ones” because they think that it is possible to leave a mark on this world.
I am fascinated by these people who issued their own versions of a manifesto upon this world such as:
- John F. Kennedy’s moonshot speech, declaring that we will reach the moon and return.
- Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech declaring an identity intrinsic to every man has been denied to the black man.
- The Declaration of Independence that expressed this so eloquently:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Unalienable (translated today as inalienable) means that something is intrinsic, it cannot be separated, it cannot be taken or given away.
And now another manifesto is needed. In an era where we have been taught to look at leadership as the secret of a few, we must change our thinking. The “unalienable” notion that every human can intentionally lead their lives and travel the journey to wholeness upends the notion that it is a degree in school, a royal birthright, or a corporate program.
I pursued a great conversation with Dr. Rob McKenna, the founder, and CEO of Wild Leaders. Dr. McKenna is one of the top industrial-organizational psychologists in the country. He is the founder and CEO of WiLD Leaders, and created the WiLD Toolkit, a leader development process and set of tools. He served as the Chair of the Department of Industrial Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University.
He is the author of several books, including Dying to Lead: Sacrificial Leadership in a Self-Centered World. His most recent book, Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure, focuses on strategies leaders can use to stay true to themselves and connected when it matters most.
He is currently working on another manuscript which, at times, becomes a part of our conversation.
Dr. McKenna has lit my fuse. What an audacious idea! That I might be able to intentionally lead a whole and meaningful life and help others along the way. What an audacious idea that organizations can invest in the development of their people and enjoy a more meaningful definition of success.
In an era where most people live lives of quiet desperation, this is a conversation we need to have.
Mark Ledlow is the Founder and CEO of Ledlow Security Group, that provides Physical Security, Site Security, Supply Chain Security, Disaster Response Teams, Executive Protection for High Networth Families and Executives. General Counsel support, and Risk Management
He also founded the Fearless Mindset Podcast, His goal is to find captivating stories of leadership, courage, market leadership, and insights across all markets, but particularly security.
He tracked me down to have a “Great Conversation” excavating my learnings from my strategic consulting practice and one of the market sectors I spent much of my time in attempting to direct it to a higher ceiling of value.
After 22 years, the security industry is still attempting to create alignment with the businesses they serve. Much of the struggle can be traced back to the orientation they received from their previous careers in intelligence, military, agency, and law enforcement. Mark and I attempt to explore this orientation as well as the impact of the digital transformation of business on the next generation of security practitioners.
Mark invited me on his podcast, and I republish it here so that many who missed it can review it at their leisure.
Another Great Conversation with a Great steward in Mark Ledlow.
Humans created constructs that represent time. Consider it the canvas in which they have painted their origin stories as well as their stories of the future. As this pendulum swings, we also are exploring the depths of our understanding of the who and why of our being. We believe “truth” is in the data. But then the data changes. We need someone to help us understand the reader (us), and the story they are living. Within this story lies the secret of navigating the risks and opportunities that represent the human experience. Enjoy this Great Conversation with the time-traveler Cyndi Coon. Be prepared. You may become a fellow time-traveler.
Many executives are asked by their boards to retain the services of a professional risk, resilience, and security firm that specializes in executive protection. The best ones find a way to become a part of the value proposition of the executive’s personal and professional space. Many do this by integrating their staff and expertise with the executive’s administrative and travel staff. The ultimate goal is to naturally embed the protective mindset within the organization and the executive.
The alternative has been a pet peeve of mine since I began to service this community 21 years ago. Security is not overhead. It is essential to the fabric of the organization. It supports how people, perform roles, in a measurable process, using the tools the organization can provide with the express purpose to create organizational outcomes that create strategic value. If that process is constrained or disrupted by risk, the cascading erosion of value can occur with lightning speed. And velocity and efficacy are elemental to personal and professional value.
I start with this as a primer to a conversation I had with the founders and operators of NannyGuards, a division of LeMareschal. Denida Grow saw the value in personal childcare (like the administrative assistants of executives), but a gap between the caregiver and the child’s security created unnecessary risk. She responded by creating Nanny Guards.
NannyGuards are nannies/mannies who have all the skills, posture, and attitude of any caregiver that looks after children. The training they receive prepares them to meet unexpected risks that could cause harm to the child in their care.
They engage their client with the same professional approach to risk management as executive protection by assessing the needs of the client (business) and then the risks.
Then they build processes and procedures around emergency management, disaster preparedness, route management and identification of risky offenders near to their routes and schools.
We have a great conversation around this unique business model. And then we have the opportunity to witness the hearts of Chris and Denida Grow. They wanted their business to contribute to their industry with and through the sponsorship of the International Protective Security Board (IPSB), many other corporate sponsors, and a globally recognized children’s research organization that would allow the servant leaders in their industry to unite together and generously give their expertise and wealth to serve the greater good of the community.
They announced BodyGuards for Kids, a virtual online learning event on March 18-19, 2023 featuring top subject matter experts donating their time and expertise to sharing research and skills needed to protect human and material assets around the world. Every one of the speakers is donating their time and knowledge free of charge. The entrance fees, the corporate gifts, and the sponsorship revenue is 100% donated to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. St. Jude is not only known for its acclaimed research, but also its fully paid child and family care. It applies 82% of all monies collected to its mission one of the top-rated non-profits in the world.I can see all elements of the security ecosystem pitching in at some level to this wonderful cause. Consultants, service providers, manufacturers, integrators, and chief security officers and their teams. This podcast is for you. If we had100 companies give $1,000 or more, and 200 executives give $50 or more, we could all send St. Jude a gift of immeasurable value from an industry that is known as stewards of care around the world.
Thank you Chris and Denida for a Great Conversation.
What is the future of human and machine?
We all know. We sense it. We are on the edge of something that will reset the economy. Reset how we work and play. Reset our notion of what is true
And the center of it all is the emerging cognitive capability of the machine (Artificial Intelligence - AI). And its ability to leverage the sensors (just like a human) that allows it to see, hear, touch, read and understand.
The media is teaching us how to fear it. This is nothing new. We have been fearing every tool the species has created for thousands of years. We have a hard time grasping the notion that everything is changing, and we must adapt or die.
So I will be chasing down the ones on the frontline, fearless in their experimentation, challenging the notion of measuring twice, cutting once. Ideas fail when we fear failure. Get it done, get it out, and see what happens.
One such person is Kirill Zubovsky, the founder of a new AI application called SmartyNames. He is a peripatetic gig worker. He is running around the country in a Sprinter Van with two children and his wife. Along the way, he took the generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, and used it to streamline his experience in searching for domain names. We, the entrepreneurs of the world, have had the frustrating experience of looking for a domain name for our business. We think of one, then input it into a search engine hoping we somehow can own it. After going back and forth forever, and then, once found, purchasing it, we then have to develop a logo, a website, content, newsletters, etc.
Kirill just wanted to get the job done and launch. He used the AI app and his coding to streamline the process, or as Drucker would say, the job to be done. Classic ideation leading to innovation and finally to activation.
We have a great conversation that ended up covering everything from the emerging app stores for AI innovators to the innovation process itself. What I come away with is the idea that we can take the current state of the machine and augment it, making it our helper, extending the reach of our creativity and time. Like any tool, it is agnostic. Now it needs people who care deeply about improving our lives to harness it and release it into the world. Like any tool, it will displace old notions of what is true, what is fast, what is good, what is valuable.
Enjoy this great conversation.
The care and feeding of a company creates a highly leveraged vehicle to optimize its path to value: personally, professionally, and within the context of a team known as a business. Great leaders know how to leverage different points of view that originate from disparate cultural backgrounds. This strengthens the vision, mission, and execution. We explore the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion and the power of the perceived other in a great conversation with Dr. Jade Singleton of The Sarah Jane Academy.
Dylan Thomas's famous poem, Fern Hill, is based on his childhood experiences on a farm in Wales. The poem is a celebration of the wonder, magic, and joy of this world that many of us experienced and have a hard time remembering as we grow older.
This conversation is about that young child growing older and continuing to see life through his once-child's eyes. The Editor in Chief of Centennial Media, Michelle Stacey, shares her story of helping her Father die while he sings in his chains like the sea.
If you were entering a new market in a foreign country, where do you acquire the boots on the ground intelligence to navigate your risks and opportunities?
And how would you consume the information quickly enough to make an impact on your strategies and plans?
We reached out to a CEO who has created a company that provides this intelligence for Latin America. And, serendipitously, he had just posted a blog that provided a visual map of the political ideologies of each country. The post struck a nerve and at the time of this writing had over 5 million views.
Yes, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
James Bosworth is the founder of Hxagon, which provides political risk analysis and bespoke investigations in emerging markets, as well as the author of the Latin America Risk Report, a weekly newsletter. For two decades, Bosworth has written about politics, economics, security and technology in emerging markets, primarily Latin America and the Caribbean. Additionally, since 2004, Bosworth has been the author of ‘Bloggings by Boz’, where he provides analysis and commentary on Latin American politics and US foreign policy.
History can teach us a lot about the repercussions of change. The impact of change is accelerated by the confluence of events, crisis upon crisis.
Imagine if you were able to imagine it before it happened thereby providing the white space to adapt and innovate mitigating the impact of the change.
This is how this great conversation begins with an author that leverages research of our world and imagines scenarios that government and private sector leaders must see to help us all. Rather than a white paper, his “useful fiction” captures the interest and then the mind of the leader.
Peter Warren Singer is Strategist at New America, a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, and Founder & Managing Partner at Useful Fiction LLC.
A New York Times Bestselling author, described in the Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national-security environment” and “all-around smart guy” in the Washington Post, he has been named by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, by Foreign Policy to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List, and as an official “Mad Scientist” for the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.
“It is hard to breathe, and my heart is palpitating like a drum. I am feeling weak – I want to lie on the ground so the world stops spinning for a minute and I can catch my breath.
A thousand thoughts cross my mind. What if this goes wrong? What if I can’t deliver that? What if I can no longer support my family and be there for them? What kind of example will I be to my children? I have everything I thought I wanted, but I am still not happy.”
This comes from the prologue of How to Beat Burnout with Gratitude by Marcelo Carvalho, Vice President of Cybersecurity, Capital One ·
The book was written from Marcelo’s experience in life and business. We have a great conversation with the book in mind by starting with his career at GE where he worked closely to embed a single source of truth cybersecurity architecture into the core methodology of a critical product manufacturing practice. Through this conversation we explore how he did that and find organizational change and transformation theory come to life. Security becomes part of an empowered culture and as well as the engineering process.
Then we turn from this business integration into another way of looking at a single source of truth to guide us personally and professionally. Through this leader’s transparent sharing of his own experience, we find ourselves on our own path to value.
As a strategic advisor to CEOs, helping to create the story that drives their organization and helping them achieve the promise of that story, I created The Path to Value. It was my way of learning. It was my way of teaching. And learning. And teaching.
I have been able to see and feel first-hand, the attempt of leaders with a background in law enforcement, military, and agency, to become strategic advisors to the business. The best ones attempt to learn the language of the operational leaders of the business. They listen to the value proposition these leaders make for their contribution to the whole business. This informs and infuses their work. In many cases, it changes how they approach their profession.
Law enforcement has been through a roller coaster over the years. Its leaders and officers are being confronted with a new generation and new rules that are challenging their morale and their work. I found one leader who seems energized by this time and place. He is learning the value proposition of his “customer” and leveraging them to create a force multiplier in risk management.
His name is Mike Zegadlo. He is Chief of Police at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. He was an educator and trainer before entering law enforcement. He has leveraged this to create relationships in the community and at the school that is changing the perception of law enforcement. It also is elevating their value.
We have a great conversation around the people, process, and tools he is leveraging to bring the art and practice of policing to the next level.
We are data driven. As leaders, we need the right data to make effective decisions. But most of the data that is provided to us only shows what happened. We are making decisions based by staring in a rear-view mirror.
But what if we could forecast the future? What if the data we have collected can be leveraged to provide us scenarios that will provide us a glimpse into the impact our decisions would have on the future of our organizations.
Most of the assumptions we make are based on an incomplete picture.
As we have said in past conversations, CEOs are paid to navigate risk and opportunity. How do I understand all the variables in my future decision making? Do I put my finger in the air and make a choice anyway?!
There are many tools that can help you organize and understand the risk models in your plan. 80-90% of the variables in your decision making can be captured. You can use computing power to go through them, check on the integrity of the numbers, sensitivities, scenario waterfalls that go beyond the numbers. The goal is to understand what the data is telling you before the future happens.
Most C-Level executives have people who run the numbers and the variables. They are often called analysts. They create the frameworks or models for the executives who don’t want to see the data engine and tool, (the single source of truth) but see the data take shape so a decision can be made.
The model architecture can than display functional context so executives can see how the data uniquely applies to them, and they can change data that is unique to them. But each contextualized input than impacts the whole picture. Executive teams who have this ability have the opportunity to see a clearer picture of how the sum of the parts impacts the whole.
In this conversation we go through this and then I ask the data strategist to apply the concept to the Chief Security Officer who is attempting to embed themselves in the contextualized risk and opportunity of the C-Suite. We have a great conversation about a big idea. Can we turn this technology approach into a qualitative tool to manage risk, resilience, security, and the opportunities that can be leveraged from a wholistic view of risk.
Gianluca Bisceglie is the Founder & CEO at Visyond Technologist. He also is a strategist, private equity executive, and entrepreneur with broad international experience across both mature and emerging markets.
Visyond is a cloud-native enterprise SaaS company that transforms spreadsheets into decision-making platforms to drive performance.
Prior to founding Visyond, he worked in Private Equity in the Middle East and in Russia, responsible for the identification, screening, due diligence, and execution of investment opportunities in various industries.
He is a regular guest speaker and a mentor at various universities and accelerators.
Gianluca holds an MBA with Distinction from London Business School and an MEng in Electronics Engineering from the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy).
If you were known to be trustworthy. If you engendered trust from others, how would it change your life and your world?
Our great conversation with a global credibility expert, Mitchell Levy, is really about saving our humanity and changing the trajectory of our lives.
Mitchell is an international bestselling author of over 60 books, and an executive coach at Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches. After interviewing 500 thought leaders on credibility, he published a 7-country international bestselling book, delivered a powerful TEDx on humanity, created courses, and created the Credibility Nation membership community to help those live, learn and surround themselves with others on the credibility journey.
He’s an accomplished entrepreneur who has created twenty businesses in Silicon Valley including four publishing companies that have published over 750 books. He’s provided strategic consulting to hundreds of companies and has been the chairman of a board of a NASDAQ-listed company.
Mitchell is all about finding people he can trust and being trustworthy in return. Along the way he leveraged the term credibility, to describe the 10 values. Those values describe our character and the perception of your character.
Why be credible? If we are credible, we will be humane to one another. If we are credible, we will form relationships that will prosper our lives and those around us.
This is an inspiring conversation, but also a practical one. Mitchell takes us through his process for listening to what you value and what you do and helps you with a brief description that can be used in any social or business setting that immediately underlines your credibility. And then he can show you how to manifest it in the messaging around your personal and professional brand.
Enjoy the conversation.
Imagine there will be four eulogies at your funeral. One will come from a family member. One will come from a friend. One will come from someone you worked with. And another will be delivered by someone who represented how you gave back to the world (Perhaps a charity or ministry).
Now write what they might say today. You might discover something about yourself. It might change the course of your life. You might want to write them again with your new aspirations in mind.
This conversation ends on that note. But where my guest takes us is through a journey of self-discovery intersecting our unique powers, purpose, and passions. If we seek, we shall find, and it will change how our lives flow and flourish.
Tony Davis is the Founder and Chairman of Dovetail Business Solutions (Pty) Ltd and Next Level Insights Group. He is an entrepreneur, consultant, advisor, and a passionate evangelist of “Living your Life on Purpose", which happens to be the book he is currently writing.
You don’t have to be waiting for the week to end (TGIF) or for retirement to begin living.
Enjoy a purpose-filled great conversation!
Are you a diminisher or a multiplier? Do you bring all the answers to the table, or do you help others solve problems? Do you believe you are the best voice in the room?
Our guest learned the hard way, that he was a diminisher. He would take a great idea from his staff, acknowledge it, and then suggest how to make it better. After all, that is what great leaders do; make them better.
Bob Tiede is prolific author, blogger, and trainer on how to develop leaders through questions. His book, Leading with Questions has been published in 190+ nations around the world. He has spoken with and met some of the greatest minds around this subject and he shares these stories twice a week on his free subscriber list.
He calls himself a charter member of TA…Tellers Anonymous. And most of us are. We love talking about ourselves and jumping in the arena to help. But we forget the meaningful excavation that can occur with a genuine curiosity in another. through a series of questions. The excavation can produce a rich vein of gold but not if we are filling the hole we were digging with our dirt.
One of the key takeaways from our conversation was the scorecard for a great leader. “Good leaders count their followers”, said Bob. “Great leaders measure the leaders they have developed.”
Bob began this journey in a bookstore when he picked up Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask by Michael J. Marquardt. It was a 2x4 over his head. He was suddenly self-aware. And to seek restitution he turned the book into a training class which was successful. And then he turned it into his first book.
In my practice, we realize that most people start talking after getting an answer to a question. They have learned everything there is to know. But then they miss the answer behind the question. The answer they will never receive. The knowledge never gained. The wisdom never achieved.
Listen to a man with a teller addiction tell his stories. This is not your average ted-talk version of The Great Conversation. You will need some time. But it is worth it. Enjoy.
Words are real things. When conveyed through the written word or articulated in a speech, they have the power to direct and shape individual behavior and markets.
With this mind, I would like to discuss what it means to be a professional. I believe we can agree that it infers a ranking conferred by education, skill, or training. Markets show their maturity by the establishment of formal standards that are then used to judge the competency of an individual or product. If they pass the test, they often get a certification that can be aligned with their personal or product brand.
The largest security association in the world is ASIS International. They are an established Standards Developing Organization. That unique role and its associated processes create the context for incubating and formalizing standards and guidelines that drive behavior in the risk, resilience, and security industry.
In our latest conversation, we asked a member of the ASIS committee that has been reviewing, amending, and, he would argue, enhancing the Chief Security Officer Standard originally published in 2004. It will now be called “Senior Security Executive”.
Our conversation takes us back to a time when Physical Security was associated with gates, guns, and guards. And Cyber Security was an IT Management function. Security was not often viewed as a member of the executive team. Largely, the leaders in the security industry did not have a voice because they did not know the language of business. Thus, people were advocating for a job description for a corporate role. Chief Security Officer (CSO), as a title, became the focus.
This conversation centers around the value of a title vs. a role. The new standard will be debated among the original committee and their advocates and many who have benefited from these early adopters. But this new standard has the opportunity to reframe the role in terms of the business.
It the role is reframed and articulated to the business correctly, it will act as a touchstone for reframing security from a solely defensive role into one that acts as a pivotal advisor to the business and its leaders as they navigate risk and opportunity. The framework is expressed through a published guideline: Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM). It describes the enterprise security risk management (ESRM) approach and explains how it can enhance a security program while aligning security resources with organizational strategy to manage risk. Utilizing ESRM security professionals work with asset owners to identify and prioritize assets and risks in order to mitigate those risks and create a holistic security program that supports the organization’s mission.
The gentlemen we spoke with, Michael Gips, Principal of Global Insights in Professional Security has been a top influencer in the industry for over 20 years and is recognized as such by his peers.
Listen to this walk through the history of a profession seeking influence in the vision, mission, and execution of the business. The opportunity is enormous. And it is now.
Enjoy the conversation.
The power of story. It influences our lives. We have a personal story, fed by the evolutionary stages of story from our culture, our tribes, and our family. Story describes our core values and the why of our journey.
If you built a business model to help people, companies, and governments understand their identity through story as well as the stories of others you might be able to create a powerful and sustainable engagement that could lead to constructive relationships throughout our world. You might be able to avoid war. You might be able to solve some of the world’s largest problems.
Narrative Strategies has done that. We sat down and talked with the Vice President of Strategy, Paul Cobaugh to help us understand story’s place and its potential. What we found is a different language to describe how stories feed a larger narrative identity, with story being a puzzle piece.
The puzzle creates a picture that tells you something. The stories tell only a piece. Assemble them together and it becomes a narrative of a family, culture, or company.
Since Paul is a veteran, he pulls examples of how he intuitively understood this in his work around the world.
It seems so simple. So simple that it is largely ignored by people in power. But a few are listening. And that is good. The future of our country may depend on it.
Someone needs to be in place to understand the collective stories of our enemies, so we can articulate our ideas and touch their narrative identities. That someone is a “narrator”. The narrator needs to be in it for the long game because relationships based on narrative identity require sustained engagement. And the narrator needs to have a sense of urgency so that our ideas can help shape the future narrative identities of the world. The story is unfolding right now. And we have a front row seat.
Time to have a great conversation!
Scott Lindahl, VP Corporate Services & Chief Security Officer, at Kellogg Company sat down with me in a great conversation around his journey that led him to begin using this language and adopting the behavior of a corporate leader.
Scott’s journey entailed working in manufacturing, retail, financial services as well as a small security services firm. Along the way he studied how salespeople interacted with clients. And he found the best ones had a way of creating a conversation through the power of great questions.
He adopted this as his career matured and, as a result, began to learn not only the business but also the personal and professional drivers of his corporate customers. This approach became the framework that guided his own behavior and those that worked under him. He would call this “freedom within a framework”
With this basic understanding of his journey, we then began to talk about the future. Leaders in every part of an organization are dealing with the same macro and micro issues. The speed of change is accelerating and impacting the way we get things done. Technology, in many cases, is acting as the lever. Scott believes that one of the keys is how to see the whole picture. This will naturally lead us to better ways of gathering and harnessing information that is critical to our organization’s risk and opportunity.
If CSO’s do this well, they can help the CEO and their executive team navigate the road ahead.
Enjoy the conversation.
I tracked down an incredible thought leader on systems and practices. I thought we would be exploring how to execute. Instead, I found a set of ideas that can be put into action. This is important. A set of ideas is not a task list or a set of commands.
If they become that, you are in danger of not finding out what works and what doesn’t. Because you have given them the recipe but not the authority to let them cook.
Dr. Thom Mayer is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BestPractices, Inc., Executive Vice President of EmCare, the Medical Director for the NFL Players Association and Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University and a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University.
He is one of the most widely-sought speakers on healthcare customer service, trauma and emergency care, pediatric emergency care, medical leadership, and sports medicine. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, 75 book chapters, and has edited or written 12 textbooks on emergency medicine, including Leadership for Great Customer Service: Satisfied Patients, Satisfied Employees, Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow, Hardwiring Flow, and Strauss and Mayer’s Emergency Department Leadership: Principles and Applications. Tom Peters, the internationally acclaimed leadership guru, has referred to his work as “gaspworthy.” Dr. Mayer was named the ACEP Outstanding Speaker of the Year in the second year the award was given and has twice been named ACEP’s “Over-the-Top” award winner.
On September 11, 2001 Dr. Mayer served as one of the Command Physicians at the Pentagon Rescue Operation, coordinating medical assets at the site. The BestPractices physicians at Inova Fairfax Hospital were the first to successfully diagnose and treat inhalational anthrax victims during the fall 2001 anthrax crises, and Dr. Mayer has served on the Department of Defense on Defense Science Board Task Forces on Bioterrorism, Homeland Security and Consequences of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Dr. Mayer also serves as a Medical Director for the Studer Group.
What I learned:
- Leadership is worthless but leading is priceless. Leadership is a noun. Leading is a verb delivered with an active voice. You are already a leader.
- Every team member is a leader.
- Every team member is a performance athlete. Invest in yourself and your team.
- The work begins within.
If I take these and hardwire them into my life. I would practice the following:
- I would wake up every morning and say “I am a leader”
- Invest in myself. Spend time getting better at leading.
- Review every day what is working and what is not.
- Find a way to help others leveraging what I have learned.
- Celebrate with “3 Good Things” that are happening. Connect it to an action; that is, what did I do that helped make those 3 good things happen?
Enjoy the conversation.
I met a leader who is a Doctor of Law (JD), is certified on the Essentials of Workplace Violence and Intervention through ASIS, an Instructor at a world-renowned Advanced Threat Assessment Academy, and is a strategic partner in the vision and mission of her organization.
In her role as instructor, she teaches representatives from government, law enforcement, higher education and K12, mental/brhavioral health professionals, and Fortune-500 companies.
I was curious how she pulled all these disciplines together as a leader and as a person.
Melissa Muir, is Director of Human Resources and Organizational Development at the City of Shoreline in Washington State,
The conversation starts with a question: “What does it mean to be in Human Resources these days? And where is it going in the future.?
We hear about a great re-imagining what it means to be at work. What we want to keep, foster, and what is no longer important as the world changes. And I ultimately ask: “How do you get to courage and trust with teams? To call out the elephant in the room.”
Melissa calls it “Bringing to the Surface what is below the Surface”
And through the conversation we learn we have an essential and great power to direct the story of our organization and the people within it.
Enjoy this great conversation.
I am always looking for the seeds of a disruptive new way of thinking. This often is the genesis of a new model for doing business or a new model for governance within a family, association, community, or nation.
From this, new tools are provided to affect the idea and the model. New technologies are created.
In this great conversation, we speak with Marisa Randazzo, Ph.D, Executive Director for the Ontic Center of Excellence,
Through the convergence of her academic experience and her applied research in the field, she became known as an international expert in behavioral threat assessment and protective intelligence, specializing in preventing school shootings, workplace violence, stalking, and assassinations. Before joining forces with Ontic, she was the CEO of SIGMA Threat Management Associates.
She helps me understand the pathway to violence and its potential at stopping violent crimes before they happen. And we explore the ways we can train people be active ‘sensors’ in picking up the signals of a potential threat before it happens. These people sensors are now being augmented by technology that can help collect, manage, and communicate the data creating the means to stop an incident before it happens.
We learn that most potential perpetrators are human beings crying for help. They are not sociopaths or psychopaths or monsters. They are not intrinsically evil. Their acts are.
This basic logic ladder called the pathway to violence is a useful construct for creating innovation and change that our country desperately requires.
Enjoy the conversation.
Voracious Learners!
Monica Duperon Rodriquez is Senior Manager of Global Security and Risk Management (Executive Protection) at LinkedIn.
When we sat down to have a great conversation, she immediately drew me into her path to creating a team.
What we find is a deep understanding that developing people and teams takes an investment in knowing who they are. From there you can begin to create partnerships that take the one-on-one relationships and the collaborative team relationships to the next level.
You can hear it in her voice. She is what she preaches: self-aware, authentic, caring, and collaborative. A great foundation for leading people on their path to value.
Enjoy the conversation.
If a CEO’s primary role is navigating risk and opportunity, then they must have a risk, resilience, and security team who is prepared to be at the table.
To be prepared, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) and their team must understand the unique value of their role in supporting the mission and vision of the company. Then they must organize around the interconnected relationships of others who are attempting to create outcomes that matter to the business. And they must find a way to leverage intelligence locally and globally that provides them insights that support the contextual application of risk for the leaders of their company. This is also where the core values of the culture will be engendered and supported.
I find this to be rare.
Because of this, I was absolutely engaged when Debbie Maples, the Vice President of Global Safety & Security: Security Operations, Investigations & Protection at Salesforce, sat down with me in a great conversation around the heart, mind, discipline, and tools of the leadership of the risk, safety, and security leadership of her company.
Just as her company, Salesforce, is in the pursuit of being the premier cloud-based software designed to help businesses find more prospects, close more deals, and wow customers with amazing service, their safety and security team seeks to be premier in risk intelligence, investigations, travel safety and security. Their mindset: the foundation of finding great people, keeping them engaged in the business, and supporting their felt needs, takes a unique blend of leadership, business process, data aggregation platforms, and a passion for service within risk, resilience, safety, and security.
This was truly a great conversation. Enjoy!
One of the leaders in our Great Conversation community sent me a brief but compelling message:
I want to introduce you to Hans Nyamie for your next Great Conversation. Hans is one of the most interesting people I have spoken with in a long time. He is focused on facility space planning and technology.
When I went to his LinkedIn it told me very little
Workplace and FM Systems Specialist (incl: Agile/Activity Based Working,Space Management & Administration)
Not a lot to go on. But I arranged a call with him although our time differential was significant. London vs. Seattle!
What I found is the anthropomorphic version of glue-ware. Hans seeks to integrate and harmonize the interests of the user, the integrator, and the business around the form, function, and purpose of space.
More importantly, when he is not focused on his existing projects, he is exploring the future meaning of the spaces we occupy. Because the continuous and accelerating change we are experiencing requires a degree of agility and adaptation that the current built environments we have today are not equipped to handle.
In 2021, Facebook announced its future focus on the Metaverse. And our spaces must reflect this new digital transformation. We have a great conversation around space, place, and the future.
Enjoy.
I meet many people who are unconscious competents. They intuitively know what to do, and largely are successful at doing it.
And then there are the conscious competents. They took the time to understand what they do including the why of it, and the value of it. They document, teach, and, most importantly for any leader competing for funds, sell their program to their stakeholders.
I met Bill Marcisz when he was the Executive Director of Security, Safety, and Emergency Management at AdventHealth in Central Florida. AdventHealth is known as a trailblazer in their research and their use of emerging technology.
Bill not only ran this critically acclaimed program, but he also was called upon as a nationally recognized and Board-Certified Security Expert. After all he has over 40-Years of Security & Legal Experience.
He retired from AdventHealth to devote his energies as the President & Chief Consultant for Strategic Security Management Consulting, Inc. (SSMC)
SSMC provides litigation support to both Plaintiffs and Defense clients. His trial testimony alone has assisted in attaining jury awards up to $13.5 Million.
Bill has also received peer review awards for developing an Outstanding Security Program from both the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) and International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety (IAHSS).
Bill also received the award for Outstanding Performance by a Director of Security from the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). This is considered as one of the most prestigious achievements in the Security profession.
Bill shared with us his thoughts on the key components of a strategic security program and what it takes to position it for value.
Enjoy the conversation.
Vitaly Geyman had a great conversation with us several months ago that we called “The Organization is not a Machine; It is a Person”. We explored the traditional view and practice that led to the organizations being treated like a machine. Machines are meant to be programmed, streamlined, and optimized. Efficiency and predictability are the core principles. Management’s key responsibility is the machine’s design and programming while the employees’ role is to contribute their efforts according to the machine’s design.
Vitaly suggested a wider perspective where we view the organization as a living system. We see that it operates in the context of an ecosystem of interdependent entities working together for the good of the whole. We see how it can learn and adapt to its environment. Going beyond a living system perspective and viewing it as a living being shifts our focus and opens up new possibilities. We see it as a creative force contributing to our world. We see it as one who can learn and adopt, sense and respond. We see it as a living person with a soul, a heart and a personality to be nurtured and developed. We help it grow in capability and maturity so that it can reach its fullest potential.
In this conversation we explore how he works with clients. As a business strategist myself, I recognize the power of his approach: To learn the past, present, and future story that is being told by the leaders and the prevailing culture and then to integrate this story into the operational fabric of the organization. Stories create alignment if especially if you allow your people to contribute to the story. The chapters of innovation that could be written and released may change the world.
Enjoy the conversation.
You only represent 2% of the population, but you are the most targeted religious group in the country with over 60% of the hate crimes committed against your constituency. You can’t sit on the sidelines. You must be engaged with the right people, process, technology, and partners if you hope to provide protection in the “most complex, dynamic, risk environment ever”.
We engaged the Principal Deputy Director and COO, Patrick Daly of the Secure Community Network (SCN) to help us understand what the threat is and how to mitigate and respond to it.
SCN is The Secure Community Network (SCN) is the official safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America. It provides Intelligence and Information Sharing, Facility Assessments, Physical Security Solution Support, Training, Exercise and Education, a partnership with Law Enforcement, and Incident Response and Crisis Management.
Patrick is responsible for strategic planning, organizational management and Board engagement of the official homeland security initiative for the American Jewish Community. He oversees coordination and engagement between federal law enforcement and over 200 organizations. SCN is recognized by U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a national model.
We have a great conversation with a resolute and passionate advocate for the security and safety of this country and his stakeholders.
Our world operates on a highly leveraged business model that depends on the belief in a civil society. A society of agreed upon values doesn’t require police presence in every store and stoplight. There are laws that are respected and adhered to by an engaged citizenry.
But what happens when this breaks down? Where there is intentionality in the crime, you have a mindset and a process that you can study, patterns you can document, and technology to help your drive predictability and post-event discovery.
Dr. Read Hayes is a research scientist at the University of Florida as well as the Director of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC). The LPRC is made up of researchers, retailers, solution partners, manufacturers, law enforcement professionals and many more who believe developing a community will lead to a safer world.
The Loss Prevention Research Council was founded in 2000 by leading retailers and Dr. Read Hayes in an effort to support the evidence-based needs of loss prevention decision-makers. Founding retailers include Target, Walmart, OfficeMax, CVS, GAP, Home Depot, Beall’s, Barnes and Noble, and has grown to over 70 major retail chains today. To date the LPRC has conducted over 300 real-world loss prevention research projects for retailers and partners.
Dr. Hayes and I discuss the purpose and strategies of the ecosystem the LPRC has developed, its findings and impact, and his work in developing a framework for early detection. Although the focus is retail, he knows his research, findings, and the proof of concepts he is developing with leading technology providers will translate into the smart buildings and cities of the future.
We need a wider lens in business. We have been trained to think in terms of specialization and we have created silos of information that serve our interests. But the platform for widening our lens is now available. And more than ever we need that lens.
With that said, if we scrape the top layer of the news, we are dealing with illness as a threat, disinformation as a threat, privacy vs. safety and security as a threat, and the proliferation of actors who are inspired to action by the fear of change promulgated by the social and public media. I needed to speak with someone who understood all of these things and is helping executives reassess how they identify, manage, and respond to threats to their people, processes, tools, and organizational outcomes.
I could not help myself. When I have a chance to pick the brain of a person who has the training and experience as a licensed psychologist, certified health service provider in psychology, and as a state-certified police officer (now retired from law enforcement), I know I am going to get a unique perspective leveraging the field of forensic & law enforcement psychology and the work in behavioral threat assessment & management.
Since 1993, Gene Deisinger has served as the director of threat management for major organizations. He has provided training and consultation on behavioral threat assessment and management issues to a range of schools, colleges, universities, corporations and non-profit organizations, governmental, military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
He also provides training and consulting to law enforcement agencies regarding leadership and organizational development, crisis management, preparation and response to active threat incidents, response to persons with mental illness, hostage/crisis intervention, and post-incident trauma response.
We have a great conversation; wide ranging, with a thread connecting the subjects we touched on: to the degree we are investing in the purpose-driven connection between our stakeholders lives and our business, lies the strength and resilience of our organization.
Tyson Aiken is a former executive at Nike with an intelligence background from the CIA. He left Nike and went on a journey exploring different opportunities in the commercial marketplace. When I spoke with him before and during his “sabbatical”, I discovered that his purpose and passion could never be realized in a typical security executive role. I felt he needed to be ‘at the executive table’, like many of his peers but with one striking difference: he needed an organizational model anchored with core values and a mission he could believe in.
He found one with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a global company with over 4,000 people, many who are thought leaders in their field. Navigating risk and the opportunity to save endangered species and the world, WCS could be classified as a “security and safety” organization for animals and its people.
This great conversation explores .com, .gov, and .org business models, the way growth and profit can obstruct good judgement, and the integration of the business model with a data driven security model.
Enjoy the conversation!
CEOs manage risk and opportunity. How well they do that determines their path to value.
So, who should be at the table helping the C-level team navigate risk and opportunity? What data should be collected, organized, analyzed, and communicated? How should it be contextualized to meet the needs of each departmental function? (HR, Legal, Finance, Operations, etc.).
Once these questions are answered you suddenly realize that the success of the next generation risk, resilience, and security leader will depend on their ability to grasp how the digital transformation is positioning them for a strategic role in the organizational outcomes of the business. The tail (Security) may be wagging the dog (The Business) very soon… a paradigm shift.
We have a great conversation with the founders of a protective intelligence platform, Lukas Quanstrom and Tom Kopecky of Ontic, that have recently articulated this vision and is actively creating a community of like-minded leaders across the ecosystem.
Every profession has its pioneers. The ones who worked with sticky notes and clunky first-generation SQL databases. They had the opportunity and skills to create, document, and teach their learnings to future generations. And they had a front row seat to how their ideas evolved into the future.
Scott Stewart, Vice President of Intelligence for TorchStone Global, is one of those pioneers for protective intelligence and counter surveillance. We had the opportunity to meet at a protective intelligence summit hosted by Ontic and we decided to compare notes on our learnings in this great conversation podcast.
You get a sense of the man, the profession, and the future of the risk, resilience, and security industry as one of the great enablers of organizational strength and competitiveness.
Enjoy the conversation.
In this conversation, we have the opportunity to dive into how technology may disrupt the executive protection profession. Most of us recognize that our brains are wired to resist uncertainty. We seem to grasp and hold on to the potential negative outcomes rather than seize the uncertain opportunities that stare us in the face.
Mark Ledlow has dealt with uncertainty and fear. And he has been paid to remove it for his clients. To help them fear less. Interesting enough, he shows his courage by being transparent about the gut check he gave himself after attending a protective intelligence summit hosted by Ontic, a technology company. He sees the change and his need to adapt and it makes for a great conversation. Mark is the CEO of Ledlow Security Group that provides Physical Security, Site Security, Supply Chain Security, Disaster Response Teams, and Executive Protection for High Networth Families and Executives.
He also hosts The Fearless Mindset Podcast where he welcomes the security Industry's best and brightest to learn about the tactics and strategies they use to protect the world's wealthiest families during these unprecedented times.
He is a successful entrepreneur (Shooter Detection Systems), CEO (Milcom Security Solutions), and a sought-after board advisor (Fusus). He is adept at identifying needs and finding the means to deliver value. It isn’t a surprise then, that he is flying to the border of Poland and Ukraine on Saturday, May 28, to attempt to make life a little bit easier for the soldiers and the refugees of this terrible conflict.
We have a great conversation with Christian Connors who traveled to Medyka Poland to assist the World Central Kitchen in their efforts to provide Ukrainian refugees with food. He has a GoFundMe page to buy items that bring a smile to the faces of these amazing people. These items include Coca-Cola, M&Ms, Red Bull, kid’s toys and new mother's assistance such as diapers and pacifiers. Christian pays for his own travel costs and 100% of the funds go to buying items that are not available at the border crossing.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if The Great Conversation community takes action on this idea by donating to the World Central Kitchen and/or the GoFundMe fundraiser? Ideas shape markets. Ideas can change the world.
The greatest challenge of our time is challenging the notion that our democratic ideals no longer work in a world dominated by authoritarians acting with impunity on the world stage. As well, when our own leaders or institutions fail us, we still need people who can stand in the gap.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8
This quote is often spoken over the graves of our fallen warriors. The context: the world is falling apart. Confidence in institutions and leaders have fallen apart. But there are those that still answer the call to protect us.
I was able to sit down with a prolific best-selling author who, under the guise of telling an incredibly fast paced and exciting thriller architected around a former Navy Seal Sniper, has created a powerful path to value for all of us.
The books are interlaced with powerful ideas around purpose, mission, passion, and courage juxtaposed against evil, the erosion of personal freedom, the counterfeit ideas of misguided faith, and the leverage and management of fear.
The author, Jack Carr, is a former Navy Seal who led special operations teams as a team leader and platoon and troop commander in hot spots around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. But he is so much more. Well read, a student of history and warfare, with a life-long interest in taking his learnings and translating them into powerful stories, Jack Carr is now on the cusp of releasing his fifth book, In the Blood. He has released one every year since 2018. And this year, his main character, James Reese, will appear on Amazon Prime set for July 2022.
We have a great conversation around his great character and his path to value. We find the path is ours as well.
“It was staring us in the face, but we just couldn’t see it.”
This is the conundrum many face when it comes to navigating risk and opportunity. Many things conspire to keep us from seeing and seizing the opportunity. Organizational silos. Fear of change. Cost vs. Return on the Opportunity (different than ROI).
I was fortunate to listen to a powerful story of navigating risk and opportunity by Ontic’s Chief Product Officer, Manish Mehta at the recent Protective Intelligence Summit. And I followed up with him on our Great Conversation Podcast around the opportunity that is gradually being “seen” and deployed by leaders in the risk, resilience, and security industry.
Listen in, connect the dots, and enjoy the ride along the new, interconnected, intelligence highway.
Manish has over 25 years of market leadership in software development, In his role as Chief Product Officer, he is the principal evangelist linking customers, partners and product development teams together in a highly collaborative and strategic web of innovation.
As I have watched many industries evolve, I have paid particular attention to those companies who have thrived in the midst of change. I also have taken note of the people who fought the change and tried to understand why? When the opportunity was uncertain, then control and constraint were the weapons they deployed.
Where are they now?
After speaking to our guest, I believe they either were left behind or, later, attempted to “hitchhike” onto the speeding car on the highway. Those who embraced the change were either driving the car or created businesses that became the car.
I had the opportunity to talk to a highly valued Risk Intelligence Consultant, Chris Story. Chris also is highly interconnected through his work with the International Protective Security Board (IPSB), a non-profit promoting the advancement of protection professionals worldwide. He also works with Chuck Randolph on the podcast known as Conversations in Close Protection (CiCP).
Chris and I reflect on what we learned at a recent Protective Intelligence Summit hosted by Ontic where we shared stories of those that took note of changes in their industry and profession and embraced the change and those who did not.
The protectors are about to learn this. And those who embrace the change will be future leaders in the risk, resilience, and security industry.
She has traveled all over the world and her journey intersected with some of the pivotal moments in the world’s troubled history.
But you would never know it.
She is humble; a disarming openness that draws you in. And, once in, you can see why she has been successful.
Wendy Bashnan is the CSO of Nielsen. Nielsen shapes the world’s media and content as a global leader in audience insights, data, and analytics. Through an understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, they empower their clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their audiences—now and into the future. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) operates around the world in more than 55 countries.
Wendy and I have a great conversation around how the emerging interconnected, intelligence platform will empower security leaders to a new level of organizational value.
“I can only solve what I can see.”
And, may I say, we are currently not seeing enough of the picture to play a strategic role within the organization. But we will. The new intelligence highway is rapidly becoming a reality. Enjoy the conversation and see if you agree.
He was a Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer for Verizon, a veteran, and one of the highest-ranking special agents in the FBI (who happen to be black) before retiring and becoming a school bus driver. The bridge was easy to cross if you are a true servant leader. His name is Michael Mason. We know him well. He was one of the most captivating speakers at our Great Conversation events before the pandemic. But he also sat in the front row taking notes as others spoke before and after him.
To get in his head and his heart, I decided to have a great conversation with him coinciding with the publication of his new book: Working in America - Spectator or Gladiator...You Decide
The book is designed for those who want to navigate the “white water rapids of the American workplace” with courage, discipline, kindness, and strength. Seizing the day requires you to get in the game, because the “world owes you nothing”, as Mike’s father once told him.
I hope you enjoy this lively conversation. It is like reading a good book animated by a voice that is clear and engaging.
Thought leaders are defined by the mountains they climb, the vistas they see, and their ability to articulate to others the how and why of the journey.
Adam Cambridge, a leader in Enterprise Risk Intelligence at Mitre, was recently acknowledged for his efforts in the Protective Intelligence profession at a summit hosted by Ontic.
We explore how his education and experience created the foundation for his passion for intelligence gathering; aggregating and analyzing information that could predict breaches or incidents for organizations and the world.
We also learn about his scorecard for great leaders and how this will be important for the next evolution of the industry. And fundamentally, we exchange ideas for how the role of security is changing in an exciting way; no longer defined just by what we protect, but how we enable the organization to achieve its goals.
The former global head of communications and crisis management at one of the world’s largest insurance companies, became an international business coach on strategic communications through his company The Orvieto Academy for Communicative Leadership.
We speak with him from Rome, where he has been since the pandemic.
Emilio is a thought leader in communicative leadership which focuses on empowering and strengthening leaders and employees. He is the chairman of Italy’s largest change management consulting group as well as teaches leadership principles through his virtual and onsite workshops around the world.
We talk about his journey and finish with the six tipping points of leadership that he has focused on during the pandemic. We discover a curious mind, driven by a passion for people and learning. And we are left with key steps in our path to values-based leadership.
We used to think job security was important. And it may be. But what if the real need is to belong to something bigger than ourselves?
I sit down with an accomplished executive coach who has been helping C-suite executives around the world unlock their leadership power to deliver on their strategic and personal objectives. She is a former global HR executive with a highly attuned ability to listen to her clients deeper than the words they are using and the stories they are telling.
She has been travelling to Central America since 2014 with an organization called The Business Council for Peace (Bpeace), an award-winning nonprofit working in crisis-affected communities to grow small and medium-size businesses, create significant employment for all, and expand the economic power of women. To Bpeace: “More jobs mean less violence.®”
What I found extraordinary about Angel Scalpello, the founder of the Scalpello Group, is how she bridges the profit and non-profit world with her competencies and gets her hands dirty in the process. Although she sits on the board of directors, she personally advises and trains budding business owners in some of the most distressed parts of the world.
We have a great conversation, and, as always, we discover important questions we should be asking ourselves and our leaders.
I first became acquainted with Jon Polly’s ideas and competencies through his articles on smart buildings and cities. I knew that many systems integrators and technology vendors were not equipped to carry on a great conversation on those topics.
But security is no longer a silo. It is becoming deeply embedded in digital transformation initiatives at the corporate and consumer level. Design thinking must become more holistic and the value proposition more integrated into the very fabric of the living building and the living city.
Jon doesn’t believe in going it alone. He wants to extend the vendor ecosystem to support the new initiatives creating a force multiplier for the end client and their trusted security systems integrator. The partner model is not new. However, I believe it will take on new urgency in the future.
Get ready to take a deep breath. Imagine juggling the following:
- President of the National Economic Security Alliance
- Leadership Council Member of the National Business Association
- Senior Fellow Emeritus of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security
- Distinguished Fellow of the Ponemon Institute
- Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors of the National Intellectual Property Law Institute
- Board Member, International Security Management Association (ISMA)
- CEO of Mattice and Associates
- Keynote speaker for strategic forums like The Great Conversation
Okay. You can breathe now.
Take all this experience and you can see why we partnered with Lynn in 2018 and 2019 to create the Executive Summit Series leveraging Lynn’s background as a CSO and the track record above.
The pandemic forced us to pivot, and Lynn is now directing the future of the Executive Summit Series. The next one will take place on April 28, 2022, as an anchor event for DSAC week and will be held, as in previous years, at The Boeing Company in Arlington, VA.
Lynn and I sit down to discuss his agenda outline.
Enjoy the conversation.
We have been using VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) to describe the world in which we live and our response to it since the United States Army War College used it following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Imagine what military planners faced with a radically different international security environment that had emerged. VUCA was used to describe it. Now business, in this age of digital transformation and expanded risk, is using it as well.
Let’s face it, risks and opportunities abound in a VUCA world. The risks are hard to see because they are multi-layered and intersect in a “tangled mesh of reaction and counter-reaction”. And we find, much to our dismay that not everything is black and white. And change is the only constant. Just when you think you are there, there is a shift, and all your old mental models no longer apply. This causes uncertainty, doubt, and fear, often paralyzing us while the window of opportunity to address the risk and seize the opportunity closes.
We have been pursuing the guides that can help us be better leaders in this VUCA world, and we found another in Germany: Waltrud Glaeser.
We have a great conversation around helping leaders “return to curiosity” about themselves, the others around them, and their impact on their companies and the world. We come away with a positive substitution for the VUCA acronym: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Adaptability. And that is a worthy starting point for leader’s growth, personally, professionally, and within the context of their business.
I had a great conversation with a former FBI Special Agent and Head of Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program (RET) who spent 21+ years of working counterintelligence.
I was intrigued on what he had learned about reading people. What I was not prepared for was his relentless flywheel of learning that he has developed to become a better person and leader.
The tools he developed are used to achieve self-mastery in observation, communication, and execution from a foundation of humility and transparency, whether it is with your perceived enemy, an employee, or a friend.
Robin Dreeke spent 21 years in the FBI before starting The People Formula and authoring a number of books on leadership and trust including It’s Not All About “Me”, The Code of Trust, and his latest, Sizing People Up.
As you can imagine, you can’t help but immerse yourself in his world and come out a better person as a result.
Enjoy the conversation.
No one wants to see this picture. (Podcast listeners, go to our blog on March 15, 2020). It offends us. It depresses us. But it is a graphic example of Gallup’s recent poll on the disengagement of the workforce. In this conversation, we find two amazing leaders who decided to change that narrative in their own unique way. It is a conversation of hope in the midst of the Great Resignation.
“For the first year in more than a decade, the percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. declined in 2021. Just over one-third of employees (34%) were engaged, and 16% were actively disengaged in their work and workplace, based on a random sample of 57,022 full- and part-time employees throughout the year. This compares with 36% engaged and 14% actively disengaged in 2020, a year with unprecedented highs and lows.” Gallup Survey
The data scares you, but it is not surprising. In the middle of the “Great Resignation” Gallup’s new survey says that only a third of employees are engaged in their work. That means 66% are not. And 16% are actively disengaged. Actively disengaged means feeling miserable at work and spreading negativity to their colleagues.
But what if you found a way to change that? What if you excelled at engagement? Gallup suggests it could be a force multiplier in improving your profitability, your productivity, your turnover, and your absenteeism (which costs businesses a half trillion a year).
Imagine my surprise when I found a security team leading the charge in changing their corporate culture. And they did it in a highly creative and innovative way. First in their own department and then across the company.
Join me for a great conversation with the former CSO of one of the largest utilities in the United States, Stan Partlow, and one of his former executives who had the idea 5 years ago, Sam Queeno, and led the ground-breaking new initiative that is still operating today.
I have had the opportunity to meet many of the executives who planned on attending the Protective Intelligence Summit hosted by Ontic last month. Staying true to the summit’s theme to “widen the aperture of security”, I had been meeting with HR, CISOs, CSOs, CCOs, and Chief Legal Officers (CLOs).
I also was preparing to facilitate a discussion around uniting Legal and Security at the Summit. Before I did so, I decided to meet with Ontic’s CLO.
Scott Shepherd has a unique background. He had been the CLO at Khoros and the VP of Legal at Spredfast. Prior to Spredfast, he was a General Counsel, law firm partner, and USMC Lieutenant Colonel. His educational background spans public policy, political science, and law.
I also was interested in the survey Ontic had done across these leadership disciplines and how it would apply to the CLO function. I found an excellent article written by Scott and Fred Burton, an industry thought leader in protective intelligence, written for the legal profession.
We sit down, discuss the article, his experience and his learnings from the industry and the survey.
Enjoy the conversation.
When we were preparing to participate in a Protective Intelligence Summit hosted by Ontic, Steven Antoine and I decided to have a great conversation about some of the agonizingly persistent questions around the functional role of the risk, resilience, and security leader.
Steven is the Vice President of Global Security for the North American Pepsico organization. Before that, he was the CSO of Global Assets Protection for Yum! Brands. At Yum!, we encountered a marketing philosophy driven by Yum’s former CEO called R.E.D. And we began to apply it to our views of the Security Industry.
- R: Relevance – Is Security relevant to the organization? Is it mission critical?
- E: Easy – Is Security easy to understand and use? Is it easily translatable to the navigation of risk and opportunity that the C Suite is facing real-time every day?
- D: Distinctive – If you benchmarked how Security partners with the C Suite, would your Security organization stand out? Would it be distinctively valuable?
As you listen to this great conversation, you will see a naturally inquisitive mind and a natural leader asking the tough questions about security’s role in the organization and ultimately its value.
Enjoy the conversation.
Brian Tuskan is a senior executive leader (CSO) for a Fortune 500 organization that we have known since the early days of The Great Conversation. His ability to absorb new technology, leadership skills, and industry experience and learnings, has allowed him to grow personally and professionally.
We caught up with him to understand what was front of mind for him and to help us define security’s evolving role in the era of digital transformation, threat intelligence platforms, work from home, and the breadth and depth of global risk conditions.
Brian is also the founder and host of Cop to Corporate, a webcast featuring strategies for law enforcement professionals seeking to transition to the corporate world.
I rarely meet people who are trying to anticipate change in a healthy way. The one’s who do practice a rigorous discipline of inquiry without assuming what they have learned is enough to navigate the risks and opportunities of tomorrow.
Nathan Mills, a senior enterprise risk management executive in Zoom is such a person. With a unique background in technology, business operations, intelligence, and security, he is helping his organization to live their group’s mission of "Protect to Enable"
His group is blazing new ground in developing a world-class physical security and business resilience program inside a converged cyber-physical security organization.
Enjoy the conversation.
Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, a risk management, and advisory firm, is a trusted supplier to global organizations around the world.
We have been following Dale for some time, and his public briefings are enormously powerful.
This great conversation is relevant to CEOs and their board of directors. It revolves around the question: “What have you done over the past two years to create competitive advantage from this generational shift that is occurring around the world?” This shift is impacting how we model our businesses, interact with our employees, and how we finally integrate security into the primary mission of the CEO and their teams: to leverage risk and opportunity to create a valuable company.
Enjoy the conversation.
There are recurring questions that risk, resilience, security, and business leaders have been asking themselves for years. They are common themes we hear at the seminars and conferences alike. Questions like:
- Is security mission critical to the execution of the business?
- If so, how is this evidenced in the strategic planning and execution of the executive management team (EMT)? (CFO, CIO, CISO, CLO, HR, and CSO)
- Is it important for security to be the responsibility of multiple people in an organization, including those outside of the security discipline?
- Who are the core members of the EMT that security relies upon?
- Does security drive business continuity and reputation strategies or is it a supporting function?
- How can security professionals best gain budget and buy-in for corporate security in their organizations?
- Is security seen as a cost center? If so, how do you prove its value?
- How does current technology support cross functional collaboration, communication, and the measures of value that support its strategic role of helping navigate risk and opportunity for the members of the executive management team?
I will be providing some of the answers I received from a recent polling of the Great Conversation community. I also want to share this recent conversation I had with the Founder and CEO of Concentric Security, Mark Oakes. He takes a multi-disciplinary, creative look at industrial security, some of the stories security practitioners have been telling themselves for years as well as some new, useful mental models we can use to improve our thinking processes.
This is a fascinating and great conversation around how we see, know, and act as both security professionals, as human beings… and as leaders. These insights can positively impact the stories we tell ourselves in the future.
One of the key disciplines I have leveraged and taught falls under a personal philosophy of mine: “Never waste an opportunity to learn”
On February 21-23, Ontic, a leading platform for protective intelligence, is hosting a thought leader forum. It promises to be an inflection point for the organizational leaders who influence the policies, procedures, people, and tools around proactive risk management. We are talking about CSOs, CLOs, COOs, CFOs, and CEOs. Risk is now everyone’s business because it impacts the reach and resilience of business which also impacts its brand.
My discipline is to go over the agenda, research the speaker’s backgrounds, research the subject, and then determine the questions I have on the subject matter. I must cultivate an inquiring mind by doing my own research or I become a consumer instead of an active listener. The good news is I asked a fellow attendee who is an executive with a risk management company to review our options with me.
Chuck Randolph has been a senior director of threat intelligence and executive protection at Microsoft and is now Senior Director of Operations for an international risk advisory and executive protection firm called AT-RISK International. We have a great conversation around our potential learnings and the quality of the speakers and the topics.
Most people are looking for something. Early on it could be as simple as love from a parent or friends. It might evolve into living vicariously through our heroes. Then attention naturally focuses on a career path, a search for a combination of recognition, or power, or wealth.
But very few of us think about our end of days.
I was originally attracted to Nick Brossit, Ed.D. through a posting on LinkedIn where he was sharing his journey dealing with pancreatic cancer. He has over 32 years in formal public education – 22 years as a Superintendent in two different school districts in Washington State. He also generously gives of his time as a leadership coach and consultant.
We have a great conversation about his path to value, personally and professionally. We touch on servant leadership, having a north star, and the nature of wholeness as a platform to lead others. And, finally, we come full circle to how that path prepared him for a cancer diagnosis that could eventually kill him.
I was humbled by his gift, his grace, and his faith.
There is no one way to look at PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) there are 636,120 ways to have PTSD.
However, those of us who have not been diagnosed with PTSD can learn a lot from those who have served our combat veterans on how to deal with stress and trauma, especially in these uncertain times.
One of our Great Conversation leaders introduced us to Dr. Dan Libby, Executive Director of the Veterans Yoga Project (VYP), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization whose mission is to support recovery and resilience among our veterans, families, and communities. He and his organization are working with hundreds, if not thousands, each week, helping them to navigate a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. Here is a quote from Dr. Libby based on an early recognition of the power of yoga on one of his early clients:
“A turning point in the founding of VYP occurred before the fourth “mindful yoga” class I had ever taught. One of my veterans approached me and told me that he had stopped taking his sleep medications, because now he could meditate to go to sleep. That moment was profound. The pride with which he told me this was palpable. It is as if he were no longer a broken man who could not manage the simplest of human functions; instead, he was empowered to use his own mind, his own breath, his own body to live and sleep, in a way that brought him more ease and more joy. He practiced every day. Eventually, he went on to lead morning meditations in his own community at a local yoga center.”
We have a Great Conversation around the unique benefits of yoga in training the body and mind, eventually training yourself to be at peace with what you find in any moment. I came away with the sense that if I could get to that state, as a leader, I could see more clearly the people around me and the circumstances that were confronting them with empathy and without judgement. In a sense, we wake up, freed from emotional constructs that can lead us astray.
Dr. Libby is much more eloquent. Enjoy the conversation.
Something is wrong. We have so many tools within our reach that would position our organizations more strategically, improve our processes exponentially, and create value within our market ecosystems. But for some reason, we cannot get our people to believe that their work is essential to their life and well-being. Work has become something you do while you are waiting for life to begin. You can see it and hear it. Just listen:
- TGIF (Thank God it is Friday)
- I am only working here until I get a better offer somewhere else
- One day I can retire and not have to do this anymore
- Our leaders only care about money and power
How did this happen?
There is a company, Quantum Leaders, that would tell you that all the Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecarding, and Wellness Programs you have put into place are good. But they would point you to the facts: People are still not engaged. We explore this ugly truth and how we might begin a journey of discovery that might lead to change in how we view the world, and ourselves in it. And it might just make your organization more competitive, more efficient, and more resilient.
Welcome to The Great Conversation around a radical concept: Your organization is a living person.
In business, we start with how people think, feel, and respond. We put tools in their hands. The tools inspire behavior. They become personal and professional. And if you are one of the fortunate, yet small minority, that is successful harnessing their positive reaction to your tool, you are on the path to value.
I seldom see the agents of change be motivated by purely money. They usually seek impact. They consider their legacy; and they want to win. Winning to them is about seizing the opportunity so that they, the market, and their customer, flourish.
I am fortunate to be able to speak with these people at different stages of their thinking. Stephen Pineau, the CEO of Gloocel is my latest. Gloocel seeks to dramatically lower the cost and improve the experience of building owners and their stakeholders, by cutting the cord using mobile and the cloud.
But enjoy the lessons that lurk below the specific market and product. It is another Great Conversation.
If you think about it, protecting those who lead us must be one of the oldest professions.
Today there is a professional practice called “Executive Protection”. In most companies, it is one of many spokes of their security program wheel.
But for some time now, the practice of risk management and security has been undergoing a radical transformation. The deluge of information and the ability to collect it, organize it, understand it, and communicate it for appropriate defense measures and actionable incident response, can no longer depend on a single person or department. Technology is advancing to bring a vast aggregation engine from on the ground resources to online media outlets (including social). And there is an opportunity to bring executive level purview into the mix from HR, Legal, Compliance, and Operations through a comprehensive and integrated cross functional communication platform.
I turned to Michael Trott, a thought leader, author (The Protected), and security executive leader for Discovery Land Company, to seek his counsel and wisdom, from experience, in advance of the Protective Intelligence Summit we will be at in Austin, Texas February 21-23, 2022. We begin to unpack what executive protection and security might look like in the years to come.
It was a great conversation.
Every week we work, we strive, we fear, and we love. If we are fortunate, we take time to listen to music. If we are even more fortunate, we find ourselves in a small, comfortable venue listening to live music.
It could be jazz, the blues, reggae, or rock and roll. It doesn’t matter. Because music, according to psychology experts, can reduce your stress level. And stress is impacts are brain and memory. If it is jazz, the musician also stretches the brain by having to think critically and creatively through their technical knowledge of playing their instrument and the challenge of integrating what they are hearing from their fellow performers. The resulting “collaboration” is the performance we experience.
But what if the performer pauses mid-stream to take us on another journey that could be defined as “the breath of life.”
We meet up with a global-trotting world-class musician by the name of Levi Huffman who takes us on this journey of his that has touched so many of his followers.
With the rapid pace of change in technology, the need for the strategic integration of the technology to leverage the data it is aggregating and consuming, and, finally, the cost of labor vs. the return, new business models have emerged.
We explore one such company riding these changes. The CEO, Daniel Forest, shares his entrepreneurial background and nature and how it informed and infused his company.
Eyeforce Inc. is a remote video guarding company stationed in Houston, TX. They specialize in the remote guarding of outdoor critical infrastructures such as water treatment facilities, solar and wind farms, oil and gas pipeline, parking areas, construction sites, and many more.
We love finding people of passion who have connected their passion and calling in such a way that they influence executives and companies around the world.
Recently we connected with the President of Parks Associates, Elizabeth Parks, a second-generation business owner with a legacy of aggregating information about the residential and small business security market. Because of their compendium of knowledge, they provide unique perspectives on how the market is functioning and where it might be going; incredibly useful for the current ecosystem of companies as well as the new emerging entrepreneurs.
Our conversation explored how the unique identity of work and home has shifted and what that portends for the industry.
Elizabeth has a unique seat at the table. She oversees research topics and coverage areas for the company and directs the integrated strategic communications plan for Parks Associates, including advertising, public relations, and marketing. Elizabeth has also supported the growth of Parks Associates business and marketing services for twenty-three years and is the key organizer for all of Parks Associates' events, including Parks Associates signature event CONNECTIONS™.
Since the time of the ancients, Arcadia has been the inspiration for poets, painters, and writers attracted to an idyllic time and place. Arcadia was and is that place. It is a real location (southern Greece) as well as a mythological one. It is where many of the myths were born. And myths are ideas. And ideas are real things. They can shape us, inspire us, and define us.
How this happens is through a culture of learning anchored by how we uniquely perceive, consume, understand, apply, and communicate information. This “central processing” technology is the foundation behind the word “cognition.” And you might say the humans who have collectively pursued the optimization and actualization of this skill are the “cognerati.”
Putting these two terms together becomes the genesis of a story of warriors translating their experiences and learnings into an applied practice of thinking that helps enhance the situational awareness and actionable response of executives in the risk, resilience, and security industry.
We speak with Greg Williams, founder and President, and Brian Marren, Senior VP of Operations of Arcadia Cognerati. They are both veteran Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis subject matter experts that have inspired and educated their clients through their classes and consulting around the world.
Can “struggle” be our best chance at discovering who we are? We found an author who explores this with us in The Great Conversation.
Bobby Herrera is the author of The Gift of Struggle, a book about leadership and the life-changing lessons we learn through our struggles. He is also the co-founder and president of Populus Group. With a passion for building strong culture and communities through trust and storytelling, his leadership style is about empowerment, connections, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to succeed.
Bobby grew up in a big family with parents who immigrated to America without much. While this is not an uncommon story, the leadership style and company culture that it inspired is. The belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed is at the core of Bobby’s philosophy in business and in life.
Everyone has struggles and business leaders are no exception. Bobby’s passion is helping others understand how their individual struggles can help them connect with their communities and inspire others is what will transform their leadership style.
Bobby is a proud Army veteran and currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
We wanted to be a fly on the wall when an integrator interviewed a potential technology vendor that happened to be offering an enterprise platform for integrating video management into access control, health monitoring, IoT integration, and analytics at the edge.
While we listened in they discussed the current state of best-in-class video monitoring, the value of the data center platforms like Google, the roadblocks to creating a compelling value proposition with the CSO and the CISO, and the nature of evaluating technology and technology vendor relationships.
It was a new grand experiment for The Great Conversation. Listen in and see if you can extract some value out of their discussion.
The participants are Nigel Waterton, Chief Revenue Officer for Arcules; Brian Cox, Regional Manager for Arcules in Texas; Joe Harris, Chief Solutions Officer for STAR Asset Security; and Jack Johnson, VP of Sales and Marketing for STAR.
Our learnings: serendipitously, we had just interviewed another cloud platform vendor. We found an overwhelming demand for cloud solutions due to labor shortages, budget constraints, the need for rapid application development, and the ease of use and administration.
If you have worked for a variety of access control technology vendors, you have an inside view of how they develop their products and their go to market strategies. We wanted to leverage those insights to explore the next generation of what we call Unbound Intelligent Security.
To do that, we looked up Paul Dipeso who works for a company called Feenics that purports to be the “rebirth of access control”. We actually think it might be more than that. Listen in and see how we attempt to tease out the ‘why’ behind this new approach to an age old problem.
Keep by Feenics is the rebirth of access control. Designed by an integrator, for an integrator, it's about meeting the needs of the end user by maximizing their current infrastructure with a flexible, scalable platform that uses a secure connection to the cloud, no different than online banking. Feenics believes in protecting the initial investment with licensing costs that are not complicated or prohibitive and hardware that is non-proprietary.
If we are fortunate enough to have the resources and time to help others in need, we truly are blessed. If we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we also have the duty to step in and help others find their path and courage to pursue hope, liberty, and happiness.
David Nicastro of Secure Source International is in the business of helping his clients navigate travel around the world as well as providing strategic advice on corporate risk management. He has built his business through a network of skilled relationships around the world.
Recently he volunteered his time, resources, and money, to help extract people from Afghanistan who were close to losing their freedom and their lives.
In our conversation, we step through his journey, his business model, and the events that led to a successful extraction from one of the world's most dangerous countries.
We live a life of intersections between Yes and No. Whatever path we choose necessarily demands a sacrifice of the other. Each path leads to another intersection. And although this happens to all of us, few of us recognize at the time the incredible blessing of choice and the learnings that carryover.
Stan Partlow of Relentless Effort, LLC is one of the few. His career spans law enforcement, the FBI, most recently, CSO of one of the foremost utilities in the nation, AEP. Stan is a self-described “leadership nerd”. For him, leadership is all about influence, and influence is the art and the science of relationships. And relationships, if harnessed toward a common goal drives outcomes that matter. We also talk about influence that can be manipulative. We touch on leaders who are great at influence but drive people to do horrible things. So we expand the definition of leadership to underline the commitment to honor, integrity, and the common good.
If you are relentlessly pursuing your path to value, you might want to sit in on this great conversation about his life, his learnings, and his passion for a life well lived.
Do your people who travel to support your business believe that you are doing everything you can to keep them safe and secure? Does your organization believe they have a duty to care for them?
The world is changing dramatically. We have the new threat vector of Covid 19 and may be facing a new era of similar outbreaks. We have socio-political divisiveness leading to civil unrest with the corresponding ramifications of the new role of law enforcement in mitigating the risk.
We have climate uncertainty.
We have global terrorism.
The question is: do we have an agreed upon standard of care for our workforce? And are we taking steps to mitigate their risk?
Fundamentally, we need to have an over-arching risk management standard. We have one that is internationally recognized: ISO 31000. With this in place we can now address specific risk in travel. For some time now, working through many virtual conference calls, a consortium of risk, resilience and security professionals have been working on a new travel management standard called ISO 31030.
We sit down with one of the key committee members, Ronny Saether of Norges Bank, along with a noted security consultant, Patrick Kane, and an owner of an executive protection agency, Mac Segal of AHNA, to unwrap the potential this may have of changing how we evangelize travel risk management in our organizations and in our vendor relationships.
John Coovert, the VP and Global Head of Security for SAP, has been a voice of innovation and change in our conversations for close to ten years. In this conversation we discuss his concept of duty of care “Everyone, Anywhere” and how that guides his strategy and planning at SAP. We learn about how he wants the vendor community to approach him, and his need to secure his future by automating the physical tasks that permeate security within his company.
A highly experienced security professional with over 33 years of experience in physical security, law enforcement, and the military, John has been focused on strong leadership and prioritizing to achieve determined results. Because of this, he excels at developing relationships with business units supported by, and in support of, security programs. He possesses a unique and dynamic experience from tenures at security roles at various notable companies, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the United States Marine Corps.
John has been able to progressively advance through leadership/management positions due to his ability to motivate staff, increase productivity, develop plans and solutions in fighting crime, provide safety and effectively use the tools provided. Additionally, he has served as a Director, Manager, Supervisor, field training officer, while employed in the security industry as well as worked independently as an Executive Protection Specialist for several companies.
Seattle Children's is one of the most respected children's research and hospital in the nation. Dylan Hayes, is the lead Cyber-Physical IT Security Manager. He has been in the center of physical security services at Children’s Hospital and shares his thoughts on leadership, innovation, and change.
Dylan is a seasoned leader, planner, and enterprise change agent with 20+ year progressive career record spanning a wide range of critical business systems and operations including enterprise risk, resilience, and response.
He also has extensive expertise and background in consulting/assessment, system analysis/integration, application and system management, resilient and streamlined operations, safety identification and mitigation, disaster planning and customer service.
Mark Weatherford is an American cybersecurity professional who has held a variety of executive level positions in both the public and private sectors. He was appointed as the first deputy under secretary for cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2011 to 2013. He is currently the Global Information Security Strategist for Booking Holdings.
Mark Weatherford is investing his wealth of knowledge into helping emerging companies become more strategic in the risk, resilience, and security industry. He does this through a portfolio of private companies as a strategic advisor as well as with non-profits such as the National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) where he is the Chief Strategy Officer. The NCC is a non-profit helping with the cybersecurity of startups and state and local government. The Unfortunate 5000. There are three program pillars that help them meet their mission.
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Education and outreach. The NCC’s Cyber Education Program provides cybersecurity leadership, with two main pillars: K-12 education, NCC Student Alliance, and the Adult Education Initiative. As our nation addresses the critical gap in skilled cybersecurity talent, NCC addresses the importance of cyber education through programs and partnerships that invite students to participate in an ecosystem which encourages them to learn, explore, and build their skills.
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The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), a separate nonprofit organization, has the mission to facilitate collaboration across the global space industry to enhance our ability to prepare for and respond to vulnerabilities, incidents and threats; to disseminate timely and actionable information among member entities; and to serve as the primary communications channel for the sector with respect to this information.
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Voting security. Secure the Vote seeks to increase voter confidence in the U.S. on the accuracy of vote-counting, and to generate greater awareness of possible solutions to critical gaps in the voting infrastructure. Secure the Vote supports jurisdictions’ efforts to offer a secure, auditable mobile voting option for overseas voters through coordinating and evaluating pilots across the country.
After exploring his portfolio and his work, we examine the technologies that are transforming our world.
Sam Queeno is the Director of Digital Identity and Physical Security for a major utility: American Electric Power (AEP). We have a great conversation around the journey toward AEPs convergence of physical and logical security, first organizationally, then through the baby steps they are taking with the tools.
The conversation then became centered on something all security leaders consider a less then desirable situation: when something bad is happening and you are the last one to know.
This led to a focus on proactive intelligence, first with the hiring of a leader with an analyst background, the manual gathering of information on persons of interest (POI), and eventually the digital transformation of the intelligence gathering process through the purchase of a protective intelligence platform. (Ontic)
“We now have intelligence served up to us”, said Sam. Public records from disparate sources are organized, stored, managed, and delivered to the key people on Sam’s team. However, what Sam said later was telling. I was looking for business and security executives applauding his team’s progress. He corrected that assumption by acknowledging this is the baseline everyone expects their program to have. “This is expected”, said Sam.
There is a critical role for the high net worth and/or corporate leader to consider just like they would do for a key function in their company.
This critical role is the Executive Protection Leader. In a great conversation with Mac Segal, founder and CEO of the AHNA Group, we take advantage of his upcoming International Covert Close Protection Course that he is launching on October 25-31 in Amsterdam to uncover the multi-faceted attributes of such a leader.
You will want to listen in to a thought-provoking exchange on the attributes needed in this age of risk – this is not your father’s James Bond.
AHNA Group is a multi-discipline security consortium, providing you with true security convergence services to ensure smooth and optimal operational outcomes
If you are a gun owner, you know the drill. Keep the gun in a safe. Especially if you have children. What if there was another, better way?
In Seattle, during one of our many so-called civil demonstrations, a gun was taken from a law enforcement officer’s car. A frightening situation. What if the perpetrator could take the gun, but not be able to use it?
It was after another gun-related incident, a school shooting, that the founder of TrueFire, Justin Gant, sought a way to create a fool proof access control device for a firearm. Pretty tough to do since, according to Justin, there have been very innovations in gun design for many years.
What happened next? A series of design iterations, testing, and test cases that are getting very close to establishing a standard for preventing an unauthorized use of a weapon, without disrupting the experience of the gun owner and the aesthetics of the gun. “It has to not be there”, said Erik Larson, his cofounder.
They are close to imagining a day where no one can access a device that they are unauthorized to use. No more need to lock the gun in a safe. No more frightening incidents around police firearms on the street.
We explore their idea, the stage of their design, and their passion for saving the lives of the gun owner, their friends and family, and law enforcement.
The Kindness Games was created in September 2020 by Tim Wenzel and Lee Oughton, two security industry leaders. They believed they could help counter-program the disruption, hate, and discontent that had engulfed the world during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the ensuing spike of racial tensions and civil unrest. They exposed their idea to me, Ron Worman, and I fumbled with a spontaneous video recording as my initial contribution. Many others have contributed as well. It has touched something in all of us.
Here is another contribution via our podcast, The Great Conversation. In it you will hear the fullness of my heart for the leaders in this industry who I have encountered in my 20+ years of strategic consulting as managing director of The Sage Group and The Great Conversation. I still sound awkward. It is unscripted. But it is important to keep the kindness moving forward. Thank you Tim and Lee and thank you to The Great Conversation community.
Guy Beveridge believes in teaching executives and their security teams how to navigate risk and opportunity. Although he is a professional security consultant he first and foremost is focused on the mind of the leader and how they communicate a risk, resilience, and security mindset to their people.
We have a great conversation around human investment, empowerment, and how to handle the deadly curse of organizational culture; not exposing the fear inside.
We are not will-less. Or speechless. We do not need to act like the living dead. That is the beginning of my conversation with Elvin Turner, an award-winning innovation expert and associate professor of innovation, entrepreneurship and marketing for MBA and executive education programs.
His clients include some of the world’s most innovative organizations in the finance, technology, music, and publishing industries.
His recent book: Be Less Zombie: How great organizations create dynamic innovation, fearless leadership, and passionate people is intended for leaders and their teams who are suffering from creative constipation or creative indigestion where ideas never get heard or never get executed.
I was struck by Elvin’s relentless heart and mindset focused on the leadership opportunity to steward tomorrow’s ideas.
What is human? What is behavior? How do those two terms merge in a practice that serves the risk, resilience, and security industry? We turn to the incredibly rich experience of Miranda Coppoolse, the Founder of MC Global Security and one of the top security influencers in the world.
We find out there is a fire burning in Miranda’s core that infuses her approach to people. And she applies the science of human behavior in a language that can be consumed by her peers and her community.
Miranda Coppoolse is the Founder of MC Global Security Consulting. She is a distinguished Behavioral Analyst and serves as a Security Risk Advisor on various interrelated security topics. In July 2021 she received an award for Global influencer in Security & Fire for the year 2021, from IFSEC.
While known for her behavior analysis trainings & seminars tailored to any industry and profession, her mentoring and coaching and public speaking Miranda also serves as a Board Member on several Boards.
When I sat down with Scot Walker and he began to tell me what he is reading and his passion for service, I realized I wasn’t talking to your typical security consultant. We dig deeply into the definition of a protector and the role of the stakeholders in creating a culture of security.
Scot runs Walker & Associates a boutique Threat Mitigation, Investigations & Due Diligence firm. He helps Attorneys & Businesses make risk-informed decisions. Empowering his clients, such as attorneys and global businesses with information that will help them navigate risk and opportunity is his passion and his profession.
In The Great Conversation, we attempt to bring all the voices to the table to create the narrative and the leverage to increase the value of the risk, resilience, and security industry. Some of the voices are the investors in organizations that may be changing the face of our industry. Last year we sat down with Michael Levenberg a partner in LLR Partners, a private equity group who is leveraging marketing intelligence, domain expertise, independent board member recruiting, and a “value creation” team to accelerate the path to value of organizations in our industry.
LLR Partners is a lower middle market private equity firm investing in technology and healthcare businesses. They collaborate with their portfolio companies to define high-impact growth initiatives, turn them into action and create long-term value. Founded in 1999 and with more than $5 billion raised across six funds, LLR is a flexible provider of equity capital for growth, recapitalizations, and buyouts.
Michael focuses on Security and Industrial Technology. A few companies he has led LLR investments in are ACRE and Mercury Security.
I don’t know how to describe these two minds. They have mastered the art of the question anchored by a deep background in the science of human behavior and a deep empathetic heart for everyone’s individual journey.
By their questions and insights, we begin to explore the question “How do I see?”
This WiLD process ( Whole + Intentional Leader Development), becomes the north star that integrates the functional areas of our lives with the human reality of our hearts and minds.
A little background: Rob McKenna, PhD is the Founder + Chief Executive Officer of WiLD Leaders. He was named among the top 30 most influential I-O Psychologists. He has been a TEDx Speaker, and featured in Forbes,
His research and coaching with leaders across corporate, not-for-profit and university settings has given him insight into the real and gritty experience of leaders. His clients have included the Boeing Company, Microsoft, Heineken, Foster Farms, the United Way, Alaska Airlines and Children’s Hospital. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters on leadership character, calling, effectiveness, and leadership under pressure. He served as the Chair of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University up until 2020, with a total time at SPU of 25 years. His latest book, Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure, focuses on the specific strategies leaders can use to stay true to themselves and connected to others when it matters most. Rob lives in Kirkland with his wife, Jackie, and their two sons.
Daniel Hallak, PhD is WiLD’s Chief Commercial Officer driving strategic commercial initiatives, and other operations such as product development, and marketing efforts that support the development of whole leaders. Before WiLD, he spent over a decade developing whole leaders in business, academic, and not-for-profit settings. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Seattle Pacific University.
Bill Marcisz is the President of Strategic Security Management Consulting. He has 30 years of experience in Security Management, most recently with the highly acclaimed AdventHealth network. Bill also has a Doctor of Law Degree which he has leveraged in compelling ways throughout his career.
We had a great conversation around some of the technologies we hear about in the news such as body cameras, which Bill successfully integrated into the fabric of this organization. We explore the technology, the new business processes that were launched because of the technology and the impact on the true metrics that matter, the de-escalation and reduction of violence, investigative forensics, and prosecutorial success.
Lisa Oliveri is the Director of Global Safety and Security for EDC (Education Development Center), a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. EDC has been a leader in designing, implementing, and evaluating powerful and innovative programs in more than 80 countries around the world.
With this global perspective, I sought to find out how this business-savvy global influencer in security management was understanding our world at this moment and what guidance she could give us in helping us achieve a measure of personal and corporate readiness.
Lisa oversees all activities related to security, risk assessment and management, crisis response, protocol development, information analysis, and technical assistance to the field. She manages security for international projects and advises on US Home Office security policies and procedures. She also is coordinating EDC’s international crisis response protocols, supporting business continuity planning, and assisting with incident management.
As you can imagine, she must maintain a detailed knowledge of the national and regional security and operating environments where EDC works, the changing security dynamics and trends, and how that may affect EDC project operations and implementation. This means collaborating regularly with members of Legal, HR, IT, Operations, Facilities, and others to support EDC projects and operations.
Steven Bowler has been on a self-described journey to make an impact on his world. A former Marine, he is now responsible for a ground-up opportunity to reassess the management and impact of global security in one of the most recognized leaders of insurance, risk management and consulting services, Gallagher. Gallagher is an international group of partners that provide cost-effective, client-centric, and expertise-driven risk management solutions. The leadership team fosters a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture that has made Gallagher an innovator in creating new products and services for our clients.
We learn how Steven is carefully assessing and constructing the architecture of the risk, resilience, and security program including a Security Operations Center, Global Intelligence, as well as safely and securely monitoring travel for his stakeholders.
Our conversation on the evolving human intelligence platform is intriguing and insightful.
In 2020, we wanted to check in on the state of our schools. We turned to Michele Gay, the co-founder of Safe and Sound Schools.
Michele is an educator and a mother. Her journey with Safe and Sound Schools was a result of losing her daughter Josephine Grace on December 14, 2012, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members. Earlier that day, before driving to the school, he shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home.
Since that time, Michele has channeled her work as an advocate, improving safety and security in schools and communities across our country. With a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Towson State University, Michele earned a Masters’ degree in Curriculum and Instruction from McDaniel College. Prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy, she taught at the elementary level in the Maryland and Virginia public schools. Now a nationally and internationally recognized public speaker and school safety expert, Michele reaches audiences and consults with all levels of community institutions — schools; municipalities; houses of worship; educational and public safety leadership; state and federal governments; law enforcement agencies; and top news media sources. Through her work, and always with a goal of helping others increase the safety within their own communities, Michele shares her personal experiences and the lessons she has learned.
Gene Deisinger, President of Deisinger Consulting, is a thought leader in risk and threat assessment, provided his perspective on our time and what it might mean for the future of the security industry. "A riot is a language of the unheard", a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King is the foundation by which we explore our collective challenge in the days ahead. How do we listen differently and more effectively?
Through his training and experience as a licensed psychologist, certified health service provider in psychology, and as a state-certified police officer (now retired from law enforcement), he brings a unique perspective to the field of forensic & law enforcement psychology and his work in behavioral threat assessment & management.
The retired former CSO of Microsoft Mike Howard now President of Howard Consulting, LLC, and author of The Art of Ronin Leadership, reflects on his experiences and what he has learned. When we spoke in 2020, he was anticipating finishing and launching the book and his new podcast. We also learned how he might construct a “scorecard” for a leader. Finally, we tease out a phrase to explore in the future: “The Selfishness of Selflessness”.
Mike Mason, the former CSO of Verizon, shares the mindset he developed to lead his organization and his life. “I am not a finished product.” This conversation took place last year right before his retirement.
Michael A. Mason joined Verizon Communications in January 2008 as the company’s Chief Security Officer. He oversaw and coordinated global security efforts throughout Verizon and all its business units, including enterprise-wide security strategy and programs, physical security, cyber security, and law enforcement liaison and security matters.
Before Verizon, he was responsible for the Criminal Branch of the FBI, to include the Criminal Division, Cyber Division, Office of International Operations and the FBI's Critical Incident Response Division and the Office of Law Enforcement Liaison.
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Eric McNulty is the Associate Director of The National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI). NLPI is a joint venture of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Division of Policy Translation and Leadership Development and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.
NLPI has a crisis leadership training and research program dedicated to preparing those who lead in safety and security, business continuity, and disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. They have trained more than 10,000 leaders across 30 U.S. States and 10 countries.
Which brings us to the book. I originally tracked down Eric to understand a term he used: Meta Leadership. This took us on a journey to understand the term ‘leadership’ and the need for a big picture view.
Why is this needed? Today, in an instant, leaders can find themselves face-to-face with crisis. An active shooter. A media controversy. A data breach. In You're It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most, the faculty of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University takes you to the front lines of some of the toughest decisions facing our nation's leaders-from how to mobilize during a hurricane or in the aftermath of a bombing to halting a raging pandemic. They also take readers through the tough decision-making inside the world's largest companies, hottest startups, and leading nonprofits.
Eric McNulty and his co-authors introduce readers to the pragmatic model and methods of Meta-Leadership. They show you how to understand what is happening during a moment of crisis and change, what to do about it, and how to hone these skills to lead high-performing teams. Then, when crisis hits, you can pivot to be the leader people follow when it matters most.
The times call for trusted advisors backed by a cutting-edge risk operations center leveraging a network of human and digital assets. It is a model that is difficult to fund, design, operate, and maintain. But there is a window of opportunity to fundamentally change the way companies manage their risk and to executives like Robert Dodge, that time is now.
Robert Dodge is the CEO of Global Risk Services at Prosegur, a world leader in the private security industry. Through its five business lines —Prosegur Security, Prosegur Cash, Prosegur Alarms, Cipher and Prosegur AVOS— it offers companies, households, and retail businesses security they can trust, based on the most advanced solutions in the market.
Robert has a proven track record of building high performing businesses/teams spanning multiple regions around the world. He was formerly responsible for G4S Corporate Risk Services Division which provides specialized protective/investigative/consulting and intelligence services globally.
Mark Oakes has spent 40 years in security and owns 7 successful businesses. So, naturally, I wanted to know how he thinks about creating a valuable business. Our discussion quickly became a tutorial on the nature of trust, the ‘bedrock’ or cornerstone of a corporate DNA he has persistently nurtured. To Mark there is no grey. And rather then being a constraint, he sees it as enabling people to develop trust in themselves while earning the trust from others.
You will want your pen in hand as he defines the path to trust.
Mark is the founder and CEO of Concentric Security, one of the nation's foremost Perimeter Security Solutions Providers for homeland security and force protection applications that meet the federal guidelines and standards. They deliver a full range of services including planning, security engineering, technology selection, full site integration, construction and follow-on service and maintenance
Back in 2020, we were able to meet Martin Gasulla at The Great Conversation which was being held in Palm Beach Florida. At the time he was managing the Security Operations Center for Vicente López in a partido in the Buenos Aires Province of Argentina 20 kilometers north of downtown Buenos Aires and 80 kilometers north of the city of La Plata, the provincial capital. It is one of the country´s most affluent municipalities. In this podcast following our forum, Martin outlines his journey in helping his city become more safe, secure, sustainable and, most importantly, more efficient and valuable to its citizens. Martin deployed a comprehensive network of cameras, backed by an open and highly interoperable VMS and Communication technology backbone.
Mark Reid, Director of Safety and Security at Seattle Pacific University, visited us last year in a spontaneous and transparent conversation around his journey in creating a near-real time incident response system using intelligent IP audio integrated into access control, video, and multi-modal communications. He was told it was too expensive and, likely not possible. But he challenged those prevailing assumptions and now can activate an emergency communication procedure, including a campus-wide lock down, notification of internal emergency response team, police and/or fire emergency (911), all in under a minute.
A senior security consultant working on some of the largest projects in the world, discusses his unique approach to helping his customers bridge the gap from good to great. He helps me reframe the digital transformation discussion into a more accurate term: Digital Acceleration, which captured the anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and doubt that can occur when change is impacting your industry, your certifications, and your career.
He also captures the heart and soul of the professionals in the security industry by telling his highly personal story of ground zero after 9/11.
Matthew Dimmick, CPP, PSP, CPD, is the translator between his clients and his engineers. He is a senior consultant at STV, an award-winning professional firm consistently ranking among the country's top companies in education, justice, highways, bridges, rail, and mass transit sectors. They provide a complete range of planning, engineering, architectural, environmental, and construction management services to transportation, infrastructure, design-build, institutional, commercial, energy, industrial, and military clients.
The Data Waterfall is forcing a change. The current definition of integration that is pervasive in the physical security industry is changing as well as the organizational convergence spurred by digital transformation. And the next generation is forcing change. New ideas. An expectation of real time. A DNA of technology at the speed of business.
Jeff Slotnick is President of Setracon Enterprise Security Risk Management Services a company focused on professional services related to Risk Consulting, Enterprise Security Risk Management, Physical Security, Physical Security of Logical Systems, Resiliency, Training, Protective services, investigations, and the conduct of all hazards risk, vulnerability, and threat assessments.
We leveraged his eyes and ears on the floor at ISC West. His insights were valuable in helping us understand the shifts taking place in his discipline and in the industry at large.
ISC West is a key event for the Security Industry. It took a pause in 2020, but recently brought the industry back together in July. We caught up with two senior consultants who survey the floor every year to explore the show and what they learned.
They found an eagerness to “get back to work”. There was a passion undergirding the event around relationships; relationships that can drive innovation and change.
Although the size of the crowd was quite a bit lower than in the past, ISC managed to “get the ball rolling again”. And new innovations on the floor focused on outcomes amid societal and environmental change.
One of the key insights was this “We are now monitoring our monitoring.” The point was that information (data) is the new oil and a new assurance expectation through transparent reporting is needed. These ‘dashboards’ are now a condition of a security manager’s evaluation of their vendors.
The consultants were J. Kelly Stewart the Managing Director & CEO of Newcastle Consulting, LLC and a former CSO. Newcastle is a premiere Security Risk Management Consultancy that provides security strategies ensuring your Piece of Mind through a proactive prevention strategy to reduce risk.
Kelly draws upon more than 30 years of public and private sector experience as a Security Advisor, Subject Matter Expert, and former Chief Security Officer focused on assisting executives in directing their organizations on core competencies where they can achieve definable advantages and add value that facilitate and protect organizational objectives.
Steven Oplinger, a Senior Consultant with Star Asset Security, has been in the security industry for over 28 years, primarily as a security systems designer. he has been responsible for projects nationally to include shopping malls, resorts, and government facilities. Mr. Oplinger represents Star Asset Security at numerous security industry events as both a presenter and keynote speaker. He is a regular contributor to security association events and trade publications. He has been one of the primary authors and instructors for the Security Industry Association Security Project Management workshop. He also is an active member of ASIS International, and has served as the Chairman of the Physical Security Council
We have a great conversation exploring the mindset and tools to finance innovation and change in the era of digital transformation. 99% of purchases in physical security are in an ownership model. Pure cash using after tax dollars or a lease to own model. Other industries are ahead of the curve.
Ahead of the curve means they are buying outcomes not things.
Owning things is expensive. 50% of the value of the asset is lost on the day of your purchase. You have abdicated agility in an era of massive technology investment in R&D. Your program is not bleeding edge or cutting edge. It is off the edge of the table.
It is time to measure the investment by outcomes and design an “assurance model” future proofing your outcomes and technology innovation with your vendors.
We explore this concept with Paul Metzheiser, Managing Partner, of Tamco. Since 1996 Tamco has been helping Security, AV, and Technology Integrators deliver an easier way for customers to procure equipment and services.
Back in the day, embedded intelligence teams worked with few resources, limited budget, and little to no technology. They had their art and their science. They had a process, but never called it a workflow. Their data was captured through face-to-face interviews, phone and post it notes.
Now we have human and digital sensors and a tidal wave of data. Technology must be involved at a scale we never imagined… back in the day.
We asked Tom Kopecky, who bookended both the analog world and the digital in investigative intelligence, to take us through this evolution, break it down for us, and provide us some thoughts on where it goes next and why. What we found is the new technology is bridging the old organizational silos, the technology silos, and the communication silos that have kept us from the promise of proactive and protective intelligence. As well, it is opening the door to non-intelligence personnel through its guided workflows and multi-modal communications.
Tom was a founder of IRC Intelligence & Fortis Protective Services, both boutique security intelligence firms with offices located in Chicago & Austin, where he helped clients coordinate threat assessment investigations and develop their protective intelligence programs. He and his team were constantly searching for more optimized approaches to create more insights in the protective intelligence workflow. He eventually decided to build his own as the co-founder of Ontic Technologies.
Are hospital employees concerned for their safety and security? Are they making this part of their evaluation on whether to become an employee or whether they stay? Is the business of the hospital disrupted by an unusual number of potential and actual WPV incidents?
We turned to an executive leader at a hospital that has a cultural DNA of innovation and change, to find out if the risk, resilience, and security program is keeping pace. If you listen to the entire podcast, you will discover the answers to the above questions as well as some key technologies that are helping them, make important data driven decisions.
Mark Reed, CHPA, is currently the Director of Support Services at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, (MLKCH) in South Central Los Angeles overseeing Security, Safety, Emergency Management, PBX, Parking, and numerous other programs.
Mark was recognized by Campus Safety Magazine as the 2019 Director of the Year. Under Mark’s leadership, the MLKCH Public Safety team was recognized as the 2019 Outstanding Security Team at the OSPAs presented by ASIS. He also is a current member of the Hospital Association of Southern California’s Safety and Security Committee. And in 2020, he was named one of the most influential security leaders in the world by Security Magazine.
According to one CEO survey, the greatest challenges they are facing are a disparate remote workforce, finding the right talent, and building highly optimized operational processes. There are profit leaks everywhere. And one of those hidden cost centers is how identities are managed across the corporate silos of excellence, including security.
What we have identified in earlier conversations is the new role of the CISO in leading digital transformation. We also have identified traditional security integrators attempting to map to this trend. In our research we found a ‘boots on the ground’ Identity Assurance Principal who is an evangelist for his team of subject matter experts who are entering organizations asking the most important questions around the most urgent problems facing the CEO, CISO, and the CSO. The breakthrough thinking promises a huge return in TCO, ROI, and, most importantly, competitive positioning.
Doug Greenwald, with Convergint Technologies’ Advanced Solutions Group, is responsible for helping global companies navigate the technology evolution taking place in the security industry to identify and implement complex solutions ranging from PIAM, PSIM, Workspace Efficiency to Event Management, IOT Security, and optimization.
Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM) is seen as a useful methodology for security consultants and executives. We turned to a security executive and a consultant who practice, train, and utilize ESRM to get the latest thinking and found it be a cornerstone of leadership enablement.
Once seen that way, it then can be infused with other leadership elements to take security and the organization to the next level. And, according to our great conversation, we learn that the greatest path to ‘me’ is through ‘we’. Lean in, listen, and learn from these great examples from the next great generation.
Jonathon Harris is the Vice President of Group337, a group of executives focused on business creation in the CRETech, proptech, and smart home markets in the security, access control, and IoT industry.
Tim Wenzel is the Head of Global Security, Privacy Protection for Facebook. He also was the Founding Partner of Getting Security Done (GSD) a group dedicated to accelerating the advancement of the security industry through thought leadership and directed innovative conversations. And, finally, Tim created a movement amid the pandemic called The Kindness Games urging people to “ferociously” pursue shout outs of kindness in a world of unrest and silos of polarized communities. #TheKindnessGames
It's all about experimentation and discovery. We have a great conversation with two companies who have the DNA of Innovation: one a prospective vendor and the other a leading hospital.
Our risks and business are constantly evolving. We need to pursue change and not have change pursuing us. I brought these two companies together to discuss how they think, how they partner, and an exciting pilot that promises to redefine how we think about learning how our people and processes are acting and performing. They are looking to collect data from a ‘turnstile on the ceiling’; a sensor that collects presence. This data will be fed into a machine learning engine that will help management determine what actions to take to optimize people entering a building. In this case it would be applied to the problem of false alarms caused by tailgating. False alarms cost time and breaches the confidence of the technology and the security program.
Their multi-dimensional pilot is testing not only if it will work but does it have value, helping Children’s establish one more spoke in the wheel of digital transformation.
Dylan Hayes is the Cyber-Physical IT Security Manager at Seattle Children's Hospital. He is a seasoned leader, planner, and enterprise change agent with 20+ year progressive career record spanning a wide range of critical business systems and operations including enterprise risk, resilience, and response.
Mike Johnson is the Program Manager of Occupancy Sensing Solutions at Orion Entrance Controls. He is helping lead the charge to further develop the Orion vision and bring this highly anticipated, award winning product to market that will lead the industry in friction-less security, making Access in Motion a true reality.
For innovators, timing is everything. And when the window opens, only a few recognize it. And for those who do, they intuitively sense when it might close. The ability to seize the opportunity when it presents itself is both art and science.
A new utility has exploded on the scene. Like electricity, it keeps the data moving from substations that drives the economy and our lives. $50B of these utilities are being built each year. They are called data centers. If you are a company that requires this utility to meet your market window, you need it built fast, built cost effectively, and at the highest levels of design/build quality.
You also may not want to own it or operate it. You still will want to manage your business but have a partner that makes the utility function to your specifications.
We found a man who, as a child, watched Michael Dell provide a menu of parts you could pick from to build a computer. Dell’s company would assemble them at high speed, high quality and at a low price. Chris Crosby has done the same think for the business and construction process for data centers that Dell did for computers. He is the recognized visionary and leader in the data center space and has served as founder and CEO of Compass Datacenters since 2011. We caught up with him to have a great conversation about this business process innovation that he has successfully deployed that created a multi-billion-dollar business in 10 years. For our security executive community, you will be pleased to hear how he is leveraging his physical security team to do the same thing for the security processes and technology as he did for the construction of the datacenter.
Lee Odess, CEO and Founder of Group337, discusses his new ebook: The Six Phase Changes Shaping Access Control as well as his upcoming keynote at the Security Investor Conference, hosted by Imperial Capital. The 6 Phase Changes Shaping Access Control explores the forces shaping the access control industry as it goes mainstream. Imagine than taking these 6 elements and creating a scorecard for the top 40 access control manufacturers. This should stimulate great conversations for months to come.
We were able to get a hold of Dr. Michael Gelles, a Managing Director of Deloitte Consulting, in 2020 to share with us his insights regarding the insider risks posed by the pandemic such as the consequences of prolonged stress on organizations, their leaders, their supply chain and their people.
Dr. Gelles is a director with Deloitte Consulting LLP Federal practice, consulting in the areas of law enforcement, intelligence, and security. Mike is a thought leader and widely published author on critical national security issues to include, insider threat, security processing, secure workforce, asset loss, exploitation, sabotage, and workplace violence. Previously, Mike served as a naval officer and the chief psychologist for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Combating cybercrime is a necessity of doing business in the 21st century. Financial and identity thefts occur with annoying frequency, and no executive today can afford to ignore the damage phishing, malware, and malicious code pose to their company's future. But, with this invaluable guide, anyone, no matter what their skill level or bandwidth, can become an effective cyber risk manager. In "Fire Doesn't Innovate", cybersecurity expert and vCISO Kip Boyle of Cyber Risk Opportunities, LLC, provides the tools you'll need to:
- Recognize, prioritize, and mitigate cyber risk and online threats.
- Develop daily company-wide habits of good cyber hygiene.
- Protect passwords, credit card information, and other sensitive data.
- Adopt a 5-Principle approach that will help safeguard your business from cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity is not just a technology problem, it's a management opportunity. Learn how to manage cyber risks and ensure your company is cyber resilient now, and remain in the game no matter what the future holds. Combating cybercrime is a necessity of doing business in the 21st century.
I was introduced to Michael Zalle, the CEO & founder of Yellowbird, by one of our Great Conversation leaders. Zalle is a voracious student of people and how they try to get things done. This is a unique trait of a successful entrepreneur. He has also always attempted to “use technology differently”.
We discuss his journey, his unique way of seeing the world, and the unique value proposition of his latest company that is disrupting how companies can source expertise on demand to optimize their budget, process, and value.
Michael likes to say “You have finite resources. How do you optimize them?” In the people world, he is currently using technology (an on-demand platform) to optimize heavily constrained and backlogged Environmental Health & Safety assessments and audits. He has set up a Global infrastructure that identifies, vets, and connects the skill set of subject matter experts in the $9B compliance marketplace.
Dave Komendat, the CSO of Boeing, shares with us how the pandemic confirmed the depth of character, leadership and resilience of his company and his team.
Dave is vice president and Chief Security Officer for The Boeing Company. Appointed in 2008, Komendat is responsible for the company’s global security and fire protection policy and procedures, site security, executive protection, supply chain and aviation security, structural and aircraft fire protection, government and proprietary information security, strategic intelligence, international security, business continuity and disaster preparedness, and security background investigations.
Komendat is also the lead Boeing interface for both national and international security policy engagement with numerous government and industry advisory groups. He currently represents Boeing as president of the International Security Management Association, past co-chairman and current board member on the Domestic Security Alliance Council and serves as a member of the Threats and Information Committee for the Overseas Security Advisory Council.
Komendat holds board leadership roles in many non-profits with missions to protect people within the U.S. and internationally, including Hostage U.S., International Security Foundation, and the Domestic Security Partnership. In 2018, he was awarded the Director’s Award for Exceptional Public Service by FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Komendat graduated from California State University at Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice specializing in industrial security and is a graduate of the executive development program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Komendat joined Boeing as an industrial security specialist in 1986.
Andrew Lanning, the co-Founder of Integrated Security Technology, a leading consulting and integration firm in Hawaii, shares his work and experience with InfraGard, a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and members of the private sector for the protection of U.S. Critical Infrastructure. Andrew underlines the strategic importance their advisory provides to organizations viability and competitive position in the market.
Andrew is a prolific and generous contributor to the risk, resilience, and security industry. In addition to Infragard, where he serves as the Chairman of the Electronic Security Industry Cross Sector Council, He also is the Treasurer of the National Defense Industrial Association that drives strategic dialogue in national security, an active member and advocate for Woman in Security through the Security Industry Association (SIA), and does his part to contribute to the Great Conversation in Security by hosting the broadcast “Security Matters”.
Sarah Powell, Director of Emergency Management at Temple University, shares the non-linear path from medical anthropologist to emergency management that created a different way to understand and operationalize her role at Temple University. We explore the Mind of the Leader that requires a focus on the assumptions that undergird the business and the possible way those assumptions could be disrupted creating risk as well as opportunity.
Sarah infuses into her role and her thinking a deep insight into human behavior, psychology, cognition, and culture. She is above all, committed to the human factor to create great outcomes in her role at Temple and in the world.
Tim Wenzel, Head of Global Security, Privacy Protection, and Jonathon Harris, former Guidepost consultant and now with Group337, provide us their perspective on ESRM. Is this really the framework that establishes relationships with the business as well as acts as the platform for merging risk, TQM, and compliance into an executable strategy and plan?
Inge Huijbrechts, Global Senior Vice President Responsible Business and Safety & Security, provides us an insight into how these three domains work together, that is the sum of the parts over each individual strand. We learn how Sustainability, Safety & Security inspire and create awareness in a distributed environment, especially post COVID-19 when Tourism and Travel operate with minimal resources. We learn how we innovate in the built environment to adjust to the new normal post COVID-19. And we learn how the intersection between corporate responsibility and security become a force multiplier for risk mitigation.
You hear of it all the time. When an incident occurs; a fire, an earthquake, or an active shooter, we want to know who was in the building. Or when we are working late at night in a building with heat and lighting controls, why does it not just sense my presence and adjust my section of the building accordingly? We have the technology to do both, and it is improving over time.
We had a great conversation with the Chief Product Officer of Ontic, Manish Mehta and the CEO of turnstile-based access control company Orion, Steve Caroselli, to discuss their early discussions in engaging this challenge. And in return we uncover the recognition that fear, uncertainty and doubt can radically change a market forcing innovations in technology, business models, and security.
According to one source, 75% of Workplace Violence (WPV) incidents occur in hospitals. And like hospitals, most companies only have one solution, call the security guard or police once the incident has already occurred. By then, someone is already likely to be hurt. What would happen to the internal evaluation of your security department if you were able to respond earlier and more effectively through a sensor that understood the conversation was escalating, or a shot had been fired, a window has been broken, or your patient had fallen out of bed?
We seek to find the answers through a great conversation with the executive team of Sound Intelligence, a global audio analytics firm. Derek van der Vorst, has had an international career in audio and speech recognition at Philips Electronics, He pioneered advanced audio analytics with his company Sound Intelligence (founded in 2000). He combines a deep understanding of the core audio analytics technology with a natural sense for what customers want to achieve with this technology. Derek has grown Sound Intelligence to become the market leader in audio analytics with tens of thousands of systems deployed around the world. He is joined by his VP of Sales, Michael Campbell, and his Director of Sales and Product Management, Dave Stanfield
Dr. Read Hayes is a research scientist at the University of Florida and the Director of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC). The University of Florida received two significant grants, one from a leader in artificial intelligence, Nvidia, and the other from the State of Florida that, combined are helping to make the university an elite institution of higher learning. They have an Innovation Square where they are testing new technology and new methods for creating a safe and secure campus. Over 150 companies are paying the LPRC and the university to benchmark these technologies and these emerging best practices so they can leverage technology to make better data driven decisions. We have a great and inspiring conversation that leads us to believe that culturally crossing the chasm of our fear and constraints to a Value Exchange (VX) that values the safety and security of people, is rapidly becoming a reality.
I first met Mark McCourt, when I was mustering media partners for The Great Conversation in Security in 2005. He was the founder, publisher, and executive director of the leading media-centric company in the security market.
Since 2016 he has been a strategic advisor to many of the leading companies in the risk, resilience, and security industry.
Now he has authored a book called Snow Day, that captures how the best risk leaders in the industry have been successful. And what is interesting is he started having conversations with them amid the pandemic.
Where does the title come from? Well, like Mark, we both grew up in the 60s. While attending elementary school there was not a website to check on the status of school. There was not a robocall system. It was not featured news on a local cable channel There was no cable channel. So, if the snow started falling, we had Moms who developed a phone chain. That is, my mom would get the call from another mom, and then she had to make a call to the next mom on the list. As kids, we could not wait to get that call.
Mark uses this metaphor to launch a great conversation with a question: What are the ‘best of the best leaders’ in our industry doing to prepare their companies for a crisis? This conversation will inspire you to take your company to the next level for the sake of yourself, your peers, your family, and your company.
Mark will be one of the featured speakers at The Executive Summit Series on October 6, 2021, at The Boeing Company in Washington, DC. Lynn Mattice, Managing Director of Mattice and Associates and President of the National Economic Security Alliance (NESA) will be the master of ceremonies at this leadership forum.
Carlos Francisco spent 21 years at Walt Disney Company informing and infusing his leadership principles. Today he is an executive at Facebook with a new book launching around the same time as this podcast: “So You Want to Get into Corporate Security”. We have a great conversation around putting the magic in your personal and professional life through the Magic Keys.
You also can hear Carlos have his own great conversations through his podcast The Corporate Security Translator The Corporate Security Translator Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
I used this title for the podcast because the gentlemen I asked to join me in a conversation, presented several times at The Great Conversation over the years. And he was always piercing the veil of convention to get to the truth. I called him a muckraker in the podcast. A little history: muckrakers were reform-minded journalists who reported on the irregularities in established institutions and leaders of their day.
The term now references investigative journalism.
Steve Hunt has always sought the truth.
Our great conversation leverages his work with Communities of Excellence, online mentoring platform for security and cybersecurity professionals as well as his survey of over 400 organizations where he sought to understand what made them cyber resilient.
What he found is a leadership lesson that you must hear to appreciate.
Mark Demos has a unique gift. He helps people have the confidence, courage, and the tools to find themselves. He wrote a book called The DNA Code: The Forensics of Purpose, Passion and Performance, is the defining work for discovering your Life Purpose. Using the most innovative, exciting, and scientifically comprehensive discovery process of the 21st Century, Positive Forensics, you will discover the hard-wired DNA Talent Markers that map out your life path.
The DNA Code will give you the pathway to profile your purpose and predict your future success.
We discuss the top 10 questions we should be asking ourselves to challenge our assumptions of who we should be and what we should do.
Seen by his industry as a thought leader, we have a great conversation with Morgan Hertel, the Vice President of Technology, and Innovation of Rapid Response Monitoring Services. He lets us get up close and really see how he has continued to innovate within his company.
One of the first things we explore is Natural Language Processing (NLP) and how he applied it early on. At first the customer base was confused. They had little experience with voice enabled systems. Like many innovations, they had to experience it. Morgan takes us through this transition and the powerful new trends using voice and audio that are happening today and in the future.
Morgan is in the Audio and Intelligent Communications Working Group of the Security Industry Association (SIA).
Kent Howard, Verizon’s Global Corporate Security Operations Manager, discusses how his background in physical and information security led him to a best practice called “Security by Design.” He is one of the key resources inside Verizon’s Information Security Risk Management. By deploying ESRM and infusing the methodology with his experience with security technology, he has developed critical analytical problem-solving skills. He is the published author of Security by Design within the Journal of Physical Security.
The founder of the Path to Value™ methodology for creating strategic value in businesses within the strategic consultancy called The Sage Group®, Ron Worman has been passionate about how ideas shape markets and change the world for 40 years. This led to The Great Conversation, capturing the voices and the ideas of the marketplace and the world through his podcast and his executive forums.
His podcast rarely features only his voice. This does. The Next Wave is his cathartic release of threat, pain, and hope in the future. ‘Normal’, especially a ‘New Normal’ is not in Ron’s vocabulary as you soon shall see.
We build businesses and buildings in a natural world brimming with lessons in the strength and power of the sum of the parts, otherwise known as an ecosystem. We sought out a practitioner in the built environment who was deeply aware of the form, function, and intent of a building or campus, as well as a student of out times.
Maxinne Leighton, PhD, Assoc. AIA, is Director of Marketing/Communications & Business Development for JB&B. JB&B has worked with many of the foremost architectural firms, corporate owners, institutions, and real estate developers throughout the world. In over 100 years of practice, JB&B has completed design projects in more than 50 countries and on 6 continents, serving as consulting engineers on some of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century as well as some of the most emblematic of the 21st.
But Maxinne has also provided her insights to the New York Chapter of Women in Security, Director of Communications for the newly formed NYC Chapter of AMFP (Assoc. of Medical Facility Planners), Honorary Council Member of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, ACEC Awards Committee, the AIA-NY’s Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee, NYC Builds Bio+, and has facilitated numerous panels on climate vulnerable communities.
In 2018, she was recognized with WBC’s “Outstanding Women in the Building Industry” award as well as one of the 2018 New York Power Women.
What is the most important question in creating a safe and secure organization? And why should you care?
Regulations and risk management concerns can change frequently. A good question might be: How do you fulfill the expectations of your business, your industry, and the law?
Environmental Health & Safety programs address regulatory compliance requirements and non-regulatory risk management concerns. Support elements from your program management or an outside vendor include training, routine inspections, equipment performance evaluations and program compliance audits.
Although Safety is important. It is one of our people’s basic needs along with security. It is the platform by which trust can be engendered and engagement nourished.
So, maybe a better question is: How do your corporate values, culture, and performance management influence your safety profile and how does your safety profile influence your organizational performance?
We turned to Shawn Galloway, the President of the global consultancy, ProAct Safety, and coauthor of several bestselling books on culture and safety. In addition, Shawn has authored over 600 podcasts, 200 articles and 100 videos on the subject of safety excellence in culture and performance and is the host of the highly acclaimed weekly podcast series, Safety Culture Excellence®.
As an internationally recognized safety excellence expert, he has helped hundreds of organizations within every major industry, achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture. Shawn has personally worked with National Institutes of Health, AMCOL, ARAMARK, MD Anderson, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Amway, Wrigley, Herman Miller, Eastman Chemical, Georgia-Pacific, Monsanto, Kiewit, Pepsi, Honda, Ingersoll Rand, International Paper, Rockwell Automation, Timken, Starbucks, Architect of the Capital, United States Armed Forces and over a hundred similar international organizations.
Shawn is also one of the top keynote speakers in the industry and recently received an award and honor by the ASSP Council on Practices & Standards for his significant contributions. He has been a keynote at The Great Conversation forum as well as on this podcast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_M._Galloway www.ShawnGalloway.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/safetyculture
When you find a security leader who runs her department with the same innovation and care as the business, you pay attention. We found her in a company strategically positioned to help companies digitally transform work and communication through a frictionless use of cloud, video, audio, chat, and collaborative communication. We learn that “To Protect is to Enable”.
Shelley Benoliel is the Head of Physical Security & Business Resilience at Zoom Communications. She has been an executive security leader in major technology companies and as a Special Agent and Regional Director inside the Bureau of Diplomatic Security
Zoom Video Communications helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Our easy, reliable cloud platform for video, phone, content sharing, and chat runs across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems. To deliver happiness to our employees and recognize their value, Zoom employs above-market and progressive compensation programs. At Zoom, we believe this is achieved through analyzing total direct compensation holistically. We offer all employees equity, allowing them to become owners who are vested in and benefit from the long-term success of the company. Zoom was founded in 2011 by experienced leaders and engineers from Cisco and WebEx. Every founding engineer has over 10 years of real-time collaboration software experience. Our mission is to develop a people-centric cloud service that transforms the real-time collaboration experience and improves the quality and effectiveness of communications forever.
Razors and blades. Many businesspeople are familiar with the concept. The razor is the key to creating a customer for life through the blades.
However, Jeff Friedman found a way to sell a blade that could lead to a razor.
In this conversation, we find out what drives this CEO. And how he took his company from obscurity to being deployed in 7 of the 10 tallest building in Manhattan and 3 of the largest companies.
After working for several years developing solutions for facility operations and security teams, Jeffrey’s organization, Building Intelligence, introduced a new suite of products that incorporate several requirements for running some of the best buildings in the world.
With a wide variety of industry knowledge, Mr. Friedman is able to apply his unique set of skills to the convergence of security and facility management particularly in how it applies to risk, operations and asset management.
SV3 is his blade and his razor. It is s a cloud-based enterprise platform to manage an organization’s network of visitors, vehicles and vendors requiring temporary entry to your facility.
I can think of two things that get in the way of personal and corporate success: jargon and a lack of understanding of how your business functions. That is, the true story, not the organization chart.
We found a cultural transformation thought leader and global executive, Siobhan McHale who has written an Insider’s Guide to Cultural Change. The operative word is ‘insider’. Siobhan, pronounced Shiv-awn, has been featured as a case study by professors and business book authors. But this is not theory. This is a real-world practitioner of transformative and high performing cultures.
Amazon.com: The Insider's Guide to Culture Change: Creating a Workplace That Delivers, Grows, and Adapts eBook: McHale, Siobhan: Kindle Store
Siobhan takes us through an explanation of the patterns and the stories behind them that hold the secret of transformative change. Afterall, she will tell you, “culture is really about how things function”.
Siobahn is the Executive General Manager of People, Culture, and Change at DuluxGroup, a global provider of paint, adhesive, garden-care, and other products to the residential home improvement, commercial, and infrastructure markets. The company boasts a solid portfolio of brands, including Dulux (paints), British Paints, Yates, Selleys, and B&D Doors.
She has had a similar role in other companies as well, including with ANZ, a 180-year-old company operating in 33 markets globally with representation in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Pacific, Europe, America, and the Middle East.
ANZ is among the top 50 banks in the world.
Wanda Townsend has a passion for 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥-𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. She leverages her knowledge and skills as a foundation to help employees at every level reach their fullest potential.
We met her in a WiLD Leaders Friday Conversation, an open forum for leaders from all markets to learn, share, and ideate on best practices in leadership. Wanda is a Leader in Residence and an Executive Fellow with WiLD.
We later found out she was going to be published as a co-author in a leadership compendium called The New Next.
What we discovered were some lessons that could be immediately applied through Wanda’s deeply empathetic voice and intellect.
In the 1954 film Seven Samurai a village of farmers hire seven rōnin to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops. The ‘Ronin’ were unemployed or ‘masterless’ samurai. But despite their status many took up arms for others using their mastery of the sword.
In today’s business environment, more than ever, we need leaders who serve the village not just the master. We turned to a master-less leader who spent 16 years with Microsoft as the Chief Security Officer after 22 years in the Central Intelligence Agency to find out how we too, might become valiant ronin in the service of others.
Upon the release of this podcast, his book, The Art of Ronin Leadership: Strategy, Execution, Sustained Success, will be available on Amazon. Amazon.com: The Art of Ronin Leadership : Strategy. Execution. Sustained Success. eBook: Howard, Mike, Howard, Mike : Kindle Store
Mike also is the President of Howard Consulting Services and is a sought-after keynote for corporate and security events.
I think we can all agree that the ‘dreamer’ is often only recognized when the idea becomes a reality. For those who do this; the stay up at night, roll up your sleeves, dirt in the fingernails, part of this; we call them entrepreneurs. Better yet; when the dream, idea, and company become something valuable to others.
Fred Cary, the CEO of IdeaPros, believes that journey requires a mindset and a skillset. He evaluates the first and arms the dreamer for the second.
“My goal is to help build successful businesses that can make a positive difference in their sector. I don't care if you have an idea on the back of a napkin or if you've built a 1,000-employee company. If you need help, inspiration or direction and you are doing something unique and compelling I want to be your partner.”
We sit down with Fred to explore this journey from dreamer to doer to being “legendary.”
Fred Cary is a senior executive, strategic consultant, attorney, and investment banker. He has focused on building global companies from startup stage through exit by IPO or M&A. As an operational executive (CEO/Chairman) he has built high-growth businesses in finance, enterprise software, mobile technologies, Web services, and digital video, HDTV, broadband and Personalized television, as well as consumer related product companies. He oversees the development and growth of over 250 startups. He has led many mergers and acquisitions both as an executive and as counsel. Mr. Cary received his JD degree from Thomas Jefferson in California, completed post graduate studies at Harvard Law School, and obtained his international MBA with Honors from the University of Liverpool.
IdeaPros is a Super Venture Partner™, guiding entrepreneurs with great ideas through the complexities and pitfalls of the startup world. Set on elevating the success rate of new innovative products and apps, their team leverages their collective experience to create demand among consumers and maximize upside potential for their partners.
Most technology vendors were faced with a conundrum during the pandemic. They had solutions that would help their clients through the crisis. But reaching them, aligning their value proposition with their sense of urgency, and pivoting the internal culture of their team, would be the measure of their performance.
We were able to sit down with the president of a company in the security market who has been known as a visionary leader with an ability to identify an assess market potential and then align this with the go-to-market engine. This was particularly important during this season of change. We learn how his strategic pivot did just that and has created a platform for continued growth as we move out of the pandemic.
Chris Meiter has been President of Salient Systems since 2009. Prior to joining Salient, Meiter was Director of Business Development for Honeywell Video where he was responsible for Honeywell’s Key Vertical Markets, international sales management in Europe, Asia and South Africa, and developed Honeywell’s Digital Video sales program.
Salient offers comprehensive video surveillance management systems designed for the full range of surveillance technology needs from analog to IP to Cloud. Based on open architecture, CompleteView, Salient’s Video Management Software, scales from entry level to enterprise and provides everything needed to manage a multi-server, multi-site video surveillance installation from desktop, laptop, and mobile smartphones.
How did a Security Executive become nominated and awarded his company’s highest individual honor for leadership? How did he become the #1 Global Influencer in Security among his peers? Perhaps because he learned a lesson from a very simple spin of the bottle that anchored his DNA of always putting the customer, internal or external, first. And to do that you have to understand what creates a unique customer experience, even in Security.
We sit down with Paul Moxness, former VP of Corporate Safety and Security of the Radisson Hotel Group and the current Managing Partner of NorthPoint International, an exciting collaboration of former Chief Security Officers from some of the world’s largest, most well-known, global hotel companies complimented by cyber-crime and resilience experts.
We not only get acquainted with his journey, but we also learn something about his new book, co-authored with his wife Kristen. In the book, the authors share examples from over thirty years of international travel and experience in the hospitality industry. From this, Kirsten and Paul explore key elements of creating personal experiences with people, including:
- Making genuine gratitude a natural and contagious habit
- Respecting upgrades and freebies and handling necessary downgrades.
- Encouraging supportive teams and empowering each employee to provide exceptional experiences.
- Taking a compassionate and proactive approach to safety and crisis management and resolving problems
Digital cannot replace human interaction, and hospitality is all about making memorable moments of personal experience. Spin the Bottle Service is here to show you that making the most of the touchpoints beyond digital can be as easy as a twist of the wrist. You can find the book on their publisher’s page at: http://bit.ly/SpinService
Imagine spending your career in a variety of public service roles such as law enforcement officer, member of a SWAT team, and involved with undercover narcotics investigations.
Then you go to law school.
You become a partner in a law firm serving the law enforcement community.
And then you determine that the mental and emotional experiences had taught you some very important lessons about composure under pressure and mental health. So, you launch the Law Enforcement Legal and Wellness Program (LELWP), a membership-based program designed exclusively for law enforcement and first responders with a unique combination of legal support services, wellness, or self-care tools, and much more. Through the membership, members can access attorneys for one-on-one consultations for advice on any type of legal issue, job-related or not. In addition, members have access to virtual calendar of events, including yoga, meditation or mental resilience training, community support, webinars, and a members-only collection of resources; all of which are specifically cultivated to provide comfort, ease, and support for a more balanced and joyful life.
Her name is Bridget Truxillo, a partner in Herrscher and Truxillo and the founder of The Law Enforcement Legal and Wellness Program® We were able to talk to this dynamic and empathetic woman in leadership and discover how she created the means for her community to make the greatest investment…in themselves.
Jeff Slotnick, President of Setracon, an Enterprise Security Risk Management Services provider, has boots on the ground pedigree and instincts as well as a standards-based process for delivering value to his clients.
We had a conversation last year that touches on a variety of things that he is seeing evolve in his profession including models for the extended enterprise, useful tools for understanding your return-to-work readiness, and how near we might be to plug and play integration.
John Hartman, the founder, and former leader of CEOtoCEO, wanted to know what was front of mind for CEOs. He was curious as well as motivated. To drive his talent management business, it was important to know the mind of his clients. In 2005, he jumped in with both feet and started a monthly breakfast meeting that provided CEOs a place at the table with their peers along with a keynote of other leaders in the community. It was an immediate success. We sat down with him last year to learn about his journey and what he learned about CEOs along the way.
Although Jason Veiock leads a converged security team responsible for protecting GoDaddy's workforce and workplaces from a full spectrum of threats, he also is a student of business. We had a great conversation last year on workplace standards and his unique approach to people, process, and technology. Outcomes matter and standards should enable that. He leads us on a journey focusing on the North Star of business value.
Jason is a data-driven and risk-informed security executive with a focus on strategy development, enhanced resilience, and business enablement. He has been successful in building and leading teams defending against full-spectrum threats spanning the cyber, physical, and global security realms. He has a proven track record in managing programs, vendors, and budget with on-time execution & delivery. He is also experienced and proficient in both the corporate and government sectors as a seasoned law enforcement, intelligence, and security professional.
As a speaker and a participant in The Great Conversation, on the ground and in the cloud, we have come to know him as an innovator and acute mind for recognizing gaps in the performance of technology and programs.
Corporate lawyers have a very specific role within the business value chain. Very few become students of leadership. And then translate that into a multi-dimensional successful career. One man did, and our conversation focused on the ‘why’ of that success. The measure of a man that contributed to the measure of a company.
Tom Mars is an accomplished trial lawyer, a nationally recognized advocate in collegiate sports, (Where they compare him to Tom Brady in the legal world), and an experienced crisis consultant for companies, executives, and public officials.
In the 1990s, Tom’s high-profile clients included the Governor of Arkansas. In 1998, the Governor asked Tom (a former police officer) to join his leadership team as Director of the Arkansas State Police—the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement position. He served in that capacity for nearly three years before returning to private practice as a trial lawyer in Northwest Arkansas.
Not long after returning to private practice, Tom was recruited by Walmart to manage its vast litigation portfolio as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel. Four months after joining Walmart’s legal department, he was promoted to Senior Vice President and General Counsel and became responsible for all the company’s legal matters. During his tenure as Walmart’s General Counsel, Tom led an ambitious diversity initiative and became a nationally known champion for advancing diversity in the legal profession. He received numerous awards for his leadership in this area, including the American Bar Association’s prestigious “Spirit of Excellence Award.”
Five years after joining Walmart, in recognition of Walmart’s legal department receiving national acclaim for both its unprecedented diversity and extraordinary talent, Tom was promoted to Executive Vice President and General Counsel. Two years later, he was promoted again and joined the leadership team of Walmart U.S. as Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. In that role, he was responsible for various business units, including real estate, human resources, labor relations, external relations, U.S. compliance, and financial services.
I first met Chuck Randolph at Microsoft. Buttoned up, every inch of him personifying a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel respected by his corporate peers for his diligence and expertise with executive protection, strategic intelligence, and event risk management. Because of Microsoft’s digital DNA, Chuck was able to extend those disciplines beyond their traditional roles and make them true enablers.
We caught up with Chuck after his transition to AT RISK International as their Senior Director of Operations. Chuck is now responsible for guiding client decisions through a strategic intelligence team and directing operations that support AT RISK's global protective efforts.
You will learn what it feels like to manage ‘risk at scale’ across the globe through problem solving and story mapping: the art and mindset of a risk, resilience, and security leader.
Lee is one of the foremost thought leaders in security. His company is all about business creation and his media platform, Inside Access Control is insightful, provocative, and hopeful.
Our discussion centered around a much-needed transformation of the client value proposition of security that is creating a ripple effect through the supply chain. As always, there will be winners and losers. Lee is rooting for both as we wrestle with the constraints that face business owners and their teams.
We wanted to know if health and productivity were linked? We wanted to know what the real data said about employee engagement. And we wanted to know if there was an approach leaders could take that would create a path to value for the company and its employees.
We turned to Dan Witters.
Dan Witters serves as research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. This daily assessment of U.S. residents' wellbeing provides near real-time measurement and insights needed to improve health, increase daily productivity, enhance basic needs, and lower healthcare costs. Dan frequently presents at major conferences and summits. His research insights appear regularly on Gallup.com and in national media, including in The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, The Economist, USA Today, National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal, as well as on CBS Sunday Morning, CNBC, HuffPost Live, WSJ Live and NPR.
As a consultant and analyst for Gallup, Dan uses his expertise in survey design, methodology, analysis, business outcomes modeling, report writing and presenting results to help leaders better understand their company's marketplace, customers, and employees. He plays a vital role as an adviser and researcher to Gallup clients, creating effective strategies that enhance a business' overall health and strength through improved engagement and wellbeing. Since 1993, Dan has directed more than $150 million in research for some of the world's best-managed companies in the wellbeing, healthcare, financial services, telecommunications, hospitality, consulting, and pharmaceutical industries.
Dan's extensive experience and his understanding of customer and employee research have earned him high distinction awards throughout his career. In 1999, he received the prestigious Senior Analyst Quality of Report Award for Outstanding Writing, an award given to one Gallup senior analyst worldwide each year. In 2002, Dan became the 13th researcher in Gallup's history to earn the Diplomat Analyst certification. This distinction is awarded to tenured researchers who create an original research thesis that expands Gallup's body of knowledge.
Interesting new research from Gartner advises CIOs take on the ‘COO’ role of digital transformation due to the inability of most organizations to create the interoperable and secure roadmap demanded of this strategic transition.
We sought out Gary Gooden who has recently transitioned into the CTSO role after becoming the CISO at Seattle Children’s a few years back. As you listen to the conversation, you will see the kind of thinking that Gartner is referring to which bodes well for the future of Seattle Children’s and the industry.
Prior to the CTSO role, Gary was driving the IT Security Strategy for the organization (people, process, and technology). He and his team were executing against a roadmap that was created by him to modernize the Information security footprint within the hospital, research, and foundation environment both from a technology and governance perspective (inclusive of the technology for physical security). This is currently being done in close collaboration with other IT departments and related business areas within the larger enterprise environment. In his current role as CTSO he is now creating an aligned strategy for core infrastructure and security.
Hollis Mignogno, Vice President of Global Security, Meetings & Events, Travel, and Trade Shows Cardinal Health, shares transparently about this strange “inconvenient” year; a year of events that disrupted our normal but also forced us to think differently.
Hollis’ key responsibilities include business resiliency, drug-free workplace, executive protection, supply chain integrity, global travel, meetings and events, trade shows, M&A, and training. Hollis has been with Cardinal Health since October 2001, working in the Corporate Aviation Department for two years, and in the Global Security Department for the past 16 years. She is a member of ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security) and participates on the Pharmaceutical Council, serving as Vice-Chair in 2012, and Chair in 2013. She also participates on AMEX’s Meetings & Events Executive Council and Anvil’s Advisory Board. Hollis is deeply committed to the community and actively involved in the Central Ohio Heart Walk through the American Heart Association.
Annette White-Klososky has been advising CEOs and their teams on leadership and organizational culture. She shares her tools of engagement including the need to be human and digitally aware to adapt to the changes ahead.
Annette Klososky is a founding Partner at Future Point of View - a boutique technology advisory firm. She is a sought-after consultant and executive coach in all facets of organizational culture and leadership development. She is the owner of the Women’s Executive Board, a leading advisory board for executive women and Chair for the Oklahoma Chapter of the Women Presidents' Organization. Her executive advisory boards include female executive members representing companies with over 40,000 employees and $23 billion in total annual revenues. She was recognized by The Journal Record as a Woman of the Year nominee, has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes.
Christopher Stitt has spent more than two decades in international security, emergency management, and law enforcement with the Federal Government. He is also Adjunct Faculty at George Mason University and is credentialed as a Certified Emergency Manager by the International Association of Emergency Managers.
His specialties include: Emergency management; multi-jurisdictional crisis management; enterprise-wide crisis management policy development; program development and management; strategic planning; risk analysis and mitigation strategies; policy and procedure development; technology/policy/process integration; criminal, personnel, internal, and counterintelligence investigations; and dignitary protection.
So, it was natural for us to turn to him to get his take on a framework for evaluating emergency plans and preparations.
The Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007, was the seminal event that created the awareness of an entire ecosystem that a trend was unfolding that would challenge our notions of risk, resilience, and security for the education sector. Kristina Anderson was a student at Virginia Tech when she was shot by the active shooter. It changed her life. She founded an organization, Koshka, that is having a major impact in schools across our nation.
Gene Deisinger intersects with Kristina. Dr. Deisinger served as Deputy Chief of Police & Director of Threat Management Services for Virginia Tech, positions to which he had been recruited following the 2007 mass casualty incident at that campus.
In this short but compelling conversation we learn what they believe is our progress since the incident.
Many of us believe that our people best perform their roles within a measurable process using integrated tools that optimize their performance.
This interaction between business process, technology and people is the focus of our conversation with Kami Dukes of AMAG Technology, a unified technology platform.
This conversation is infused and informed by the unique experiences Kami has had in the field as a Security Design Engineer for a Federal Defense contractor. She oversaw the design, installation, and commissioning of complex security systems, primarily in Japan and Korea, for the US Army, US Air Force, and US Marine Corps. She also has experience in corrections at the Midland County Juvenile Care Center, a maximum-security detention facility in Michigan. Kami holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice.
Currently she is the Director of Business Development for North America where she and her team work closely with end users and the consultant community to drive new enterprise opportunities through road-mapping, specifying, and systems execution planning.
Pause for a moment and reflect on how you use your voice and your ears in everyday life. Your brain is best leveraged when it can integrate disparate data through all your senses. Without audio and voice, you lack a complete picture. We have seen evidence of this in footage from video surveillance cameras that lacked sound. We wonder: “what really did happen and why?”
Cameron Javdani, the President of SoundSecure helps us navigate how we are processing audio today through technology. And he provides context around privacy issues recommending some fairly simple best practices to help us complete the picture in our businesses and security programs.
Zachary Driskell has been with Marathon Petroleum for over 8 years. He helped develop the current GSOC moving it from concept to design to full operation. Now he and his team provide centralized services around all-hazard risks around the world. He leverages cutting edge critical event management technology as well as an artificial intelligence engine that aggregates publicly available data. This gives him a robust and full picture of risk data, news, and weather events that, when correlated provides him pre-attack indicators and informed actionable response. Having a conversation with Zachary is like having an MBA, Business Analyst, Technology Advisor, and Risk Officer all in one.
Zachary Driskell leads the Executive Protection team and Global Security Operations. During his tenure he has helped manage and improve the Travel Risk Management (TRM) program, manage the intelligence gathering and analysis group, and train employees on workplace violence and active shooter prevention program. He also developed and built a Global Security Operations Center (GSOC). He regularly conducts security and vulnerability assessments of various business units within the downstream oil industry. Finally, he is a member of the Corporate Emergency Response Team and certified as a Hazwoper Operator.
Global Security Operations Centers are increasingly expanding their investigative capabilities by formalizing the methodology within a digital transformation model. We turn to a top-performing security professional with over 15 years of physical security experience covering the entire spectrum of Physical Security; Security Operations, Executive Protection, Security Training, Workplace Violence, Global Security Operations Centers, Event Security, Travel Security, and more; Nabih Numair of Palo Alto Networks. He was joined in our great conversation with the father of Protective Intelligence, Fred Burton, and the CEO of a leading protective intelligence platform, Lukas Quanstrom of Ontic.
When we process information, 83% of knowledge comes to us visually. But 11% comes through our ears. It turns out that the missing 11% provides rich information that can overcome our blind spots. The question for most organizations is how to bring audio into the conversation so that organizations can effectively communicate and security executives can correctly interpret what really is going on in the silent film they are watching on their screens.
Alon Blankstein has been an important bridge to supporting Israeli companies going global and helping companies outside Israel understand the Israeli and European markets.
He co-founded, invested & now sits on the advisory board of several Israeli and North American based technology ventures including Partners500, Insight Acoustics, Vidit, Arama & Benet, MultiPopoint, Foamix, CapsuLINT, and EarlySense.
As Chairman of Insight Acoustics, he has volunteered his time with the SIA Audio and Intelligent Communications Working Group providing insights to his peers on the emerging audio platform of the future.
We have never found the secret sauce for persistently turning our collective ‘Me’ into a collective ‘We”. In The Great Conversation we have identified the ‘Why’, we have pursued ‘Meaning’, and we have yearned for a culture that would be highly adaptable and engaged, but we are still yearning for a tried-and-true system for rallying human beings around a singular goal.
And that might be the problem.
We speak with Jeffrey Leinaweaver, consultant, practitioner and co-founder of Find Mino, a personality and career assessment platform that simplifies the process for individuals to find their path and design the life they want. We explore the disruptions in traditional systems and see another approach evolving. And Jeff is the right one to have a conversation around this topic. He has been a senior human resources leader, strategic business partner and certified sustainability professional with a unique track record of helping top organizations address challenging talent acquisition, workforce planning, and leadership development and sustainability/ESG. In this great conversation, we search for the integration of our individual story with the story of us and the larger undefinable "awe" story within us.
Talking about leadership is one thing. Creating an empowered, engaged workforce and a leadership culture is another. There is every reason to believe that this should rise to a level of urgency when you speak with Daniel Edds, a researcher, practitioner, and thought leader in reinventing and innovating leadership for the 21st Century.
One of the first things we address is what George Clifton the CEO of Gallup states: "The American leadership philosophy simply doesn't work anymore". We naturally want to know why it does not work and what should take its place.
Dan has written a book on the subject: "The Genetics of Leadership: Cracking the Code of Sustainable Excellence“. It provides case studies and results of personal interviews with experts such as General Barry McCaffrey, 4-star general and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for President Clinton.
You will want to hear what the general said about leadership. It might just change the way you lead.