I do not know how many technology presentations and demonstrations I have had over the years attempting to help me understand how to protect and defend our organizations. As I talk to many of our leaders who have been successful in this quest, I find a common theme that emerges that precedes and then informs technology. In the conversations we launch this week, I will explore how leaders are answering the question:

What is the Mind of the______?

Nabih Numair, the Senior Manager of the Global Security Operations Center of Palo Alto Networks shared a formative experience he had that prompted him on a quest to see and act more holistically. To Nabih, your mind governs how you see and act in the world. A mindset of thoughtful presence in the moment is a discipline he has sought and cultivated. This informs his leadership in security. Leaders can more effectively ensure the safety and security of their people and assets by bringing a calm measured response to the pressure of an event. Whether that is a terrorist attack in London or an active shooter event in Gilroy they both demand a mindfulness approach without missing any steps.

What is the Mind of the Shooter?

According to Nabih, the practice of mindfulness should infuse and inform our advanced risk and threat assessment best practices. What is the mind of the shooter?

If we integrate this practice it can avoid cookie cutter approaches to risks. Nabih called it a wide-angle view of the potential incident.

Practice of mindfulness also allows you to be able to assess the depth of your own mind, which allows you to get to the ‘why’ of others. This ‘why’ of others also permeates his relationships within the industry. Nabih seems to approach each person with the assumption that they have some lesson or wisdom that he can leverage or learn from.

Members to this community will want to see what Nabih is reading by navigating to our Resources page.

Our next profile also practices mindfulness in her own unique way. Our conversation with her seemed to be a journey answering the question:

What is the Mind of my People?

Not many executives could balance a merger and acquisition of companies with disparate cultures, methods, and business models at the same time they were dealing with the pandemic, social unrest, and the economy. That seems challenging. But during all of this, Tammi Morton, the VP and CSO for Raytheon, exudes an energy, focus and enthusiasm that is contagious.

Tammi is responsible for the staff and programs that ensure the safety and security of her organization’s employees, facilities, products, and information worldwide. She directs a team of security managers, subject matter experts, and an outsourced security service workforce who also support event security, crisis and risk management, and business continuity planning. She develops, establishes, and implements Compliance Policies and Security Programs globally to include Workplace Violence and Active Shooter Awareness, Kidnap and Extortion Response, Investigations, Information Security, and Executive Protection

But what comes through our conversation is a persistent consciousness, a mindset, that her people can unlock a level of expertise, best practices, and innovation that will help her organization succeed in its mission..

Think about this. Most people would consider the integration of different people, processes, and technology coming from multiple acquisitions a recipe for disaster. Egos come into play at an individual level and corporate level. Few organizations make it through without harm, diluting the value of the very entities they have spent millions purchasing. At the core, the ones that make it through, have the leadership that Tammi is modeling.

Learn and enjoy Tammi’s positive mindset in this great conversation.

The next conversation we are spotlighting hit me in the gut, because it went way beyond my professional view of security. It made me think about being a parent, the role of education, my civic responsibilities, and, going back in time, my life as a student during my formative years.

I remember Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. I remember being shocked and afraid. Something was happening in our culture. Something was broken in the protection of our schools who were tasked with creating the next generation of leaders. Virginia Tech 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.

The three of us had a great conversation attempting to ask the question:

What is the Mind of the Educational Security and Safety Culture?

In effect, I was seeking to know what we had learned and what we had done since this event. I could not think of two people better able to share.

Both of them agreed, Virginia Tech created a ‘battle cry’ that led to persistent, sustained research and reporting around prevention and recovery not just with the schools, but also with an ecosystem of parents, teachers, administrators, government, police, and the risk, resilience, and security profession. In essence, we have developed an information platform and are beginning to leverage the fruits of the data that we are tracking, collecting, and analyzing. And our learnings are helping to inform other threats as well. Enjoy these two great minds and hearts as they share their learnings with us.

Our final conversation was between two leaders attempting to help us understand how our biases our impacting our productivity, our culture, and our world. Burke Brownfeld, Director of Global Safety and Security for Visa teamed up with Meredith Moore, CEO of Greylake Training, to address how implicit bias is impacting our risk posture, our effectiveness in responding to those risks, and our decision making.

Meredith is a student of best learning practices. She is able to take an organization’s needs and translate them into highly consumable training programs with compelling results.

In my conversation with them, we discussed how the ingrained survival instincts of our natures can also act as a fatal flaw. This is the root of implicit bias. Our experiences, over time, that then lead to unconscious instinctual responses that may negatively impact our decision making processes, especially under pressure.

Burke, who has spoken eloquently about empathy to our community, integrates his perspective on the invisible toolkit of our emotional intelligence that can be rewired, through training and practice. Meredith discusses her approach to formalizing this in a effective, scalable training program based on behavioral and cognitive science. Together they answer the question:

What is the Mind and Impact of Implicit Bias?

Finally, you may want to ask your own question. It certainly can change based on where you are at with your career, your program, or, contextually, the risks of your organization.

What is the Mind of the__________?

and what is your method to capture and activate your findings in your program?

Remember, you can hear all the conversations, free, by becoming a member. We require membership so we can assure our community that everyone in the conversation belongs here and they can be transparent with us in the unscripted conversations we share.

Enjoy!