In the not-too-distant future, an FBI agent is forced to pair with an artificial intelligence (AI) "robot." to solve a crime. The future has not been kind to us. Crisis upon crisis has torn the country apart. Polarization of the body politic, pandemic politics, climate crisis, energy crisis, etc. created a future that is readily accessible in our imagination. This is the book Burn-In. And that’s the secret of this author and his organization, Useful Fiction, LLC, and his books.

Enjoy the science of story and why our government and commercial business leaders need to read more “useful fiction”.

Who you are and how you show up depends on your ability to know your core values and your purpose. This should be infused in your life and your business. But many people struggle to capture this and, more importantly, articulate it when they are initiating relationships. In this conversation we seek the wisdom from a global expert on the path to credibility.

CEOs navigate risk and opportunity to generate value for their customers, employees, and their investors. They must have functional roles at the table who understand how to make that happen. Embedded in every role the CEO creates is the notion of risk. The executive who intimately knows risk and how to apply it to each functional role has the keys to the value proposition of the business. Welcome to a conversation that moves from lobbying for a title and redirects it to a value path for the next generation security leader.

Many of us stay at the surface in our relationships. Many of us ask questions but can’t wait for the answer. There are many levels to a person. The great leaders find a way to ask a series of questions, mining the answers, seeking the truth. Our great conversation is with a life-long “teller” addict who now is a listener. And he has learned the art of the question to mine for the gold in his relationships.

Do you know where you are going? Do you have a fundamental grasp of who you are and how you show up with your family, your peers, and your friends? Is it time to create a compass for your life? This conversation is about that journey. Welcome to Living Life on Purpose.

Leading is the active best practice of caring. It is essential to engagement with the people within and without the organization. It is essential to self-worth. And it is essential to innovation because innovation happens at the speed of trust. Our great conversation is with a person who deeply understands this and is committed to helping us hardwire it into our very being.

So much goes on that we do not see. Lurking below the surface may be things that unsettle us. And they may be impacting our lives and those around us. This must be understood by leaders of organizations. According to Gallup, an actively disengaged employee costs their organization $3,400 for every $10,000 of salary, or 34 percent. That means an actively disengaged employee who makes $60,000 a year costs their company $20,400 a year!

We clearly have to navigate the risk and opportunity of this problem. Our conversation with this executive may show us the way.

We all have a way of thinking and being that can get trapped in a way of seeing the world and our role in it. The trap is set by how we are taught and what we have learned. But there is a way of seeing the world that helps avoid this trap. Our conversation with this executive for a major food manufacturer, gives us a glimpse to a journey that helps us understand the nature of inquiry and the power it has in seeing “beyond the fenceline”.

Life is a series of interactions between worldviews. Worldviews are identity. They represent core values; a way of seeing and understanding the world passed down from individual stories through a Darwinian shaping and trimming process that helps us feel safe, secure, and confident as we navigate our world.

In this great conversation, we explore “narrative” as a mean of describing how people and nations might build bridges of understanding that might take us to a different place than conflict and war.

I also saw it as a means of deeply investing in another as we build companies of strategic and purposeful value.

Enjoy the conversation!

There are so many unintended consequences for reacting to a situation too quickly without understanding how it started and how it evolved. What if we started with a premise that everyone was essentially good, but had the potential to do evil things? What if we understood the logic ladder of their thinking that led them down a pathway to violence? What if we saw that pathway starting with a cry for help through words or behavior? In this great conversation we learn from the former Chief Psychologist of the Secret Service what that pathway is and how to leverage it to help someone before they harm someone else.

To create value, a leader has to invest in people. Learn their stories; their skillsets; their worldviews. And then they must act in the role of puzzle maker. Taking each of their people and forging a team. Then each person is highly leveraged. The sum of the parts is greater than any individual contributor. In this great conversation, you will hear a leader’s path to developing such a team.

Imagine your company is the leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). This is a platform that aggregates all the data around the primary relationships that drive successful outcomes with potential and existing customers. And this drives the business. Now replace CRM with Security. Give it a platform that aggregates and leverages the data that influences the safety and security of all the people attempting to serve the mission of the business. This too, drives the business. This is a great conversation around a leadership team that is navigating risk and opportunity for competitive advantage.

We are in tomorrow. Although the present occupies most of our attention. Tomorrow is not friendly. It may be hopeful, but it laughs at our comfort for today. Whether it is our skill sets, our position, or the spaces in which we all live and work, tomorrow will disrupt all of them. In this great conversation, we explore this with a man who is helping shape your future places in which you work.

Success. Sustainable success. It takes an inquisitive mind, a strategic mind, an operational mind, as well as a focus on outcomes that matter to the customer and/or your stakeholders. This great conversation dissects the value generation one leader used in developing a strategic security and emergency management program at a major hospital.

The threats are coming faster and more aggressively. Many are inspired by hateful rhetoric. It represents the most dynamic, complex risk environment ever according to our guest in the great conversation. But this man stands resolute. And he studies what is possible so that his organization can adapt and pivot with the threats and the time. You listen, feel, and empathize with a force that has threatened a group of people for generations and is just as real today.

Ultimately, well-being is an organizational superpower. We have an immense need for purpose and mission. If we don’t feel this connection in our organization, it could impact what we give them. (Engagement). In this great conversation we travel across many domains in our pursuit of a different role for the risk, resilience, and security function of our organizations in response to the unique risks that face us. We turn to a licensed psychologist and threat management consultant to seek a wider lens.

Who are you besides a leadership title in an organization? What is your story? What is the story of how your organization was formed? What is the story of where your organization is going? Who shares this story with you? Who contributes to this story today?

These are great questions for any founder or CEO. We uncovered their significance in the latest Great Conversation. Enjoy.

What does NVIDIA, Intel, Walmart, and Target have in common? There are 70 major retail chains and some leading technology vendors who have joined the Loss Prevention Research Council to help drive innovation and change in the practice of safeguarding vulnerable people and places.

Led by a passionate research scientist, and a highly disciplined process anchored by a research and technology hub, the LPRC is helping organizations navigate the epidemic of crime in this country in a unique and compelling way.

Enjoy the conversation.

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

― John Muir

In this great conversation we attempt to get in the mind of a security executive to see what he learned during a long sabbatical about himself and the future role he really wanted and needed. We talk about core values, mission, purpose, and, finally, integrating the business model of risk, resilience, security, and safety into the business model of an organization. Sometimes on your path to value the opportunity finds you.

The risk, resilience, and security function has typically been siloed and disconnected from the organization’s goals. They have been the ‘tail’. But what if that is changing? What if the demand for risk data is occurring at the same time as the technology is maturing to meet the need? And what if the platform to collect, manage, analyze, and communicate the data and have it contextualized to meet the unique needs of the C-Level team is in the hands of the function that too often has been marginalized? Will the tail now wag the dog (the business)? We explore this with the founders of one of the leading protective intelligence platforms in a great conversation.