Never Forget: Memories & Our Future Resilience Innovation…

On the dawn of September 11, 2023 our United States remembers and reflects.

The day 22 years since the attacks on our country 9/11/01 actualizes so many facets of our “Resilience”:

Emotional.

Educational.

Emergency Management, Transportation, Healthcare, Communications, Information Technology, Financial, Defense, Energy and so many others within our International Critical Infrastructure systems.

In the middle of a 8:30am business breakfast at the Reston, Virginia Hyatt on 9/11, the screams from those watching the bar TV across the restaurant will never be forgotten.

Our USA is so much more “Resilient” than we were over two decades ago and we have much further to reach, in order to achieve total functional resilience across new sectors.

The true commercialization of SPACE is far beyond the knowledge awareness of our average U.S. citizen. Unless of course, they have seen the film Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff.

Our SPACE infrastructure is rapidly growing from the key private sector companies ecosystem who have been in business for years.

More importantly, the new Space ecosystem of private sector companies beyond the traditional government aerospace suppliers to NASA, is currently providing vital resources and new SPACE technology innovation.

The growing supply chains for SPACE missions has already multiplied the requirements for resilience in so many new and different realms of our United States private sector, including academic engineering education and R&D environments.

Therefore, on the eve of this September 11, 2023 we must be even more vigilant to NEVER FORGET.

“Around and within our innovative U.S. Space infrastructure is a growing threat landscape and it requires: securing our space assets, increasing situational awareness, maintaining resilient satellite communications, creating new policy frameworks, expanding workforce development, and creating new emerging technologies.” --Space ISAC

So what?

The United States shall now create a 17th Critical Infrastructure domain, that shall require our resources and continuous innovation for the next 20+ years and beyond.

“Resilience of SPACE infrastructure” has always required key people from vital organizations:

“The Space ISAC (Information-Sharing-Analysis-Center) has launched in Colorado Springs, CO and is the only all-threats security information source for the public and private space sector.

“It is the most comprehensive and single point source for sharing data, facts and analysis on space security and threat to space assets. Space ISAC also provides analysis and resources to support response, mitigation and resilience initiatives.”

Who will we work with side-by-side, to prepare our response in an “All-Hazards” SPACE world that changes by the minute?

These dedicated people can be found solving SPACE problem-sets in our future innovation strategies by utilizing proven methodologies in:

• Mapping / Targeting

• Sketching / Solutions

• Deciding

• Prototyping / Testing

How shall we continuously work together to provide the correct tools, systems, knowledge and trusted experience to make a proactive global difference? 

It is our purpose and our mission to “Protect Critical SPACE Infrastructure” across our great nation and to ensure the resiliency of our people, systems and our organizations in the Public - Private Sector.

Volatility: Enemy #1...

Organizations implement Operational Risk solutions to lower "volatility" in earnings growth and return on capital. The focus on volatility is because no institution likes to see peaks and valleys in their earnings or their return on capital.

A steady and consistent growth curve without "Volatility" is the goal by many steadfast organizations.

Contrary to the goal of minimized "volatility" there are also those who feed off of the chaos and the large swings between these highs and lows in the marketplace and with specific companies in vital sectors of the financial economy. Will another Blueprint for Regulatory Reform be the answer?

As a hedge fund investor, can you explain what the strategy is for your investment fund? Do you know what your money is being invested in?

Does your hedge fund manager provide transparency on calculating your return on funds invested? What was the reason you invested in alternative investments to begin with?

Carrying this analogy to the operational processes within your organization, the goal is to keep the processes running smoothly. When people or systems deviate from the agreed upon "Rule Sets" then change ensues along with the volatility of the performance measures.

Errors, Omissions and systemic "glitches" are the catalysts to volatility that creates fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Do you understand the Math? When the process gets to this stage and people don't trust the rules anymore, you are on the brink of a failure and impending loss, in dollars and/or peoples lives.

Operational Risk Management is a discipline that is remerging in our corporate ranks because it has already proven that it saves lives. The regulators and inspector generals are going to raise it’s mandate within our institutional ranks once again.

The "Rule Sets" of playing business in the financial, health care and energy sectors are not the only ones being subjected to this increased scrutiny and renewed focus on OPS Risk as lessons were learned over 15 years ago:

“In March of 2008, the Department of Defense learned that four non-nuclear nose cone assemblies and their associated electrical components for a ballistic missile where mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in the fall of 2006. These items were originally shipped in March 2005 from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming to the Defense Logistics Agency warehouse at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. There are no nuclear or fissile materials associated with these items.

Upon learning of the error, the U.S. government took immediate action to acquire positive control of the components and arranged for their safe and secure recovery to the United States. These items have been safely returned to the United States.”

After this event, lessons learned and “After-Action-Reports” were generated in the ranks of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Department of Defense all relating to the failure of People, Processes, Systems and or External events.

Operational Risk is all around us and continuously ready for prime time focus in terms of our leadership strategy execution, implementation and measurement.

Whether you utilize Operational Risk Management (ORM) in the Defense Industrial Base or in another Critical Infrastructure sector in the United States, it’s important to revisit what it is NOT:

Operational Risk is Not:

• About avoiding risk
• A safety only program
• Limited to complex-high risk evolutions
• A program -- but a process
• Only for on-duty
• Just for your boss
• Just a planning tool
• Automatic
• Static
• Difficult
• Someone else’s job
• A well kept secret
• A fail-safe process
• A bunch of checklists
• Just a bullet in a briefing guide
• “TQL”
• Going away

The goal of Risk Management is not to eliminate risk, but to manage risk so the mission can be accomplished with minimum impact...

True Professional: Who Will You Become...

What will you do that is extraordinary and contributes a positive addition in your life that demonstrates your consistent effort and shows your own actual discipline?

It shall demonstrate your devotion and focus on becoming better even though you shall never achieve a level of true perfection.

Continuous skill and knowledge improvement is just that.

The discipline you choose will be so difficult to perfect that even after 2 decades and over 1000 documented examples almost weekly, you are far from the perceived finish line.

1000+ examples / 52 weeks = 19+ years

In September 2003 it all began. Writing words on a regular basis about real topics of interest was a discipline that started a career to become an even better “Operational Risk Specialist”.

Your discipline might be flying aircraft or doing heart surgery and you want to continuously grow your expertise. How do you measure your own consistent effort and show discipline?

Do you measure the number of hours or miles you have on duty in the air or space or classroom or on camera or operating room or court room or missions in theatre using your skills?

Why?

You too may become, a “True Professional”.

Do you measure the quality of your particular skill and/or innovative deliverable on every attempt?

So what?

You see, what ever your discipline may be and to what degree you are practicing consistently to become even better, if you are not measuring it in some way, then is it a real discipline?

What tool do you utilize to capture and measure your accomplishments? A log book, a photo journal, a score card, a web blog, a three ring binder, a digital file folder measured in GBs or TBs?

What are you actually measuring? The Number of attempts. The Quality of completions. The game score?

Maybe it is just a written exam and Two, Three or four letters (_ _ _ _) after your name?

Whether you have become a Doctor, Lawyer, Professor, Pilot, Operator, Specialist, Stylist, Salesperson, Manager, VP, Owner, Driver, Player, Author or Analyst in your life does not really matter to so many.

Maybe it does to you and your specific clients, customers, parishioners and patients and a few of your fellow family, comrades, co-pilots, clergy, operators and other True Professionals.

Yet, when you decide personally that your own professional tenure in this discipline has come to an end and you will stop being measured, then what?

Start a new one and have extraordinary consistent discipline…Godspeed!

Reliable: Who Do You Have Faith In?

When you think of the person you would recommend for a particular task or to perform defined professional services, who comes to mind?

There are many ways and words to describe a person or the business, yet if you had only one word to choose from, what would it be?

Reliable  adjective

1: suitable or fit to be relied on: DEPENDABLE

2: giving the same result on successive trials

Reliable noun

1: one that is reliable

In many cases, this is the word people really mean to use, as the basis for their recommendation.

Whether a business or a person is reliable, makes all the difference in your world, especially if you must rely on the outcomes of their service or duty.

When someone or something you pay for, does not meet a series of positive results, you begin to question your decision to utilize the service or receive the product for use.

Unfortunately for many people and businesses, this word “Reliable” is not considered or even measured on a consistent or measurable basis.

"Over the course of time in your life, think of one person or business you could say was truly reliable."

Think of this one person or business you have utilized for more than ten years that is reliable.

In any professional capacity, becoming reliable takes many years of practice and substantial learning. It requires the development of people, processes, systems and real innovation.

Now, think about someone or an entity (business, product, government agency) that you have lost faith in.

The people or businesses that you have stopped interaction with, have become “Unreliable” for your particular requirements or expectations of quality of service.

How would our world change for the better if there was more learning and focus on being “Reliable”?

How can you as a person or business become top of mind, when someone is asked “Who would you recommend” to: _________________?

You too, can become truly reliable…

Human Dialogue: "Decision Advantage"​ of a Trusted Digital Globe...

How will you innovate with your front line team this month and this year to enable more accurate and resourceful “TrustDecisions”?

The ability to make business decisions in a standardized process simultaneously wrapped around our own human intelligence is the real advantage.

A true “Decision Advantage” in a world of constantly changing conditions and data environments is one of the greatest challenges within our global Leadership Management.

Creating innovation around decision making may sound like a lofty goal. It is, and yet for your particular team or organization, it certainly is within reach.

How might your team utilize a process and method for making more rapid and effective “TrustDecisions” across your global enterprise?

While these words are being written by a human-being now and not an Ai such as C h a t G P T, our future lives will encompass a continuous process to gain a digital assets advantage.

“But we will not function successfully if the war for control of those assets is lost. The battlefield, however, is the one on which trust is to be gained or lost—trust in the information we use, trust in the infrastructures that support us, and trust in the decisions we make in a digital world.” Achieving Digital Trust - Jeffrey Ritter

A process that is focused on digital truth will require our continuous application of “Operational Risk Management” combined with our global data governance collaboration.

• Have you this week in the United States tried to unsubscribe from an e-mail list and did not find a digital link at the bottom of your e-mail to accomplish this?
• Have you this week scheduled a 45 min Digital Zoom meeting and found yourself at min 44 without a decision?
• Have you this week been taking depositions in California regarding the use of videos on your platform that are covered by Section 230?

"From the Board Room to our modern day asymmetric battlefield, achieving digital trust will open eyes. It will provide us with a reference model that management and software architects have been seeking for decades.

The survival of the Internet as we know it, is currently at stake. Leadership shall provide a look into the transparency of «Trust Decisions» and how ensuring digital truth will shape our global governance for decades to come."

Innovation with making accurate and resourceful “TrustDecisions” will go far beyond technology or Zeros and Ones.

Our future will require so much more that will not be digital.

Think Human Dialogue.

It will require more “TrustDecisions” that are in person, Face-to-Face, Eye-to-Eye and finalized with a hand shake…

Onward!