Presence: In Operational Risk Encounters...

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

 --C. S. Lewis

What is on your mind this Sunday?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was so different about their presence with you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Onward: Inspire. Connect. Empower...

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

Is it a positive experience or a negative experience?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inspire. Connect. Empower.

Onward!

Mission Resilience: Our Digital Trust in 2050...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Innovation: Entrepreneurial SPRINT…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is an example for just one reference:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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