As we gathered up our gear to walk out to the Bell 407 for another epic day one February in the remote mountains, you could just feel the “butterflies” in our gut again.
When you think of any challenging mission that has real risks, you and your team know that when you launch that daily objective and buckle up, that you have each others backs. Got your six.
You as a team have already trained to identify the risks, “Deter, Detect, Defend and Document” the environment you are operating within, that particular day.
"The helicopter now rapidly gained altitude and we looked at each other across the aisle with smiles on our faces. Our goggles made it hard to see each others eyes, but you could feel the adrenaline starting to take effect."
Now it’s all about, the person to your right and left, keeping each other in your peripheral vision to know that s/he is still there.
It was just another day in pursuit of the daily mission, accelerating down the mountain on our skis in endless powder snow.
Until it happened. Passing to close to the “tree well,” the edge caved in and now you could feel yourself falling down the deep hole around the trunk of the massive pine tree.
Catching your breath and now looking up, you could see the dark blue sky yet the surface was 6-7 feet vertical and you just hugged the tree in sub-freezing temperatures.
Then pure silence and just deep snow surrounding you and the tree well.
In the next minute, you realize you are in the red zone of risk and now your OPS training kicks in. Your thoughts wonder if you will ever make it back.
About 30 minutes later, you could hear our team yelling out and blowing their whistles. By now, that bright yellow plastic whistle we all kept around our necks was now being blown louder than ever before.
Finally, as someone from our Team, heard the whistle cadence of distress you could hear their voices getting even closer!
What are you doing down there our leader yelled out! As they threw down the bright orange knotted rope…
So what?
Do you have a “4D” Risk Strategy being utilized in your organization and with your team?
A "4D" Risk Strategy for Survival is only effective if it is operating on a continuous basis. You must create the culture and the due diligence to see that it becomes part of the fabric of your organization internally and with outsourced partners or suppliers.
Only then will the attacker (or nature) realize that this combination to Deter, Detect, Defend and Document is alive and growing in your enterprise. This is when attackers become discouraged, afraid, uncertain and ultimately ready for a new and less formidable adversary.
"Attackers use tools to exploit a vulnerability to create an action on a target that produces an unauthorized result, to obtain their objective. These "4D" lessons should put you on the way to creating a more survivable business.”
Whether you are at 9,000+ feet in the snow capped mountains in a foreign country or you are just sitting in your dark corporate conference room on “Chain Bridge Road” innovating to try and solve todays risk problem-sets does not matter.
Whether you and your particular team, devotes 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week to a potential threat risk to you or your organization training for “What If,” is what truly will make a future difference.
Operational Risk Management (ORM) will determine whether you ultimately just survive, or become:
Extraordinary adjective
1 a : going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary
extraordinary powers
