Perspective
From the viewpoint of today's cybersecurity and privacy professionals, the world can seem like a gloomy place. As soon as the latest patches are released, a new zero-day is uncovered. Watching TV or your newsfeed in the morning can make you feel like we're on the brink of doomsday, with stories of wildfires ravaging Austrailia, Coronavirus death toll rise, nation-state cyber-attacks, accidental disclosures of PII, and insider thefts of critical IP.
Spending days preparing for audits, recording risks in a risk register, trying to understand the entire, ever-changing, enterprise environment, keeping up with rapidly evolving attackers, fighting fires, and struggling to manage known risks can become exhausting and overwhelming.
Oh, yeah, and it's also up to you to educate executives, colleagues and customers about impending threats, scams, upcoming privacy regulation, and global nation-state activity that could disrupt their business and livelihoods.
Without a doubt, leading the team that prepares for and responds to the cyber incidents in large, global enterprises is not an easy proposition. Nobody wants to be known as The Department of 'No' or the one who brings Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to the boardroom by sharing new levels of transparency around the technology and cyber risks many executives never even knew they should be worried about.
Yet, in my experience over the past ten years of working with CIOs, CISOs, Risk, Privacy, Compliance, and IT leaders who are proactively securing and managing risk at the world's most respected enterprises, I've found the most successful leaders in this field choose to adopt a mindset of limitless potential and abundance.
They actively look for (or choose to create) the vision and pursue opportunities to drive the digital business forward, create risk-based solutions, and protect the enterprises' people, data and systems.
While all business leaders now have some level of cybersecurity responsibility, whether direct ownership or good corporate citizenship, the perspectives and awareness of the risks, regulations, problems, and solutions that exist today are coming at us at lightning speed vary greatly.
What comes to mind when you hear the word perspective? A tall NYC skyscraper rising into the sky? Our small blue-green planet from the vantage point of an astronaut in outer space? Your view of the world from a tall mountaintop?
How about a train track coming to the vanishing point in the distance?
Imagine that life is sort of like a train ride where we can only see out of one window at a time. When we were children, we would sit with our parents and view the world from our own small perspective and see a mostly blue sky with sunshine and maybe a cloud or two here or there. Some kids' parents lift them up to see outside the windows to a more expansive view, while others may smother them as not to see anything outside at all. As we grow, we begin to see our parent's perspectives a bit more clearly. When we leave our parents' home, we set out to find your own seat, with its own view. While you may not be able to get off the train, you can choose your seat or choose to head to the front of the train to see the broadest perspective.
You can choose the seat with the window looking out upon the "dark side" of the tracks, peering into the shadowed gutter, dirty alleyways reeking of death, destruction, and darkness…
...or...
You can choose to view through the "bright side", seeing the abundant potential that life holds through visions of palm trees in paradise, glistening cities, and open fields of opportunity to chase prosperity and build the future of your dreams.
"Perspectives Matter. We all have perspective- it's the lens through which we see and interpret the world. And yes, as we've all likely heard before, perception is reality. But it's important to know too that your perspective-your reality-may be yours alone.
The above quote comes from a great book, My Best Advice, by Dr. Tim Rahschulte, Ryan Halley and Russ Martinelli. I had the good fortune to work with Tim briefly in my time at Evanta and have always been inspired by our conversations. In fact, I have been blessed to work with many great leaders and experience multitudes of perspectives that have shaped my own thinking and approach to the world.
What's Your Perspective?
If you are curious to learn more about your own perspective, Sally Hogshead wrote a great book, How the World Sees You, and the accompanying quiz, which can be a great boost for understanding your highest value, and may even provide a needed perspective shift, especially to those (like me) who struggle with seeing outside of their own field of vision.
If you are in a fixed or destructive mindset, in need of a brighter perspective or expansive view of the state and speed of technology of the future, head to Audible and download “The Future is Faster Than You Think." This is the third book in the ‘Exponential Mindset Series’, written by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. It will blow your mind with opportunities for technology leaders to make lives better today and in the near future.
Finally, if you need to shift your thoughts toward happiness and mindfulness, you can join the Dali Lama himself, along with a 170,000+ members in almost 200 countries that are focusing on spreading happiness and well-being through the volunteer-driven mindfulness group called Action for Happiness. Fun Fact: I was introduced to Action for Happiness by PKWARE's own Gui who speaks with incredible visionaries and leaders in mindfulness and happiness that we can all learn from in the podcast. I highly encourage you to check it out and only receive happiness (no kick-backs :) when you do!
Join Me on This Journey
I look forward to hearing your perspective and sharing my own perspective and resources that have been valuable for me. I encourage you to share your perspective and resources such as books, apps, podcasts, people and quotes that have helped shape it in the comments below.
CISO at Solutions II | Security | Datacenter | Networking | Privacy | Risk Management | Compliance
5yThere is a fundamental psychological element that tends to drift to negativity and/or the word “NO” with security, risk, and compliance professionals. There is a tendency within all three of those fields to “look out upon the "dark side" of the tracks, peering into the shadowed gutter, dirty alleyways reeking of death, destruction, and darkness…” I believe this “perspective” comes from a place of both knowledge and fear. Knowledge because we are aware of the reality of the sheer numbers of attackers and adversaries that we face, but also fear because of the fear of letting our employers down, fear of losing a job, fear of loss of credibility, etc. With that being said, I think a shift in “perspective” is both warranted and needed. While we as security practitioners need to maintain awareness of our adversaries, a more prudent approach may be to focus on enabling business through evangelizing and educating our user base. Finding ways to make security a business enabler versus speed bump or roadblock. Essentially enabling security within the fundamentals of architecture, operations, etc. This is not an overnight change, but it’s definitely a different view/perspective and a more longterm approach to enabling the business and our users. Thank you for the thought provoking article. I’ll just be over here thinking happy thoughts and focusing on the positive!
Global Risk Governance Executive | Professional Speaker | Funniest Man in Cybersecurity
5yHi Christa Pusateri, I think you have provided an interesting, introspective way to look at things. The first word that comes to mind for me is "opportunity." I wonder if the problems cited in your article are rooted in poor communication and a lack of understanding on our part. Many risk executives are hyper-focused on technology and compliance concerns, which can lead security to become the squeaky wheel in the midst of business challenges that are more important for the viability and ongoing operation of an organization. I think risk executives have a great opportunity to reframe the way we communicate cybersecurity concerns to business executives and the rest of the organization. I think the business has an opportunity to take security risks more seriously and invest in going beyond just being compliant. We will all win when both sides improve their perspective and approach.