28 January 2017

The Network: 4th Industrial Revolution Strategy...

There is wisdom in continuously sensing and understanding the environment that people are operating in for their daily work or a specific mission.  The culture of an organization will determine why people are focused on the tasks and work they are performing each day; and that is where Operational Risk Management (ORM) begins.

If you are waking up today and know you may not return home alive, how would that change your thoughts about the tasks and environment ahead of you?  What kind of attitude would you have about your ability to improvise, adapt and navigate over the course of your mission that day, to return safe and secure?

Working along side individuals each day that are vital to a "Network" that knows the risk of survival is low, changes you.  The Operational Risks that you will likely encounter, can make you deviate from the primary goal for the mission.  The outcomes that are primary on the minds of each person on the team are the same, until you have to adjust, pivot and adapt on the fly.

This is where the mindset of "Resilience" is born.  The brain learns what is working, and when it encounters a setback, a shock, or a denial of the goal, it quickly responds to the new environment.  You change your tactics to keep moving forward in pursuit of your planed destination.  Resilience and networks have been symbiotic since Genesis.

So where is your environment located today?  Are you waking up in the Hindu Kush or Palo Alto?  Is it going to be sunny in the Sahel or downtown London?  How will you travel today, by foot or in a vehicle that travels fast enough to require a seat belt?  If it requires a seat belt, you are already applying your OP Risk skills to survive the day.

Now pivot your thoughts back to the asymmetric "Network".  You may not be tasked today to travel in a physical environment.  Your mission is to navigate across the globe to a different place, and the map you will use looks like this.  The network you will operate in today, has hundreds of thousands of adversaries.  Most will not be human, they are nodes and machines that will sense your presence and try to deter your assigned mission.

The resilience of the "Network" is not about just the other people on your team.  It is about the intelligence of your abilities to navigate, adapt and survive the minute, hour or day of your mission.  Whether the resilience is in the physical realm or inside the zeros and ones of a virtual cyberspace, there are some similarities to achieve survival.

Whether you have an OODA Loop or "Board Principles of Resilience" does not matter as long as you understand the culture and the environment you will be operating in that day.  Then use it.  Operational Risk Management works when you apply the right tools, tactics and procedures to the time, place and circumstances.  Consider these principles from Future of Digital Economy and Society System Initiative  | World Economic Forum:
  • Responsibility for Resilience
  • Command of the Subject
  • Accountable Officer
  • Integration of Resilience
  • Risk Appetite
  • Risk Assessment & Reporting
  • Resilience Plans
  • Community
  • Review
  • Effectiveness
The "Network," is the new playing field.  The new market.  The new adversary.  The new strategic thinking necessary, to make it through the day safely and securely.  To come home to your loved ones.  Use Operational Risk Management (ORM), in order to thrive and survive:
Against the background of these developments, this year’s Global Risks Report explores five gravity centres that will shape global risks. First, continued slow growth combined with high debt and demographic change creates an environment that favours financial crises and growing inequality. At the same time, pervasive corruption, short-termism and unequal distribution of the benefits of growth suggest that the capitalist economic model may not be delivering for people. The transition towards a more multipolar world order is putting global cooperation under strain. At the same time, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fundamentally transforming societies, economies, and ways of doing business. Last but not least, as people seek to reassert identities that have been blurred by globalization, decision-making is increasingly influenced by emotions. World Economic Forum - Global Risks Report 2017

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