Tag Archives: Resilience

Is Your Company Ready for the Next Cyber Threat?

digital threat

Are You Prepared?

Security incidents are up 66% year-over-year since 2009. Despite this alarming statistic, 80% of CEOs report that they are confident in their company’s cybersecurity.

Cybercrime is on the rise.

Are you prepared? 

Cybersecurity expert Ray A. Rothrock shares the tactics used by hackers and then arms management with the tools to prevent these hacks in his new book Digital Resilience: Is Your Company Ready for the Next Cyber Threat?

 

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76 percent of respondents to Cyberthreat Defense Report indicated that they were successfully compromised by a cyberattack.

 

Why Leaders Must Pay Attention

Ray, your book is compelling. It starts by scaring us beyond belief. For those who haven’t read your book yet, would you go ahead and scare our readers…

By the end of 2016, one category of cyberattack on business —ransomware infection– topped 4,000 instances per day. One publication, CSO, recently posted an estimate that cybercrime damage will hit $6 trillion by 2021 and, by 2022, the human attack surface, the potential victim pool, for cybercrime will reach 6 billion, which is 75 percent of the projected 2020 world population of 8 billion.

So, if you want to be scared, chew on the incontrovertible fact that you and your business are being attacked today, and you will be attacked tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. Obviously, you need excellent cybersecurity—firewalls, antivirus software, antimalware software, automatic downloading and installation of the latest security patches for all your software, and a workforce educated in basic digital hygiene. Yet the hard truth is that even the best cybersecurity will be penetrated. Some of those daily attacks will pierce your perimeter defenses.

Mediocre security will stop some attacks. Good security will stop more attacks. The best security will stop even more. But, whether mediocre or exceptional, all security will ultimately fail. You will be breached, and, if you depend on security alone, the effects of the next breach—the next inevitable breach—may be annoying or may put your business at great risk. This is why you need both excellent digital security and excellent digital resilience.  In short, you need to be prepared because you will be attacked.  Resilience starts with preparation.

 

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“Resilience starts with preparation.” -Ray Rothrock

 

Shore Up Your Resilience

Leadership from the Inside Out

Grow the Whole Person to Grow the Whole Leader

I first read Leadership From the Inside Out years ago. It is one of the books that helps build a foundation of knowledge for leaders. That’s why I was excited to see that it is now out in a new version with updated chapters, new case studies and stories, and even more practical exercises to help everyone achieve their leadership potential.

Author Kevin Cashman is the Global Leader of CEO & Executive Development at Korn Ferry. He has advised thousands of senior leaders across almost every industry.

We recently talked about his updated book and his leadership views.

 

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“While spreadsheets are the language of management information, stories are the language of leadership inspiration.” -Kevin Cashman

 

You’re just out with a new version of Leadership From the Inside Out, a classic must-read in leadership circles. What prompted you to update it, and what’s new?

Well, thank you for endorsing it as a “must-read.”  It has been humbling and fulfilling to witness the success of each edition. Twenty years ago, when the first edition came out, it was one of the first books to deeply connect personal growth to leadership effectiveness using timeless, enduring principles of human development. We had been seeing how this “grow the whole person to grow the whole leader” approach resonated in our practice with CEOs, CEO successors and executives, but at that time, there was little or no research on these principles—authenticity, self-awareness, courage, character, purpose—and their impact on results. We did the second edition in 2008 to share new stories and case studies, but also to share some of the mounting research from independent sources that was catching up with what we were seeing in the trenches. For this third edition, we felt compelled to share more abundant recent research, including a study that directly connects top leader self-awareness with organizational financial performance, a study on the results of purpose-driven leadership’s significant impact on financial growth, and more. The book is still framed in areas of mastery, but we’ve added Story Mastery and Coaching Mastery, both taking leaders to deeper levels of awareness to enhance their influence and multiply it. We updated stories and case studies and added and revised exercises and practices to sharpen relevance. This third edition is an even deeper, integrative growth experience.

 

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“The Character-driven leader tends to emphasize service over self.” -Kevin Cashman

 

Why Character is Central to Leadership

I’m a passionate believer in character, and your book was early to focus on this aspect of leadership. Would you comment on the centrality of character?

Leading in Character is foundational, or to use your word, “central” to Personal Mastery, which is the ongoing growth of authenticity, courage, and influence that has enduring value. It is at the heart of transformative impact and servant leadership. Both Character and Coping are present in most leadership situations. However, we need to ask ourselves, “Which one is my master, and which one is my servant?”  When we are self-aware and make Character the master of our leadership and Coping the servant, we move toward better relationships with team members, customers, employees, all our stakeholders and the greater marketplace. And, we create more sustainable value. As leaders, it is essential to learn how to build our awareness of when we are being guided by Character and when we are being pushed by Coping. One CEO we worked with in our Chief Executive Institute told us that learning how to pause to make sure that values are on the table and that she and her team were leading with character has really stayed with her and been significant. She developed a systematic process of asking her team for their expert opinions, probing them to explain how they came to that opinion and whatever concerns they had. She explained that when a problem or a crisis comes along “stepping through it is grounding and everyone has the same fact base. It encourages synthesis and congruence with values.” That’s leading with Character and Authenticity.

 

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“Purpose elevates teams to move from short-term success to long-term significance.” -Kevin Cashman

 

Meditation and Leadership

Increase Your Resilience to Thrive in a Turbulent World

Resilience

Increase Your Resilience

Most of us are surrounded by more stress than ever before. It often starts the minute we get up as our devices feed us headlines. Our jobs require instant and continued results, and yesterday’s accomplishments seem to be remembered less and less.

Ama Marston and Stephanie Marston’s new book, Type R: Transformative Resilience for Thriving in a Turbulent World, is a thoughtful and inspirational guide to thriving during stressful times. Type R’s use challenges to innovate and grow.

I recently spoke with Ama Marston about her research into resilience. Ama is an internationally recognized leadership expert who has worked on five continents with global leaders. She is also the founder and CEO of Marston Consulting.

 

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“And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore.” -Barbara Kingsolver

 

You start your new book with a gripping account of a car accident that impacted your lives. How did this awful accident impact your life’s work and result in this book?

For my mother, the process of having to recover from sever injuries and learn to walk again ultimately shaped her path to becoming a psychotherapist and stress expert. I was three at the time, but the accident also forged an even stronger lifetime bond between the two of us.

Decades later that led us to support one another while each of us separately faced the financial crisis as business owners, the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, family and health crises, etc. Through ongoing conversations we supported one another and also sought to better understand the convergence of personal, professional, and global turbulence. These challenges were something we were facing ourselves, but that we were each seeing in our respective professions. This was occurring in corporations and in the halls of the United Nations. It was on the minds of our clients and colleagues, global leaders, and our friends and family. So, while it took decades for the impacts of our car accident to come full circle, in some respect it planted a seed for a lifetime of learning about Transformative Resilience together and ultimately collaborating and writing Type R.

 

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“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” -Albert Einstein

 

Reframe Adversity

How to Forge Resilient Relationships in the Heat of Change

breakthrough

From Breakdown to Breakthrough 

Business leaders often focus on profits and metrics, living in spreadsheets and analytics. But what drives these results is people and relationships. So often it’s the resilient relationships, those that are forged in uncertain and difficult times that make the difference.

Author Michael Papanek takes three decades of experience with clients ranging from Apple to Google and shares it in his new book, From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Forging Resilient Relationships in the Heat of Change. His framework helps leaders develop the confidence to take these relationships to the next level. I recently asked him about his work.

 

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“Resilience is a social phenomenon based on relationships, not an individual leadership attribute.” -Michael Papanek

 

Build Strong Relationships

What are the elements of a strong relationship?

A strong business relationship will have a number of attributes that set that relationship apart from others.  First, it must provide value to both parties, and it is “generative,” meaning the value together is more than any one person could create on their own: so that 1 + 1 = 3.  Strong relationships also create multiple tracks of value that would be hard to replace if the relationship ended.

One example of this is from the entertainment world, where the band the Grateful Dead was famous for their long relationship with their very loyal fans (which continues today, long after the passing of their leader Jerry Garcia).  In addition to music, the band created value in other key ways for the fans, such as supporting a community of fans (the “Dead Heads”) as well as creating an ‘outside the concert’ experience, and even income for some fans (by selling items at the shows).

Finally, a strong relationship contributes to key strategies or needs of each party.  Relationships that do not create value this way may be categorized as superficial and easily ended. If you are ever not sure if the business relationship is really strong, that is the time to discuss it. Do not wait until you are surprised by a change.

 

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“Strong relationships create multiple tracks of value that would be hard to replace if the relationship ended.” -Michael Papanek

 

How often do our relationships hit that sweet spot between strong, flexible and fair?

Reach: A Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

 

You may know him from his writing for the Harvard Business Review or from his features in The New York Times or The Economist. Andy Molinsky, PhD is a professor of psychology and organizational behavior at Brandeis University’s International Business School. He is the author of Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence.

Since I have long been interested in helping people push past what’s comfortable, I found his new book particularly intriguing. After reading it, I am sure that you will find his work as actionable as I have. I spoke with Andy recently about his new book.

 

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“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch

 

5 Roadblocks that Keep You in Your Comfort Zone

What keeps people safely ensconced inside their comfort zones?

I’ve found five specific reasons, and I call them psychological roadblocks or barriers.  The first is the Authenticity Challenge:  It’s the idea that acting outside your comfort zone can feel fake, foreign, and false.  The second is the Competence Challenge:  In addition to feeling inauthentic, you can also feel like you don’t have the ability to be successful in a situation outside your comfort zone.  The third roadblock is what I call the Resentment Challenge: Even if people logically know that they need to change their behavior to be effective in a new situation, they may feel resentful or frustrated about having to stretch beyond where they’re comfortable. Roadblock #4 is the Likeability Challenge:  One of the greatest worries people feel when stretching outside their comfort zones is whether people will like this new version of themselves.  Finally, Roadblock #5 is the Morality Challenge:  In certain instances, people can have legitimate concerns about the morality of the behavior they’re about to perform.  Of course people don’t necessarily experience each of these roadblocks each time they attempt to act outside their comfort zones.  However, even one or two roadblocks can be enough to keep people fully ensconced within their comfort zones.

 

Do most people know which one is their challenge?

When we’re afraid of something, we often just feel “worried” or “fearful.” And not really knowing or understanding where the discomfort actually comes from just compounds the problem.  But what I find is that when people can apply this framework of psychological roadblocks to their lives, they have a much clearer way to make sense of their experience – and that gives them a sense of control over something that previously felt confusing or overwhelming.

 

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“The best things in life are often waiting for you at the exit ramp of your comfort zone.” -Karen Salmansohn

 

Stop the Cycle of Avoidance 

The vicious cycle of avoidance is one we’ve all participated in or watched to varying degrees. What’s the best way to stop the cycle and get back on the right path?

So many of us encounter this trap:  We avoid something outside our comfort zone – and feel quite relieved.  But then the next time around, it’s just that much harder.  To stop the cycle, you have to have a deep sense of purpose that the “pain” is worth the “gain” – that whatever it is you’re contemplating outside your comfort zone will contribute to your career or personal development — or enable you to help others and make a difference.  And what’s critical is that this source of conviction is authentic and meaningful to you.  When you have conviction and motivation, you’ll have the power to say yes when every bone in your body is aching to say no.