What We Lose without a Vision
We know leaders should have a vision, in theory. But what is the cost of going without a vision? Let’s imagine if the Wright Brothers didn’t have vision to build those first planes, or if Henry Ford never focused on using mass production to create and sell cars at scale…
Imagine if good old Henry Ford or the Wright Brothers just took a shot in the dark. They would have derailed themselves rather quickly if they focused on their parameters or past precedent:
“Can’t go too high or we will burn up from the sun.”
“Consumers like saddles. We need to incorporate saddles.”
“If we produce too many cars, there will not be enough people to buy them.”
Today, technology is moving at an insane pace. We have the power of the cloud to crunch billions of bits of data in less than the blink of an eye. We have refrigerators that use technology to keep things fresh and tell us when to throw something away. Most new cars are fully connected and some can now get updates overnight while parked in the garage.
At the heart of this transformation is safety and security. While we need vision to build these new capabilities, we need a security vision as well.
A vision for security does not start with the technology.
While working as an Executive Security Advisor, I have encountered hundreds of Chief Information Security Officers and executives with great ideas but no single guiding vision. Instead, they often throw everything but the kitchen sink at their security problems — to the detriment of their organization, and their end customers. We have heard so many excuses for not using our capabilities and our partner ecosystem.
“We are a best of breed shop.”
“We are going multi cloud.”
“We chose this provider because they market security better than you.”
“We have worked with Acme Inc for years and don’t see a need to change.”
And, finally…
“We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket.”
Where to start building your security vision:
1. Leave the past behind. Understand networking in the cloud is not the same as networking on premises. Working in the cloud requires a renewed focus on data protection and management of your applications.
2. Imagine the end game. Do you want fewer applications, better visibility, better customer experience, better employee experience? Getting from the architecture today to tomorrow, when you’re done transforming, requires a focused goal.
3. Who is this for? You need a good handle on identity to answer who (or what) needs access in this future state.
It’s time to rethink your roadmap and develop a plan. Vision is not an aspirational nice-to-have — vision keeps us from getting derailed.
