Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. Today also means
that I’ve been writing a blog post for over 130 consecutive days now.
As of the 130 day mark, my goal of this blog remains
unchanged from the day that I started on this endeavor. This is a place for me,
a cyber leader in the daily fray and with nothing to sell, to share opinions often
underrepresented in other social media content that help cyber security leaders
understand what’s possible in a crazy good cyber program, define a clear
strategic direction for their team, communicate with other executives, be
resourced correctly, and reduce the level of exhausting, disruptive work.
I’m immensely thankful for my current team and executive team as well as the
teams that I’ve had the privilege of building at previous roles. Leadership
really is a privilege and those that we lead deserve our best effort.
I’m also thankful that this blog has provided a chance for
me to learn more about myself and continue to make improvements in my daily
work.
Building vs Fixing:
For years, I described myself as a “fixer”. This blog has made me realize that
I am actually very much a builder and always have been. Building out of
low maturity and not being constrained to fixing whatever may already be in
place in order to do so is a powerful methodology. The difference is subtle, but an important one in
terms of strategy and conversation.
Conciseness:
Successfully writing every day requiring simplifying a wide range of complex cyber
security topics into a series of posts comprised of a few paragraphs. It took me a few weeks to find my voice. One
thing that has been surprising is that, after 130 days, finding complex topics
to concisely write about isn’t any easier but it also hasn’t gotten any harder
either.
Storytelling: The time invested in this blog has helped me a better storyteller at
work for the executives, my peers, and the team. Storytelling would be a top 3
skill in my list of top skills for cyber leaders. The level of cyber security
success in any organization is largely dependent on the good graces and
cooperation of leaders and teams outside of cyber security. If you can’t tell an easy and compelling non-technical
story, you’ll never get the engagement or resources from others that the cyber
security program needs to be successful.
So, in many ways, this blog has been a blessing for which I
am immensely thankful. Hopefully, the blog also serves as an opinionated starting point
for lively conversations within other organizations regardless of the level of agreement or disagreement around the topic. Disagreement can be a very positive tool for finding the best righ solution.
Thanks to every reader for giving me the chance to do this.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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for discussion and the latest blog updates: @Opinionatedsec1. Or, start your
own discussion using #crazygoodcyberteams on twitter or Linkedin and I'll read
it.
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