Chapter 3. Career Options - Great Ways to Be a Foresight Leader

3. Security and Risk Management

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Security and Risk Management is a third core leadership department that seeks to protect the operational integrity and assets of the firm. This includes such functions as intelligence, physical security, health and safety, legal, intellectual property, risk management and insurance.

This department is typically responsible for three of the top twenty foresight specialties, in alpha order as follows:

  1. Intelligence & Knowledge Management, 
  2. Law & Security, 
  3. Risk Management & Insurance 

Intelligence & Knowledge Management. One of the less-recognized strategic foresight activities that belongs to a Security and Risk Management department is intelligence work, which includes competitive intelligence, to anticipate competitor’s offerings and plans, and technical intelligence, to discover which new scientific research, technologies, and product and service development proposals are likely to pay off, and which are premature, hype, or poor bets. Technical intelligence is also ideally done in the Research & Development department, and competitive intelligence is also done in both the Sales and Marketing departments.

Scanning is a well-known strategic foresight practice that is one of the early tasks of Intelligence. In world-class scanning systems, as in the Singapore defense community’s Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) program, the organization’s entire stakeholder network monitors and learns from environmental information, and can flag and forward items of potential significance to analysts best able to assess them, and leaders best able to use the assessments. RAHS is much more than just a scanning system however. It has become a foresight and futures survey platform for the entire country, as this excellent Foreign Affairs article, “The Social Laboratory” (2014) acknowledges. Top-down scanning systems, exclusive just to Top Management, Metrics & Planning, or Security & Risk Management departments are always less effective than those that maximize inputs from the entire firm, and thus also cognitive diversity and experience diversity. Getting trained as an intelligence analyst can be great preparation for many other forms of foresight work.

Knowledge Management is also one of the lesser-known specialties of the modern firm. It is a close cousin to intelligence. If you don’t have good knowledge management processes and platforms that capture and improve both your external competitive and technical intelligence work, and your internal collective intelligence production, your organization will operate without a memory, destined to repeat past mistakes. You’re also much more vulnerable to the loss of key individuals in your firm. A good KM platform will be integrated with other foresight specialties including strategy creation, learning and development (onboarding and training), and auditing, including exit interviews when any employee leaves the firm.

Law & Security is perhaps the most obvious responsibility of this department. In a world where legal advice and paralegal help is now globally sourced and available online from companies like Upcounsel, all firms, no matter their size, should be getting legal advice from the outset. The in-house  lawyer, who uses IP, precedent and case law to create legal security is a great asset to larger firms. Security is of course just as fundamental, and regular training of employees in physical and information security practices is an effective way to prevent catastrophes. Security leaders want to regularly stress test their systems, and employ other proven natural security methods discussed in Chapters 7 and 8 .

Risk Management & Insurance is the last major responsibility of this department. Risk management involves the mitigation of risk and uncertainty via intelligence, insurance, safety, security, and other activities. Organizational psychologist Karl Weick’s Managing the Unexpected (2007) explores how “high reliability organizations” like emergency rooms, air traffic control, and military and firefighting units manage and organize for reliable performance under conditions of risk and uncertainty, offering lessons for any organization. The insurance actuary is another key risk management professional who builds forecasts in a variety of areas, using conservative, quantitative strategies for dealing with risk and uncertainty.

Like legal advice, both risk management and insurance subspecialties are presently being exponentially changed by InsurTech startups, which are greatly lowering the cost and access to this very old business function. Be sure to have those responsible for this specialty in your or your client’s firm regularly read websites like Insurance Technology News, and consider attending a leading InsurTech conference, like InsureTech Connect.

While Kirton’s Creatives (Chapter 2) are not a typical hire in the security department, they make great advisors and consultants to that department. Creatives can be highly effective here, when leaders recognize their value. The best firms always employ or work with a few innovators and rule-breakers in their security departments, engaging them in continual efforts to try to break the organization’s security capabilities and expose their flaws. For IT departments, white hat hackers are a particularly well known example, but there are many others.

Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile (2012) gives more on the value of this approach to security foresight. Another powerful and underused security foresight method, from the Facilitation & Gaming foresight specialty, is wargaming, a way to test operational security against creative adversaries, in a game-based simulation, run by your strategy or security employees, or external consultants. Herman and Frost’s Wargaming for Leaders (2008), describes Booz Allen Hamilton’s work building competitive strategy games (“wargames”) for corporate and military clients.

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Table of Contents

guideintrobookwhite

Chapter 2. Personal Foresight – Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 2: Personal Foresight

Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 4. Models – Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 4: Models

Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 7. Acceleration – Guiding Our Extraordinary Future

Chapter 7: Acceleration

Guiding Our Extraordinary Future (In Process)

II. Global Progress: 5 Goals, 10 Values, Many Trends

Innovation: Our Abundant Future
Intelligence: Our Augmented Future
Interdependence: Our Civil Future
Immunity: Our Protected Future
Sustainability: Our Rebalanced Future

III. Universal Accelerating Change

Great Race to Inner Space: Our Surprising Future
Entropy&Information: We’re Running Down & Up
The Puzzle of Meaning: We Have No Einstein Yet
Trees, Funnels & Landscapes: Intro to Evo Devo
Big Picture Change: Five Scales of Accelerating ED
Transcension Hypothesis: Where Acceleratn Ends?
IDABDAK: Social Response to Accel & Developmnt
We’re On a Runaway Train: Being Accelaware

IV. Evo Devo and Exponential Foresight

Seeing It All: Accel., Diverg, Adapt, Convrg, Decel.
Natural (I4S) Innovation: The Evolutionary Drive
Natural (I4S) Intelligence: The Human-AI Partnership
Natural (I4S) Morality: Why Empathy and Ethics Rule
Natural (I4S) Security: Strength from Disruption
Natural (I4S) Sustainability: The Developmental Drive
S-Curves: Managing the Four Constituencies
Pain to Gain: Traversing the Three Kuznets Phases
Hype to Reality: Beyond Hype Cycles to Reality Checks
Exponentials Database: Measuring Accelerations
TINA Trends: Societal Evolutionary Development
Managing Change: STEEPCOP Events, Probs, Ideas
A Great Shift: A Survival to a Sentient Economy

V. Evo Devo and Exponential Activism

Building Protopias: Five Goals of Social Progress
Normative Foresight: Ten Values of Society
Top & STEEPCOP Acceleratns: Positive & Negative
Dystopias, Risks, and Failure States
Three Levels of Activism: People, Tech & Universe
A Great Opportunity: Exponential Empowerment

 

Chapter 8. Your Digital Self – The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

Chapter 8: Your Digital Self

The Human Face of the Coming Singularity (In Process)

I. Your Personal AI (PAI): Your Digital Self

Digital Society: Data, Mediation, and Agents
Personal AIs: Advancing the Five Goals
PAI Innovation: Abundance and Diversity
PAI Intelligence: Bio-Inspired AI
PAI Morality: Selection and Groupnets
PAI Security: Safe Learning Agents
PAI Sustainability: Science and Balance
The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

II. PAI Protopias & Dystopias in 8 Domains

1. Personal Agents: News, Ent., Education
2. Social Agents: Relat. and Social Justice
3. Political Agents :  Activism & Represent.
4. Economic Agents:  Retail, Finance, Entrep
5. Builder Agents :  Work, Innov. & Science
6. Environ. Agents : Pop. and Sustainability
7. Health Agents :  Health, Wellness, Death
8. Security Agents :  Def., Crime, Corrections

III. PAI Activism & Exponential Empowerment

Next Government: PAIs, Groupnets, Democ.
Next Economy: Creat. Destr. & Basic Income
Next Society: PAI Ent., Mortality & Uploading
What Will Your PAI Contribution Be?

Chapter 10. Startup Ideas – Great Product & Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs

Chapter 10: Startup Ideas

Great Product and Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs (In Process)

I. 4U’s Idea Hub: Building Better Futures

Air Deliveries and Air Taxis: Finally Solving Urban Gridlock
Ballistic Shields and Gun Control: Protecting Us All from Lone Shooters
Bioinspiration Wiki: Biomimetics and Bio-Inspired Design
Brain Preservation Services: Memory and Mortality Redefined
Carcams: Document Thieves, Bad Driving, and Bad Behavior
Competition in Govt Services: Less Corruption, More Innovation
Computer Adaptive Education (CAE): Better Learning and Training
Conversational Deep Learning Devsuites: Millions of AI Coders
Digital Tables: Telepresence, Games, Entertainment & Education
Dynaships: Sustainable Low-Speed Cargo Shipping
Electromagnetic Suspension: Nausea-Free Working & Reading in Cars
Epigenetic Health Tests: Cellular Aging, Bad Diet, Body Abuse Feedback
Fireline Explosives and Ember Drones: Next-Gen Fire Control
Global English: Empowering the Next Generation of Global Youth
Greenbots: Drone Seeders and Robotic Waterers for Mass Regreening
High-Density Housing and Zoning: Making Our Cities Affordable Again
Highway Enclosures and Trail Networks: Green and Quiet Urban Space
Inflatable Packaging: Faster and Greener Shipping and Returns
Internet of Families: Connecting People Over Things
Kidcams: Next-Gen Security for Child Safety and Empowerment
Kidpods: Indoor & Outdoor Parent-Assistive Toyboxes
Microdesalination: Democratizing Sustainable Fresh Water Production
Noise Monitors: Documenting and Reducing Noise Pollution
Oceanside Baths: Sustainable Year Round Beach Enjoyment
Open Blood Scanners: DIY Citizen Health Care Sensor Tech
Open Streaming Radio: User-Centered Audio Creation and Rating
Open Streaming Video: User-Centered Video Creation and Rating
Open Values Filters: Social Rankers, Arg. Mappers, and Consensus Finders
Personal AIs: Your Private Advisor, Activist, and Interface to the World
Pet Empowerment: Next-Gen Rights and Abilities for Our Domestic Animals
Safe Closets: Fire-, Earthquake-, and Intruder-Proof Retreat Spaces
Safe Cars: Reducing Our Insane 1.3M Annual Auto Deaths Today
Safe Motorcycles: Lane Splitting in Gridlock Without Risk of Death
Shared Value Insurance: User-Centered Risk Reduction Services
Sleeperbuses and Microhotels: Demonetized Intercity Travel
Space-Based Solar Power: Stratellite Powering and Weather Management
Stratellites: Next-Gen Urban Broadband, Transparency, and Security
Touch DNA: Next-Gen Home Security and Crime Deterrence
View Towers: Improving Urban Walkability, Inspiration, and Community

Chapter 11. Evo Devo Foresight – Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Chapter 11: Evo Devo Foresight

Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Appendix 1. Peer Advice – Building a Successful Foresight Practice