Month: December 2017

Hi folks,

The other night I went to a concert with some friends (or a “show” for you cool kids out there).

On the way to the show, a friend reminded me that I had actually seen the headline band as an opening act nearly 15 years ago. I had forgotten, but as I dug into my faded memory, I recalled very positive feelings and impressions from way back when. I was looking forward to another great experience. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. The band’s style had changed over the years, and I wasn’t a fan of their new music. Plus, I may be a bit less easily impressed in my old age…

When it was over, I was chatting with my friend about our impressions of what we just saw. I told him that I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did 15 years ago.

• • Friend: What?! You didn’t even remember seeing them until I reminded you. How could you possibly compare the two experiences given your lackluster memory?
  • Me: Yeah, but I remember how I felt 15 years ago – I felt impressed and like I had just witnessed something new. I didn’t get that tonight.
  • Friend: You’re an idiot.

He may be right, but I stand by my assessment. The whole interaction reminded me of a great Maya Angelou quote:

Which, apparently, she never said and is misattributed to her. But it sounds like something she’d say and it’s a good quote, so why waste the attribution on some random dude instead of an authority on life like Maya Angelou?

Anyhow, the quote is powerful in its message. As time goes on, our everyday words and deeds may fade, but the way we made each other feel will remain with us until the end. Getting that finding closed, fixing that broken data source, implementing that new program – that’s all super important. But the core of what we do is service. Service to our country, service to our stakeholders, and service to each other. And if we can only get those important things done at the expense of our relationships with each other, then we’ve failed the big picture.

So in this season of thanksgiving, peace, and reflection, I hope we leave each other with feelings of appreciation, compassion, and camaraderie. We’re all in this together doing the best we can to serve a greater good. Thanks for everything you do.

Rex

Hi folks,

Last week I talked about how my battle against the leaves in my yard allows me to listen to some audio books. I just wrapped up McCullough’s 1776, which feels seasonally appropriate given that, in 1776, Washington finished the year with a spectacular victory at Trenton.

But before he enjoyed the victory at Trenton, he suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the British. Perhaps the most confounding in retrospect is the defeat at Fort Washington just weeks earlier in November of 1776.

Fort Washington and its twin Fort Lee were built by the Americans in the summer of 1776 to help prevent the insanely huge and powerful British fleet from sailing up the Hudson and outflanking the Americans. The forts were well built and the Americans were confident they would serve the purpose. They stocked the forts with men, weapons, and supplies and waited for their opportunity to prove their effectiveness.

On October 9th, that chance came. Three British warships sailed up the Hudson and, to the Americans’ dismay, passed right by the forts with minimal damage.

The forts had been proven ineffective at their mission to secure the Hudson. Yet Washington and his leadership continued to maintain the forts, leaving thousands of men there even though Washington himself wondered aloud about the wisdom of doing so:

If we cannot prevent vessels passing up [the Hudson], and the enemy are possessed of the surrounding country, what valuable purpose can it answer to attempt to hold such a post from which the expected benefit cannot be had. I am therefore inclined to think it will not be prudent to hazard the men and stores.

And he was right. On November 16, British forces overran the fort. The Americans suffered 3,000 casualties and lost numerous valuable supplies. It was a devastating, unnecessary defeat that nearly cost us the war. Washington and his leadership failed to act on changes in their underlying assumptions.

Hundreds of years later, Victor Frankl would say this about this about stimulus and response:

Frankl is cautioning people against reacting without thinking, but the converse is just a dangerous – failing to react. In Washington’s case, he knew that the forts had been proven ineffective and he recognized the risk of continuing to maintain them, but he failed to change course.

It’s often easier for us to maintain our current course even as the world around us changes. But by doing so we risk finding ourselves in a situation like Washington – doing things that are no longer relevant to the environment in which we live. In dynamic fields like IT security, this is particularly true. Some hypothetical examples:

• Why do some organizations still require 13 character complex passwords when they’ve implemented two factor authentication and have accounts lockout after 5 failed attempts?
• Why does some technology only look for data exfil over port 80 and 21 when they know attackers now use 53 and others?

As the conditions surrounding a decision change, it makes sense to reexamine that decision. Sometimes it will still make sense to continue with the current course of action. But sometimes what we’re doing simply no longer makes sense, and we put ourselves at risk by refusing to change.

So while Washington was a role model in many ways, we also have the opportunity to learn from his mistakes. We should question assumptions and decisions when we get new information and then we should change as necessary. Otherwise we risk being outflanked by the British and thrown on a prison ship with a 33% chance of survival… or maybe we risk finding ourselves following outdated practices. Either or.

Rex

Hi folks,

It’s the tail end of fall, which for me means a mad dash to rake all the leaves in my yard to the curb so the city can vacuum them up.

And since I gratefully have a bunch of trees, I spend a lot of time getting those leaves out of my yard. To make the most of it, I usually listen to audio books while I rake. Recently, I’ve been listening to David McCullough’s 1776. It’s a riveting review of the year of our nation’s birth. The author draws upon a variety of sources to tell the story, including journals of British generals.

Henry Clinton was a Major General in the British army who was sent to America in 1775 to help quell the rebellion. While he was apparently a gifted intellectual and military leader, he also had an abrasive personality and hadn’t developed a good working relationship with his superior, General Howe. Following a series of setbacks and failures in the Carolinas, Clinton rejoined Howe’s main forces to assault New York City in August of 1776.

Clinton had lots of ideas about how to attack the rebels entrenched at New York, but he began to annoy Howe with his suggestions and wasn’t making traction. Instead, Clinton took his plans and gave them to a peer – General Burgoyne – to deliver to Howe for consideration. Howe, receiving the message from a more trusted and respected source, adopted the plans and used them to defeat the Americans in the battle of Long Island.

By changing the messenger of his plans, Clinton followed one of the lessons laid out in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In Rhetoric, Aristotle lays out the basis for rhetorical theory. He identifies three modes of persuasion; ethos (the personal character of the speaker), pathos (the emotional influence of the speaker on the audience), and logos (the rational logic of the argument). Clinton realized that he wasn’t respected by Howe and, thus, wasn’t the best person to deliver his message. So he put aside his pride and gave his ideas to a more respected peer, letting him secure support for the argument. Clinton had prioritized the acceptance of the message over his personal image or reputation.

All too often we feel the need to be the sole messenger of our ideas. We do this for numerous reasons – maybe we don’t trust others to deliver the message effectively or maybe we want credit for the idea. But if the idea is what’s truly important, it’s critical that we assess our effectiveness as the messenger. Are we considered a credible source? Are we seen as an authority on the topic? Does the audience like us? And if the answer to any of these is no, who can better deliver the message? Because for as likeable as we all are, we’re not the right spokesman for every situation.

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