The New, Improved Maslow's Hierarcy of Needs

########## NEWS FLASH!! ##########

In his seminal work A Theory of Human Motivation, Abraham Maslow introduced the world to his model depicting the hierarchy of needs required by humans.  However, after substantial analysis, re-analysis, and re-re-analysis a new foundational layer has been added to his model that is even more fundamental than a human's basic need for physiological elements such as air, water, etc.  

A new model has been developed and shown with the new foundational level below:

So, the next time you are surrounded by groups of humans you will almost always see them searching for the fundamental requirement of life....Wi Fi!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mr. Gisli Olafsson -- A True and Proven Crisis Leader

I am currently a student in the University of Washington Masters of Infrastructure Planning and Management (IPM) program.  This quarter I am taking IPM501, Comprehensive Emergency Management.  As part of this course one of our required readings is an excellent crisis leadership book by Mr. Gisli Olafsson entitled The Crisis Leader.

We were very fortunate to "virtually meet" Mr. Olafsson on an Adobe Connect lecture on July 29th where Mr. Olafsson took 90 minutes to highlight his experiences as an urban search and rescue leader including his experience as a team leader for Iceland's International Urban Search and Rescue team (ICE-SAR) immediately after the tragic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010.

Overall, Mr. Olafsson is a very compelling and experienced emergency response manager and leader with some excellent -- albeit tragic -- stories from his experiences responding to disasters around the world.  In his lecture he raised some excellent comments and ideas about the role of leadership during a crisis.  Some of the key ideas and comments he raised are captured below:

CL = Y + T + R

The equation above is one way Mr. Olafsson tried to explain what crisis leadership includes and entails.  The terms are first interpreted as:

CL = Crisis Leadership

Y = You

T = Team

R = Response

In summary he used this equation as a way to help capture some key aspects of personal leadership.

Y = You

You need to know yourself -- you need to know how you react under times of stress and crisis and how you deal with events -- including those events with substantial amounts of death and destruction.  You need to understand your emotions, fears and how to deal with these psychological arrows so you can be an effective leader.

Mr. Olafsson pointed out that key to the "You" aspect is to realize that you need to trust your team and their capabilities in order to control and even block your fear.  You need to be prepared for the task at hand by knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.  You also need to be physically and psychologically fit to endure the long hours and stressful conditions.

T = Team

Paramount elements for leadership success includes being resilient (also referred to as "Semper Gumby" as a reference to the very flexible cartoon character).  Secondly, you need to always be preparing through planning and exercising.. 

Mr. Olafsson noted that as a rule of thumb from a World Bank document on Natural Hazards Unnatural Disasters that for every hour or preparation spent you can expect to save six hours of effort; similarly for every dollar spent you can expect to save six dollars.

You want to build your team so that you are a "...leader of leaders..." where the team members are empowered to not only do their job but also to fill the role as a leader as required for the situation and based on their technical specialties/expertise.  Don't be a micromanager but lead your "leaders" so they are effective and the job gets done.

R = Respond

Response to a crisis is a key reason why you are at the disaster.  But, you are surrounded by many challenges ranging from the disaster itself to the weather to the debris field to the emotional survivors and even to the smell.  First you need to focus -- block the external stimuli and do your task at hand.  Secondly, take advantage of the intelligence and help that can be provided by the local population affected by the disaster.  Apparently FEMA in the U.S. refers to this concept as "Survivor-centric Response."

Responding requires a team with solid morale.  As noted in Chapter 25, "Team Morale," Mr. Olafsson states, "No matter which way it starts out , one of your crucial roles as a leader is to ensure that you keep morale high, even during the most difficult times.  Your ability to do that depends on a number of things including:

• Your rapport with team members...
• Your ability to read others...
• Your ability to understand how the situation is affecting people..."

Conclusion

If you are a leader of any sort -- but especially one placed -- or potentially placed -- into an emergency situation or worse yet a disaster, I would highly recommend you take time to read, digest and contemplate the excellent and field-proven advice offered in this book by Mr. Olafsson.  As a 40+ year leader myself, I found his advice to be "...right on..." and useful for my professional and personal leadership roles.

Mr. Olafsson's website is:  www.thecrisisleader.com and he can be followed on Twitter @gislio

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Neuroscience, Risk and Security

For years I have been a student and practitioner of security – both cyber and physical.  My initial years focused on the “Security 101” elements with a “castle and moat” approach for both physical assets and cyber (i.e., the “walls” were “firewalls”).  Over time, however, I’ve realized that there is more to security than wondering about the bits and bytes or the sizes of chain link fence mesh.  Instead, I’ve begun to recognize more and more that the human element – that is the attacker and defender – needs to be studied and recognized as a key element.

(Artwork from Microsoft Open Source)

I’ve realized – with some considerable influence from Bruce Schneier in his seminal essay “The Psychology of Security,” and from other thought leaders in the security space such as Kirk Bailey at the University of Washington or Robert Coles at GlaxoSmithKlein -- that you need to understand what motivates the attacker and what helps the defender recognize new ways and means of defending against the wiley aggressor.

In other words, I came to realize that neuroscience should play a key role in helping security professionals understand the attacker’s “brain” so to speak and thus their motivations.

Samad Aidane PMP

Last night I had a fascinating discussion on this very subject with my friend and colleague Mr. Samad Aidane.  Samad and I first met in 2004 or so when I was the information security manager/CISO at the Port of Seattle.  Samad was a newly hired project manager.  Since then we have both expanded our horizons and Samad has evolved his expertise in the realm of neuroscience and project management as well as risk.

Anyway, our conversation tonight revolved around Samad’s new research and focus on the neuroscience behind effective project management and risk.  In fact, Samad has even begun a blog at Neurofrontier.com to expand his and his reader’s awareness of neuroscience and leadership.  I’d like to suggest you take a look at his blog and get a sense of his perspectives on this new science.

A key take-away from my conversation with Samad was that how the brain functions when analyzing risk may be excellent knowledge for security and risk professionals to leverage when dealing with risk analysis decisions.  Similarly, understanding how the brain functions when establishing attack and defense concepts may be very useful to the cyber and physical security defender.  And, of course, if you lean on the concept of “Assumption of Breach”[1] for your enterprise cyber and physical defense, perhaps knowing how the brain functions and reacts could be very useful.

I am excited about the new ideas raised by Samad last evening and I look forward to our next meeting and discussions.  In the meantime, take a moment to look at Samad’s website and review some of his ideas.  You may see a sliver of some new concepts for the security profession to lean on as we try to stop the bad guys!

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[1] For my past articles on this subject please go to my article in Asian Power at http://asian-power.com/node/11144 or my article in SearchSecurity at http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/Assumption-of-breach-How-a-new-mindset-can-help-protect-critical-data