Greetings!
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger in the long run is no safer than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
~ Helen Keller ~ Helen Keller certainly knew what she was talking about! Being both blind and deaf is something most of us cannot even imagine. Ascending out of that deafening silence and tangible darkness to inspire the world is something incomprehensible. The mind simply accepts the fact without cognitive assent. I was recently reminded of the importance of ground confirmation. I was scheduled to deliver a program last week. Arriving at the city the afternoon before, I made cursory checks with my colleague about the state of preparations for the program which was to run for the next two days. Having been assured that everything was in hand, I proceeded to check in and make final preparations for delivery. The next morning, we arrived at the place, let's call it Location A, in good time. My colleague was rather baffled when he was asked to go to another location, Location B, a few hundred metres down the road. Nonetheless, we complied, as Location B had also been mentioned in the coordinating emails, and we assumed that there must have been some change of training venue. When we arrived at Location B down the road, everyone seemed to be expecting us. We were directed to the reception area and asked to wait for the contact person, a certain Serene, to arrive. After a while, my colleague tried calling Serene but was unable to reach her. The receptionist then informed us that "Serene" was on leave that day. This was rather mystifying, so we decided to return to Location A, which proved indeed to be the correct one. The guards had directed us to Location B by mistake. It turned out that there was also more than one "Serene"! Not waiting to find out what the mistake was, we proceeded to set up in the designated training room, and the rest of the day proceeded without a hitch. So what can we learn from this? The one thing, of course, is that safety, or rather an illusion of safety, is no security. Being a creature of habit, I had assumed that my colleague would have made all the necessary arrangements as he would usually have done, and he usually makes such arrangements very well. I should probably have insisted on a site visit as both Location A and Location B were new to us. Had that been done, we would have avoided the unnecessary diversion to Location B in the first place. It was a good thing that we were early, and not "on time", or we would have started the day on a very awkward footing by being late for the program. Has such a thing happened to you? Probably. What did you do about it? In retrospect, would you have done anything differently? Alan Weiss insists that he is constantly surprised by how stupid he was two weeks ago, and I think we ought to view ourselves and others in similar light. Not that we don't trust ourselves and others, but we ought to act circumspectly in the light of known human weaknesses. Yours and mine. And to keep growing our strength areas to offset those weaknesses, in ourselves and in each other. Last night, I attended a talk on computer security. It re-opened my long dormant security senses to things that I ought to attend to, or have someone attend to. A wake-up call for me was the fact that someone might have gotten into your system, copied all your information, but left your system intact. Many of us feel safe because "it looks the same, nothing has changed". Think again. There is no safety except in moving forward and being proactive - Making Things Happen! Check your systems, or have someone check it for you! So, is "security" really a "superstition" as Helen Keller put it? Respectfully, no. If you substitute"security" with the word "safety", which to most people really means "an illusion of safety", then yes. This is because the word "safety" has connotations that "Everything's Gonna Be Ok" or EGBOK, to borrow a phrase from Dr Ivan Misner. (And, by the way, EGBOK is usually true, but not because it is "safe"). "Security", however, has the connotation that we are taking active measures to reduce the threat levels in a hostile environment. And having done all, to continue our businesses and roll with the punches that will inevitably come our way. I suspect that's what Helen Keller meant, and I rather think she would approve. Go well! |
