The cybersecurity industry is constantly evolving, facing new threats and challenges every day. To stay ahead of the curve, protect sensitive information, and protect lives (in case of cyber-kinetic risks), the industry requires a diverse range of skills, perspectives, and innovative solutions capable of tackling complex and evolving threats. The cybersecurity sector has a unique opportunity to harness the distinctive talents of neurodivergent individuals. Neurodiversity, which encompasses individuals with cognitive differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurodivergent descriptions, offers a unique and untapped talent pool for the cybersecurity sector.
The benefits of diversity, especially in tech spaces, are...
“Organizational bullshit” is a term coined to describe deceptive, vague, or otherwise misleading communication within an organization. “Organizational bullshit” is not an expletive. It is a legitimate academic term and the subject of serious and growing academic research on leadership. In his 1986 essay, “On Bullshit,” which later developed into a book by the same name, Princeton philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt, was the first to look at the phenomenon through a more analytical lens, making it something that can be identified and, therefore, addressed.
Frankfurt proposed that bullshit is different from lying. Unlike a liar that intentionally subverts the truth,...
There are many adjectives that could be used to describe the global outbreak of COVID-19, but perhaps the simplest might be: fast.
The disease has spread quicker than most people can mentally digest. By nature, humans process linearly. This pandemic has been a lesson in exponential thinking for the common man. Those who don’t spend their time contemplating Moore's Law or compound interest have felt overwhelmed by infection or mortality rates that double daily.
In response, governments, businesses, monetary institutions, education systems and the many other players in corporate and civil life have acted at high speed. It is easy to...
To remain competitive, organizations will increasingly have to innovate. As the speed of innovation increases, disrupting whole sectors, competitive intelligence, market intelligence even a bit of futurism will become essential skills.
Leaders will have to stay informed not only of macro trends in their industry but also in technology in general. And they will have to do more than merely report their findings to appropriate people higher in the organization. AI can easily do that. Instead, they will also have to develop a sense for how those trends could impact their organization, so they can assess how to get the...
It’s almost impossible to turn around nowadays without finding another article predicting the impact that AI and other emerging technologies – the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution – will have on our future. It’s one of the hottest topics being discussed by forward-thinking business leaders today. And well it should be. The fact that we are on the cusp of dramatic change in how business, workplaces and our very lives are carried out is inescapable.
Some writers picture a utopia where humankind is freed from manual labor, where machines do all the work and all people receive a universal basic income...
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government efforts to address this issue. Considering its success in developing research programs at its universities, its mediocre rankings overall in technology development is disappointing. Those programs alone have not been enough to translate into entrepreneurial innovation.
A 2017 C.D. Howe Institute study points out that, even though Canadians have been at the forefront of breakthroughs in emerging technologies, in many cases, the chief beneficiaries of those breakthroughs have been other nations’ economies. Canada needs to take a stronger role in building an environment in which...
If you’ve read the many predictions about the future of AI, you’ve likely found them to be wildly different. They range from AI spelling doom for humanity, to AI ushering in Golden Age of peace, harmony and culture, to AI producing barely a blip on society’s path toward ever-greater technological achievement.
Those three views – dystopian, utopian and organic – present issues we need to consider as we move deeper toward an AI-integrated future. Yet they also contain exaggerations and false assumptions that we need to separate from reality.
The Dystopian View of the AI Future
Those with a dystopian view of...
Giving feedback is hard.
Giving good feedback is even harder.
Giving good feedback across cultures is next to impossible.
On my first Canadian project two decades ago, my Canadian boss "suggested that I think about" doing something in a different manner. So I did. I thought about it, and I decided not to change anything.
Not long afterwards, our Canadian client provided feedback on my first deliverable. I was elated to hear that I had "some original ideas" and that my report was "relatively fine." They concluded with a suggestion that perhaps I "should consider rewording parts of it."
Never the one to go fixing what's...
Where AI, robots, IoT and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution are taking us, and how we should prepare for it are some of the hottest topics being discussed today. Perhaps the most striking thing about these discussions is how different people’s conclusions are.
Some picture a utopia where machines do all work, where all people receive a universal basic income from the revenues machines generate and where, being freed from a need to work for wages, all people devote their time to altruism, art and culture. Others picture a dystopia where a tiny elite class uses their control of AI...
Today’s business leadership face a conundrum. Artificial Intelligence (AI) unquestionably will play an enormous role in the future of their organizations and the business environment in which they operate, but what effects will it have? Prognosticators have wildly different visions of the future it will create, ranging from causing the extinction of humanity to ushering in a Golden Age in which machines provide all humanity’s needs and free us to focus on altruistic service to one another and the advancement of human culture.
Both of these most commonly heard predictions are based on assumptions that lead to wild speculation that...
The topic of diversity is not one that most people find in their comfort zone. As I wrote in a previous article on diversity, increasing diversity often engenders frustration in those tasked with accomplishing it, and inspires eye rolls among diversity-fatigued employees who have heard countless reports on management’s diversity goals, but remain unconvinced of diversity’s value.
Can anything be done to make diversity less of an uncomfortable topic?
The answer is no. Nothing about diversity will ever make it into the general business population’s comfort zone. I say that not out of cynicism, but out of practicality. At its root, diversity...
Modern theories of the firm remain focused on transaction costs, operational efficiency, employee motivation, leadership, strategy and other related factors. While any of these may support our success at various times, none of them alone will facilitate it in the long run. Even strategy, while vitally important, is set at a point in time and is vulnerable to change. The one factor that enables our company’s long-term viability is Enterprise Resilience which enables a company to adapt to a change.
Technological Upheaval
We are in an ever-shifting maelstrom of change. Climate change causes more frequent and intense natural disasters. Changing climate...
Don’t expect this to be either of the typical articles about diversity. I’m here not to fawn over its benefits nor to rant about who does or doesn’t get hired. I’m here, instead, to ask why we react to it in the baffling way we do, why it often accomplishes the exact opposite of its stated goals and what dramatic approaches we might take to make achieving its goals more realistic.
Announce a round of diversity training, or of progress toward reaching diversity hiring goals, and one thing is guaranteed. Eye rolls and sarcastic comments among workers will abound behind...
Several comments in response to my recent competency-focused post led me to also consider the importance of curiosity in the workplace. Interestingly enough, recent experiences have given me a chance to see firsthand the benefits of nurturing curiosity and how to do so as part of the DNA of the work environment.
Curiosity is a vital element in all aspects of innovation, yet is tightly confined by many companies to only certain stages of developing solutions. It’s a characteristic that all companies claim to value, but that many companies, in their actual culture, firmly suppress.
Curiosity increases employees’ value to the company and...