Cyber CISO Marksmanship

As a Patriot, I have greatly enjoyed the 2000 movie The Patriot, where Mel Gibson plays the role of Mark Baker, an American colonist swept into war. Baker teaches his sons to “Aim small-miss small” when learning how to shoot a Muzzleloader rifle.

Growing up in the countryside of Oregon, I had the opportunity of a shooting deck off the upstairs of our home into the backside of 25 acres where I shot thousands of rounds a year. I gained confidence and creativity! Soon, I found myself throwing pieces of glass into the air and then shooting them before they hit the ground. Then I shot down small trees. Then there were the small green army men – yes, army men!

In teaching my son to shoot long range, we set up targets from 100 to 500 yards in the late morning with winds varying from 10 to 20 mph during that morning. He had a new weapon, but it shot well for him. He was happily dropping lots of ammo into an area, excited to feel the power of his new weapon and to see how well it performed under fire. I, however, had a different goal. I wanted to drop a bullet hole inside of a bullet hole as I prepared for a long-range hunt later in the year. While he destroyed a boulder into smaller rocks, I shot two times, nearly touching at long range. We both achieved success in our goals.

Then came a new challenge, hitting a smaller object at range, a water bottle at 400 yards. I spotted that he dropped shots and attempted to adjust his shots, but success did not come for him. The old man in me would internally argue that his shooting style and methods set him up for this outcome. If he drops enough lead in the area, he’ll eventually get lucky, but he hasn’t been shooting for accuracy, based upon technique and precision, focused on the details for success. I chose to encourage him until he was ready to learn at a later time, this was not a time for correction.

Aim Small, Miss Small is a clear and focused mission and journey. You don’t get there easily, you earn it! You must be intentional at each step with your techniques and methods, building muscle memory and tactics to ensure success, so that when you are in a situation, you can aim small and hit the mark. I found this to be true when hunting for Whitetail deer a few years earlier. I was setting up scent sticks and hadn’t set up my blind yet, with a chair on my shoulder still, when deer started coming in inside a deep wooded forested area. The deer started running as I took the chair off my shoulder. I had one small window in which to make my shot, which I did when the buck crossed that window, hitting my mark, with a successful harvest. There wasn’t time to think, only to act, upon years of practice leading up to that moment.

As a cybersecurity leader, how are you intentionally aiming small and missing small? What are the tactics that you intentionally pursue for success and evangelize to those around you for a successful outcome? When disaster strikes and stress elevates, does your muscle memory kick in with success as a result of your intentional efforts day in and day out? Do you perform lessons learned with humility, continually learning towards improvement? Aim small, miss small!

It had been a long and busy day as an executive when I sat down to make a direct call to a hotel to book a night for upcoming travel. The gentleman who answered the phone asked if I could be placed on hold and had a quaking, almost nervous voice when asking me to do so. A few minutes later he rejoined the call and our discussion began, with quick frustration on my part.

This person should not be in charge of customer service or answering phones. He wasn’t efficient (which I noticed all too well in my worn-out state), lacked confidence in how he spoke, was seemingly unorganized, required repeating of information often, and was hard to work with over the phone. Emotionally I began to escalate while controlling my words and tone (mostly).

As a leader, I pride myself on emotional awareness in myself and others so that I can respond to challenging situations instead of reacting. Emotions are critical in our human experience but do not need to be what undermines our ability to communicate effectively when we are not at our best or having poor interaction with another person. I took responsibility for my tired state, likely being more easily agitated, and sought to then understand, “What is the person on the other end of the line likely dealing with; what are their challenges?”

It is a humble and selfless act, motivated by love and peace, when we consider others and lift them above ourselves. As a leader, this is essential for demonstrating how we treat others and lead by example.

Upon further reflection, I realized the individual on the phone was commonly switching the order of numbers and letters on his checking for understanding. In fact, severely – he was struggling with a severe case of dyslexia, reversing letters and numbers while trying to diligently capture all my required information for my hotel booking.

I then approached the individual differently, changed my tone, and stated gently when he was apologetic for yet another wrong checking for understanding interaction over the phone, “It’s ok I can tell you’re likely struggling with dyslexia.” I then changed how I shared information with this individual, such as spelling my name out letter by letter, going slowly, and then saying things like “Ken” for “Kilo”, to give him time to process, hear what was correct, as he was writing it down, helping him to be successful. All those years as a teacher, learning styles, and working with a wide variety of people, came in handy once again! The call went very smoothly from this point onwards.

When we completed the call the individual was extremely thankful for how I handled the situation, and yet still very apologetic too, because he knew he struggled at the job with his learning disability. With true empathy and love, I warmly thanked him for his hard work and doing a great job of booking and told him it was a pleasure working with him. We ended on a very high note.

TRUST was established on this call, because a connection was made, genuine, heartfelt, driven by humility and love and consideration of others. What if I had chosen to be reactive and selfish and all about me? I likely would have become demanding, angry, insulting, escalating, or worse. This would have violated trust, making things worse with less chance of a successful outcome (driving up anxiety and likely increasing learning disability challenges), and personalized a sense of failure to the man making the booking.

We all have lives and we never know the full story of the person on the other end of the line. Kindness, love, and humility in leadership, with thoughtfulness towards others, is always a good line to lead with as you seek to connect with others and make a difference in the world.

As the sun rose my face began to warm from the cold morning of shooting across the mountain range at a distance ranging from 100 to ~450 yards with a new scope and gun setup. Thermals soon kicked in with a variable 20 mph wind making it difficult from a windage perspective, but if we held it carefully, and tight, and used solid shooting techniques, we should still be able to get a solid grouping over 400 yards to see how it performs and rough-in our scope.

I only had two sandbags with me for a quick shoot on this rough-in day, set up on the corner of the truck. The target ranged at 456 yards down range. I held steady on the target and fired, and it felt good. As an experienced shooter, I know this was a good solid shot, and follow through. I could see the shot to the upper right and high above the small target we had put on a large cardboard at range. The second shot was jerked with my finger and was a good shot, to the left. I settled into my third shot which was another solid shot to round out my three-shot group.

Upon reviewing the grouping of shots with a less experienced shooter I asked where the “center” was for the shots. The inexperienced shooter immediately stated that it would go between the three shots as shown in A below. The experienced shooter stated that the shot on the left is a flyer that the two on the right are the actual grouping and that adjustments are to be made based off of the actual grouping on the right. In this case, to hit the target the scope needs to be adjusted approximately 4″ to the left and 4″ down to hit center.

Hitting the mark, if you don’t have context and an expert to guide you, WILL lead to a loss of time and money. In this case additional shots, expensive ammo, and frustration. An experienced marksman can easily, with good techniques and interpretation, sight in a rifle and adjust for various ranges with minimal ammunition used compared to those that make assumptions or make mistakes at the range.

Always have the right leaders in the right roles to avoid major mistakes, inefficiencies, and expense, and risks to the organization. This is especially true when performing digital transformation or attempting cultural change.