Six Strategies For Making Smarter Decisions
Broaden your options - Instead of Options A and B, what about C or even D? A
technique I use in working with client organizations is to set up a “challenge
statement” that inevitably reveals multiple possibilities to be decided upon.
I’ll have small groups of four or five people take 10 minutes to list all the
options without discussing or critiquing them during the exercise. Frame
challenge statements thusly: “In what ways might we accomplish X?” ... Listen
to your gut - Intuition is knowing something without knowing quite how we know
it. All of us have it, but in a data-driven world, listening to it becomes
harder. Before making an important choice, one executive I interviewed gathers
information, weighs all the facts – then takes time to stop and listen to what
his gut is telling him. “When a decision doesn’t feel good,” one executive
commented, “It feels like a stomachache. And when a decision feels right, it’s
like I’ve eaten a great meal. If I don’t feel good in my gut about a decision,
I don’t care if the numbers say we’re going to make a billion dollars, I won’t
go ahead with it. That’s how important intuition is to me.”
Overcoming Stagnation And Implementing Change To Facilitate Business Growth: The How-To
Overcoming stagnation is about understanding that doing the same thing over
and over again will give you the same results over and over again. But
bringing about change in the former will naturally impact the latter. The
three main objectives in any transformation initiative that aims to set up a
strong foundation to scale or grow a business are: become financially lean
with the ability to scale either up or down as per market demands, become
internally efficient, and to run its day-to-day operations independent of its
founder or leader. ... Ideally, it would be wise to aim to maintain 60-70% of
the total operating cost as fixed costs, while keeping the remaining as
variable costs, allowing for flexibility to adjust the costing structure based
on business needs, while maintaining profitability throughout the transition-
and beyond. When an efficient business achieves this level of financial
optimization and is managed by a competent team, then the founder or leader
will have the time to work on the business, concentrating on long-term growth
strategic issues, instead of the day-to-day of the enterprise.
Build your resilience toolkit: 3 actionable strategies for HR leaders
Go beyond current job descriptions to identify talent or skill gaps. Focus on
future-focused talent acquisition strategies and design upskilling and
reskilling programs. Aim to close the skills gap and attract talent with
transferable skill sets and a growth mindset. This approach keeps your
workforce adaptable and prepared for future challenges. ... Adapting work
models and fostering continuous learning cultures are essential. HR leaders
can implement flexible work arrangements, such as remote or hybrid models.
Encouraging experimentation and risk-taking within teams, and integrating
continuous learning opportunities into performance management systems, are key
actionable tips. Agile approaches help HR leaders adapt quickly to shifting
business requirements. Collaborative work environments are critical in an
agile HR strategy. ... Open communication and safe spaces are essential for a
supportive culture. HR leaders can encourage employees to voice concerns by
creating channels for open dialogue. This approach ensures employees feel
heard and valued, contributing to a more inclusive workplace.
The 4 skills you need to engineer a career in automation
Automation engineers are often required to work cohesively with
multidisciplinary teams and for that reason, it can be useful to have a solid
grasp of workplace soft skills, in addition to compulsory hard skills.
Automation engineers are expected to take complex, highly nuanced information
and relay it back to not only their peers, but to people who do not have a
strong technical background. This requires expert communication skills, as
well as an ability to collaborate. ... If you are considering a career as an
automation engineer, then a foundational understanding of programming
languages and how they are applied is compulsory, as you will frequently need
to write and maintain the code that keeps operation systems running. The
choice of programming language greatly impacts the success of automation in
the workplace, as it will provide and improve versatility, scalability and
integration. ... As AI advances, global workplaces will have to evolve in
tandem, meaning automation engineers will have to have a standard level of AI
and machine learning skills to stay competitive.
Navigating the Evolving World of Cybersecurity Regulations in Financial Services
Accountability for cybersecurity measures is a key element of the NYDFS
regulations. CISOs now must provide a report updating their governing body or
board of directors on the company’s cybersecurity posture and plans to fix any
security gaps, Burke says. Maintaining accountability entails communicating with
the board about cybersecurity risks, explains Kirk J. Nahra, partner and
co-chair of the cybersecurity and privacy practice at law firm WilmerHale. “The
board needs to understand that its job is to evaluate major issues for a
company, and a ransomware attack that shuts down the whole business is a major
risk,” Nahra says. “The boards have to become more sophisticated about
information security.” ... The NYDFS calls for organizations to have
cybersecurity policies that are reviewed and approved annually. Previously,
regulations concentrated more on processes and best practices, Nahra says. Now,
they are becoming more prescriptive, but multiple regulators are inconsistent,
and their standards may conflict at times.
How Banks Can Get Past the AI Hype and Deliver Real Results
If the bank’s backend systems aren’t automated, all the rapidly responding
chatbot has done is make a promise that a human will have to solve when they
finally get to that point in the inbox, Bandyopadhyay says. When they ultimately
get back to the customer, that efficient chatbot doesn’t actually look so
efficient. Bandyopadhyay explains that this is merely meant as an illustration
of the bank has to be ready for front ends and back ends of customer-facing
systems to be in synch. The potential result is alienating customers with
significant problems. ... The real power of GenAI is its ability to digest and
deploy unstructured data. But Bandyopadhyay points out that most banks use
legacy systems that can’t capture any of that information. “It’s not data that
you put in rows and columns on a spreadsheet,” says Bandyopadhyay. “It’s what
language we write and that we speak.” To truly implement GenAI in the long run,
he continues, banks will have to lick the longstanding legacy systems problem.
Until then, most of their databases aren’t talking GenAI’s language.
Singapore lays the groundwork for smart data center growth
In a move that stunned industry observers, Singapore announced on May 30 that it
would release more data center capacity to the tune of 300MW, a substantial
figure and a new policy direction for the nation-state. ... The 300MW will come
as part of a newly unveiled Green Data Centre (DC) Roadmap drawn up by IMDA, so
it does have conditions attached. According to the statutory board, the roadmap
was developed to chart a “sustainable pathway” for the continued growth of data
centers in Singapore to support the nation’s digital economy. Per the roadmap,
Singapore hopes to work with the industry to pioneer solutions for more
resource-efficient data centers. One way to view it is as a carrot that it can
use to spur data center operators to innovate and accelerate data center
efficiency on both hardware and software levels. It is all well and good to talk
about allocating hundreds of megawatts of capacity for data centers. But with
electrical grids around the world heaving from electrification and sharply
rising power demands, is Singapore in a position to deliver this capacity to
data center operators today?
Information Blocking of Patient Records Could Cost Providers
Information blocking is defined as a practice that is likely to interfere with
the access, exchange or use of electronic health information, except as required
by law or specified in one of nine information blocking exceptions. ... Under
the security exception, it is not considered information blocking for an actor
to interfere with the access, exchange or use of EHI to protect the security of
that information, provided certain conditions are met. For example, during a
security incident, such as a ransomware attack, a healthcare provider might be
unable to provide access or exchange to certain EHI for a time, and that would
not constitute information blocking. ... So, as of now, if a healthcare provider
does not participate in any of the CMS payment programs that are currently
subject to the disincentives, they do not face any potential penalties for
information blocking. But that could change moving forward. HHS officials during
a briefing with media on Monday said HHS is considering adding other
disincentives for healthcare providers that do not participate in such CMS
programs.
How is AI transforming the insurtech sector?
The use of AI also brings risks and ethical considerations for insurers and
insurtech firms. “With all AI, you need to understand where the AI models are
from and where the data is being trained from and, importantly, whether there is
an in-built bias,” says Kevin Gaut, chief technology officer at insurtech
INSTANDA. “Proper due diligence on the data is the key, even with your own
internal data.” It’s essential, too, that organisations can explain any
decisions that are taken, warns Muylle, and that there is at least some human
oversight. “A notable issue is the black-box nature of some AI algorithms that
produce results without explanation,” he warns. “To address this, it’s essential
to involve humans in the decision-making loop, establish clear AI principles and
involve an AI review board or third party. Companies can avoid pitfalls by being
transparent with their AI use and co-operating when questioned.” AI applications
themselves also raise the potential for organisations to get caught out in
cyber-attacks. “Perpetrators can use generative AI to produce highly believable
yet fraudulent insurance claims,” points out Brugger.
Evaluating crisis experience in CISO hiring: What to look for and look out for
So long as a candidate’s track record is verifiable and clear in its
contribution to intrusion events, direct experience of a crisis may actually be
more indicative of future success than more traditional metrics. By contrast, be
wary of the “onlookers,” those individuals with qualifications but whose learned
experience comes from arm’s length involvement in a crisis. While such persons
may contribute positively to their organization, the role of the crisis in their
hiring should be de-emphasized relative to more conventional metrics of future
performance. ... The emerging consensus of research is that being present for
multiple stages of the response lifecycle — being impacted by an attack’s
disruptions or helping with preparedness for a future response — is far better
experience than simply witnessing an attack. Those who experience the initial
effects of a compromise or other attack and then go on to orient, analyze, and
engage in mitigation activities are the ones for whom over-generalization and
perverse informational reactions appear less likely.
Quote for the day:
"The most powerful leadership tool you
have is your own personal example." -- John Wooden
