In the wake of last weekend's failed attempt to launch Times Square night life into orbit, security and non-security practitioners alike are taking comfort in dismissing the threat of such amateur attacks. A Washington Post-affiliated blogger noted how boneheaded such attackers appear. True enough, until an attack succeeds. An alternative analysis, however, is accessible to anyone who examines such attacks through a management prism.
One such prism comes from trying to understand why our best and brightest consistently under perform in a management exercise sometimes called the marshmallow challenge. (If you want to see the details and exposition of these findings in a few minutes, see http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html ). The point of the exercise is for a team to make the tallest possible tower out of a marshmallow, some strands of uncooked spaghetti, duct tape, and string -- where the marshmallow must rest atop the structure that the team builds. There is a time limit imposed, too. MBAs consistently approach the challenge with highfalutin planning and theorizing. As a result, they talk themselves out of time and erect no tower, or put together an imposing structure that falls apart when they finally place the marshmallow on top. What group outpaces these people dramatically? You guessed it: kindergartners Why? Instead of planning and talking the problem to death, they start by putting the marshmallow on top of a spaghetti strand and then just keep trying until they land on what works.
So, here we are. Like the MBAs in this story, we sneer and cackle at the kindergarten-like lack of sophistication at attack attempts that just don't stop. And somewhere there are very focused and committed kindergartners affixing yet another explosive marshmallow onto a sturdier tower, learning by doing, oblivious to our derision. Still feeling comfortably superior?
-- Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.