About building my skunkworks

Autumn is spider season where I live !

That's a cool picture I took today but I'd rather talk about skunks . . . . not spiders.  

I am kind of excited about it and very proud of the work being done by my skunk works guys but .....I need to explain that a little more.  

The guys on my skunk works team actually report to me in a really large corporation.  So I guess old-school management would say I can tell them to work on whatever I want them to work on. 

But . . . . these guys are seasoned 30+ year cyber professionals and they have a lot of other things that they need to work on...... in addition to my little skunk works project. 

So I can't really do that.  

Since I have responsibility for solution conceptualization for the Fortune 500,  I really need their best thinking. Trust me. 

I must tell you we have produced some amazing results.  But we did not get there in neither a smooth pathway nor in a linear fashion. 

You see, to be in my skunk works you have to really know what you're doing.   You have to be relevant to large-scale complex global organizations with their mindset that they want to defend themselves all by themselves all the time.  They always think they are smarter than we are.  

DIFFERENT ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER, BUT BETTER IS ALWAYS DIFFERENT

So I've learned a few things about building a skunk Works team that can develop solutions without all the corporate bureaucracy that usually goes with it. 

My first learning has been that my team and I rarely agree on anything. At least at first. Our guiding skunk works principle is we want to radically change and provoke cyber professionals into thinking about solutioning in radically different ways.  That's pretty bold stuff so it would be a irrational to believe that seasoned professionals would agree on paradigm shift.  (See my earlier post on what paradigm shift really means)

Secondly I find myself spending a lot of time seeking clarity of communication and common definitions that we can agree upon.  Wow there I said it. Write that phrase down. 

As a flyer in the Air Force we always repeated verbal commands back to the party issuing the command.  In essence we were saying, "I heard you and here's what I heard you saying, is that correct?  

Wow what a concept.  (I even use it with my wife and kids). 

Try that communication style in your cyber business life.  Just tell people, "I am hearing you and here's what I think you are saying.  Am I right?

I think your cyber life will get a lot easier and we all need that.  

HERE IS OUR NEW WORD FOR TODAY . . . 

WATCH OUT FOR IT IN CYBER LIFE

Velleity

Oxford calls it: A wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action. Our in-the-trenches definition: The desire, with no intention of doing anything.