Challenges organisational leaders face in implementing security strategies

Kyle Condon, MD of D&K Management Consultants

When organisational leaders are approached by other managers and leaders with queries about issues (such as internal theft), these leaders tend to respond by detailing their devised plans of action. Strategies that would need to be implemented when tackling issues of suspected theft versus discovered theft, as well as ways forward to minimise and recover loss, are known and described.

In these discussions, the points that seem to be brought forth most commonly are those of the various ways one could go about devising company strategies that are suited to the company structure. Detailing the application and the utilisation of various technologies would also be discussed. Finally, the use of these strategies in combination with the technologies would be worked through. This would be done by detailing how these components would counter the loss problems created, and how they would enable the organisation to generate a safer and more secure environment.

Many leaders fall short

There is no doubt that the steps needing to be taken for both prevention and cure have been well thought out and each leader has a clear idea of how to execute them. This information is keenly shared with others in an often-altruistic act of bolstering the advice seeker's organisation.

While most organisational leaders have the wherewithal to understand the strategies needed and steps to be implemented, when queried about whether they have followed through with their own advice, many leaders seem to fall short. Strategies are often devised, implemented and followed during a time of crisis, however as the crisis passes, these seem to wear off and complacency sets in.

When queried on the lack of follow through or maintenance of implemented security strategies, the most common responses received were that leaders felt they were either too busy, too limited by budget constraints, or simply had found other tasks to be more pressing at the time and thus had not paid it the attention it needed.

As an expert in risk management I have seen it time and again. Business leaders know what they want and what they should do to keep their companies safe, and yet so many of them fail to do it. We help to get them back on track.