I’m no expert in Secret Service procedures, protocols, and processes—one could argue that neither were they on the early evening of July 12th—so my take on what was clearly a severe lapse will be metaphorical.
Simply put, they failed to protect the perimeter. They left it wide open, with a mere four hundred feet between rooftop and lectern. Which inspires me to ask my colleagues in the C-Suite – those who run businesses, public and private—if they are looking at the corners and edges where risks and threats coalesce and are poised to attack.
The Secret Service had an anti-sniper, reactive mode, which clearly wasn’t enough. Are you also laboring in reactive mode?
This inability to see the obvious when it is slightly but far from imperceptibly out of range applies to a range of perimeter threats perched dangerously on roofs surrounding our enterprises.
Yes, I know that threat modeling in today’s dynamic reality landscape falls under the practice of Enterprise Risk Management—known as ERM. These activities are allegedly designed to identify and codify exactly what I am speaking of, but they aren’t working remotely at the level they should be. It’s a systemic failure that is manifest in everything from the epidemic of earnings surprises to legacy businesses being blind-sided by disruptive start-ups.
If risk was accurately assessed and addressed as clarity is gained along the way, there would be no need for the mass layoffs that have become normalized feature of our economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics even has a mass layoffs page.
What follows is an analysis of the perimeter threats that the C-Suite faces, in the hope that I can help companies prevent being “Butlerized” as the Secret Service was on Saturday.
As a futurist—co-author with my friend Faith Popcorn of “Dictionary of the Future”—my practice involves this kind of forward-thrusting analysis. But with the right ambition and reframing, sniper-seeking skills are within the reach of far more people than have adopted this perspective.
The Ignoring-the-Obvious Perimeter Threat
When you look at the overhead map showing the spatial relationship between the stage and the building where the would-be assassin clawed his way to the top, the blinding obviousness of the risk is apparent. That same failure to take in what is before you is a stunningly common problem in corporate America.
Too often, I hear “hindsight is 20/20” as a bromidic excuse for failure to recognize what should have been apparent. Yes, sometimes there truly is a black swan. But most of the time, perimeter myopia is a function of being afraid to look and hence destabilize our carefully wrought but vulnerable plans.
The Distraction Perimeter Threat
This is the other side of the risk coin from missing the obvious. Business today is a three-dimensional game of Whack-a-Mole, the inevitable consequence of managing. Bouncing from crisis to sub-crisis to potential opportunity often means snipers escape detection until it is too late.
What’s more, distraction enables you to stay aroused with endless dopamine hits that divert your attention from patient attention to the subtle risks operating on the perimeter of daily consciousness.
The Complacency Perimeter Threat
This is also known as the “We’ve got this” syndrome. It’s most likely one of the reasons that security failed to protect the ex-president, and it’s a widespread risk in business environments.
This is especially true in markets that have been stable and under-innovated for a long time, where leaders arrive at a false sense of security because today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today—until it isn’t.
The Over-Reliance Perimeter Threat
It’s what happens when your people—including direct reports and their direct reports—continually assure company leadership that they are scrutinizing the market with rigorous and relentless 360-degree scrutiny. This is related to the Group Think Perimeter problem.
In these environments, it is easy to ignore the lone “perimeter” voice that says, “Hey, look over here.” That was the voice of the rally-goer who told the Secret Service he saw someone on the roof or the scientists who famously warned NASA not to launch the Challenger because the overnight temperature was too low.
The Regulatory and Dependency Perimeter Threat
This is a staple of ERM analysis, and there is no doubt that on the level of existential threats, enterprises are well-prepared with lobbying firms and legal departments scanning the horizon. However, changes could still happen faster than expected on the federal level, which is what happened. In parallel, local regulatory risks—including activist Attorneys General around the country—are at an all-time high; these are easily missed or not given the urgency they require.
The Dependency Perimeter Threat is the likelihood of a business partner that you rely on changing their policies, as happened with Apple of the privacy shifts in iOS14, which devasted direct-to-consumer businesses.
Clay Christensen Perimeter Threats
Christensen’s deeply influential book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” demonstrated how companies that are overly invested in their fundamental business practices are at risk from new technologies that start at the inchoate perimeter and rapidly scale from there.
It is also important to point out that perimeters aren’t static but active and shrinking. For example, companies are stunningly heedless of the risks related to unsecured mobile devices. (Disclosure alert: iVerify, a company that has received funding from Shine Capital, where I am a venture company, is innovating a unified solution for this under-appreciated perimeter vulnerability.)
There is no doubt that the assassination attempt of July 13th will transform how the Secret Service goes about its daily business. Thinking about how a range of under-recognized perimeter threats can cause near-death experiences of a different kind should inspire large and small enterprises to rethink their own practices.
