Every day we work to build our companies better and better. We come up with plans, we go to meetings we make goals and strategies. But at some point, we have to take action. Without the action taken on all of these plans, we are frozen. We are ineffective. We lose momentum and pace.
Many of the people I have worked with in consulting suffer from these very same problems. They have the best of intentions. They have great ideas and brilliant people to do their work. But when it comes to action there is just no movement.
Why Does This Happen
There are many reasons. People are used to doing the same thing. They form habits and they like to stick with them. Change is painful and takes additional effort. Sometimes it takes massive effort. Taking action and making a change involves risk and danger.
In the area of cybersecurity, the risk to make the change can be perceived as very high, and the risk of doing nothing can be seen as minimal. It is seen as something that happens to the other guy. It is a perception that it cannot happen to me, so I am not going pursue this too urgently. I will just get back to things I know well such as growing my business or increasing market share. And when this happens it creates “fear and doubt” even to a great extent.
“…action cures fear.”
But the quote at the beginning and the rest of the quote above by Dale Carnegie so eloquently put it. The only way to get through the fear is to take action. I have written about this very issue before here( awareness vs participation). And here . To illustrate this desperate need to take action within the context of cybersecurity.
So much is needed in cybersecurity to protect your company but what is needed the most is leadership. The mandate to lead your company to a safe and secure workplace where your customers, your supply chain and your employees are protected. Take the first steps take the action today. Start the process to staff up those cybersecurity positions that have been vacant for 18 months. Get started on commissioning that cybersecurity audit today. Make sure there is room in your budget for cybersecurity interventions. This action is the cure.