Mexico Security Crisis: Never Waste a Crisis

The recent crisis in Mexico with the government actions against organized crime pressure tested company security programs to protect their people, property and reputation. 

Security leaders did what they do best — they responded with comprehensive and on-going tactics and strategies with heighten focus, concern and support by senior business leaders. Security assessments and risk-based program adjustments occurred and continue.  

Now the uncertainty of what the security environment will develop into in the short, medium and long term is the challenge for security leaders and their guidance to business leaders. This is the time to positively impact your business partner status and the trust-building you strive for — don’t waste this opportunity. 

Considerations:

You have senior and local site leadership’s intensified attention — all while they focused on business continuity, enterprise risk, and their annual business plan prior to Day 1 of the crisis on Feb 22., in addition to their expectation that you are successfully managing the Mexico crisis. Now is an opportune time (timing is everything) to benefit from business leader support to potentially further enhance your security program and team and here are just four examples: 

• Do you have a pending business case to seek CAPEX/OPEX for security technology enhancements?
• Have you established rationale to add security professionals to your security department, or promotion(s) in title, responsibility and compensation for some in your existing team if merited?
• Have you previously discussed with Human Resources and Operations the opportunity to assess employee engagement via pulse surveys as well as methodologies to obtain employee feedback on their perception of safety and security at work? This impacts employee engagement and talent retention.
• Do you have vetted vendor options for Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and real-time event monitoring ready to present to leadership?

Some of the above ideas may benefit the entire enterprise and some may only affect one or several sites. As the senior-most security representative or a regional manager or director, and even a manager of a single site — everyone on the security team should use the same methodologies described in this article. And the team should collaborate to develop leadership understanding and support from the local Operations level to the C-suite as appropriate. 

Critical Aspects for Success:

All your requests or proposals must be in a business case structure for the highest chance of success. Coming to leaders and saying, “We need to do X right now because of this crisis”, without a comprehensive and objective assessment and rationale, especially describing the short-to-long term benefits of the investment of capital, or time with the workforce to provide security training, could undermine your efforts and more so your reputation.  

Communication 

How you communicate your business case, both written and/or a verbal presentation will affect your success or failure:

Written: Does your company have an internal business case template that you fully understand and comply with? If not, have business case format examples that other business leaders use been shared with you?

What communication styles does the person prefer? Executive summary with following details is standard. The detail section should include supporting specific information and rationale.

Verbal presentation: Have you mastered the contents of your business case to the point you can fluently and influentially deliver it in a precise and concise manner? Business leaders have many priorities that are thinking about, and like everyone else, their attention span is becoming shorter. Preparation and deliver are just as important at the contents of the business case.

Two last suggestions:

• Be prepared for the business leader and/or their finance partner to have the perspective of, “we can’t afford it at this time,” or “we’ll weather this crisis without this.”  What will your response or reaction be? (Wisdom tip: if there is/are a site business leader(s) that support your proposal, include that information in your opening remarks — and rest assured the senior business leader will most likely seek out the supporting business leader to get their input directly). 
• What am I missing? Always check your biases (for example, expediency and experience biases) and have the humility to ask yourself and others in your department or business partners, “What am I missing in this business case?” and adjust accordingly. 

In closing, continuously improving your security program in times of crisis is both Science (the business case and preparation) and Art (blending human nature and timing).