At Pythia Cyber we combine behavioral science with classic cybersecurity because bad behavior so often beats good technology. As part of our behavioral science toolkit we have three different talent assessments: one for Cybersecurity Engineers, one for Cybersecurity Managers and one for Cybersecurity Leaders. A common misconception is that these three assessments are beginner, intermediate and advanced assessments. This misconception is rooted in the widely embraced fantasy of promotion as a reward for performance. In this fantasy all careers have the same trajectory: get a job, work hard, move up the ladder until you cannot rise any further. This fantasy is based on the fallacy that the core talents underlying success are the same at each stage of one's career, or that most people happen to have all three sets of talents. Both of these are fallacies: it is a rare person indeed who can succeed at all levels of the organization. Such a person is a unicorn. Don't count on unicorn...

The phrase "don't bother me with details" refers to a particularly annoying dynamic between the cybersecurity people and others. The short version is that saying "don't give me the details" is often not the clever avoidance of wasted time that one might think. The long version is in  this post . This post is part of series about how culture can hamper the delivery of cybersecurity, but it is also about which talents you need to succeed in this field. At Pythia Cyber we add behavior science to classic cybersecurity engineering to take effectiveness to the next level. We lean heavily on our proprietary assessments which allow us to add awareness of  talent  to the question of who you should hire, which employees should be in which roles and how that talent should be developed. Today's example of how cybersecurity people can feel caught between a rock and hard place is why we try to balance a talent for enforcing rules against a talent for finding reasonabl...

Yesterday Ted posted about how to consider talent as you develop your employees. Today we will look at Pythia Cyber's emphasis on talent as well as experience and credentials from a different perspective: what makes cybersecurity different from most of the rest of IT. More "why" than "how." I am not the only one who has noticed an alarming tendency in business (American business at least) to reward effort instead of achievement. When I started managing information technologists--either developers or operations personnel--I was stunned to start to have "I spent X hours/days/weeks on this" as an excuse for new technology or new configurations not working properly. This was a problem for me because part of the reason I was drawn to information technology was the glorious black-and-white nature of it all: it either worked or it didn't. The new one was either better or it wasn't. Upgrades were either smaller and faster and more reliable or they we...

Not many of us -- probably none of us -- are as gifted as Mozart was as a composer and keyboardist. One of my favorite Mozart facts is that in a 13-month stretch spanning 1773 to 1774, beginning when he was 17, he composed nine full symphonies. He also produced string quartets, keyboard sonatas, divertimenti, and other works in the same period. The talent was obvious. The productivity was extraordinary. And yet even Mozart needed a job. The document pictured above is a state-sponsored retainer issued in 1787. It acknowledges Mozart’s talent, reputation, and prior success as justification for paying him an annual stipend to compose as needed. In other words, even extraordinary talent required both demonstrated output and a sponsor powerful enough to recognize its value. That is still how careers work. First, you have to get very good at your craft. Then you have to produce, collaborate, and create evidence that others can see. But even that is not always enough. You also need leaders...

Someone recently asked me why anyone would want Pythia Cyber's talent-assessing services. This question was not academic or objective: this person is deeply entrenched in the current recruiting culture of credential or experience first, then personal assessment. I cannot believe that anyone would say "what role does talent have in hiring?" Note that this person did not say "I am unconvinced that you can assess particular talents" which we would have been happy to refute. This person also did not say "I think that I can judge talent as well or better than the assessment" which we would have been happy to put to the test. Instead, this person claimed that "no one" would want to use this service which is awkward because we can demonstrate that at least some people do want to use this service. This recent interaction has made me nostalgic because it is so similar to an interaction that I had lo! these many years ago. Once upon a time, I was a cad...

"Details, details. Things to do. Things to get done. Don't bother me with details, just tell me when they're done" is a famous quote from the character Jimmy Price (played by Kenneth Cranham) in the 2004 crime film Layer Cake.  "Don't bother me details" sounds like a crisp, clear, leader-like thing to say. It implies that your underlings are boring you with unnecessary detail and that you are not going to fall for that. You have things to do--better things to do than listen to nerds go on about nerd stuff. As a professional nerd, I have been on the other end of this dynamic pretty often, which is why I keep getting asked by well-meaning non-nerds "why is my technologist colleague so annoyed with me?" This is the first of what will be an intermittent and, I hope, infrequent series in which I give examples of just how this crisp, clear, leader-like attitude is so frustrating and infuriating and how it can be utterly wrong-minded. Are there boring...