INSA Moment of Lift
Intelligence & National Security Alliance: Building a Stronger Intelligence Community
In her new book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, Melinda Gates asked “how can we summon a moment of lift for human beings — and especially women?
Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.”
Coinciding with the book’s launch, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) hosted a panel entitled “Empowering Women and Engaging Men,” led by the Honorable Sue Gordon, Principal Deputy Director of U.S. National Intelligence and the highest ranking woman in the Intelligence Community. I was honored to contribute to a discussion that touched upon a variety of topics, including how leaders foster an inclusive and diverse environment.
Sue started the conversation by noting the incredible opportunity that we now have “to be able to find a way forward in a world that seems like one that we cannot figure out.” She proceeded to highlight:
“…what is awesome about moments like this — moments that require creation — is they demand inclusion and they impel diversity, and they tend to be moments where you aren’t constrained by how you would prefer to act or you have acted, but you find yourself in a condition where you act as you must. So, we have a great opportunity to take advantage of this moment…”
With a shortage of 3 million professionals in cyber (500,000 just in North America) according to the non-profit (ISC)2, we must seize upon an opportunity to increase the ranks of women in cybersecurity up from the current estimate of 20% by CyberSecurity Ventures.
It is critical to foster diversity and inclusion if we want to see continuous innovation in our field. Kathy Warden, CEO of Northrop Grumman observed:
“If you have never sat in a room where there is no one else that looks like you, you cannot possibly know the impact that has on one’s confidence, on one’s ability to speak up and contribute to the conversation.. but when you get the power of that diversity harnessed, that’s when we get innovation.”
Northrop has made a lot of progress with significantly more women in executive ranks compared to 10 years ago, but according to Kathy, there is still a long way to go. She noted though, that there is a lot of talk in the company and by customers about innovation, but:
“The underpinning culture resists and we need to break that barrier.”
I’m encouraged by companies like Northrop and Novetta are putting effort into systems and processes to improve diversity.
However, as Tiffany Gates, CEO of Novetta, added, it’s not enough to just discuss problems:
“It doesn’t matter if I have the programs to empower women and people of different religions, color, etc. to get together and talk about problems. We can all admire the problems, or we can do something about it. We need to involve those organizations in going out and getting others to be inspired and then feel like they have the opportunity to be part of your leadership team, and the decision making and the culture going forward.”
Tiffany highlights that diversity goes beyond numbers, and for this reason she focuses on convening “a group of people that come from different backgrounds and can think about a problem differently.”
In my experience, there is a big difference between diversity and inclusion. Building upon Tiffany’s point, often times the focus is on process and numbers and not on inclusion — which prioritizes making people feel they are welcome and part of the team. Tony Moraco, CEO of SAIC, also noted the importance of inclusion and that:
“SAIC specifically called their initiative Inclusion and Diversity.”
We addressed the idea that people tend to be more comfortable with and hire people who are like them. On this, Sue commented on the need to
“open up the aperture about what excellence looks like.”
And further, once new hires come on board, we discussed the challenge of integrating generations, millennials and long timers. Instead of telling young people exactly how to do things or forcing them to conform to previous methods, we acknowledged the need to shift from knowledge transfer to knowledge exchange where new thoughts and ways of doing things are welcomed. Experience is good, but experience enriched by fresh thinking is where we begin to truly innovate.
At 4iQ, although we reflect the communities we come from, we have an opportunity to set culture that values diversity and creates inclusion from the start. It is energizing to be part of this moment and movement where together, we can engage men and empower women to make the world a better place for everyone.
Updated 28 May 2019 — New Korn Ferry report says “the world will need around 6 million cybersecurity roles by the end of the year…as many as 1.5 million of those roles could go unfilled because there aren’t enough qualified people to take the jobs.”
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A serial entrepreneur, Monica Pal has been co-founder, CEO, and CMO at B2B startups in cyber intelligence, enterprise security, and big data. She is a frequent speaker on cyber security, big data, entrepreneurship, diversity and leadership. Monica’s passion for women’s leadership and gender justice have led her to develop mentorship programs for women leaders in resilience building techniques practiced during a 15-year exploration of meditation and mindfulness. Monica is a Founding LP of How Women Invest and on the Executive Board of How Women Lead.
