Why is security so scary?
It's lack of security we should be afraid of
I looked up the word security on Wikipedia. I know some people don’t think Wikipedia is the greatest or most trustworthy source in the world but, trust me, the Wikipedia page on “security” was perfect. It gave a simple, understandable definition of the word, it explained a history of the word in the English language and, perhaps unintentionally, it highlighted one of the greatest challenges I faced on a daily basis as a security leader in a global company.
The first thing I saw when I opened the page was a picture. It was large and in colour and it was placed above the text that said security is “freedom from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others.” The picture caption said it was from the US Women’s army corps during the Second World War. The picture was a portrait of a woman in uniform holding her index finger in front of her lips. Under the portrait, it said: “Silence Means Security”. That was one of the biggest challenges I faced in my corporate career. Security was associated with secrets.
Secrets are scary because you don’t know what other people’s secrets are and, in addition to being afraid of what you don’t know, you’re also afraid that other people will learn your secrets. The way this translated into the hotel world was as follows:
Secrets are scary.
Security is associated with secrets.
Ergo, security is scary and should not be talked about.
I tested this theory many times during training programmes with General Managers. Before we started, we played a word association where they were to list the first things that popped into their minds when I said the word security. The most common answers included “fire”, “bomb threats”, “terrorism”, “crisis” and similar words. I then asked them if those words depicted positive or negative things. They said negative. Then I asked them if security was a positive or a negative thing. They agreed it was positive. The objective of the training was to change their perception of security from something they associated with negative to something they associated with positive.
During the Second World War, the security of some people and some countries were dependent on secrets and I don’t dispute the fact that secrets still play a part in protecting people, businesses and countries. There is, however, more to security than secrets. Our security also depends on diplomacy, communication, and compromise.
In hotels, security is a main part of the foundation upon which other service offerings are built. If people didn’t feel safe or secure, soon enough there will be no one to check in, no one to check out, and no one to serve.
Even today, the association between secrecy and security remains prominent. A few years ago, I spoke at a board meeting attended by the leaders of several national hotel associations. One of the attendees said that security wasn’t something one could speak about publicly. “If we speak about it, no one will travel to our country”, he said.
The situation is, I hope, slowly changing. At the training sessions I did in my later years, participants would sometimes offer up better responses when they did the word association challenge. Instead of negatively charged words like fire and terrorism, they would say things like evacuation plans or CCTV systems. Whether that is a positive sign showing a generally evolving mindset, whether it was a sign that our corporate security strategy of openness had infiltrated them before they came to the training session or whether they had been briefed by previous attendees on what the “right” answers were, is unclear. Perhaps it’s a combination of all three. To me, it was nonetheless a welcome evolution.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the security secrecy conundrum is that if you ask a true security professional, most will tell you that it’s important to be open. If everything is a secret and never talked about, we won’t see the evolving or emerging threats and risks we need to detect and deter.
The best partnerships I’ve ever been privileged to be part of were those where security people came together to share information, ideas, and intelligence that could make everyone safer and more secure. The hotel security working group I was a founding member of ran an annual workshop series and we chose a different location every year. We freely shared our knowledge because weren’t discussing state secrets, we were discussing security and how to keep hotels, their guests, and their employees safe. To me, it was just another reminder that sustainable security is much more than silence and secrets.
A wise man with a long, distinguished military career behind him once gave me the following advice:
“Be as open and public about your security programme as you possibly can. The more you share, the easier it is to keep secret, what actually needs to be kept secret.”
Stay safe, Always Care
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What I love about your articles on “security” are the crossover themes of creating valuable organizations, engaged and connected cultures, and meaningful relationships.