Five Easy Breaches

MAD newsletter - for C-level Executives who want to?Make?A Difference - in themselves and their organizations.

May 9, 2022

In this Issue:

1. Five Easy?Breaches
2. A Marshall Plan?for Moms - honor of Mother's Day
3. "Undercover?Recruiter"
4. Grocery stores and?747s
5. Econ Recon

Five Easy Breaches

Many companies have doubled down on their IT Security capabilities to protect from hackers trying to access company data, assets and other valuable aspects of any business. As important as these efforts may be, they may not be enough when one considers that top management, especially CEOs, are often on the move and accessing vital information on devices and through networks outside the company.?

A brief posting from Chief Executive Magazine warns that “Executives are usually well-protected when?inside?the corporate network, but in many cases that security vanishes as soon as they step?outside.?Their home networks, personal devices and personal accounts often have little to no meaningful protection.”

If you’re a C-Level executive, you, and not your company, may be the easier target.?Learn about Five Ways Hackers Target the Lives of CEOs.

And while you’re contemplating data security,?Vistage Speaker and IT Security guru Mike Foster has a few suggestions about the?benefits and risks of password managers.

A Marshall Plan for Moms

History buffs know of the efforts by the United States after World War II to rebuild a devastated Europe, named for Secretary of State and former US Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall.?It was feared that without this aid, Europe was ripe for yet another war, especially invasion by the Soviet Union.

Reshma Saujani, the founder of?Marshall Plan for Moms and?Girls Who Code,?authored a?brief article in?Inc Magazine on?knowing what working parents really want for Mother’s Day.

Does your company have a?Marshall Plan for Moms?”

“Undercover Recruiter”

We’ve all probably watched at least one episode of the show “Undercover Boss” where the CEO of a company is disguised as a front-line employee in order to get a very different and usually more accurate view of what’s right and what’s wrong at the company.

Most of these companies are sufficiently large that front-line employees have never met or even seen their CEO, so the CEO can get away with the disguise. But for small to midsize companies (SMB) where employees may see and or interact with the CEO daily, this isn’t a practical strategy.?However, SMB CEOs can effectively go “undercover” when it comes to recruiting.

In a short Fast Company article, Chris Bakke, CEO of talent search firm?Laskie,?offers several suggestions for evaluating your hiring process by a tactic not unlike that of “Uncover Boss.”?One of the strategies in winning the “War for Talent” is winning the “Battle for First Impressions.” For many companies, this often means their hiring process. Mr. Bakke wins it because, he says,?“As CEO, I apply to jobs at my own company every year.”??

Is your hiring process an open door, or a locked one?

Grocery Stores and 747s

Successful entrepreneurs know their customers. In the late 1960s, a failing convenience store owner had a vision for a new kind of grocery store for a particular type of customer he described?“as a person who got a Fulbright scholarship, went to Europe for a couple of years and developed a taste for something other than Velveeta.”

This type of insight allowed Joe Coulombe to lay the foundations for what today is a 530-store chain that bears his name -?Trader Joe’s.

Coulombe had a wild hunch that the introduction of the new Boeing 747 in 1969 would open international travel to many more Americans who would return home with an enhanced appreciation regarding food.?He did not hesitate to remake the company as other opportunities appeared;?among them a loophole in California liquor laws, using private label branding and spotting the demand for natural and organic foods to gain on rivals in a very competitive industry where net profit margins over 2% are considered remarkable.?

Learn more about Joe Coulombe (and links to more information about him) in this short blog post??Wait, Trader Joe was a real guy?”

Econ Recon

“Whip Inflation Now“ 2.0:?President Gerald Ford promoted a “Whip Inflation Now” campaign that featured big buttons with W.I.N. on them to show your commitment to reducing price levels?(it didn’t work). Inflation is a multifaceted malady and addressing it may require more than one prescription.?Dr. Brian Wesbury reviews them in a worthwhile short blog?Whipping Inflation.

Pivots and?Sentiments:?Two short commentaries from ITR Economics.??Economist Connor Lokar expects a?slow down but not a reversal?and offers advice on?Pivoting for Slowdown.??His colleague, Laruen Saidel-Baker, offer some interesting metrics that?show that the business community is in pretty good financial shape.?Check out her short blog post?Tracking Business and Consumer Sentiment.

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Sue Tinnish, PhD,?Vistage Chair, 847.404.7325?Mobil,?[email protected]