Author: Editor, Randy Harrison
ISBN No: 9780128008423
Review date: 24/04/2024
No of pages: 108
Publisher: Elsevier
Publisher URL:
http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780128008423&pagename=search
Year of publication: 22/08/2014
Brief:
Security Leader Insights for Effective Management: Lessons and Strategies from Leading Security Professionals
price
£11.99
Like other books in this ‘Security Leader Insights’ series, what you get from ‘Security Leader Insights for Effective Management: Lessons and Strategies from Leading Security Professionals’ is thinking from ‘some of the most progressive minds in the industry’, the US-based editor writes in an introduction.
And as with other books in the series, you get usually short and pithy advice, which can either point you in the right direction or comfort you that you are facing the same problems as others. Such a short book does not tell you what precisely to do. What you do learn is – to pick a few of many nuggets: ‘security expertise is not enough’, for one thing because the skills to be a security manager are not the same ones that got you to that position. In brief, you need to know ‘fundamental business concepts’ (which does not necessarily mean an MBA, but might mean you prime yourself with a how-to book) and you need ‘people skills’ so you can work with and influence others. And we have only got as far as page four. So there’s plenty of food for thought, and this is one of those handy books that you can read a page or two at a time, pick up and set down again, if time is at a premium. Some chapters may be of more use to you than others, purely depending on whether your experience matches the authors’, for instance if you have come to security management from military service and have to learn business ways. Or, if you work as a tenant or building security manager, you may find of use a chapter on the Comcast Center skyscraper in Philadelphia, that took a customer service approach to security, besides using technology such as HID iClass smart cards for access control at doors and turnstiles. Or, you may find yourself nodding your head to a short chapter on JAR security (Just About Right) that is not perfect or grand, but is suitable, just, to what risks the business tolerates. That is much more appealing to corporate management, it’s suggested.
Risk is a question not only for site protection but for your working career; how to cope with changes in the company’s leadership, and how best to (in American speak) ‘position myself for career preservation?’ and deal with ‘downsizing’? You have to have acumen, but also keep learning; and (another Americanism?) ‘have the courage to step out of [their] comfort zone to take on new challenges’. Technology, such as video analytics or turnstiles, or physical security information management (PSIM) may be one way to decrease head-count (to use another Americanism). Defending a budget; managing a project; ‘leading and managing in a global economy’; there’s plenty for the chief security officer or those hopeful of rising to become a CSO.
One quibble that is addressed in the final chapter is that it’s fine to have wise words from contributors, but it’s interesting too to have those contributors, or an overseeing editor, bounce their ideas off each other, or put them in some perspective. Even if you don’t think your business is global, your supply chain is, says one; we’re using ever more mobile and cloud devices, and social networking; so that information, such as trade secrets, patents and intellectual property, has become some firms’ most valuable asset. Is that reflected in security work and risk assessment? More than many books from Americans, this book speaks as much to a British and Continental audience.
Security Leader Insights for Effective Management: Lessons and Strategies from Leading Security Professionals. Editor, Randy Harrison. Published 2014 by Elsevier. ISBN: 9780128008423. eBook ISBN :9780128009062 Pages: 108. Online price, £11.99. Visit www.elsevier.com.
