Robert Cioffi

Trust among peers of any team is essential for high performance. This requires an investment of time (and over time) to genuinely get to know each other on a professional level. Leaders must also strive to build sufficient rapport with individuals to discover what is important to each team member on a personal level and what drives them. We don't all need to pry into each other's personal lives, but you do need to connect on a human level before trust is possible. It's a 2-way street but it starts with leaders demonstrating their willingness to trust and the value they place in it.

Much life a company needs a Business Plan to set strategy and direction, a person needs to have a Life Plan to ensure their achieve personal goals and purpose. Happiness generally does not happen by accident. Life fulfillment outside of work gives us proper perspective and a personal compass to help deal with work stress. As a peer group facilitator I developed my own Life Plan template that I freely give away (zero strings attached). Seriously, I gain nothing as a Go Giver. DM me if you want a copy.

Select a technology that "air gaps" the cloud copies of data. This means if you request a deletion, the company actually holds the data for several weeks before the delete completes on the back end. This thwarts a Threat Actor from destroying all backups before encrypting data.

Academically speaking, you don't shop for an OS. Your shop for applications. Those typically determine the OS. Why is Mac more suited for artist type work? Because the available applications are generally built (or the better versions of them) for a Mac. Why is Windows more suited for financial applications? Same reason.

Situational awareness, or "Spidey Sense" as I like to call it, is a critical skill to develop to avoid being tricked or scammed. The adage "if it is too good to be true" is your first litmus test. Second, threat actors typically prey on emotions. So, if you are ever confronted with an email expressing a great urgency (e.g. your bank emails you asking for your password and pin now because they detected fraudulent activity) or that tugs at an emotionally charged subject (e.g. something political, or donations for a recent humanitarian cause) then alarm bells should be going off in your head. Third, recognize when you might be under stress when decision making is impaired (e.g. just before a holiday, end of month close, etc)

Too often I see business leaders who expect their IT support to be deep experts in everything, or the IT people let ego get in the way. Remember, we all cannot know everything about everything. For those working in IT, be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses. If you are not a Threat or Security Analyst then be sure to be aligned with a 3rd party vendor (typically a SOC or EDR/MDR provider) that can help you properly classify the malware and develop proper a remediation plan.