Based off of Harvard Business Review’s “Protecting the Cheddar” by Scott Berinato and Andy Bochman, the article grapples with the question of is progressing progress. By ”progressing”, I am using the understanding that all things in the realm of digitizing is advancing forward. This could include bringing analog systems online or integrating AI-predictive services to better meet customer needs. This case study deals with the former case and subsequent complications including cyber attacks and heated team dynamics. Full digitization done haphazardly is worse than any digitization. It is important to recognize other such industries or companies that could fall into this danger as well as emphasize how important it is to speak up in the face of organizational danger.
Bringing things on network sounds like an incredible business opportunity to any manager. With networking come real-time updates, ability to monitor and manage numerous systems from a desk, and so on and so forth. These are all valuable things. The danger lies with the ability for anyone else to see and direct all of these useful novelties. You may have only ten floor managers in your plant who should have access to your production line system. Once that system is on the network, theoretically billions of people also could now find a way to accessing that system. Industries that have to be extremely wary of this are industries that deal with public safety. This includes major food producers, passenger airlines, hospitals, and energy suppliers. One such company is Pfizer. They are a leading pharmaceutical company with millions of people using their products. One small hack into their production of antibiotics could allow lethal dosages to be administered into harmless seeming capsules or solutions. They should be extremely careful with access to their org-wide networking usage (logins, permissions, etc) and should always have floorwalkers to observe the systems. Nuclear submarines always maintain a team on watch at all hours. The danger from any deviation in a reaction not being noticed is too high.
This leads to the final point about voicing concerns. In the case study, the aide of an executive was the only person to put a previous top-level decision into question and propose a solution. She was summarily shushed and ignored by all but the CEO. Hierarchy is meant to allow for proper execution and strategy efforts, but when a company scorns the input of its employees, it is turning its back on family, it is turning a blind eye to the needs it is trying to satisfy. This woman faced a particularly difficult decision to speak forward. She could have waited till after the meeting to voice her thoughts with her boss and have him relay the info, but that risked another pawn of the status quo withholding actual progress. She was no engineer, nor was she a male executive, but she valued the family business and risked her position for something that would save her company and her team. That is something worth speaking up for.
