Restructuring Security: Here We Go Again

Reengineering sounded so good the first time around that my bosses decided to give it another try. Hold on to your hats.

By Anonymous

May 01, 2004 — CSO — Throughout the years, the diverse corporate security function at my company has been parsed, consolidated, amalgamated, reengineered, insourced, outsourced, downsized, right-sized, started, invigorated, celebrated, berated, molded, melded, digitized and formalized. And, by all accounts, we're ready to do it again. It now seems that the CEO wants to consolidate the governance, IT, risk management and other functions to narrow the span of his direct reports.

We're now under an executive vice president of the new business services group. This guy is an egocentric, highly placed idiot. Don't get me wrong—he's no dummy. He is obviously tight with the CEO. He's a retired Army Reserve Colonel who has been here since the doors first opened. He prides himself on having always managed functions on the profit side of the business. In fact, he brags loudly that he knows more about leadership in general than anybody else in the company. But I've heard he's a reengineering freak and uses it to zero-base everything. His MO has been to use a certain outside consultant as his smiling assassin.

Our first few meetings are mostly pleasantries and the usual probes one should expect from a new boss. He claims to be a supporter of security and says he has heard good things about my team. But I'm not persuaded he's on our side. "It should be interesting being over here on the cost side," he says, his voice dripping with irony. Interesting for whom, I wonder?

Reengineering never comes up during our initial meetings. "Just keep on doing the great job you folks are doing," he promises, "and we'll be in good shape."

I've put my heart and soul into building this security organization, and now I have to wonder if my future is on the line here. I think it is.

At our first staff meeting a couple of weeks later, things seem very relaxed and even collegial. I know his other directs really well and have regular interaction with most of them. Our fearless leader announces that the CEO is really cranked up about "all this Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley crap." And he's made it his goal to get the Board of Directors to calm down and the governance team to "stay in neutral." At this point, he hits the intercom and has a guest join our meeting.

Hey kids, say hello to the Guru of Reengineering. He's the smiling one in the clown suit over there.

In the first few minutes, I deduce he is a graduate of some late-in-life business school epiphany. However, I can't get past the fact that he's wearing a couple of past meals on his tie and lapels. According to him, all business processes can be boiled down to a transactional time-logging system that will enable us to "systematically cut out the fat that so easily creeps into our daily routine." He's assembling a team to "work with us" on the process reviews. My radar is working overtime, but I smile and nod so much that every muscle from my shoulders up is frozen for a half hour after his self-satisfied exit.

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