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Security and Business: Communication 101

Communication skills are the number one requirement for leadership success. In security, step one in communication is understanding the language and priorities of the business.

By William Brandel

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The Art of Clarity
The fine art of communication calls for one person to clearly convey a concept to another. This involves understanding what people need to know, what the substance of the message should be, and how and when it should be conveyed. To do this effectively, the communicator must be cognizant of the context of the necessary communication and be highly sensitive to the information needs and mode of reception of their audience. For a person focused on physical break-ins, phishing attacks and intellectual property theft, this basis for communication might seem a bit low on the priority list. However, for those who want their security initiatives to be understood, valued, approved and abided by, it is the key to their survival.

"Companies are no longer willing to forgive a lack of excellent communication skills," says Jeff Snyder, president of SecurityRecruiter.com, Snyder says that unlike five to six years ago when companies were scrambling to gain a new security footing, today they are no longer willing to compromise on effective communication skills or on a strong security background. "They want it all," Snyder says. "The cake, the ice cream and whipping cream on top."

In short, when a company says it's looking for a security executive, it's seeking someone with the same business skills as any other departmental leader in the organization, who also just happens to know how to prevent, identify and thwart threats to that company and its employees.

The fact that expectations are being raised might put more pressure on security executives to be well-rounded in their skill set, but it's the price for having arrived, says Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H. In the 1990s, the emphasis for security executives was a more technical one, he said. Then, after 9/11, companies placed more emphasis on physical security.

Argenti says that many security executives today are discovering that "the skills that once made you successful as a security professional may have had very little to do with communication." But that's no longer the case. Communication skills must be "embraced as an added value throughout the organization."

The role of the security executive is following the natural progression of maturity that other disciplines, such as information technology and human resources, have followed, Argenti says. The real and perceived threats to a company's assets have raised the visibility of security in many companies. Senior management have responded by hiring security expertise and investing in security systems. After elevating security to a strategic function, most organizations have naturally attempted to integrate it into the wider organization. As a result, people who came from a law-enforcement or military background often have found themselves in the midst of corporate restructuring. And it has been in this environment, where communication is perhaps the most critical tool for survival, where security professionals and their employers have discovered whether the right level of communication skills are in place.