Volume 11

Volume 11 | March 9, 2023

Hello and welcome to Volume 11 of the Access Control Executive Brief titled Why am I so Agitated? The Desire for New (and Old) Leadership. I mentioned in the last Brief that Volume 11 would be a follow-up to Volume 10 on the profiles of the new specifiers impacting our industry and suggestions on what to do, but I was compelled to write a bit about what transpired last week. 

The long and short of it is this: we need new leadership to step up and lead the new opportunities before us. Please understand I am not saying that we need new companies. We need the legacy companies in our industry to lead differently, AND we need to allow new companies and voices to lead simultaneously. Why? More on that is below. 

And one last thing. We have been an industry that has put the companies out front. The companies have been the brands and the personality. I believe the market has shifted and we have moved to where the people behind the companies are the brand and the personalities. I believe if we lean into that, we will see the leadership we need step forward.

I hope you enjoy the Brief, and I am excited to get on Slack with you and discuss it.

A couple of other reminders of upcoming IRL opportunities to get together a community:

• MIPIM: If you are going to MIPIM, “the worlds largest real estate event,” please let me know. I am hosting a breakfast on March 15th with Brivo and Salto Systems and happy to report it is sold out! See you there!

• ISC West: The Lounge is back - bigger (350 RSVPs so far) and better than in past years. You are all invited to use the lounge as members of the Access Control Executive Brief on March 29th and 30th. Please register here. What is the Lounge? It is an interactive networking and meeting space for you to use. We have space to meet, grab a coffee, join us for happy hours, etc. Thank you FieldHub Inc, HID, Torus, Kwikset, We The Dreamer, Moms in Security Global Outreach, PSA Security Network, Brivo, Active Witness, Soloinsight (CloudGate Platform), SS&Si Dealer Network, sesamsec GmbH, Advanced Data Risk Management , Geokey, LiftMaster, Wicket, Volt AI, Digital Barriers, Orion Entrance Control, and Geokey for sponsoring and the partnership!

• The Security Event: On April 25th and 26th I will be partnering with LenelS2, Sentry Interactive, Tapkey, and WaveLynx on the show floor and putting on The Access Control Executive Brief Theatre. We will be activating three days of thought leadership, use case presentations and discussions all centered around access control and smart locks.

• CREtech London: Along with iLOQ, Torus, ZKTECO USA, HID, SwiftConnect, and LenelS2 we are creating The Access Control Village to demonstrate what today and tomorrow looks like for the global real estate market on May 10th and 11th. Please join us and also come to CREtech to get more involved in the proptech community.

I hope to see you all in person soon! Alright, back to the Brief Volume 11! 

Thank you,

PS: I am sure some of you may forward this on but please do so sparingly and encourage others to sign up here. Thank you!

Why am I so Agitated? The Desire for New (and Old) Leadership

Over the past week, a handful of press releases (Genetec and Axis), LinkedIn posts (difference between being open and integrated), and discussions within the Access Control Executive Brief Slack Group caused me to ask myself,

"Why am I so agitated?"

So after a couple of longer runs, I believe I have concluded what is causing this frustration I have and boiled it down to two things:

1. The promoted "institutions" and "leaders" in our industry have let us down.

2. I am embarrassed with how we are showing up externally to meet this new opportunity head-on.

Let me break down what I mean.

The Institutions and Leaders in our Industry Have Let Us Down

We are programmed to believe that certain companies in our industry are leaders. If you ask people in our industry to name ten "leading companies in the security industry," there is a good chance most names would be consistent. On that list would be companies like Genetec and Axis. 

Regardless of what scale you use to measure leadership, they, along with others, are typically on that leadership list. Although it is not well defined, we measure leadership in our industry by:

• Size (revenue, booth at ISC West, # of employees, # of dealers, # of customers, # of partners)

• Share of voice (Booth size and # of press releases)

• Legacy (years in business)

• Security posture (the higher the security offering and functionality, the better)

Other metrics may define "leaders" in our industry, but that seems to boil it down for me. 

And like most industries, we generally don't argue these power structures of leadership. We fall in line. It becomes the default belief that these companies are leaders. And with that perception comes expectations of what it means to be a leader.

So when they don't lead, it is super disappointing.

And, frankly, I've had enough of the old school leadership being shown. And I know some of you are as well.

I understand and agree that this is on me also. I need to recalibrate my expectations, and I, too, need to lead differently. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that what we need are authentic leadersand authentic leaders that understand that we need to change. We need authentic leaders in all shapes, sizes, and colors. We need them locally and globally. And we 100% need the "big" companies who can lead doing just that, lead. We just need them to show up properly.

This is especially when leaders do it publicly. For instance, when you do a press release and set expectations that you will "transform physical access control," you best deliver on that promise.  Or when you do press releases and invest money in start-ups with the belief that it will create an "innovation halo effect through osmosis," you best deliver on that promise.  

So as much as I will look internally and work on my own expectations, I believe it is fair to also call out the legacy leaders who are not leading and in the hope that they will do so in the future (or move to the side to allow someone to take that spot).

I, for instance, have been programmed to believe that Genetec and Axis are leaders. Genetec and Axis are two great companies with all the opportunities in the world, a great history, and are filled with very capable people. 

And it is because of this programming and the attributes stated that after we were lead to believe with build-up and conversations that “something big is coming,” that upon reading the release with the words "transform physical access control" in the title, I was left so disappointed. I literally had a "WTF. Where's the rest?" moment. You know that feeling after you read something and you turn the page over with the anticipation that there has to be more, only to find out that there is no more, and you walk away feeling like something isn't right? Yeah, that was me. 

I was just the die-hard sports fan who met their hero only to walk away disappointed. I want transformation. I can’t get it fast enough. But this? Ugh. My fears had come true: Some of our institutional leaders, our industry "heroes" with all the opportunity, potential, and capability, in the end will not be the ones to lead us in this new opportunity we have as our industry goes more mainstream and is disrupted digitally.

And that just sucks.

Instead, some will be exactly what we thought they were: incrementally iterated, playing it safe, and waiting until the change happens to them versus leading and making the change. 

Side note: Some are starting to make the changes needed and for that I am encouraged (examples: LenelS2 bringing in Kumar Sokka, Björn Lidefelt’s leadership style at HID, and Alex Housten’s decision making at dormakaba. They are starting to make the hard decisions in order to lead in this new while managing the old. You can see it when you engage with their team).

And again, this goes without saying; shame on me for believing otherwise. As the old saying goes: "Fool me once..."

Why shame on me? Because I know better. I have spoken to plenty leaders in this industry and have worked at enough companies to understand how it is. I hear all the time, "Lee, it is hard."

No kidding, it is hard. We are in uncharted waters where we need leadership. What we don't need is management. The past 10-12 years have been so bullish that all we needed was management. All we needed to do was make incremental changes, not screw it up, and show a low-risk tolerance. 

But not anymore. Sure, playing it safe in the high-security cottage industry and believing your incremental change and messaging around transformation, open platforms, and user experience is ok. That is a strategy. (Full disclosure: I don't think it is a good one). That market is where you can beat the same drum, just slightly differently. 

But as we move more mainstream and especially if you are going to brand yourselves as "transforming" the very industry of which you sit amongst the Mt. Rushmore of leaders, and you start to bring a message to the enterprise or small to medium (SMB) or commercial real estate or multifamily markets where we need to be additive and show up different, we need authentic leadership. We need you to be transformative, exponential, and honest. We need you to be leaders.

Or, we need you to move out of the way and stop the nonsense. Be who you are. Be comfortable with it but allow others to take the reins and lead. 

Trust me. I know it is hard. It is supposed to be. It is a privilege and honor to be a leader in this industry, and with that comes great responsibility to do the hard things. Those that understand it, lean into it, and do the hard work, will benefit. Those that show leadership will benefit.

I know it is hard because the current incentive structures do not support this change. I know it is hard because your team may or may not be the right team to attack this new frontier. I understand how we have worked, gone to market, communicated, engaged, and on in the past need to be set up to support this. 

But it comes down to you. Who do you want to be and where do you want to spend your time? Are you going to continue caring and feeding only the devils you know? Or will you decide to do the hard thing by killing some of those devils you know and allowing room to introduce new devils, or figure out how to get the investment to do both the devil you know and the devil you don't know? 

We like to discuss how VC-backed start-ups have the wrong incentives and priorities. We loudly celebrate when they struggle or fall short of all the promises they make. But let us look in the mirror. Instead of an unhealthy top-line revenue focus fed by VC funds, we have stock by-backs, fake innovation engines, a lack of empowered teams with permission to make changes, and old business models that devalue progress. Both are unhealthy at the same time. Both need to change for true leaders to emerge that will show us the way in this new normal.  

I am also disappointed because I truly believe that leaders in our industry understand the sea change happening right now with the introduction of software. I have talked to enough of them to know they know. The shift from this to this and that to that and how we have a $70B, if not $100B, opportunity in front of us that we can capture if only we would command the space we occupy. If only we do things differently. If only we do the hard stuff.

So here is my question: next time you want to message being transformative or how open your system is, or how you deliver excellence in user experience, ask yourself this, have we gone far enough? Then if the answer is no, ask yourself this, what can we stop doing to allow the space to be created to be transformative? Then go do that.

I know it is hard. Embrace it. Otherwise it will embrace you. And I know this: I can tell you what it won't be and what it will need to be when it happens:

• It won't be incremental (being more than Mercury or HID). It will need to be exponential.

• It won't be taking and shoving new stuff through our old ways. It must be new stuff taken through new channels and with new partners and new messages.

• And it won't just be about something we do technically. It will need to include business changes.

• And this new opportunity won't be managed. This new opportunity will need to be led.

How? More on that later, but let's start the conversation.

Nexus Labs partnership and discount