Young Lions Ready to Lead Tomorrow

Four up-and-coming executives from a range of installing/monitoring contractors discuss the unique challenges they face in assuming leadership roles at their companies. Familial tensions, technological advances and pushing an industry to embrace a new generation of leaders are just some of their hurdles.

Trevor McEnaney: The whole technology thing in my opinion drives a lot of the issues today. It’s not unique to our generation. It happened a lot to [the previous generation] and even what their predecessors were doing previously.

What has changed from generation to generation is now there is more competition. There are thinner margins. This is the result of a few things, but I am focusing on the Internet. It has been instrumental in providing this on-demand accessibility to all this information. We have shifted from the industrial age and now we are in the knowledge worker age where you give them every resource available and you instill values and you let them run with it. This is what the previous generation doesn’t understand.

The company I’m in needs to be cultivated and needs to break free of that industrial mentality. We are in this knowledge worker age and knowledge is king. The biggest challenge is how do you develop that roadmap?

Identify one aspect of the industry that needs to advance in order for it to remain robust.

Jimenez: Training. Like Jim said, technicians who have been out in the field for 10 to 15 years are scared to work with IP. If you don’t get them trained, they will no longer be relevant. We are not going to have a need for them. You’ll have a kid coming in who knows IP and IT and they aren’t afraid of it.

I have techs, like other companies, who have 10 years of experience and they think they know everything. There is nothing new you can teach them and it’s a big problem. Plus, they don’t want to train in front of someone younger who just arrived in the business, maybe they’ve on
ly been there for a year, and they already know IP. It can be really uncomfortable for the veteran tech and consequently it can be hard to get them trained.

Keighley: I see two big problems. First, there is a big disconnect between the senior leaders in this industry and the younger people. For whatever reason, the younger people don’t want to get involved. They are out there but they take a backseat. They feel, whether it’s intimidation, that they have nothing to offer when they have a tremendous amount to offer. Perhaps with the Young Security Professionals it will start to show that we need them to get involved. Even for those who are already in the industry their voices need to be heard. Especially with the technologies that are flying through the door, we need the younger generation to give us their opinion.

The second part is we are getting away from truly securing people. RMR is the lifeline of our industry, but we are more concerned with getting a quick system put in, get the recurring revenue and move on. Are we truly securing our customers? That certainly needs to be looked at and in my opinion it needs to be changed. We have had competition knock on doors and take over our accounts and it is clear they have given the customer an inferior system. They are quick talkers and seem to get the homeowner to buy in to their propaganda.

Egan: Adding to what Jim was saying about industry involvement, we need to encourage our senior executives — as in the baby boomer executives — to remember the value that they got when they were first traveled to an association meeting. We still see the majority of attendance is going to be in the older groups. The associations could do a better job of getting out there and instilling that value and the fact that we need their support. In other words, we need them to write the check and to understand it’s not a vacation for younger people, for the knowledge seekers.

I fear that a lot of the younger generation will miss out on opportunities to learn and gain knowledge because of that 40-year gap. I think it’s too easy for the 60- to 70-year-olds to judge the 20- to 30-year-olds still as children. Their thinking is the ‘kids’ don’t need to travel to an association meeting and instead need to stay on the job and learn.

I think the associations can do a better job educating the senior executives on the need for us to come to association gatherings. One of the primary focuses of starting the Young Security Professionals was actually to get the mentorship from the leaders that had put the time and energy into the ESA, so that we weren’t worried we wouldn’t have a trade association in 30 years or only a few people trying to carry the load.

McEnaney: I see two issues. From the end-user side, I think we need to work toward improving public perception. The public’s perception needs to be more positive about these systems and the services, and ultimately how this impacts their quality of life. On television, every show has an episode where an alarm system goes nuts and the homeowner comes downstairs and tries to turn it off. I would like to see the public perception shift from [an alarm system being viewed as] a nuisance to something positive that will enhance the quality of life, give them peace of mind.

As for the industry side, there is a disconnect between the older generation and the younger generation. It’s why we put the [YSP] group together. Otherwise we run the risk of having a gap in leadership, and without that influx of new volunteers the association will perish. It won’t have the longevity that it needs.

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About the Author

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Although Bosch’s name is quite familiar to those in the security industry, his previous experience has been in daily newspaper journalism. Prior to joining SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION in 2006, he spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he performed a wide assortment of editorial responsibilities, including feature and metro department assignments as well as content producing for latimes.com. Bosch is a graduate of California State University, Fresno with a degree in Mass Communication & Journalism. In 2007, he successfully completed the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association’s National Training School coursework to become a Certified Level I Alarm Technician.

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