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Businesses got wise to the risk and started to install better and better backup and disaster recovery systems in the hopes they could forgo any ransom or loss of access to their data in the event of a Ransom-ware event. They started installing command-and-control software (versus Ransom-ware) and using this opportunity to poke around and find out what backup system you were using and disabling it before infecting the network with Ransom-ware. A common tactic is to hack into someone’s email account and send an email to all their contacts with a Ransom-ware payload. In some instances, firms are scanning all their old paper files into electronic form to save room on files and allow for easy retrieval but in effect, you are exposing this data to a data breach in a way that it simply wasn’t before.

The best way to avoid a misstep is to follow a systematic approach with your decision, one that helps you check all the boxes and look at this decision the right way. OK, so assuming you’ve done all you can to make the current vendor relationship work, you’ve had a heart-to-heart and nothing changed or you are worried about their ability to grow with you into the future – you’ve decided to make a change and staying with the current vendor isn’t an option. I see two very common problems businesses make when using this approach; They don’t the right questions to ask They take the prospective IT Vendors word for it and don’t demand proof In practice, think of the ‘result’ you want ex: fast response time, and ask process-related questions that will indicate what the response time will likely be based on how the IT vendor

The Dallas Business Journal reported that “Four out of five corporate law firms operating in Texas have experienced a “cyber incident” or an actual data breach during the past two years. Lately, the Ransomeware hackers have upped their game and now steal information from an infected site before encrypting their data so even firms with proper backup and disaster recovery systems are now forced to deal with hackers to prevent the exposure of their sensitive data. If personally identifiable information of clients or others is compromised as a result of a data breach, the lawyer should evaluate the lawyer’s obligations under state and federal law. And inform the clients of the law firms plan to respond to the data breach; “Lawyers must advise clients of the known or reasonably ascertainable extent to which client information was accessed or disclosed.

The danger with this type of list is you start to measure productivity by how many tasks you’ve checked off your list (or retroactively added) instead of the quality of the tasks you’ve accomplished. Or as Will Barfield calls it, the Growth Trap – where CEOs get caught up in the momentum and busywork of daily operations, that they end up working IN the business rather than ON the business. As David Ballard of the American Psychological Association’s Center for Organizational Excellence says, procrastination has two aspects – delaying the task and a counterproductive, irrational or unnecessary explanation on why you’re avoiding the task. So if you want to maximize the effects of these productivity hacks for CEOs, combine them with our work life balance tips for CEOs and say goodbye to procrastination.