The Dangerous Gap in Global MedTech Security Awareness with Shahbaz Ahmed | Ep. 72

In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, hosts Christian Espinosa (CEO of Blue Goat Cyber) and Trevor Slattery (COO) are joined by Shahbaz Ahmed, an expert calling in from Pakistan and the founder of Leadership Studio. The conversation explores the nuanced differences between Eastern and Western leadership styles, the critical role of emotional intelligence in cross-cultural management, and the pressing need for cybersecurity awareness, particularly within the healthcare sector. Shahbaz introduces his professional background and the mission of his Leadership Studio, which aims to bridge the cultural an d philosophical divides between East and West to foster more effective global leadership. The central argument of the discussion, presented by Shahbaz, is that Eastern cultures are predominantly driven by emotion, estimating that 90% of people in these regions make decisions based on feelings, while Western cultures tend to be more logic-driven. He contends that this fundamental difference is often overlooked by multinational corporations, leading to management challenges. According to Shahbaz, a successful leader in an Eastern context must learn to manage and connect with people on an emotional level, acknowledging the deep-seated importance of family and personal relationships. His Leadership Studio was created to serve as this cultural bridge, combining the "credibility of the West" with an understanding of the "emotions of the East." He categorizes leadership into two types: technical leadership, which is skill-based and specific, and overall leadership, which encompasses a broader vision and the ability to inspire and connect with diverse teams. The dialogue then transitions to the state of cybersecurity awareness. All participants agree that there is a significant global awareness gap, but Shahbaz highlights that in regions like Pakistan, the public is "totally unaware" of the risks associated with medical device cybersecurity. He passionately advocates for a grassroots approach to education, suggesting that initiatives should target medical colleges, nursing centers, and universities to instill a foundational understanding of these threats. The hosts concur, reflecting on their own challenges in simplifying complex cybersecurity concepts. Christian Espinosa notes that industry professionals often speak in a highly technical language that alienates their intended audience, underscoring the need to make the message accessible and relatable to foster real change.

Christian: I try to do the best I can do with this to simplify the message. I think the challenge with cyber security, because people want to be smart, they want to sound smart, so they use big words and talk over people's heads. and then they wonder why no one understood what they're talking about. Shahbaz: There should be awareness about cybersecurity, specifically of medical devices. People are totally unaware about this. Trevor: I think that we have a perspective where there should be a level of awareness that maybe is even a little bit higher than what the normal would be, but I also think that what the norm should be is far above where it actually is. Christian: Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Med Device Cyber podcast. Today we have somebody calling coming all the way from Pakistan. Shahbaz Ahmed. And uh, ironically, I have a podcast later today where I am a guest and the host is in Pakistan. So today is a must be Pakistan podcast day or something. I'm Christian Espinosa, founder and CEO of Blue Goat Cyber. I'm one of our co-hosts. We also have Trevor Slattery here, who's also in the United States, coming from I could tell by his picture, his tiny apartment in San Francisco, California. So how's it going today, Shahbaz? Shahbaz: First of all, I am very thankful to you, Christian and Trevor Slattery, for this great opportunity to me. A lot of thanks for this. Initially, I want to introduce myself to you and the audience which will listen to us. I am a simple, very humble human being and have a very big dreams and I am 100% sure this dreams will definitely be fulfilled with my consistent approach. This is my personal and brief introduction about me. Christian: Awesome. I know you have a leadership studio and you teach quite a bit about leadership from the perspective of East and West and how they're a little bit different. Given our our world our society is pretty integrated today, do you still feel there's like a big difference between Eastern style and Western style leadership? Shahbaz: Exactly. 100%. Let I I try to explain by facts and figures. I sure you will endorse my fact that 90% peoples are dried by emotions and 10% peoples are just drive by logics. And you know, Christian, in the East, in my region, 90% peoples just are driven by emotions. To manage this situation with the West perspective, there is dire need of Leadership Studio. This is the reason I have initiated for the Leadership Studio. This will be platform that will manage the emotions of the East and the credibility of the West. This will be a bridge between East and West. This is my point of view about the Leadership Studio. Christian: So let me make sure I understand. From your perspective, the majority of the East uh philosophically from a leadership perspective is driven by emotion. And in the West, it's philosophically driven by logic. And obviously there needs to be a little bit of a balance there. One of the things, uh I started taking this course last night, I couldn't sleep. And um, I've done a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy where it talks about what you think affects the way you feel, which affects what you do, right? There's like this cycle. And a lot of us uh don't think about it that way, we just expect a feeling to come up and then we react to it. But if you think about certain scenarios, you can control that feeling, which then controls your the thing you do, the action you take. And that's something that, you know, as I've evolved, I've had to get better at understanding my triggers, how that makes me feel and then what behavior that drives, either in a positive or negative manner. Trevor: And even that awareness of the emotional component can be really difficult to have an understanding of what's happening at any given time and then knowing how to connect the emotional response to the physical reaction can be, it's a hard thing to figure out. Christian: Have you figured it out? Trevor: I have not. I'd be writing books if I had. Shahbaz: We all knows that emotional intelligence, emotional psychology is a science. To tackle the people emotionally, this is also called a human engineering. Try to consider understand it in a simple words. First of all, we are human beings. Simple human beings. We are not machines. If someone is successful in their house, if someone can manage their personal relations, personal relations means relation with wife, relation with mom, dad, relation with brothers, sister, relation with their siblings, etc., relation with their friends, relation with the society. If someone can handle these sensitive relations, it means he has the sense of emotional intelligence. It means he can handle the situation in which he is living. You know, in East, family bonds are very strong as compared to West. This is my understanding. This is my personal of view. Anyone can differ from this. As compared to West, there is a strong family bonds, strong relations bond. But in West, you know, things are going on logics, things are going on facts and figures, things are going on straight output. So, I think why I am here, I am focusing on a BGC. Let's suppose, is BGC is coming to Pakistan? Is BGC is coming to Middle East? Is BGC is coming to Asia Pacific? Then Christian and Trevor, can how can manage the human relation of this region? This will be difficult task for Christian, for Trevor, for anyone who is coming from the West. They should be a platform which will be provide that sense that how these two cultures, that how these two civilizations can be mixed in a single platform, and how, and then we can trap, attract for the progress. Christian: Um, Melissa and I travel quite a bit. And in the United States, nobody wants to give out a business card. So, they're almost are insulted if you try to give them a business card. Then in Korea, everybody wants to give you their business card. It's the exact opposite and they're almost insulted if you don't have a business card to give them. Something you said earlier was interesting about uh emotional intelligence and I've been thinking a lot about this recently. Is it in West versus East as an example, is it a capacity problem or a capability problem on why people seem to lack that emotional intelligence? Because in the West, you know, we're all about hustle, getting things done, a little bit disconnected in terms of family and everything else. So, I don't know if that's a capability or a capacity problem. What is your thoughts on that? Shahbaz: Things are varying person to person, region to region, culture to culture. We cannot specify on capacity or capability. We have a, just focus on the approach of the individuals who are collecting for a specific business, who are connecting for a specific task. And when they different individuals and the different cultures where they will mix, there should be a space for those individuals, for those environment who can heal the situation from the West people and from the East people. So capacity and capability, I think this is I don't believe on this, capacity and capability both differ people to people, company to company, culture to culture, region to region. This is a different task, this is different thing. But Leadership Studio, why we have launched the Leadership Studio. Leadership Studio will be provide the space for those people, for those business-minded people, for those companies who are going to build their structure as an international recognition, who are going to recognize them as a multinational culture. That is why Leadership Studio is there. Trevor: I think that's a good point about every person, every culture, every region having its own differences. You could even say within the US, comparing the culture of California to the Midwest, to New York, to Florida, these are basically going to be like different countries. So I don't really think it's a one-size-fits-all. I think Christian, you mentioned, you know, here, we're about hustle, grind, try to make things happen, get that done, and that seems to be the focus. And so, the relation- Christian: Are we are we still though? 'Cause yesterday, I went to the store here and I feel like half the people walking around are stoned. And I was like tell Melissa, they're like, I'm like, what's going on? She's like, well everybody is doing those marijuana vapes now. Trevor: Yeah. I think that one thing that really did stick with me is when we were talking about how your capacity should change or your your capacity should evolve as your capability increases. The more effective, efficient, and skilled you're getting at a particular task, the more you should be able to free yourself up to do more of that task or other tasks. And I think uh, you know, with the recent transition to becoming COO, that's been, that's been a learn-on-the-fly type of process for me recently, but I do think it's a really important thing to think about, something that I've tried to apply the most in my life, and so that's what's stuck the most out of our conversation. Christian: What you talk about Ex Machina, but you say Machina. Trevor: I've heard it pronounced both ways, I don't know. Christian: Okay. That's one of my favorite movies, by the way, yes. Trevor: It's a great movie. And there's the line where, oh, I can't remember what his name is, the guy who's testing the AI is explaining the difference between a human and a computer. He's saying a computer can read about the theory of color, read everything there is to know about it, but this computer lives in a black and white room. It's only seen black and white. And a human would have to step out and only then could know what it feels like to see color, not just understand about it conceptually. So I think it's kind of a similar point to that where you can understand conceptually what a different culture, what a different country or region would be like, but without being there, experiencing it, you're not actually going to know what it looks like in practice, what it feels like to be there, what it feels like to work in that environment. Christian: I I try to do the best I can do with this to simplify the message. I think the challenge with cyber security, I wrote about this in my first book, is people want to be smart. They want to sound smart, so they use big words and talk over people's heads. and then they wonder why no one understood what they're talking about. So I I try to simplify the message as much as possible. And I think I'm getting better at that, but I don't know if there's a lot of voices out there besides maybe you, Trevor, and me and you know, maybe just us two trying to do that at this point because I hear other medical device cybersecurity CEOs talk and they talk like super-technical about like AES encryption and versus, you know, data at rest versus quantum computing and I'm thinking, those are great topics but for the audience, it's just going over their head and they're tuning out. I mean, I think part of the problem with awareness is you need people to to tune in to the frequency you're delivering the message at. And I think a lot of people tune out because they don't want to hear what's going on, it's like a different language. Trevor: The only people who understand that language are people who already get that it's a problem. If you understand all of these super-technical concepts, you don't need to be educated on what the problem of cybersecurity is. You know it. You're involved with it already. And so I think that that's a really great thing to think about is how can we distill this down into as simple of a language as possible for someone who doesn't live and breathe cybersecurity the same way that cybersecurity professionals do. Christian: Awesome. We're coming up on time here. I like to go around and ask for key takeaways or last minute words of wisdom, or maybe both. I'll start with you, Trevor. I always like to throw you in the hot seat here and give Shahbaz a second to get his thoughts together. What is your key takeaways or last minute words of wisdom? Maybe departing words of wisdom is a better phrase than last minute. Last minute sounds kind of a Trevor: Last minute sounds hasty. Departing is, you know, conclusive. Christian: Yeah, let's not let's not be fatal, doesn't it? Like, yes... Okay, sorry. Trevor: Yeah, I think that the one thing that really did stick with me is when we're talking about how your capacity should change or your your capacity should evolve as your capability increases. The more effective, efficient, and skilled you're getting at a particular task, the more you should be able to free yourself up to do more of that task or other tasks. And I think uh, you know, with a recent transition to becoming COO, that's been, that's been a learn-on-the-fly type of process for me recently, but I do think it's a really important thing to think about, something that I've tried to apply the most in my life, and so that's what's stuck the most out of our conversation. Christian: What have you got, Shahbaz? Key takeaways? Shahbaz: Be consistent. Be consistent, and be consistent. Because consistency is the only factor that can beat every inefficiency, that can beat every capacity, that can beat every capability. This is the key of success, and this is the weapon to destroy any disappointment. Just consistent. This is my take-away, and this is my message. Christian: I, I remember reading and hearing several successful entrepreneurs talk about consistency out beats, uh, you know, random performance periodically. The person that shows up every day and puts in the work and's consistent like you said, Shahbaz, will get the results. So, the one thing, uh, I'll end with, 'cause, uh, I I downloaded this app last night, I couldn't sleep and and went through this training again, and I've gone through it before, I've gone through neuro-linguistic programming training. But the the the concept of what you think influences how you feel, which influences how you behave or what you do is extremely important because a lot of people don't put those three together that way. But if you can easily think about a time you were happy and then all of a sudden you're happy and you're going to make different decisions or take different actions based on where you're coming from from an emotional standpoint and I think that's an important concept that we often forget or just end up sort of playing circumstantial to. We just like think it's circumstantial when it can be a little more deliberate and intentional. So, I'll leave it at that. Not a little bit more psychology than cybersecurity, but they're all kind of interconnected here. So, thanks so much Shahbaz for joining us from Pakistan. And, uh, thanks Trevor for joining us from California. We, we do have East and West here. And I hope everyone found this episode beneficial, and thanks for tuning in. And we'll see you on the next one. Shahbaz: Thank you so much. Trevor: Thank you.