Aug 3, 2026 · 7 min · 5 segments
Send us Fan Mail Like all of you, I have driven through a roundabout a thousand times. One rule makes it work: the driver entering gives way to…
Indranil ChakrabortyHostwelcome back to stories at work a series where i tell real stories from across the world that you can use when you want to drive home a business point our website storyworks.in already has over 160 stories and we are adding one every week let's begin today's story In 2009, Malcolm Harkins, the chief information security officer at Intel, had a problem walking through the front door of Intel every morning in people's pockets.
Devices Intel didn't own, couldn't see into, and couldn't wipe if they were lost in the back of a taxi.
And every instinct in a security department points one direction at moments like this.
Write the policy that says company data stays on company devices full stop.
His reasoning was that if you ban these personal devices, employees would just work around the ban and expose the company without the company even knowing what they were doing.
His fear was driving the phones underground into a place where he could no longer help.
So instead of a ban, he opened a conversation, a two-day online forum he called the Web Jam.
7,000 employees showed up to argue with him about how they wanted to use their own devices.
Employees would be allowed to bring their own devices, but Intel would manage the security.
employees would accept the rules and the training and the company data got sorted into five tiers from a public stock price at the bottom which needs no protection up to the crown jewels at the top which needs the ultimate protection So instead of building a gate and daring people to climb over it, the solution, as Harkin puts it, was to build a roundabout.
And the results? Within two years, 17,000 employees were on the program, each saving, on an average, an hour a day.
welcome back to stories at work a series where i tell real stories from across the world that you can use when you want to drive home a business point our website storyworks.in already has over 160 stories and we are adding one every week let's begin today's story In 2009, Malcolm Harkins, the chief information security officer at Intel, had a problem walking through the front door of Intel every morning in people's pockets.
Devices Intel didn't own, couldn't see into, and couldn't wipe if they were lost in the back of a taxi.
And every instinct in a security department points one direction at moments like this.
Write the policy that says company data stays on company devices full stop.
His reasoning was that if you ban these personal devices, employees would just work around the ban and expose the company without the company even knowing what they were doing.
His fear was driving the phones underground into a place where he could no longer help.
So instead of a ban, he opened a conversation, a two-day online forum he called the Web Jam.
7,000 employees showed up to argue with him about how they wanted to use their own devices.
Employees would be allowed to bring their own devices, but Intel would manage the security.
employees would accept the rules and the training and the company data got sorted into five tiers from a public stock price at the bottom which needs no protection up to the crown jewels at the top which needs the ultimate protection So instead of building a gate and daring people to climb over it, the solution, as Harkin puts it, was to build a roundabout.
And the results? Within two years, 17,000 employees were on the program, each saving, on an average, an hour a day.
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