How did we miss this one? Abdul Muttalib’s father warned us in advance, intelligence was gathered and disseminated concerning operatives just like him. After billions of dollars of equipment, people, training and a redesigned infrastructure, we still came dangerously close to another disaster. So, what happened?

“The architecture is basically sound,” says Michael Chertoff (meet the press 10/3/10), “and information was shared and available. What it was not was connected.”

Said John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor: “It is a requirement that we are able to bring to bear all those disparate bits and pieces.”

So often it’s the structure that gets in the way of movement of information through companies. In this case, Homeland Security put us at risk even though it has a sophisticated structure. In the current structure, there is no one line of site that ties all of the pieces of information together.

I call that line of site “Thoughput®.” No matter how sophisticated the infrastructure, without organizational Throughput® and the linkage of those “bits and pieces” of information, solutions will not be possible. And, what if that same infrastructure actually hinders that Throughput, putting our security at risk?

Closer to home, how at risk are you with the structure you use? Does it limit Throughput?

In this day and age, like the federal government, we must all “Think Throughput®,” or take the chance that we can adapt as fast as we must. The federal government was unable to adapt fast enough. Will you be able to?