Executive Protection

 

Protective security is about enabling a person, or persons, to operate normally, without intrusion, without added stress, and without any detrimental impact to their brand or organization, hence why I call myself a business enabler, and facilitator.

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As a protector my role is to protect a person, or persons from harm, secondly my role is to facilitate their needs, as and when required, even if the request in not security related.

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Factually, agents also become a facilitator in the majority of ''trusted'' details, they must be open to a wide range of demands, not limited to, sourcing amenities, local social activity advice, geographical information, and advice in general (a trusted advisor), an extended resource to any PA, or manager.

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HNWI or UHNWI have exceptionally busy lives, both professionally and personally, much like us, they have priorities, and daily goals, many of which may include exceptionally important meetings with CEO's and heads of state, attending very high-profile social or professional events, or family vacations where privacy is paramount. As you can imagine, each circumstance requires a very different protective security approach, hence why only an experienced, versatile security professional is required.

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A successful protective security strategy is based on planning, transparent and respectful communications, and forward thinking, with the ability to plan ahead, being proactive at all times is the key to success.

A successful protector will spend the majority of his or her time and effort anticipating potential problems (mitigation) rather than looking for them, or causing them.

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Perception, Comprehension, Projection

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Situational Awareness

The perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status, after some variable has changed, such as time, or predetermined event. These skills are vital within the Executive Protection industry and must be fully understood by any professional, capable and experienced Executive Protection Agent.

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Perception

To be able to perceive the status, attributes, and dynamics of a situation or event, relevant to the elements in an environment, in the most basic of ways. In layman’s terms, this is where the process of monitoring, cue detection, and simple recognition of situational elements like people, locations, conditions, and actions.

Here is where you have to be able to perceive a threat by monitoring your surroundings and by monitoring your environment, you develop your skills of detection, or an action that someone may take to deter your attention. Also, your recognition of that cue and to what that cue is telling you about the elements that you are surrounded by at that time.

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Comprehension

This involves the process of pattern recognition, interpretation, and evaluation. So, taking this and integrating it with perception, you will now learn to interpret and comprehend the information you’re seeing, and understand how it may affect your operation. So now you have perceived a potential issue or threat, or have you?

Being able to recognize a pattern being displayed (an angry individual when everyone else is happy) and interpreting that action and evaluating, how said individual is acting.

Projection

The highest level and probably the one that most protectors try to perform on a daily basis. This involves the ability to project the future actions of the elements in the environment.

This would be people, places and things. This can only be achieved if your understanding of both perception and projection are understood. Projection takes a lot of practice, digesting, thinking and visualizing information, moving forward in time to determine the outcome or the effect it will have on your environment operationally, is mission critical. If you project wrong, you could cause a significant risk to the client.

Situational Awareness, are merely phrases without the proper foundation and the unmitigated understanding of the foundation make-up of those terms.  

Awareness is a choice, you have to choose to pay attention. Being able to distinguish what is normal from abnormal is NOT inherent, it takes practice as it relates to Executive Protection.

As you learn these techniques try not to rely on the concentric rings of protection, and then making your assessments of a given situation. By this I mean, don’t rely on concentric rings of security because it can lull you into a false sense of awareness therefore, lowering your efficiency.

As you adapt your skills, treat every disturbance as a potential threat until you are comfortable with your information assessment intake and the information you gather from them. If your attention is drawn to a certain event, make a quick assessment to include all of these steps quickly, and then assess the rest of your environment to see what, if anything, you are missing.

As some industry leaders have shown and continue to prove with their mastery of these skills, the appearance that they have in certain environments are just soft skills that have been mastered over time. In the times that we live in today, and the threats we all face as protectors, we cannot afford to be complacent.

So, if you hear these terms used again by a peer, hopefully they will also understand how vital the foundations of these words are. otherwise, Situational awareness is just a phrase without practice, and useless without understanding.

If you require ''proven, capable and compliant'' protective security services in the Arabian Peninsula, please get in touch with me.