Modern Security Awareness - A skill needed by everyone

Even highly trained security officers who have been working in the industry for years, often work on instinct, " something didn't feel quite right"

Throughout my career as a specialist in behaviour recognition training to highly trained personnel, I spent countless hours training government officials, royalty protection officers, business executives and individuals. I had the opportunity to work with an incredible array of protection professionals, many of whom were very skilled. Some of them, however, were poorly trained, highly unprofessional.

My experience isn't unique, many security operations are based on a deterrent by physical presence.

Unfortunately, poorly trained teams are often ignorant of the mental aspects of executive protection or dismiss them as unnecessary.

Poorly trained personnel means that protection personnel will always have to operate on reactive side of security operations — a bad place to be if an attacker has been given free rein to assess security measures and plan an assault accordingly. As we've seen in many cases, the presence of security personnel — even if they are armed — is simply not enough to protect a target from a determined hostile actor, whether a mentally unbalanced stalker, kidnapper or terrorist.

The same is true of physical security measures. If attackers can freely conduct pre-operational surveillance, they will pinpoint weaknesses in any security force and find ways to exploit them.

You don't have to be a highly trained security operative to read risks, it is a natural defence mechanism. How often have you walked into a location or looked at something/somebody and thought, "something doesn't feel quite right " - Never ignore your instinct.

Society is changing the risks to families, communities and society is and will change, unless our security operations adapt and change to face the threat.