One of the most important things you should do is to decide very early in your career which environment and in which speciality you wish to work. You cannot do anything significant unless you make this fundamental decision.
Working with your dissertation supervisor
A dissertation or research project is normally par for the course on degree programmes. In my experience, it is a source of anxiety for many students and I’m in no doubt that this one module can act as a barrier to undertaking a University degree course.
Lessons Learned on Executive Protection Communication.
One important thing to realize is that the principal is the key figure in shaping the culture. Not all principals are the same. I have experience of principals that don’t want to see or hear the protectors.
Behaviors & Anomalies
In the previous article (Baselines of Behavior, Issue 53), we spoke about the four major behaviors: dominant, submissive, comfortable, and uncomfortable. These are the most prevalent and easiest to categorize and I gave you the means to identify each one. However, identifying the behaviors is not our main goal. Creating a baseline of the behaviors and then looking for clusters of anomalies is the goal. These anomalies highlight changes within the individual’s emotional state around a specific topic and can be crucial for us, as security professionals, to identify a threat early enough to counter it.
Lose the Fear, Love a Process!
But of course, the students who flood off to colleges and universities in their late teens and twenties are rarely bedevilled by such thoughts! So why, when it comes to learning later in life, to undertaking vocational-related training and – of course – distance-learning, do we find it so difficult to succeed?
Emotional intelligence
In today’s lifestyle and business dynamics, solving emotion-related problems is equally crucial in both personal and professional settings. In a professional context, we deal with complex problems and must work as a team to provide the most efficient solutions for our principals or clients.
Other Side of The Desk
The nuances of each detail vary, and the protection packages are tailored to fit them. For instance, each and every day, educational institutions are presented with their own unique set of security challenges.
Unfortunately, the US, as well as other countries, has experienced too many tragic incidents on school campuses. While these incidents are usually carried out against individuals without personal protection, what happens when there is a Protective Detail in the area? If we looked at the differences between school security personnel (also known as “resource officers”) and executive protection, would there be a clear distinction from the perspective of teachers and faculty of the educational institutions? How is close protection viewed when it comes to halls of education? How does the staff feel about an armed EP professional on the school ground or even in class?
Commercial Security Courses
Having dug around in the last year to see what’s going on with security training courses at home and overseas, it would appear that there is a gap between what’s acceptable, to what’s a complete rip off, and that gap is as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Three Keys to EP Success
As such, I always tell them that starting out in a career in EP can be challenging, more than likely it’s going to be slow going at first. The reasons for this are plentiful, some within your control and some that are not. The good news is that as I look around the industry, a greater number of specialists are entering our craft and being hired with greater frequency. Having said that, critical mistakes are also being made with nearly as much frequency.
It’s as if some have thought that because you have gone through your initial training and exceled, that you are immediately qualified to be the body man next right next to the Principal. Not true. There are many variables as to an agent’s success or defeat in EP. The keys discussed in this article are what work for me, and I hope by the end of the article you can put them to use as a tool for you as well.
Head on a Swivel
Catchphrases are good to identify an action; they’re not good in obtaining the Skill of that action. The foundation of the proverbial “head on a swivel” is Situational Awareness.
And just like Head on a swivel, “situational awareness” is a widely used phrase but not a widely understood Skill. It takes time for one to master and understand two phrases, and two actions
Keeping Your Edge – I Finished Training, Now What?
It’s the final wrap up of the last day of your Close Protection training course. It’s been a long, and at times grueling, process but ultimately rewarding on multiple levels.
Along the way you’ve met some people you have really gelled with (and a couple that you have no plans on staying in contact with once class ends.) Overall, you enjoyed the experience, feel like you have gotten your moneys worth, and can say that you have some new, “tools for the toolbox.”
The Conscientious Bodyguard
Given the nature of close protection and the conditions under which operators are expected to perform, it is imperative for those providing protective services to be highly developed, multi-disciplined individuals. However, beyond the obvious technical skills reqauired to execute well-drilled procedures, modern operators are expected to display more nuanced skills such as emotional intelligence, candour, judgement and resourcefulness to list but a few. So, how can understanding our personality type help us become better in our roles as close protection operatives? To answer this, we need to have a basic understanding of the factors influencing the various personality traits.
Insider Threat
The insider threat of crime to organisations is always present and can manifest itself in many ways. This has become more apparent because of the recent social-economic climate change within the UK.
I am a late developer
I left school at the age of sixteen with just three, very poor, O levels. Following that I floundered around doing various blue collar jobs: I’ve been a postman, a railway guard and a warehouseman, just to name three of the 20-odd occupations I have had.
I went to college and became a qualified secretary at the age of 30(ish) and after a prosperous career as a sports journalist, I went to University to get a degree in psychology at the ripe old age of 50.
Surviving university as a mature student
Going to (or going back to) university seems to be becoming increasingly popular and I have lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had about the pros and cons of such a venture.
One of the major concerns / barriers to people embarking on a university course seems to be an anxiety about being a mature student. Whilst perhaps understandable, I hope in this article to reassure you that your experience of university can be just as valuable and exciting as a mature student as someone going straight from school.
The art of being an independent learner
So, what is independent learning? The Higher Education Academy 1 describe independent learning as “a process, a method and a philosophy of education in which a student acquires knowledge by his or her own efforts”.
How to survive a course you hate
This article is give you some tips for how to survive this course (basically, attend, do any associated coursework, and get your tick in the box without hurling yourself off a cliff). Sounds impossible? Probably, but I’m going to try anyway.
Work by Day, Study by Night
It is not often that you can say that you have your cake and are eating it too, but part-time postgraduate study alongside working in the industry can actually be one of those times. The prospect of leading a dual life – employee one day and student the next – may not seem overly exciting […]
Why you are not getting hired? A recruiter’s perspective
This article will address the most common mistakes made by Protection professionals while searching and applying for jobs. I will not pull any punches here so if you don’t do well with constructive criticism or feel the need to argue with the scores of people I contacted to write this article, read something else. On […]
Close Your Eyes Too Improve Accuracy
Next time you go to the range, step up to your shooting lane, look down the range then take a moment to look at the ceiling slightly in front of the shooting bench to a considerable distance down range. You will undoubtedly notice countless rounds have inadvertently been fired into the ceiling. This is usually […]