Research method and outcomes:
Situational Awareness in: Your Region of Interest
Method and outcomes: Your Region of Interest
The research methods feed information on situational awareness in various job functions or sectors by using lie, deception detection and investigative interviewing. Furthermore, the information is current as it is based on real life situations taking place.
The information provides us ‘’Learning Outcomes ‘’ with continuous valuable input to qualify and quantify the content and application which supports the learning curve. We address now;
Various faculties, careers or job functions
Certified Human Investigation-Management-Module – for Criminology [CHIMC]
To determine what type of crime or why the crime is being committed we evaluate people – interview witnesses – investigate suspects using advanced interviewing techniques as it is not the weapon that commits crime but people
– To identify situations by taking the necessary and appropriate steps before devastating issues could occur and lives are lost or ruined.
– Evaluate and take action-steps before or as volatile situations get out of control where property is damaged, and people could be placed into an awkward position to protect.
A. Submit a 2000-word essay on your day to day interaction with others paying attention to your level of situational awareness and your interactions with others.
– Reason to strengthen your ability to read people.
B. A 2000-word essay on various cultures that you interact with in personal or in business. What you notice with regards to cultural conduct, cultural communication and/or religious physical conduct paying attention to eyes, face, hands and feet.
– Reason is to evaluate and interview without prejudice knowing that one can be misunderstood or misinterpret others.cA 2000-word essay on ‘What does Situational Awareness mean to you in context to your region of interest?‘
C. Reason – is for opening your own mind to your ”situation of interest’ to gather usable and reliable information to clarify your S.P.I
Result: Risk Management is a living science!
By Danie Adendorff MSc. Sec Man.
Course Director Risk Management. [Resulted from HIM]
The ‘Missing Link’ addressed in Risk Management
Based on a plethora of different definitions and descriptions Risk Management may involve divergent methodologies as methods vary from organisation to organisation. There is no known universal methodology for the process. These divergent methodologies of analysis cause subjective outcomes which is organisational problematic.
The concept of risk management has been in existence for centuries and in fact probably among the oldest recorded human activities. It has not gained much popularity until the latter part of the previous century as a science or academic topic. There are core strategies that underpin the modern concept of risk management and control and risk management should be appreciated, as an art, and a science. It is therefore, an organizational management function that is, all about sound general management of organizational activities. There are steps or stages widely followed by risk professionals in the process which includes, risk identification, assessment or evaluation, planning and monitoring. So why does it fail time after time, with miserable consequences?
For any risk management strategy to be appropriately selected and adopted within an organisational environment, the management process should first and foremost begin with the identification of the risks to be managed. The risk identification will then be followed with the subsequent evaluation or assessment of the risks to determine their extent in terms of impact on the organisation and the probability of their occurrence. It, then, can be planned or managed using the core strategies to be succeeded with constant monitoring.
Content analysis of contemporary cases studies which includes, VW (2015), Tesco (2015), Hitachi (2015), Banking crises (2008) indicates a single failure point namely risk identification. The information that the risk identification was based upon was not validated or tested for ‘the truth’, or, the risk not being identified. How futile is the whole exercise when, the risk management process begins on inadequate, or, plainly wrong risk identification?
Case study Example
Health and safety risk plan.
A site manager intentionally withheld information regarding the micro climate on a railway depot to save cost. Should he have declared this information; the risk mitigation plan should have suggested that the patrol routes be covered with salt and a change in the footwear for the staff. This recommendation would have come at a financial cost to the company.
Working on a bonus system, directly link to financial gains, this risk mitigation would have an adverse effect on the site manager’s bonus. To save cost, he, withheld crucial information. Withholding this information caused a ‘slip and trip incident’ on the black ice where an employee broke his leg and ended up with a life altering injury.
To put it in a simple and in a layman’s perspective, risk refers to the degree of uncertainty in the consequences of an action. Consequently, the more accurate the information. the more successful will be the risk management plan.
Risk Identification is based on skillful investigation, interviewing and evaluating of people and surrounding circumstances that could pose an adverse hazard. Risk Professionals must be investigative minded. Identifying risk is based on information, however, people lie, hide information or volunteer information for their own agendas. The first objective of risk management should be to, ‘Extract Reliable and Usable Information’ using” Lie, Deception Detection and Investigative Interviewing Skills
The second objective is to determine whether the identified risk is acceptable or not with respect to a predetermined scale. In this case management had to make the decision based on their strategic objectives. They are not able to make the correct decisions if the plan is based on flawed information.
MIM ‘Human Investigation Manager empowers the acquisition of skill-sets and method to master the skill-craft addresses this specific point in the Risk management process.
Risk Managers should base their assessment on the ”Nature of the Beast ” which is present at this moment in time
There are times when historical data can be used to base an assessment, however, we are living in a constant state of change in relation to living in the global village. Global issues could change the dynamic, for example, we are now in a state of a multicultural war of thoughts and actions, which could alter the Risk Managers Plan.
Risk Managers must gather reliable and all the information
The Human Investigation Manager course is a dynamic situational awareness lie and deception detection training that can be utilized by Risk Managers to assist them in many aspects for assessing risk taking the Human factor into account
Information is usually obtained by the people on the ground. People do lie, hide information or volunteer information for their own agendas. Therefore, the information must be tested for reliability as the assessment and planning against the risk is based on such information.
The knowledge is used in three Areas, namely,
Client briefing: it is vital to get the correct information from the client to design an accurate ”question set” for the specific issue at hand. The age-old theory “ask the wrong question and you will definitely get the wrong answer”.
Firstly, in the initial briefing and mandate given to the risk manager. The Risk Manager will be able to utilize the ‘HIM’ techniques to vet and verify the information provided ”by the client” for the brief therefore clarifying the assignment.
Secondly, to assess the most ‘at risk’ consideration being the Human Factor. The Human Investigation Manager course will be able to assist in the Risk Manager to extract reliable and usable information using the HIM method to ‘evaluate – interview – and investigate (using investigative interviewing) ‘ the people on the ground.
Thirdly and most importantly – What is happening on the ground in the here and now. Gathering reliable information ensure that monitoring of action steps, compliance, validating accurate and reliable reporting. The reports must provide the Risk Manager reliable information in-order-to keep the Risk Management Plan current.
Risk Management Planning success depends on the level of situational awareness of the decision maker and the people on the ground.
CHIMPE – Polygraph Examining
Situational Awareness in region of interest: Polygraph Examining.
In Stuart Senter, Dan Weatherman, Donald Krapohl, and Frank Horvath1 and in Ronel Prinsloo 2017’s work ‘’EXPLORING THE USE OF THE POLYGRAPH TEST IN THE WORKPLACE AND AS EVIDENCE IN LABOUR DISPUTES’’ gives a good overview of the industry structure, laws, questioning methods, criticism & damming outcomes’’. I take this further by commenting on various aspects.
- When the polygraph examiner is not situationally aware according to this work, then they could be interviewing the wrong people or using the wrong question set. An example, would be the question-set designed for the suspect to react to guilt. When the suspect’s motives are for religious or culturally based reasons and being rewarded more in death than in life, then, they would of have undertaken the crime or terror attack expressing the emotion of pride rather than guilt.
- With regards to methods in this document of lie and deception detection; this work herein provides reasons why some examiners are incapable of obtaining an accurate reading. Also view Annexure 1 pg. 232 Modus Operandi and Pattern
Let’s begin this assessment by informing the polygraph examining stakeholders – be it the examiner or the client, that exams could determine if people are racist, biased, xenophobic or radicalizing. With the right question set, delivered in the right manner – the answers could be discovered. Therefore, the polygraph machine is only as good as the operator. Furthermore, these skills need to be included to get the suspect to talk more to discover why would they be hiding something.
The Client, Service Provider and the Polygraph Examiners that may have already or could impacted the lives of others by lying or hiding information. Innocent victims are now unable to obtain work in their chosen field or are unable to find work due to their method of termination.
Scenario: You could have the security company (SC) that is providing a guard force for protection of any asset and has their own in-house or sub-contracted polygraph examiner. The polygraph examiner is instructed to reach a finding of no-responsibility when interviewing their own staff, as they fear being sued by the client. There are cases where the security company has been sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The client’s security manager may not pass on all the information to a polygraph examiner as their agenda may be for themselves when they are part of the insider threat. They are in the position of selecting the people to be polygraphed and may not invite specific people or focus on people that are dispensable in their eyes. This statement in question dictates the ethics and motivation. It is known that there are people in management, oversight and governance that may have influenced the polygraph examiner by not providing the full brief and have only provided part of the information either on purpose or, by being naive and uneducated with the methods of investigation.
There are incidents where the examiner has been given a bribe of sorts. Furthermore, there are polygraph examiners that do not follow the full length of time on interviews, use outdated equipment and not know or use other skill-sets to determine the truth of the matter at conception of the first interview with the client. They cannot very well polygraph the client to know if they are provided the full brief or their agenda.
There are issues now discovered by this work that suggests that examiners could be responsible for the examinee’s reactions without knowing so or doing certain things on purpose to generate a specific result. An example; The examiner may be biased or racist and the tone of voice or body language could invoke emotions and lastly use cultural gestures that disturb the cultural behaviour of the suspect and misread the responses and results. ( J Kirsten 2015)
There are other deceptive scenarios that have been used by security companies to avoid being sued. An example; A polygraph examiner was provided two people for investigation by an investigator working in concert with security management. These two people received a clean-bill and it was concluded that they were innocent. Obviously, they were as it was later found out that they were on leave and therefore not at work at the time of the crime. If the polygraph examiner was aware of the true situation, then the outcome of the report would have concluded that the security was culpable and would have been sued for thousands of dollars.
This document as you know is a living document, and it is expected that other scenarios will be uncovered with regards to Polygraph Examining Fraud.
Issues in polygraph examining in global structure, ethics, incorrect assessments and being sued: The American Polygraph Industry (APA) seems to be the most recognized professional association for polygraph examiners and has set the standards for regional polygraph associations in various countries, for example South Africa, besides being the umbrella body for each US State. The British Polygraph Examiners Association (BPA), European Polygraph Examiners Association (EPA). The revenue of globally must run into minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Now the issue is that there are no oversight professional experts up to this date that have taken the stand to discredit other Polygraph Examiners who are on the board of their own association. If there are Polygraph Examiners called to be expert witnesses, then the Polygraph Examiner must investigate using the same techniques of testing from the Client’s top management down-the-line to ensure that the brief is true and if there are agendas by including the skill-sets in this work.
RESULT : Solutions in Polygraph Examining by Shaun McGoune
(Former Chairman (2012-2016) and President (2010-2012)
SAPPA
The HIM ‘ Human Investigation Manager Course ‘ for the polygraph examiners is a dynamic situational awareness lie and deception detection training that can be utilized by polygraph examiners to assist them in many aspects for polygraph examining.
There are occasions where the client intentionally does not give the correct or all the information on the specific case in question.
Client briefing: it is vital to get the correct information from the client to design an accurate ”question set” for the specific issue at hand. There are times when the client does not give all the information or only bits of information for an agenda.
HIM can assist the examiner to extract reliable information from the client and solicit the correct information. It is not always possible to polygraph everyone (the client) and utilizing HIM skills will go a long way to discover if the client is hiding information or the reasons for volunteering certain information.
The Three primary areas that the knowledge will complement polygraph is firstly in the initial briefing and mandate given to the examiner, such as;
The examiner will be able to utilize the HIM techniques to vet and verify the information provided ”by the client” thus ensuring an accurate polygraph test with the best ”question set” possible.
Secondly, HIM will be to assist in the examiner in the ”pre-test” phase to ensure that accurate information is being received by the examinee.
Thirdly and most importantly, for the ”post-test” interview. Should the person fail the polygraph test, then, the lie and deception detection skills will be used to investigate the matter further.
- The objective is to discover the ”why” and the ”fear” as it would be used to manage emotions to obtain the confession.
- To establish if the examinee has divulged all the information or if the person is still hiding information on this case or other cases in question.
– Reason is that you cannot interview the person again for other cases in question after they have been dismissed.
- Submit a 2000-word essay on your day to day interaction with others paying attention to your level of situational awareness and your interactions with others.
– Reason to strengthen your ability to read people.
- Submit a 2000-word essay on evaluating – interviewing – investigating your clients pertaining to a list of questions that can be used to validate information for the ”brief” and ”the interview” and the ”post-test interview”
– Reason to extract reliable and usable information on ” the brief” and the ”pre-test” interview. Furthermore, it could be used to perhaps manage emotions for the ”post-test” interview.
- A 2000-word essay on various cultures that you interact with in personal or in business. What you notice with regards to cultural conduct, cultural communication and/or religious physical conduct paying attention to eyes, face, hands and feet.
– Reason is to evaluate and interview without prejudice knowing that one can be misunderstood or misinterpret others.
RESULT: Situational Awareness on the Polygraph Examining Sector
and to avoid being sued – Refer Annexure 4
Certified Human Investigation Management Module
[CHIM] (for all careers)
Example; The Journalist, Crime Reporter, Conflict Correspondent does work in a hostile environment.
Essays
- Submit a 2000-word essay on your day to day interaction with others paying attention to your level of situational awareness and your interactions with others to extract usable, reliable and all the information by getting them to talk more.
– Reason to strengthen your ability to read people.
- A 2000-word essay on various cultures that you interact with in personal or in business. What you notice with regards to cultural conduct, cultural communication and/or religious physical conduct paying attention to eyes, face, hands and feet.
– Reason is to evaluate and interview without prejudice knowing that one can be misunderstood or misinterpret others.
- A 2000-word essay on ‘What does Situational Awareness mean to you in context to your region of interest?‘Reason – is for opening your own mind to your ”situation of interest’ to gather usable and reliable information to clarify your S.P.I
Result: Journalists could experience life impacting or life & death situations by Steve Cook
This article pays attention to; the whistle-blower, the fixer, the interviewee and the methods used to vet and validate authenticity.
Journalists may pride themselves on their ability to read people, but what if the other person can read the journalist better? Hostage negotiators and undercover operatives cannot afford to compromise their mission. Consequently, it is imperative they know the implications of acquiring a specific skill-set and master the skill-craft of deception detection and investigative interviewing.
Journalists may be provided a lead to an award-winning story by an informant – whistle-blower or to seek out a contact or fixer to set up a meeting with the person of interest. The term fixer is used by conflict – war correspondents who set up interviews with a specific spokesperson. But how would the reporter know if it is an authentic and safe assignment to follow up on. There are instances when journalists could seek out a contact or is approached by someone for various reasons and some of them may not be noble, as the journalists may be led into a situation where they could be extorted, kidnapped, raped or murdered.
The ‘first person linked’ to the story who must be vetted is the whistle-blower, informant, contact or fixer. The professional journalist must be able to detect if the source is lying or hiding something. Furthermore, the reporter must clarify why information is being volunteered as it may be to further their own agenda. Knowing what the source’s agenda is, would save a lot of time, effort, and disappointment.
Investigative interviewing
The validity of the information is paramount, managing the emotions of interviewees is crucial, not only to extract reliable information, but also to gather ALL the information and/or to determine why the interviewee is volunteering information.
Journalists learn many forms of interviewing methods, however, in the changing security climate of the world today there are other issues that must be considered today, which have not been necessary until now by using new sets of skills
A vital component of the interview is the awareness and understanding of cultural diversity. However, applying this knowledge to deception detection and investigative interviewing is quite different for gathering reliable and usable information. Subsequently, misinterpreting the person could lead to a line of questioning which would be unsuccessful. The journalist could easily misinterpret or be misunderstood by the interviewee and report stories based on fake news which may lead to chaos.
Using investigative interviewing techniques with the knowledge, awareness and understanding of cultural diversity will arm today’s journalists with an exceptional edge.
Situational Awareness of hotel security:
Examining the role of the Hotel Security Manager ( Own work J Kirsten 2017)
The Security Manager may feel inadequate and know that their region of interest is not secure due to a lack of funding and support. It is common for management to view security as an expense/cost that needs to be reduced, while being unaware of the potential implications.
These implications may be realized after the brutal/horrendous experiences of pain and despair that can rock a country. One wonders if the security budget will be reviewed by senior management of the hotel in Las Vegas in the wake of the tragedy. Hopefully, there will be increased investment into the security officers themselves seeing that it was in fact a security officer that was a key factor in mitigating the threat.
Hotel Managers could be located in either Urban or Rural locations that face different and perhaps unique challenges. Regardless of location, the mentality towards security must be the same. There are some professional security managers that apply their skills in different ways to management and derive more support as management enjoys the benefits of profit protection. (to know more – you can contact the author).
When asking a few security managers at a workshop the question ‘how many people are you responsible for?’, they replied ”two –four’’. However, they may not consider the outsourced security services as being part of their responsibility. I then asked ‘how many people are in the hotel today?’, and their reply was ‘between 600 to 700 guests.’ It is a grave concern that security managers, that could handle life impacting or life & death situations at any moment, are not aware that they are in fact responsible for hundreds of lives.
Hotels more than likely are captured to a degree by organized crime. When multiple perpetrators are working in concert with one another, staff being blackmailed, bullied, extorted or raped and so many other crimes from external forces. In other words – the security officer could be your greatest asset or your insider threat nightmare.
Furthermore, Hotels have been hit by terror with devastating outcomes. When it comes to terror and there is an attack, the terror group obtains international exposure. Especially, in countries when guests from those countries getting hurt in any way. Tourism generates employment and foreign exchange which a country is reliant on. When a terror group gets into gear and hits any tourist related venue, the damages are phenomenal. The costs are not only absorbed by the hotel chain, but also the country as a whole.
Therefore, when we ask the security manager – ‘how many people’s lives are in your hands?’, the answer is not one or two – but potentially, and to a lesser degree, thousands – millions.
Security success depends on the level of situational awareness of the decision makers on the ground and their reaction speed. Security Managers would firstly consider historic data to consider the situation and perhaps may even go further by considering current challenges. The third issue, and biggest nightmare, is the X-Factor: what is truly going on the ground right under their noses that they are unaware of? Security managers may not be aware of what is going on as staff are not forthcoming with information and may lie, hide or volunteer false information that suits their own agenda. Not knowing = collateral damage.
Consider
What is situational awareness in this location – the hotel?
Position that the security manager is in now.
They may not know what is truly going on the ground and unaware of the threat that is taking place in theater. More than likely that some guests could feel that they are being disrespected and reacting aggressively.
An example; International guests and foreigners react differently to situations, and interviewing methods. Not knowing the difference between cultural behaviour and body language, producers’ misinterpretations for threat assessment, solving disputes or calming down volatile situations.
Not knowing the true situation makes could turn the decision maker on the ground into the insider threat and they in-turn are unaware that they are the cause of incidents
Implications.
Loss of revenue, increased theft and workplace violence or collateral damage due to life impacting or deadly outcomes.
Result by Jean-Pierre Roux MPhil: Protecting and creating profit by enhancing security
From years of working in the hospitality industry as a criminologist, the Director of Nouveau Criminology has recognised the dire need to, amongst other things, protect reputation, and therefore, profit. As a result, Nouveau Criminology has invested months of time, energy and money into creating an Evidence-based Crime and Offending Management Solutions (ECOMS) package. We have spent time investigating policing literature and field-tested strategies and embedded ourselves at a five-star luxury hotel to conduct field research on the existing risks and necessary solutions that need to be implemented in-order to mitigate those risks.
In the competitive hotel industry revenue per room and guest satisfaction are the core drivers of innovation, risk, and excellence. To this effect, the greatest threat to any luxury hotel is reputational damage, which directly leads to profit loss. Principals
In this era of social media proliferation, dependence on easy to access customer reviews, and brand loyalty, the easiest way to damage a hotel’s reputation is through theft directly from guests and the harassment of guests. For example, there have been horror stories in Cape Town hotels where ‘whales’ and entire tour groups have stated that they are moving their business to competing hotels due to room theft. Reimbursement costs pale in comparison to the loss of repeat business which accumulates to the millions in lost projected profit.
Shortly prior to the field research and testing, I went for Human Investigation Management (HIM) training which was conducted in person by a HIM instructor. Once the seminar training was concluded, I began studying via the online training portal. The instructor and myself discussed my field investigation observations and thoughts on a near daily basis. It was absolutely invaluable to the field research as I was at the hotel full-time and was having informal, unstructured, and unplanned conversations with many of the hotel’s staff. These staff ranged from food and beverage, security, and housekeeping amongst others. None of these conversations were recording for later analysis which meant that all information needed to be processed, analysed, and verified in real-time.
Conversations with hotel employees, also required my awareness of cultural bias. Prior to HIM, I had not realised how important it was to be aware of my own cultural bias when perceiving others and processing the information that I was receiving from them. Furthermore, I had no idea that my subconscious and habitual everyday behaviour may be offensive to the other cultures that I was engaging with. This is especially significant in the situation of an international luxury hotel, where guests and staff come from all over the world.
Situational awareness, which is stressed in HIM, was a massive advantage during my research. Every day and at every location I was considering the situation, my position within the situation, and the possible implications of each interaction (SPI). SPI is an effective way of perceiving and structuring the environment in which we operate. SPI is a brain tool that one constantly has to be using when “in theatre”. It requires daily practice but has benefits beyond belief.
Besides what was taking place at the hotel, there was also a need for regular meetings with prospective service providers, employees, and partners. The techniques and concepts taught in HIM allowed me to read the situation during these meetings in real-time and be able to see what others were thinking and feelings during the meetings. Mastering these skills provides one with a major advantage as one is able to communicate effectively and establish successful partnerships. During my field testing, it was essential to ascertain people’s motives and separate those who are trust worthy and reliable from those who are not.
One of the core elements of HIM is the reliance on historical data. This was perfectly aligned with ECOMS which an evidence-based approach to policing is. HIM teaches that if one is operating with incomplete intelligence and inaccurate historical data, then one cannot effectively detect and mitigate threats within an organisation. Only once we have all of the historic and current data, can we make effective decisions that affect hundreds of lives. HIM’s teaching on continuous crime analysis falls squarely within the objectives of ECOMS.
Finally, we humans are neurologically hardwired to believe that we know everything that is essential for our well-being. This is how our brain protects itself from the objective reality of how little we actually know about the space in which we occupy. This subconscious self-protection mechanism could not be more dangerous in the security industry.
HIM has identified the concept of the “X Factor” in an organisation. HIM teaches one to shed the subconscious mechanism and to recognize that there is always an unknown threat. It is that which we are unaware of, that is the ultimate threat. As many lives are in the hands of security operators, we need to be situational aware enough to prepare for to investigate and mitigate unknown threats, (Jean-Pierre Roux MPHIL 2018)
Do find more results in the annexes