As we touched upon in the first part of this article, a lack of training which focuses specifically on developing and improving both the capacity and capability to perform decision making tasks under stress places the practitioner at a significant disadvantage.

Clearly there are some very good reasons why protective intelligence, situational awareness, and tactical skill are universally recognized as essential to providing effective protection. However, regardless of how accurate and timely your protective intelligence is, how high a level of situational awareness you are capable of achieving and sustaining, or how tactically and technically proficient you may be with firearms, edged weapons, impact weapons, or even vehicles, success or failure for the protection practitioner is most often predicated upon the decisions they make, particularly in the eyes of the Principal. While it may not be spelled out in one’s job description, the very nature of protection work implies that one must be able make sound decisions in highly stressful situations and very dynamic environments.