All of the Protective Intelligence, Situational Awareness, and Tactical Capability in the World May Not Matter (Part II)

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. It also brings to mind the old adage “if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. Though in the case of the protection practitioner who has not been properly trained to make decisions under stress this isn’t necessarily because they have just one tool, the proverbial hammer, or that they are prepared for just one type of problem, the proverbial nail. As is often the case they may have a whole tool box full of shiny new hammers and they may be familiar with all sorts of nails. However, without formal training, what they may be lacking is the capacity and capability to make a decision with regard to exactly which type of nail they are currently dealing with, which hammer amongst all of the other hammers they have access to is the most appropriate to use, and how to best utilize that hammer to achieve the desired outcome vis-a-vis the nail they are dealing with at the moment. In other words, if they don’t have the capacity and capability to make that series of decisions, it is entirely possible that the practitioner may find themselves trying to remove a nail by striking it with a ball peen hammer as opposed to prying on it with a claw hammer – and we all know how that is going to turn out – about as well as things are likely to end up for the practitioner who, absent the appropriate decision making skills, reverts to their training (gaps and all), and is subsequently captured on video pummeling that reporter, aggressively manhandling the overzealous admirer, or in exceeding the legal boundaries regarding the reasonable use of force in some other way.

The point that the hammer and nail analogy makes is that it may not matter how many hammers one has, or how much training they have in the use of all of those hammers, if one can’t make the appropriate decision regarding when, where and how to use them appropriately.  This very same dynamics applies to protective intelligence, situational awareness and tactical skill; all of those things may not matter when it counts the most if the practitioner has not developed the capacity and capability to make the appropriate decisions in the presence of common task and ambient stressors such as:

• incomplete or conflicting information
• heavy work load
• significant time constraints
• auditory overload or interference
• obstructed fields of vision
• a rapidly changing situation
• and/or fatigue

In fact, one of the most relevant findings of the extensive research that was conducted in conjunction with the US Navy TADMUS (Tactical Decision Making Under Stress) program is that absent a deliberate and concerted effort to integrate those stressors into scenarios that not only require decision making, but also require the performance of corollary physical tasks, it is highly unlikely that the practitioner will develop the capacity and capability needed to make appropriate decisions as to the most appropriate course of action under stress, and then follow through with implementing those courses of action in a timely manner. Without the complex decision making component, tactical skills training will only get the practitioner so far down the path to success. Similarly, training in performing decision making tasks under stress will also only get the practitioner so far down that same path. Again, as we discussed in Part I of this article, there are very few protection related training programs where these two components are fully integrated in a way that ensures the practitioner receives training in both decision making tasks and tactical tasks, which has led to a significant disconnect or gap between the training environment and the operational environment.

Evidence suggests that this gap between the decision making requirements of the practitioners’ operating environment and those same requirements in their training environment may be due in large part to the misconception that training to automaticity inherently improves one’s decision making capability. In this regard, studies conducted by Arthur Fisk, Phillip Ackerman and Walter Schneider, coupled with research into tactical decision making by Janis Canon-Bowers and Eduardo Salas, indicate that while training to automaticity may improve an individual’s capacity to make decisions under stress, it does not necessarily increase an individual’s decision making capability, particularly under stress. This is due to the fact that while automaticity frees up the critical resources needed for the higher order cognitive functions that are required for decision making, it does not make the practitioner any more effective or efficient in performing the specific tasks related to decision making. This is especially true if they are required to perform those tasks while overcoming the demands that the physiological and psychological impacts that stress places on the decision making process as well as the decision maker.  So, while training to the point of automaticity may make the resources required to make effective decisions more readily available to the practitioner, if they haven’t been trained to perform decision making tasks under stress the practitioner may not be able to fully leverage resources. Additional research in human performance and decision making conducted Susan Hutchins, Jeffrey Morrison and Richard Kelly found that improving the capability to make decisions under stress requires a training approach in which decision making tasks are performed under conditions that closely resemble those found in the operational environment within which those specific tasks will actually be performed.  And therein lies that persistent and pervasive gap in protection training; one which may very well be the root cause of the failures that some may be quick to blame on intelligence failures, lack of situational awareness, or poor tactic, as opposed to what might be the real culprit – a lack of the sort of training required to equip the practitioner with both the capacity and capability to make decisions under stress.

Now that is not to say that this gap exists in every protection training course known to mankind. Hell, there are so many of them nowadays that even a full time training professional such as myself finds it difficult to keep track of who’s doing what – or who is even still in the business – from one day to the next. Having said that, even the most cursory review of current training offerings supports the conclusion that this gap is much more likely to be the rule than it is the exception. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t any courses out there that that address the issues of stress as it relates to the protection profession. There are, in fact, a few courses which focus on stress management, i.e. providing the practitioner the knowledge, skill and ability needed to manage the generic effects of stress. Such courses may very well provide the practitioner with the means for maintaining or improving physical and mental well being, reducing fatigue, and buffering the effects of stress. All of which makes attending such a course a worthwhile endeavor, if those are the desired training outcomes. However, if the practitioner’s goal is to improve their overall performance in stressful situations and environments, unless that course is conducted in a training environment that closely replicates task and environmental stressors the practitioner typically faces, then those types of courses may not be the right choice.  It should be noted that when we’re talking about stressful conditions, situations or environments , we’re talking about those that generate specific physiological impacts of stress, such as elevated heart rate – in this instance elevated is defined as a heart rate approaching the 175 beats per minute threshold that Siddle and Grossman identified as being the point at which cognitive processing, the cornerstone of effective decision making, deteriorates  – while requiring the practitioner to perform specific decision making tasks. If those impacts are not generated, then the training is simply not going to improve their capacity and capability to make decisions under stress. It should also be noted that simply elevating someone’s heart rate through physical exertion does not adequately or accurately replicate the stressful stimuli of a real world event or operational environment. This can only be done through a process that incorporates as many of the task and ambient stressors described earlier into the training process. Hence, what passes as a stressor in some training – such as having students do pushups prior to performing a task – is far less effective a mechanism for accomplishing the goal of training to improve performance under stress then some may think. While such activities are quite effective at making students sweaty and tired, they should not be confused with those that accurately replicate the stress associated with real world events. Likewise, as noted by John Musser, as serious a student of adult learning and instructional system design as one can hope to find in the protection training realm, being sweaty and tired should not be confused with being well trained.

Just as we know that standing in a firing port on an indoor range shooting at stationary targets is not going to improve the practitioner’s physical capacity and capability to effectively deploy their firearm in a dynamic, stress filled situation, spending hour upon hour practicing protection formations, or simply driving around cones arrayed on a track somewhere will not – cannot – improve the practitioner’s capacity and capability to make decisions under stress. Likewise, as  mentioned in the first part of this article, just as “shoot/no shoot” drills aren’t guaranteed to achieve wide ranging improvement in decision making capacities or capabilities, another staple of the protection training industry, Attack On the Principal (AOP) Drills, may not enhance the practitioner’s decision making skills under stress to the point of ensuring an appropriate response to a potential threat. This is particularly true if those drills are not designed and executed in a manner that replicates, as accurately as possible, the full complement of stressors that will likely be present in just about any situation that would trigger a hasty evacuation of the Principal.  Examples of AOP Drills that may not lead to the same outcomes they achieved in the training environment when they’re performed under stress and in real time include those in which the very instant the practitioner places his or her hands on the person playing the role of Principal that person becomes totally cooperative, fully compliant and responds instantaneously and fluidly to the verbal and physical commands or cues of the practitioner. Is it realistic for the practitioner to expect that, if confronted by a threat, each and every Principal will remain calm, cool and collected; that during what is likely to be the single most terrifying moment the Principal has ever experienced, their heart rate and respiration rate will not ratchet up and propel them into “Condition Black”, where irrational fight or freeze response begins to rear its ugly head, auditory exclusion takes hold, and even their gross motor skills begin to deteriorate? Is it any more realistic to expect that a practitioner without proper training in decision making will have the capacity and capability to make timely, appropriate decisions regarding how to cover and evacuate a terrified Principal when he or she has never had to contend with anything other than one who is fully cooperative and compliant?

None of this is meant to imply that there is no value in having a practitioner develop and/or hone their tactical knowledge, skill and capability through learning, repetition and practice. There is a lot to be said for the “brilliance in the basics” approach to protection training that experienced practitioners and professional trainers the likes of Bob Duggan, Eric Parker, Joe LaSorsa, Matt Parker and Duke Speed are proponents of. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that points to the fact that mastery of the basics is one of the pillars of effective task performance under stress. When all is said and done, all of the decision making capacity and capability in the world isn’t going to do the practitioner much good if he or she can’t effectively implement whatever decision is called for.  Nor can it be said with any degree of honesty that each and every practitioner is likely to be called upon to make a “shoot/no shoot” decision, or evacuate a Principal while under fire (a simple fact that isn’t always readily apparent when perusing the websites, social media pages or marketing material of some training providers). However, history and experience shows there are any number of scenarios in the day-to-day context of providing protection within which the practitioner could be called upon to make critical – maybe even life or death – decisions; two examples that immediately come to mind are a medical emergency and a potential car accident.

With this in mind, and given the fact that the practitioner is both required and expected to make sound decisions in highly stressful situations and environments, it can be said with a high degree of certainty that the practitioner’s protective intelligence capability, capacity for sustained situational awareness and tactical skill simply may not be enough to meet those requirements and expectations. In order to meet them, the practitioner has to be afforded opportunity to structure and model their decision making processes in a way that makes them applicable to high stress environments, develop the meta cognition skills and heuristics required for decision making in stressful situations, and overcome impediments to effective decision making such as expectancy bias (i.e. basing decisions on what the expected to happen versus what is actually happening). As mentioned earlier, extensive research has found that that this can only accomplished through training that goes well beyond developing automaticity, by integrating task-related stressors such as increased workload, time constraints, and auditory overload, as well as ambient stressors such as performance pressure, fatigue and auditory interference into scenarios that require the practitioner to make decisions – ranging from the simple to the complex – while managing and overcoming the physiological and psychological effects of those stressors. So next time you are sitting there watching a viral video of some practitioner making a monumentally bad decision, you may want to consider foregoing your critique of their actions and, instead, ask yourself if your training has equipped you to make better decisions under those same circumstances while dealing with those same stressors. And if the answer is no, or even just maybe, you may want to consider finding a new training provider, one who has the understanding of human performance factors needed to improve your capacity and capability to make decisions under stress. Beyond that, you may want to ask yourself if, generally speaking, you are predisposed to performing well under stress. If the answer is no, then even the most well developed decision making training process may not be effective.

 

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About the Author

Joseph Autera is the President & CEO of Tony Scotti’s Vehicle Dynamics Institute, one of the world’s foremost providers of highly advanced, specialized driver training program. During his 20+ year tenure in the private security profession Mr. Autera has been responsible, at various times, for planning, directing and participating in threat detection,  anti-terrorism security, and executive protection in various moderate and high risk locales, ranging from South and Central America, Europe, and both the Middle and Far East.  His diverse experience also includes serving as the Director of Global Security for a multinational technology concern, as the Vice President of Global Security Services for one of the world’s leading providers of global risk mitigation and international crisis management services, and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.