Critical thinking situational awareness
The Practitioner that is unable to read the situation or the people involved invites collateral damage
Consider the level of professionalism
The surgeon that holds the life of one person in their hands will not step into theatre until the surgeon has accurate and all-the-information such as scans, blood-work, x-rays and whatever else is necessary. The Practitioner in security must have this professional approach to gathering information as they may hold the lives of many in their hands.
The surgeon applies their skill-craft by using their scalpel, whereas, the practitioner’s scalpel are skill-sets focused on gathering accurate and specific information by mastering critical thinking situational awareness investigative interviewing
Security Success depends on the level of situational awareness
of the decision-makers on the ground and reaction speed
Reading the situation
The biggest nightmare for the practitioner is not knowing what is truly happening on the ground. This is called the X Factor – the true situation in the region-of-interest, people-on-the-ground or a person-of-interest. It is not only historic data but most importantly current challenges in theatre that delivers collateral damage. The Professional knows that one cannot mitigate an issue if one is unaware that it exists.
The situation will always change for many reasons and therefore pertinent and relative skills will be developed or upgraded for professional development. For such reason, the primary goal for any practitioner is to identify immediate change and the pattern of the change. This can only be done with situational awareness, comprehending the narrative by critical thinking. All is based on extracting reliable and all-the-information.
Critical thinking (Flavell 1976,87) dictates that comprehending the true situation (Endsley 1995) or the narrative (Sandelowski 1991, Etherington 2007), one must understand the structural framework by using situational awareness and dissecting the situational awareness of each relevant part (Endsley 1995). Being unaware of the complete picture or parts of the picture provide an unclear or distorted view of the full-picture. Any actions taken on such, could deliver collateral damage.
We need to focus on;
- Person-of-interest
- People-on-the-ground
- Region-of-interest
Region of interest
We are living in a fast-changing world of threats with life impacting and life & death outcomes. An example; migration impacting nationalistic leaning, polarized neighbourhoods or ‘no-go’ areas with growth impacting existing crime levels, unique crime or unreported crime that others are unaware of.
Considering the fast-changing world of crime and terror – How do you know if someone is capable of snapping, becoming the lone-wolf and doing horrendous damage? How do you identify and monitor people that are being radicalized, perhaps xenophobic, part of organized crime working in concert voluntarily, or under duress with others, as they are being bullied blackmailed or extorted? Is it possible that they are a silent victim? These questions constitute that current methods of crime or unreported crime that people are unaware of may not be taken seriously now – could become reality with horrendous consequences. (X Factor)
The current challenges deliver new forms of crime and therefore the practitioner must uncover crimes existing already or discover new crimes or terror plots. The practitioner must comprehend the narrative, rely on situational awareness and distinct levels of sub-situational awareness and be able to critical situational interview a person-of-interest to determine the threats aligned to current challenges. There may be situations where the situation calls for a very quick assessment as reaction speed may determine the level of collateral damage. Conventional investigative interviewing will not service as the objectives is to seek oral evidence mostly from witnesses or suspects, whereas, critical situational interviewing is to establish the true situation and threat level within minutes or seconds.
Overall Situation Model Kirsten.J (2018) ©®
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