In every walk of life, there’s a strategy to measure how effective one is at their role. In Independent School admissions, for example, the questions are something to the effect of : How many kids are admitted? What’s the yield of those who attend? How many of those students match and stick through the end of the possible time at our school?
But how can you evaluate security using a similar set of objective criteria? And, how can you make sure that they’re not just on good behavior because it’s test day? In this article, we'll break down three strategies and help you understand just that!
Culture
We simply can’t talk about the other pieces in this article if we don't start with culture. If your security team has a culture of accountability, leadership, communication, professional development, prioritizing relationships, etc., then, it’s going to be much easier for you to provide affirmative and proactive feedback (more on that in a moment). Put differently, if your officers are constantly asking “How can I do better?” or “what are ways we can work together to improve the system?” it’s as simple as you sharing an answer – or better yet, another question that leads to deeper thinking. That said, if your security officers are resentful, bitter or just downright ornery, you need to start by solving that problem first.
Affirmative and proactive feedback
Next things next… We strongly encourage all security teams and campuses to have a structured and ongoing meeting. It might be in the O3 format, it might be in a weekly 1/1, it might even be through the Safety Committee. That said, if you don’t hold a space to ask for feedback and/or to share it, you can find yourself missing opportunities to reward good behavior and cut to the bud of bad. There are a million and one strategies to how many compliments vs points of constructive criticism that you ought to give, but in this particular case, the security team (at least typically) is/are not your employee(s). As such, you can and should be able to share candid feedback with the supervisor – up to and including a request for an officer not to come back to your campus.
Red Teaming:
So, if you’ve got the culture and you’re sharing the feedback – you’ve built the scaffolding for what this section is ultimately all about! Testing to make sure the processes are actually working. Here’s a beginners guide to Red Teaming your security team:
What is red teaming?
Red teaming is systematically testing your security team (personnel and protocol) to ensure that they consistently perform the correct actions in unique circumstances and are afforded an opportunity to learn in a safe environment – if there’s an error. Red Teaming should ALWAYS be done with capable supervision and should always have a clear and tangible goal. Like any drill, it should be a learning opportunity for everyone – even if things go really well, you should be able to derive some opportunities for learning from it.
Said more simply, red teaming is like running a whole emergency drill - but just for your security team.
Some examples of red teaming:
Test your visitor management process- Send a person who doesn't have a meeting scheduled on your campus to try to get on your campus. Do the officers catch it? Then, do they know how to properly redirect the situation?
Or, have a person that looks young (or a parent) play the role of a student or parent who is no longer allowed on campus. They should then try to gain access to campus throughout the day. Depending on your team's success there, you can try to gain access during dismissal, all the while looking to see:
1. Did the combination of entry system process and personnel catch the person?
2. What was done with the person?
3. Were there opportunities to handle the situation more discreetly?
4.How would this have been different if a threat assessment team had convened and decided that this person posed an elevated risk to your community?
You can see here, that just one area of security – your visitor management process – provides ample opportunities for testing, evaluation and strengthening. Our recommendation, start easy. Scaffold up.
A school who is acutely focused on improving security might conduct as many as one – two red team exercises per week. In fact, at the start of the school year and at other high risk parts of the year, this is a good way to engage the officers and the community – after acts of violence occur around the country, when everyone wants to lean in and focus on security, for example,you might consider conducting a red team exercise using a few of the lessons learned from that event. A school who is in “maintenance mode” is probably conducting something to the effect of one red team exercise per month.
As is always the case with your fire, earthquake, lockdown, tornado, hurricane and other drills, each red team exercise needs to have a backup plan (if you’re doing an unannounced exercise and your protocol suggests calling 911, be sure you’re ready to head that off at the pass). Likewise, each red team exercise should be viewed as an opportunity for collaborative learning and dialogue. Security can’t be perfect, they’re typically human in our experience. That said, everyone can benefit from leaning into learning and participating in exercises that push thinking, grow skills and frankly, keep everyone a bit more alert and energetic!
Check out some of our other articles on security here!
