Smells Like Team Spirit

In assembling a successful EP team, there are a number of critical elements that are typically neglected through both the recruiting, and on-boarding process. When faced with critical vacancies, there is often pressure is to fill the role quickly, and oftentimes there is little time spent on overall ‘fit’ within your current team and organizational culture. The importance of viewing your detail as an actual ‘team’, rather than as individual component parts is a strategic perspective that cannot be over-looked.

While everyone wants star players, the importance and impact of a team concept is huge. For those of us with backgrounds in law enforcement, the military, or team sports, we are likely indoctrinated in the adage, ‘there is no I, in TEAM’. We are well-versed in the notion that we function better as a team, and that no man is an ‘island.

However, once we being working professionally in the EP world, we encounter a professional brotherhood that has long left the team concept at the front door. In the private- sector EP world, we often encounter a very different paradigm. One that does not encourage team work, and in fact blatantly counters it. We find turf-building and protectionism, all in the mistaken belief that individuals can ‘get in good’ with their principals, and therefore weather organizational storms because of the loyalty and relationship they will have created with their principal.

I can tell you from experience, there is nothing farther from the truth. This will in fact bite you every time.

Highly impactful owner service is built around a team of capable and competent professionals working together to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. No individual player can accomplish this on their own, and in fact rogue individuals can create havoc for a team and for its owners.

Yes, it is an industry where networking is the primary path to employment. Yes, it is an industry of strong personalities, and alpha males with Type A temperaments and egos. However, it is also an industry full of individuals who really know their stuff, and who can showcase their work even better in an atmosphere of collaboration, collective respect and teamwork.

Even G.I. Joe had a team. EP details are no different.

I think we can all agree that experienced and capable professionals should have the opportunity to bring their best work to bear in the service of a stronger team, and that this proactive and collaborative approach will ultimately result in better service to the owners, and a better experience for individual team members.

Unlike specific positions in a sports team, EP teams have to strive for well balanced team members that are good at all facets of protection. In addition to being well-versed in their professional skills, individual members must also recognize that they can, and will be called upon to contribute to tasks they may deem ‘beneath them’, in an effort to ensure the best service for the owner.

Unbalanced teams (with individuals who refuse to carry their fair share), transfer undue workloads to more balanced team members, and over time this causes conflict. When individual members of the team consistently pawn off distasteful tasks to others, this can end up causing long-term strife within a team. When this situation arises, the party that is most negatively affected is the Principal/Protectee.

Yes. When teams don’t function as a team, the person or party that is most impacted is THE BOSS.

Not good.

An example of team work could be as simple as proper documentation. No one likes paperwork, and yet reports and site surveys from support trips or advance trips are a key element to ensuring overall team success. This information ends up being a treasure trove or gold mine at later times for other team members, or possibly even for the same team members that initially went on the trip or conducted the site survey. If the assigned team member chooses not to do this work, or is late in completing it, the entire team suffers the lack of timely information. Not cool. Such a simple task. And yet this happens all the time.

Having managed a large, successful, global executive protection team, I cannot emphasize the importance of ‘team’ enough. A team is not a group of individuals who tolerate each other, but do the bare minimum to contribute to the good of the whole. A team is created by bringing on solid individuals with a commitment to looking out for each other, and the company. A team is carefully put together and fostered over time. A team is a group of individuals who pitch in to make each mission successful, no matter what their component assignments.

The best way to combat imbalance, and encourage team operations is through your recruiting process. The old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” comes to mind, as those individuals who focus solely on themselves will never learn how to think, and act like a member of a team. You do not want those people on your team. Trust me.

Recruiting well balanced EP talent that have the right attitude from day one, in addition to skills and know-how is much easier that trying to correct existing bad habits, or coercing team members to learn something new in order to “share the load”.

Much like a professional sports team, you have to get the right people on your team, or it just won’t work.