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Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Have you ever considered your role regarding successful crime prevention in South Africa? What if you are indirectly creating criminal opportunity? As a CEO, MD or even a board member responsible for the final decisions, you’re throwing the baby out with the bath-water when it comes to security.

When recently asked what the biggest problems wrt crime in South Africa are, my answer was directed to the decision makers:

1. You’re not willing to make the time. This causes bad decisions to be made which makes crime worse in our country.

2. You – the decision makers of corporate firms – don’t listen or bother to read security newsletters, articles or security risk assessment proposals.

3. As soon as you see the word ‘security’, it is passed down to the security/procurement manager.

4. Security managers mistrust the risk advisor and the goal of the risk assessment.

Genuine advice unheeded

‘Throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ means an inescapable error made when the good is discarded along with the bad. In my experience, this is true when it comes to businesses, estate managers, retail outlets, governmental institutions and more.

Often, vital security information, like advice on prevention tactics, methodology, strikes, and other important facts are disregarded in newsletters or even the actual security risk assessment proposal. The latter is shocking because this document is mostly requested.

Passing the buck

The intended recipient wrongly assumes that the document is for selling security. They’re deleted, ignored or passed along and with that, other critical and useful info is lost. Mr. CEO/MD/board member: the emails and documents are actually for your attention to facilitate good security decisions. It’s therefore not a good idea to delegate this responsibility to someone else.

After this fact, I’d still like to shed light on how the security assessment is a valuable crime-fighting tool with the objective remaining to improve the status of South African security. How am I missing the ball in making you see that you need this information and that it is beneficial to the well-being of your companies, properties, employees/ tenants, and ultimately, our nation?

The role of the security manager

Sometimes, upon receiving the risk assessment proposal or other informative pieces, the decision makers pass it along to the security manager, or sometimes to procurement with the instructions to follow it up. I’m not saying this is always wrong, but a hiccup noted is that security managers don’t always want someone else poking around their business a.k.a. their departments and their responsibilities.

An air of distrust is created because the security manager thinks that the independent security risk assessor just wants to point out his/her flaws. When commissioned with an assessment, my goal is to provide the CEO/MD/board with the truth about their security. When it comes to procurement, they don’t know what to look for in terms of security.

And when a decision is finally made, usually, the decisions makers are removed from security. They’re not always in the front line like the employees, residents and even the security component when criminals strike. Sometimes, they’re not even directly affected, like golf estate board members not living on site. In my research, I have found that these properties have the worst security.

Should the errors of the security manager be revealed and found to be part of the problem by creating criminal opportunity, or even indicating involvement, that is unfortunate, but the security risk assessment provides the solutions to rectify this too. What happens is that the security manager’s reluctance results in the baby being thrown out with the bathwater again. Valuable information that can be gleaned from the assessment to help him/her, and the company, is lost.

In closing, CEOs, MDs and board members, please take the time to read what I have to say. Or do your own homework before leaving it solely up to the security manager and forgetting it about. Walk away pleasantly surprised and much more security savvy.

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