Are we always conscious or deliberately aware of our decision making? Well, very few of us are that aware. Maybe a Trappist or Buddhist monk who’s been practicing their 24/7 vigils for ten years or more. They’re conscious of their decision making – down to the tiniest decision. That’s a good thing. We’d all be better off if we were more thoughtfully aware of the small to large decisions we make during the day and night. However, for several facets of our society, decision making is critical to professional responsibilities. For instance, airline pilots.
But this also applies to security guards. Security officers are responsible for the safety of customers, clients, patients, students and so forth in their environmental space. That is an awesome responsibility.
The conscious decision making process of a security person needs to be always on. It’s as if they’re driving a Formula 1 race car in a race for the duration of their 8-hour shift. Every decision they make needs to be conscious and drawn from their training, experience and the immediate needs of the situation.
In our WWPro security team training we work a lot on cultivating always-on conscious decision making. What we don’t want is unconscious decision making where instinct takes over or the right decision may not be made. It may be made unconsciously, but most likely not. That’s why our training and schooling puts an emphasis on conscious decisions in all circumstances – as much as we can recreate them.