Lions Leading Lions - creating winning tactics for leaders

Lions Leading Lions will give you an insight in how winning tactics unfold for leaders in any industry but specifically the private security industry. The book  (to be launched) 14 July 2016) will give you an insight in.......@lionsleadinglions

Lions are fighters..... The lion hunt for his food – food is not a given as with the other animals in nature. The masses such as the Impala have more than enough to graze – grass. Lions have to go and find food, they have to observe, they have to be patient, the have to take calculated risks, they have to track and follow – all of these actions before they can attack and then put a fight up. In the private security industry you have to fight for survival – fight for a contract, fight to retain a contract, be patient, fight for an increase and sometimes security officers also have to fight – for a better dispensation, recognition, fight to achieve operational success.

Many times we fight for and achieve success, we are happy and wait for the right opportunity for another success later – then, in that period of waiting for another opportunity we become complacent and inconsistency creeps is – that complacency (sic) that the industry is renowned for. It is that period where the users of security and the security leaders get frustrated – that period where leadership pulls it through for the industry and also for the security officers. This will unfold in Lions Leading Lions.

Creating Winning Tactics for Leaders. We have too many strategists, too many want to be strategists and too few tacticians in business in SA. We too often want to talk Strategy and actually forget what should happen on the tactical level – there where the “takkie” meet the tar or the safety boot hit the ground.

Leaders in business, not only the security business, needs more practical guidance on how to create and lead great teams – not the strategies but the tactics to out manoeuvre the opposition, to win the hearts of their staff and to ultimately succeed in that developmental obligation that leaders have.

I wrote this book as a practical guide to help security leaders navigate their way through the sometimes complex world of winning the heart and minds of those that they serve: their teams.

For more information, or to purchase a copy of this book, send enquiries to - LionsLeadingLions@gmail.com

There is a sell-by date . . . but worry more about the expiry date 

Every business, every contract and every person has a shelf life or sell-by date – some have extended dates and other reach theirs’ soon. Nothing is forever, neither is the existence of a business (they all change shape), contracts are lost due to running for “too long”, we lose our touch and don’t perform as on day one of appointment. Beware – you are going to reach your “sell-by” date! When you joined your company or when the contract was awarded to you, there was an unspoken sell-by date – it wasn’t declared or announced, as you would to a large extent “display” that date yourself. As an individual, you would be the person exposing that date.

In most cases a sell-by date can be extended, it is not likefresh meat. In the platteland (rural areas) the shop owners make sure that the cans or bottles on their shelves are dusted off regularly to ensure that they still look attractive for the potential customer. The same applies to us – from time to time we also need a bit of a dusting off. Normally our “duster” is in the form of a serious reprimand, a service review, internal transfer, a personal review or even a training session.

Many times we are proud to refer to our 10 or 20 years’ experience gained in a company or in an industry but how many times has stagnation resulted in the repeat of 1 years’ experience 10 or 20 times? Reaching a “sell-by” date and the ability to extend it before it becomes an “expiry date” is a leadership skill many managers lack.

 Remember, as a leader we have the responsibility to lengthen the sell-by date of subordinates – they need your help unless you want the date to expire and that is too late. I used to have a manager working for me and when asked why he often takes long weekends he indicated that if he is at his ultimate low then neither me nor the company has the ability to get him out of the low – that expiry date.

It so often also happens that managers have gained experience in one field and in one operational aspect, repeating that year on year and fail to acknowledge that there are others that have had opportunities to grow in a wider variety of fields and thereby being more knowledgeable or having new (fresh) ideas. For example in the security industry, outsourced companies managing various contracts gain valuable experience at the various operations which would be to the benefit of their clients. Sometimes pride and resistance to change results in businesses not sharing in that valuable experience from their outsourced suppliers – exactly one of the reasons why companies should outsource. It is obvious that if a company provides security services to twenty different mines, that somewhere they will find best practices that work – compared to the person being deployed at one operation for many years.

Have you reached your sell by date and see the expiry date on the horizon?

Was negligence the cause of death?

The Sunday Times in South Africa on 2 February 2014, under the heading “Guards send on death mission” reported on the alleged death of three security officers at the Blyvooruitzicht Mine in South Africa where the security company (for ethical reasons name withheld) hired to protect the assets of the mine against illegal miners  “underestimated the security threat at the mine”.

 

The brother of one of the three diseased security officers commented as follows “We were told that the ‘security company’ didn’t do a risk assessment and the guards were not ready for the task”. The security officers were killed with pangas and R5 rifles. They were overpowered (a spokesperson from the new owners of the mine alleged they were sleeping) and gold bearing material were stolen from the processing plant.

 

The lessons to be learnt once again is the importance of the risk assessment – the baseline risk assessment on all existing posts and the task or issue based risk assessment on new or changing situations as the supplement to the baseline risk assessment.

 

A few other issues that can be considered based on the information in the Sunday Times article:

• The spokesperson from the new owners of Blyvoor indicated that they have used four security companies since December as companies withdrew their services – always the question one has to ask why did someone withdraw from a security contract in times when business is tight – there should have been a reason
• The General Manager of the security company commented “I was given the instructions to deploy people, ……….the guards were armed and attacked while they were being deployed”
• The ‘security company’ allegedly phoned the deceased, who were unemployed after being retrenched by another company,  the Saturday morning and he died that same night on his first shift at work – was he inducted, did  he do a medical, if he was equipped with a fire arm (armed guards were used at the processing plant) was he trained and had a competency and most importantly would he for the sake of his family have a funeral benefit cover from the Private Security Industry Provident Fund

In conclusion – risk determine safeguards to be employed, training to be conducted and most importantly to determine if one has to say “‘no thank you” in the interest of our employees, and the reputation of our company. Secondly to ensure that employment practices and legal compliance is 100% in order before an employee is taken on in the company.

 

”One can replace the stolen  gold bearing material by writing a cheque, but there is no cheque big enough to replace the lives of the three security officers”

 

Security is more than providing guards

Recently the private security sector in South Africa was under attacked in a so called Green Paper on Policing for interfering and trying to take over the role of the SA Police in crime fighting in South Africa – a debate in progress. Misconceptions about the actual role of the private security in SA prevail.

So often private security is associated with fighting crime and handling forearms only – this is but one of various activities that the private security industry is responsible for. As a matter of fact the private security industry is indeed very successful in fighting crime - who is the first to arrive at a residential burglary.

The private security industry, at least the larger and future orientated security businesses, has grown into risk reduction service providers. There is more to guarding, it is about a holistic approach providing a bouquet of services ranging indeed from fighting crime to safety enforcement, stock control, front office reception services, escort services, safety incident investigations, fire services and many more.

Unfortunately there are  many of the 9 000 private security companies in SA that fail to realize the bigger picture and many are what is referred to as the “providers of warm bodies in uniforms” – these are indeed the role players adding to the negative image of the industry.  

Time has come for the end users of security to realize that it is not about the cheapest security services but about the service provider than can summarise and find solutions to a variety of risks. So often, almost as a rule, the lowest level of security officers are hired by business to reduce their risk – how serious can those business leaders be about their risk or is the responsibility conveniently transferred to a private security company at the lowest premium. They leave decision making in crisis situations and at split seconds in the hands of people that are sometimes at the lowest end of remuneration, training and motivation levels in structures where remuneration for services fails to recognise the important role of decentralised private security management – “on site rather than distanced management”.

In an era of workforces with different discipline and a labour market that is different to the past the traditional security guard has to be supplemented with additional safeguards – electronic security devices, cameras, tracking systems, external and additional support teams are a few of the safeguards that traditional security guarding services require to meet the serious business owners demands for risk reduction.

Let us not confuse security guards with fighting crime only – they have an important role to play in your total risk reduction service of your business (without being armed).

NEW COMMAND UNIT MOBILE IN RISK REDUCTION

The Thorburn Mobile Command Unit, a tactical mobile workstation backed up by CCTV cameras and on board monitoring, was launched officially during the past week at the Thorburn Security Solutions offices in Pretoria.  Electronic security solutions suppliers Hayman Systems designed and build the Mobile Command Unit for Thorburn Security Solutions. Hayman Systems Managing Director Jan Louis Grobelaar  commented that “We are proud of this outcome. The design of this Mobile Command Unit allows for the support of rapid deployment, crowd facilitation and area dominance that is effective and can be easily applied. The various power supply capabilities and high level Bosch cameras with sufficient battery back up in wireless applications are unique quality features.”

Unique in the design is its variation on power supplies – solar power, electricity or generator. Whilst the solar power is convenient in remote areas and adding to environmental protection, is the downfall of the additional 200kg weight of the batteries adding to difficulty in towing the unit.

The unit was recently deployed at a music festival at Buffelsvlei  Guest Farm near Lydenburg and the first success was achieved when, after the event, culprits stealing a table were identified on the review of CCTV footage. This weekend, on Women’s Day, the unit will deploy to Morula Sun and Casino to monitor a music festival in support of the Thorburn event security officers.

The Mobile Command Unit provides flexibility in operational execution – addition workspace and adds “eyes” to areas of interest. It is especially the wireless cameras that are deployed up to 100 – 150 meters from the unit which provides depth in surveillance, backed by a dome camera.

Commenting on the new product addition to the Thorburn stable, MD Dolf Scheepers commented that “We constantly design and invest in new products and services, we adapt easily and we strive for absolute quality through a dedicated leadership team with well-motivated and cared for security officers. We see ourselves as leaders in the field. Our adherence to South African norms and standards through our black ownership, recently increased black women shareholding to 37%, Level 2 BBBEE rating, SABS ISO certification and reputation as a company that cares for communities where we operate are some of our unique features us pride ourselves on.”

Dr Donald assists in presenting Surveillance Skills

The past two weeks saw intense efforts of skills development of Thorburn Security Solutions staff in the Northern Region which ranges from focussed mining security refresher training courses in Steelpoort, intense CCTV surveillance training , psychometric potential assessments on staff to employment equity discussions on future EE improvements in the company.

Ten Thorburn Security Solutions (from Pretoria, Nkomati Mine and Phalabora Mining Company) and two Phalabora Mining Company CCTV surveillance operatives attended a two day surveillance course presented by Dr Craig Donald from Leaderware who is an industrial psychologist. He is a specialist in training CCTV body language and the detection of incident behaviour.

In Steelpoort in Mpumalanga at the Thorburn Operational Center mining security officers were refreshed in security techniques as part of the bi annual refresher training.

During the past two weeks ten employees (as part of a larger group to be tested over the next few months) have undergone psychometric skills potential assessments conducted by outsourced specialists Ipac. The purpose is to determine future leadership potential and future training and development focus areas for staff. Many internal promotions in the past were prompted by the results of Ipac potential analysis results.

 In a latest development has the company Employment Equity Committee met during the week to discuss EE matters which amongst others will include the development of staff. The EE committee members were given the assurance that the development of staff will be high on the Thorburn agenda and that there will be a specific focus of female development.

Unigrad Lowveld Campus (former Damelin Nelspruit) in Nelspruit will be contracted to provide Office Administration courses to female mining security officers in the Steeplpoort area whilst Business Writing, as an expansion of our previous English courses in Steelpoort, will also be presented in the near future. Lecturers from Unigrad Lowveld campus will be deployed to Steelpoort to support the Thorburn Security training needs.

 In Johannesburg our annual 10 months English Training Course presented by Gwen Hoch from Innovative Learning will commence in August 2013 in Rosebank, focussed on Johannesburg employees.

 

 

 

Two in One Madiba Day 2013 also a Thorburn ice Breaker

Thorburn Security Solutions joined the world in celebrating Madiba’s 95^th birthday and hundreds of companies “doing good” to communities on this special day. Early morning all Thorburn operational areas received a sms reminding our staff of this special day and thanked Madiba for his contribution to a better SA.

Late afternoon Regional Manager Reinardt Rall and a team from the Thorburn Northern Regional Office added warmth to 100 under privileged children at Highlands Park in Eersterus east of Pretoria. Whilst the Anglican Church Good Sheppard Parish in Eersterus offered these children with a hot meal (weekly), the Thorburn Security Solutions team handed out beanie hats and gloves to the 100 children. The Good Sheppard Parish provide meals to almost 300 children per week in three areas in Eersterus.

Reverend Patricia Ohlson expressed her appreciation and gratitude towards Thorburn Security Solutions for this initiative.

Two objectives achieved with one visit – honouring the Madiba heritage and also bringing warmth through the Thorburn Ice Breaker Project – in last week a similar project was launched near Nkomati Mine in Mpumalanga Province.

Below is the Thorburn Security Solutions team with the some of the children at Highlands Park

Vincent Ndou (left) and Florry Modisane (right) with a recipient of the beanie hat and gloves