Making Prevention Contagious for the Holidays

Security in its broadest application is all about preventing adverse consequences, but the details of prevention can seldom compete against loss-inducing fads ranging from knockout game attacks, flash mob robberies, spree killing, and even to teen suicide. In the case of the latter, the magnitude of the challenge becomes apparent in a statistic: Since 1950, the suicide rate today is three times what it was then. However, the source of this statistic also offers new hope in trumpeting otherwise unheralded successes in curbing suicidal tendencies of today's teens. (For details on both data points, see http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/1208/Teen-suicide-Prevention-is-contagious-too)

What can we learn from such suicide prevention programs to inform other protection via prevention? First, there is a question of attitude. In the suicide prevention world, this comes down to noting and continually reminding oneself of reasons for living, as the linked article highlights. Perhaps no one said it better than concentration camp survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, where he pointed out that what kept some concentration camp prisoners going while other, more or less identical prisoners lost hope and perished was that the survivors chose their attitude and set themselves tasks to perform every day. These are what the foregoing article today calls things to live for. Speaking in the voice of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle put it another way a century ago when he said that work remains the best antidote to sorrow. What, then, is the attitude to adopt to any protective challenge? It is that the challenge is attainable, a job to do, and one that is worth doing.

Second, what else can we learn? As in suicide prevention, protective action in general delivers its best yield when focused upstream of a crisis point. In other words, waiting until just before disaster is waiting until it is too late. One must anticipate adverse events and act in advance in order to channel them away from the worst of consequences. Prevention is best and most affordable when performed early, before a crisis has become apparent.

Third is a focus on relative costs and benefits. As a colleague in the protection business used to point out, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The application to preventive action for situations less dire, such as protecting one's retail business, or trade secrets, or even for defending against some sophisticated form of reputational risk calls for similar taking of stock. What is the cost of neglecting security contrasted against a catastrophic loss? If we don't know or haven't thought this through, then we are most likely contributing to an unwitting acceptance of such risk. This is akin to the myopic perspective of a self-absorbed, callow teen obsessed with eluding temporary, often exaggerated torments through immolation without regard for the pain that suicide causes to others or the variety of alternatives which could not only have solved the ephemeral problem but ultimately led to the sweet self-satisfaction that maturity finds in another aphorism: Living well is the best revenge.

Here, in a nutshell, is the derived prescription for recharging the protective batteries of one's security prevention program for the holidays:

1. Adopt a can-do attitude based not on wishful thinking but on a candid appraisal of alternatives.

2. Focus prevention efforts upstream of the crisis point. Do the little things in advance so as to face less of a herculean obstacle just before all hell breaks loose.

3. Weigh relative costs against benefits, with an eye to long-term benefits. Remember that the cost of not taking prudent, preventive action is likely to outweigh the expense if the net result of inaction proves to be a catastrophic consequence.

Happy holidays.

-- Nick Catrantzos