0 8
No Yes
CONFIDENTIALITY
Ask if they are a National Security service-provider. If they say Yes, ask them to demonstrate the truthfulness of their claim.
Is the firm a confirmed National Security service-provider?
0 9
No Yes
Ask about other clients they serve, and learn through a few questions how much information they reveal about these clients. Did they reveal information about clients that you would not want them to reveal about you?
Score your impression of how they respected the confidentiality of other clients.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Each of the five sample personnel files you review should contain an extensive Confidentiality Agreement signed by the employee and witnessed.
Is there a signed and witnessed Confidentiality Agreement in each personnel file?
0 6
No Yes
If there is a Confidentiality Agreement, score it here for quality, completeness; in effect, rating whether or not it is an impressive and comprehensive document.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
By requiring the prospective firm to demonstrate the accuracy of their answers you will gain valuable insight into whether you'd be comfortable with this firm as your service provider. At the end of your Due Diligence review, would you be comfortable opening up your home or business to them, comfortable with them knowing and housing confidential information about you, comfortable with them responsible for your safety day-to-day, and most significantly, would you trust them to be ready and able to manage an emergency or other substantial challenge to your safety and well being?
Your answer is contained within the scores of the 35 issues you considered as part of your Due Diligence Assessment.
Appendix 10
Got a Second? Boyd's Cycle -- OODA Cycle
by Ken J. Good, Director, Surefire Institute
Preface
by Sid Heal, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
Because all tactical operations are dynamic, they are also time sensitive. Decisions and actions that are delayed are often rendered ineffective because of the constantly changing circumstances. When an adversary is involved, the operation is not only time sensitive, but also time competitive. Time or opportunity neglected by one adversary can be exploited by the other. Recognizing the importance of this characteristic, Napoleon said, "It may be that in the future I may lose a battle, but I shall never lose a minute."
A useful tool for understanding the importance of this concept is the OODA Loop. The OODA Loop, often called Boyd's Cycle, is a creation of Col. John Boyd, USAF (Ret.). Col. Boyd was a student of tactical operations and observed a similarity in many battles and campaigns. He noted that in many of the engagements, one side presented the other with a series of unexpected and threatening situations with which they had not been able to keep pace. The slower side was eventually defeated. What Col. Boyd observed was the fact that conflicts are time competitive.
According to Boyd's theory, conflict can be seen as a series of time-competitive, Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) cycles. Each party to a conflict begins by observing themselves, the physical surroundings and the adversary. Next they orient themselves. Orientation refers to making a mental image or snapshot of the situation. Orientation is necessary because of the fluid, chaotic nature of conflicts makes it impossible to process information as fast as we can observe it. This requires a freeze-frame concept and provides a perspective or orientation. Once we have an orientation, we need to make a decision. The decision takes into account all the factors present at the time of the orientation. Last comes the implementation of the decision. This requires action. One tactical adage states that, "Decisions without actions are pointless. Actions without decisions are reckless." Then, because we hope that our actions will have changed the situation, the cycle begins anew. The cycle continues to repeat itself throughout a tactical operation.
The adversary who can consistently go through Boyd's Cycle faster than the other gains a tremendous advantage. By the time the slower adversary reacts, the faster one is doing something different and the action becomes ineffective. With each cycle, the slower party's action is ineffective by a larger and larger margin. The aggregate resolution of these episodes will eventually determine the outcome of the conflict. For example, as long as the actions of the authorities continue to prove successful, a suspect will remain in a reactive posture, while the commander maintains the freedom to act. No matter that the suspect desperately strives to accomplish, every action becomes less useful than the preceding one. As a result, the suspect falls farther and farther behind. This demonstrates that the initiative follows the faster adversary.
Introduction
by Ken J. Good
Today's environment of accelerating scientific discoveries and technological change bring ever-improving hardware to the end user. In this climate is it easy to overlook and even abandon the core foundation of any weapon system, the interplay and perceptions of the human mind in a combative situation.
A man who understood this better than most was Col. John Boyd, USAF (Ret.). Col. Boyd was tasked with determining why American pilots in apparently inferior aircraft were consistently outmatching their Korean counterparts. Air to air combat takes place in a 360-degree sphere and represents the pinnacle of the man and machine relationship coupled with the man on man dynamic warriors dream about.
Boyd was an extremely accomplished pilot who had a standing bet with all students under his tutelage. $40-40 seconds. The student would be allowed to start in a position of advantage and if Col. Boyd could not maneuver his same type aircraft into a position of advantage within 40 seconds, the student could collect $40. I don't think any ever collected.
Col. Boyd developed and pressed forward a simple, yet deeply profound model now known as the OODA cycle or as it often called, Boyd's Cycle. The cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act is the essence of combat and present in any human conflict.
Col. Boyd considered and defined the nature of combat in terms of time. All engagements were a competition for time, a precious commodity not voluntarily relinquished by either party. Col. Boyd understood the importance and advantages of relentlessly forcing the adversary to deal with a rapid series of events in order to disorient and "get inside" the opponents OODA cycle.
Once "inside," time for the insider moves as it should, one event flowing to the next in a predictable pattern, the outcome virtually certain. On the other hand, the "victim" is stuck in time. He has no apparent opportunities to Observe and Orient meaningful events. Decisions and Actions are ineffective. He is pulled down and entangled in an unrecoverable death spiral. The laws of the universe somehow seem to have been In the battle of "mind-space" the goal is simple; get inside and stay there.
Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. O.O.D.A.
The acronym is easy to remember. The cycle itself is absolutely crucial to understand if one is regularly in harms way.
In order to consistently and effectively defeat opponents, you must sequentially move through the OODA cycle whether you are aware of it or not. It is model that can be used to dissect compressed time frames in a logical and sequential manner. All engagements whether they are air-to-air dogfights or an up close and personal, hand-to-hand confrontation, conform to this simple, powerful, and insightful model.
I have noted that by studying and learning to apply this cycle, one has an effective way to segment, analyze, and improve human performance in confrontational situations. It is a gemstone to be admired and constantly examined.
Recalibrating the Internal Clock
The first issue is our perception of time itself.
I often illustrate people's perception of the time by walking to the back of the classroom and then back to the podium while elucidating some tactical point. While the class is still trying to digest the point, I then ask several students, how long did it take for me to walk to the back of the
room and return to the podium? Typically I get a few turned faces, questioning looks and frowns. They are non-verbally asking me, what difference does it make how long that took?
The answers I do receive will typically range from 2 seconds to 10 seconds, a substantial variance. Some will argue that I did not give them any preparation to ready their internal stopwatch. But this misses the point. No one in a rapidly developing engagement is going to stop and remind you to calibrate your chronograph. The point is, using recall alone, the same event witnessed by trained observers is perceived to have taken place in different universes where physical reality moves at different speeds.
The other interesting thing to note is that I will never get an answer like 3.345 seconds.
Why is this so? True sometimes I get an answer of 31/2 seconds, but that's as fine a gradient ever expressed. Our everyday existence does not require a division of time any closer than seconds for most events, in terms of verbal articulation. But in the world of close quarter engagements, using only full seconds to measure time is like using a sledgehammer to fine cut a diamond.
Tremendous and significant changes can happen in one second. A proficient adversary can fire three rounds out of a semi-auto shotgun while passing by an open doorway, horizontally and vertically changing position in relation to you in under a second.
To further illustrate the calibration point in the classroom, I ask someone to stand up and I give this volunteer a "red gun," an inoperative hard plastic replica handgun. I tell them to put it in their waistband, and I do the same. I tell them that they are now part of a futuristic new game show that pits one man against the other in a six-foot gunfight. The participants face each other, winner to receive one million dollars. Both are wearing metallic braces on their wrist and ankles and are held in place by a strong magnetic field. Both will actually be using real, perfectly functioning firearms. When the green light is observed, you will be free to access your firearm and dispatch your opponent as required.
Now I throw a twist into the scenario. I tell the student, that he was smarter and more cunning than I and he offered 1/2 his winnings to the operator of the magnetic field, if he would release his magnets 1 second earlier than mine. The operator says no, because one second was too obvious and the producers would have him executed for this breach of the rules. So the negotiations continue.
How about .9 seconds? How about .8 seconds? How about .4 seconds? How about .2 seconds? The operator finally agrees to release my opponent's magnets .125 seconds prior to mine. At this point in the discussion, I then ask the student, would you take this time advantage if given to you, even if you had to pay $100,000 for it? The answer is We zoom back out. How important is time? How important is learning to perceive time? How important is it to re-calibrate our internal chronographs? How does one get better and more efficient at anything?
A familiar shooting drill that many trainers use to roughly gauge a shooter's proficiency is the "El Presidente." The shooter starts out back facing to the target with a loaded and holstered handgun. At the sound of the buzzer the shooter spins to face 3 targets, 10 yards away, equally spaced 1 yard apart. The shooter is required to fire 2 rounds into each of the targets, reload and fire 6 more rounds, 2 in each target, attempting to hit the "A" zone of a standard IPSC target.
When you ask a new shooter to perform this drill you are not even looking for a time hack, but are more concerned about weapons handling and overall safety during the entire process. If the shooter safely completes the drill under 15 seconds, everybody is happy.
Give that same shooter some solid instruction and a few hundred rounds of practice and he or she should be hovering around 10 seconds consistently.
How does one go from 10 seconds to low 4-second runs? What should be examined is not how fast the shooter is shooting. But one should examine closely by what process did this shooter eliminate so much unnecessary motion and negative mental distractions in order to consistently repeat this performance?
For the remainder of this discussion, let's assume that we are talking about split seconds of time to move through the OODA cycle. Let's enter into the matrix.
Observe: The Starting Blocks -The First Quarter
This has to be your highest priority, find the threat before he or she finds you. An insight on the obvious you say! There is more than meets the proverbial eye!
Evaluating the modern battlefield, one should note that an enormous amount of effort and resources have been dedicated to "seeing" or observing the battlefield in real time. The investment in these resources has paid off handsomely during recent conflicts. The U.S. military exploits a tremendous satellite network, flies high altitude reconnaissance missions, deploys airborne and ground based radar systems, runs patrol operations, gathers real-time intelligence from a variety of sources, all in an effort to gain an overwhelming advantage as hostilities unfold. At this point in our military development, if we can see it, we can destroy it.
If you place yourself in the cockpit of a modern fighter jet, your prime directive is to find your opponent first and deploy your weaponry in a firing envelope advantageous to you before your opponent even knows your are there, just as it was when aerial combat first unfolded.
It is no different in a close quarter battle situation using handheld or shoulder-fired weapons. You must first find the threat through your main "radar system," your eyes, deploy your weaponry in a firing envelope advantageous to you before your opponent even knows your are there.
Zooming back in, let's examine some areas that can cause a degradation of our "on board radar system."
Placement of the Weapon. Under the duress of searching for armed threats, we have noted that even very experienced operators have a strong tendency to place the weapon in the visual cone before they have located the position of the threat. (More often than not their finger is on the trigger, a well-known unsafe practice). The weapon, arms, and hands are now blocking out vital visual information.
This would be exactly like a fighter pilot placing a 3" by 5" note card over part of their radar display and putting their finger on the missile release button, all the time believing they are somehow more ready to defeat their unseen opponent or opponents.
Body, Head, and Eye Movements. The body obviously carries the head, and the neck articulates the head, and eyes are directed from within the head. This body movement coupled with head articulation, eye direction, angle, and focal placement allows for an almost infinite number of possibilities for employment your main sensor system, your vision.
This freedom can lead to large "gaps" for potential threats to move through unopposed. You must understand this and deal with it through proper training. An easy way to visualize this is to imagine watching a home video a friend filmed. You sit down and have an expectation that you are going to receive good visual information. As the videotape is played you soon become agitated because the camera operator was inexperienced and out of control. The recorded images are jumping and jerking all over the television monitor. Important details of the dynamic situation are lost and indistinguishable. Lot's of good intent, energy, and activity, but unfortunately the most important aspects of the event go unseen.
This video camera example illustrates the body, head, and eyes moving without intelligence and efficiency. To make matters worse, the individual who was operating the camera was using the zoom feature in and out with completely random patterns. This illustrates an individual improperly setting the focal length of his or her eyes while searching for an unseen threat. I have noted that individuals and teams have a strong tendency to tune their "radars" to one distance and angle and leave it there. This is Since our visual sensors do not obtain data like phased-array radars, we must constantly change the distance and elevation of our vision, in a systematic manner.
One must relegate this cycling of the vision to the sub-conscious mind through proper training and experience.
A famous German Fighter Ace was asked, what is your secret?
A
nswer: "I have an acute awareness for the back of my neck."
He was also asked what he thought about the P-51 Mustang. He response: "Three of the four that I shot down today did not even know I was in the same sky with them."
Notice he did not talk about hardware here. He drilled down to the inner man.
As our eyes are set in the forward area of the skull, representing an approximate 210 degree field of view. This leaves us with an additional obstacle to overcome, a large area unseen directly behind us.
What is the optimal sequence for establishing the best direction, angle, focal length, body speed, and timings to use the vision properly in a tactical environment? This is the art and science of using your vision to properly observe. This is where the inner man reigns supreme over the external tools deployed in the environment.
This is an area of combat that begins to immediately separate a highly proficient shooting sportsman and a combatant on the modern, urban battlefield or street.
Orient: Establishing Reality -The Second Quarter
Once you have obtained good visual data, ideally before your opponent has, you must orient yourself to the overall situation. You must put things in proper perspective based on real time input, previous intelligence, and generated assumptions. You are not processing in a linear sequential manner; you are processing in parallel. If you had the opportunity to freeze frame these moments and ask yourself, what data are you considering at this moment, the list would grow quite long as the subconscious is probed with the conscious mind.
To help illustrate the concept, imagine a personal computer with an outdated central processing unit, a few megabytes of memory, not enough data storage, a black and white 10" monitor, all controlled by an antiquated operating system. Now try and run a sophisticated software package that requires significant resources. You will be immediately frustrated with the result.
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