As mentioned in Part 2 of this blog series, Awareness is the first step in the 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention.

Step 2 is Collecting the Dots. What does Collecting the Dots involve?

Collecting the Dots is critical because without this step, there are no “dots” to assess and connect, making prevention impossible. Collecting the dots involves gathering information and reports of pre-incident indicators, warning signs and red flags, concerning behaviors, suspicious activities, social media evidence, survey data and historical information.

Why else is Collecting the Dots such a critical step?

Your organization’s threat assessment/risk assessment team cannot prevent things they don’t know about.

To proactively prevent negative headlines associated with workplace violence, sexual misconduct, information security breaches, safety, fines, lawsuits, tragedies and other expensive and embarrassing consequences, an organization MUST first “Collect the Dots”. As the organization and threat assessment team collects the dots, they can then proactively assess the dots, connect the dots, intervene and prevent.

Does Collecting the Dots make organizations more liable because now they know about concerning behaviors, suspicious activities and other incidents? NO!

This is a very common question and it exposes a HUGE misunderstanding. The following examples clearly explain how and why this false impression must be eliminated immediately. For executive management, board members and department heads, leading the way and doing the right things to eliminate liabilities is much better than being in damage control mode with media, families, government agencies, attorneys, insurance companies and others second guessing your ability to lead. For example:

If Virginia Tech’s threat assessment team had known about all of Cho’s concerning behaviors and PROACTIVELY PREVENTED him from escalating and killing 32 people (like the VT Review Panel Report suggested), would VT’s legal costs be $50M today?
Definitely not more liable if they had known and proactively prevented.

If Sandy Hook’s School Officials had known about all of the concerning behaviors that so many people observed for many years and then PROACTIVELY PREVENTED Adam Lanza from escalating and killing 20 children and 6 adults, would Sandy Hook be facing lawsuits by families of those who were murdered today?
Definitely not more liable if they had known and proactively prevented.

If Germanwings’ risk/threat/behavior assessment team(s) had known about all of Andreas Lubitz’s concerning behaviors and then PROACTIVELY INTERVENED and PREVENTED from him from escalating and crashing a plane into a mountain and killing 150 people, would Lufthansa and Germanwings be facing enormous lawsuits and be in constant damage control mode reacting to negative headlines around the world today?
Definitely not more liable if they had known and proactively prevented.

Obviously organizations are NOT more liable if they are proactively Collecting the Dots…and there are hundreds of other examples that overwhelmingly validate this fact.

Research-based and evidence-based data from post-incident reports along with the media investigations after nearly every serious incident and tragedy reveal other people observed and even reported concerning behaviors… these concerning behaviors are the “dots that need to be collected” so the right people can assess and connect the dots. Additionally, the “dots need to be collected within a central and secure platform” where the right people can access, assess and connect the dots so more effective intervention and proactive prevention can be achieved. (see national standard overview of ANSI WVPI)

People almost always observe concerning behaviors before incidents and tragedies, so how can organizations Collect the Dots more effectively and more proactively prevent incidents and tragedies?

Collecting the Dots more effectively depends on:

    • Awareness at the individual level (discussed in Step 1 of 6 Essential Steps)
    • Ongoing promotions (posters, bracelets, etc.) and ongoing reminders (emails, surveys, etc.) on the importance of incident reporting including how and where to report incidents
    • The right tools to make it easy for people to access and submit incident reports securely and anonymously

People are the “secret weapon” and it is executive management’s responsibility to equip their people and make it easy for their “walking talking cameras” to report concerning behaviors, suspicious actions and at-risk indicators.

But when it comes to anonymous incident reporting, way too many executives, department heads and board members lack a true understanding of anonymous incident reporting.

    Anonymous online incident reporting DOES NOT lead to more false reporting.* Data clearly shows this common concern is outdated and false. Today if an individual is trying to get someone else in trouble (especially youth), they will use Social Media so they can “watch” the damage, humiliation and pile on attacks in real time.

    *Threat assessment professionals realize a “false report” could be a pre-incident indicator and “the smoke before the fire”, so even a false report can be an important dot to collect.

    Texting is NOT anonymous. (Everyone knows there is a record on the phone and on their bill.) So when you tell your people to use your anonymous texting service, you are essentially losing their trust rather than building trust.
    Phone hotlines are NOT anonymous. (Everyone knows there is a record on the phone and their bill…)
    Apps are NOT anonymous and because it is impossible to get everyone to download the app, many people will not be connected. Apps can be cool a cool way to “connect to a service” and some apps offer an option for reporting incidents, however some apps have been the target of hackers causing embarrassing disclosures and putting sensitive information at risk.

Research-based and evidence-based data from post-incident reports and surveys reveal again and again how people observed pre-incident indicators. But people clearly do not trust traditional incident reporting options that do not offer real anonymous incident reporting options, which means people are not comfortable reporting their observations of concerning behaviors, suspicious actions and pre-incident indicators which leaves organizations vulnerable and mostly in reaction mode.

Over and over again organizations find themselves in reaction mode and damage control mode because they do not promote and remind people to report incidents and because the right information does not get to the right people in the right places at the right time so the right people can complete all 6 essential steps to proactively prevent preventable incidents and tragedies.

To learn more about real anonymous incident reporting options, click here.

To continue to Part 4, click here.