In light of the horrible tragedy in Virginia where a television reporter and cameraman from WDBJ-TV were shot and killed by a former colleague during a live report on tourism, it is time to take a deeper look at the data and what can be done to prevent workplace violence related incidents and tragedies.
Of course everyone agrees PREVENTING is BETTER than REACTING…so if everyone prefers PREVENTING, why are organizations seemingly in continuous REACTION MODE?
Connecting the dots…
My “return on prevention” experiences go all the way back to 6th grade and my professional experiences include 30+ years doing assessments (threat, risk, cyber security, physical security, safety, compliance, etc.) and I am constantly asking questions and performing research to help Awareity’s clients improve their ability to Pro-Actively and Pre-Actively Prevent.
https://www.awareity.com/6-essential-steps-to-proactive-prevention-part-1/
After the tragedy, I noticed common headlines from across the country as other TV stations were “reacting” to the tragedy: TV station increases security after Virginia slayings
http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/norm-clarke/tv-station-increases-security-after-virginia-slayings
The headlines triggered my “assessment and prevention experiences” to start asking questions about how organizations REACT after tragedies which led me to do some web searches using “keywords in the headlines”.
I searched:
“increases security after” which returned about 20,700 hits
“increases threat assessment after” which returned NO hits
“increases prevention after” which returned NO hits
The search results expose (and confirm) a much bigger and more dangerous disconnect…after nearly every tragedy (workplace violence, school shooting, community violence, etc.) organization and community leaders keep doing the same thing – REACTING and increasing security and adding more security devices that REACT to incidents rather than adding Pro-Active PREVENTION solutions.
Einstein warned people about this many years ago…
Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results is insanity.
To pro-actively PREVENT workplace violence incidents and tragedies (and the insanity), make sure your organization’s leaders are doing the right thing by adding proven Threat Assessment tools and proven Prevention tools.
Why? Because we also know from hundreds of post-workplace violence reports that almost always (if not always) there were numerous “pre-incident indicators” that one or more individuals observed. But without the right tools to get the right information to the right people (TAT) in the right places at the right time so they can pro-actively collect the dots, assess the dots, connect the dots, intervene, monitor and prevent.
To get started and learn about Awareity’s proven and award-winning Threat Assessment, Incident Management & Prevention Services (TIPS), click here to set up an online demonstration or send your organization specific questions to info@Awareity.com.