What Conducting Surveillance Taught Me About Human Behavior and Security

You learn more about people when you’re watching them than when you’re talking to them.  During my time in Special Forces, and later while conducting surveillance and executive protection assignments around the world, I spent long stretches observing entrances, exits, routines, and patterns of movement.  Surveillance forces you to see what is actually happening, not what someone believes is happening.  Over time, this perspective changes how you think about risk, leadership, and human behavior.

Predictability Creates an Opportunity to Identify Threats

One moment that has stayed with me came during a stateside surveillance training evolution.  We teach surveillance students a simple principle when approaching a target location: park at a distance rather than directly in front of the business.  The extra space gives you a better opportunity to observe the environment on the way , and again on the way out.  We also encourage students to pull their vehicle in headfirst rather than backing in. For context, backing into a parking space is common in military and law enforcement circles.  It is not wrong, but in certain environments it can become an unnecessary indicator of surveillance operations.

Despite clear instructions, almost every student chose the closest available parking spot.  And almost every one of them backed in.  It was not defiance, it was a habit, and it was comfort.  This was the students’ version of efficiency overriding intention.

That small detail was a reminder that training competes with instinct, and instinct usually wins unless it has been deliberately retrained.  In surveillance work, it is often the small details that either expose you or protect you.  The same small details that give a surveillance operator away can also be the ones that keep them safe.

This lesson extends well beyond surveillance or surveillance detection training.  Most people believe they are unpredictable, yet routines dominate behavior.  Individuals park in the same areas, enter through the same doors, follow the same commute routes, and operate inside familiar patterns because routine feels efficient and safe.  From a security and risk assessment perspective, predictability is not neutral, it creates opportunity.

Very few incidents are truly spontaneous. Whether in criminal activity, workplace violence, or targeted attacks, harmful events are often preceded by observation, rehearsal, and selection.  Targets are chosen because they are accessible and consistent. When leaders describe threats as random, they are usually misunderstanding how targeting works.  Random feels chaotic, but most security incidents follow a structure.

Research from the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) has repeatedly shown that acts of targeted violence are rarely impulsive and often involve observable behaviors and planning prior to the event.

Ego and Organizational Blind Spots Create Unnecessary Risk

Another truth that surveillance reinforces is how often ego creates vulnerability.  Overconfidence distorts assessment.  I have watched individuals ignore obvious warning signs because acknowledging them would be inconvenient.  I have seen organizations dismiss anomalies because nothing significant has happened before.  Risk does not respond to reputation, tenure, or good intentions.  The belief that it will not happen here is not a strategy; it is a psychological defense mechanism. This is also not just my opinion – the research backs it up.

Environment Shapes Behavior and Underpins Risk

The environment also shapes behavior more than policy ever will.  In Special Forces and  executive protection operations, environmental control is central.  Lighting, visibility, lines of sight, access routes, and choke points influence behavior long before a policy is read or enforced.  If access control is cumbersome, doors will be propped open.  If visitor procedures slow operations, shortcuts will develop.  If camera placement leaves blind spots, those blind spots will eventually be discovered.

Effective security consulting must account for how people actually behave, not how we wish they would behave.  Layered security works not because it appears impressive, but because it anticipates human shortcuts, distraction, and routine.

Decades of criminological research, including Routine Activity Theory reinforces the idea that opportunity and environmental conditions play a central role in whether harmful acts occur.

Ambiguity and Decision-Making in Uncertain Security Environments

Perhaps the most important lesson surveillance teaches is comfort with ambiguity. It is rarely dramatic work, and it is almost always uncertain.  You are constantly evaluating whether a pattern is meaningful or incidental, whether a deviation is signal or noise.  That discipline of interpretation is directly applicable to leadership and protective intelligence.  In crisis situations, decision makers rarely have complete information. Waiting for perfect clarity is rarely an option.  Pattern recognition, context, substantial experience to support intuition, and disciplined analysis become essential.

Most executives will never conduct surveillance, nor should they need to. What they do need to understand is that risk rarely appears fully formed.  It develops gradually, it signals early; and it leaks through behavior, environment, and small inconsistencies that compound over time.

The lessons I learned through personal surveillance and executive protection experience continue to shape how we approach everything from threat vulnerability assessments to protective intelligence at Convoy Group.  Security is not simply about reacting to events after they occur, it is about recognizing patterns before they mature into incidents and designing environments that reduce opportunity.  That begins with paying attention to the details that most people overlook.