How Training Failures Build Success in Executive Protection Operations

Failure is a catalyst for growth in high-stakes fields like executive protection. By intentionally designing training programs that embrace failure, teams develop the resilience and adaptability needed for real-world operations. This article explores how training failures drive success in executive protection operations, drawing on academic research, Department of Defense (DOD) practices, and executive protection industry insights.

The Role of Failure in Learning

Failure is a steppingstone to improvement.  Research consistently shows that mistakes made during training lead to deeper understanding and stronger performance in high-pressure situations, such as in executive protection operations.

Academic Insights on Success Through Failure

The Harvard Business Review emphasizes the importance of after-action reviews, which analyze both successes and failures to refine mental models and improve decision-making.

Studies on experiential learning highlight that failure fosters critical thinking and resilience, especially when paired with reflective practices.

Benefits of Failure as a Catalyst for Change

• Encourages innovation by pushing individuals to explore alternative approaches.

• Builds emotional resilience necessary for handling real-world challenges.

• Strengthens team communication through shared learning experiences.

Lessons on Failure from DOD Training Practices

The Department of Defense has long recognized the value of failure as a learning tool. Military training environments simulate high-stakes scenarios where mistakes are inevitable – and instructive.  While not completely analogous, executive protection operations similar to military operations in several ways, to include their high-stakes nature and the concept of protection as one of the critical means by which leaders execute operations and accomplish their mission.

Key Practices for Using Failures to Drive Success

• After-Action Reviews: Structured evaluations dissect what went wrong during exercises, providing actionable insights for improvement.

• Human Factors Analysis (HFACS): The Air Force, for example, uses this framework to identify root causes of errors, ensuring lessons translate into safer operational practices.

High Reliability Organizations (HROs) and Executive Protection

At Convoy Group, we have adopted High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles to ensure our executive protection and security teams can thrive in complex, high-risk environments.

Key HRO practices include:

• Sensitivity to Operations – HROs are extremely aware of the relevant systems and processes.

• Reluctance to Simplify – HROs understand that their work is incredibly complex and can fail in unexpected ways.

• Preoccupation with Failure: HROs view near failures as opportunities to learn and improve, rather than validations of their competence.

• Deference to Expertise: HROs value insights from staff with the greatest knowledge over those with the most seniority.

• Practicing (or Commitment to) Resilience: HROs prioritize emergency training for various unlikely, but possible, failures.

To provide just one example of how the importance of these hallmarks can be elucidated, in our free-form executive protection exercises, we demonstrate the overarching requirement for adapted HRO principles by simulating communication breakdowns during multi-team operations.  These controlled failures reveal gaps in real-time information sharing, coordination within and between teams, and between executive protection agents and their Principal.  All of these issues, when viewed through the lens of HRO principles, can be addressed through understanding how adherence to these principles reduces critical failures.

How Failure Enhances Executive Protection Training

Executive protection teams face challenges requiring precision, foresight, and operational flexibility.  Incorporating failure into executive protection training prepares teams for these real-world complexities.

Key Benefits of Manufacturing Failures in Executive Protection Training

• Improved Decision-Making: Scenarios with controlled failures force executive protection teams to understand highly probable critical failure points and adapt quickly. 

• Enhanced Risk Assessment: Mistakes during training simulations reveal planning blind spots that could have been identified and prepared for. 

• Stronger Team Cohesion: Shared failure experiences build trust among executive protection teams, and they also illuminate the importance of leadership and team effort.

In our free-form executive protection training exercises, for example, we oftentimes incorporate unplanned foot movements in unfamiliar, dense urban areas with complicated side street networks.  This can create breakdowns in communication, tracking, and situational awareness, which force the students to think critically about how to develop flexible plans, as well as the importance of standard operating procedures and common executive protection best practices. 

Moreover, failed security details in controlled training environments demonstrate the importance for executive protection teams to:

• Conduct cross-functional debriefs to improve coordination.
• Establish clear leadership hierarchies and decision-making processes.
• Rehearse the individual and collective tasks necessary to successfully execute an EP detail.

Building a Security Company Culture That Embraces Failure

To maximize failure’s benefits, executive protection teams must deliberately engineer failures into training scenarios, as well as foster a company culture that embraces both training and real-world failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Convoy Group’s approach includes:

Ethical Accountability

Aligning with professional ethics in private security, mistakes in security operations should be addressed through corrective action – not finger pointing and punishment at the operator level.

HRO-Informed Practices

Regular “pre-mortem” analyses can help executive protection teams anticipate potential failures before operations begin.  Moreover, near-misses can serve as opportunities to recognize additional areas for growth and policy refinement or development.

Continuous Improvement

Quarterly training audits and mandatory training, for example, can help track progress against past failures, ensuring lessons translate into long-term executive protection or security competency.

Building Resilience Through Training Failures in Executive Protection

In executive protection, failure in training is not tantamount to failure in service delivery – it’s a strategic tool that can enhance it.  By integrating a number of DOD practices, HRO principles, and executive protection industry insights, close protection teams can transform mistakes into opportunities to build success in executive protection service delivery.  From clear communication procedures with a Principal, to armed response drills and ethical decision-making frameworks, every failure can strengthen preparedness for the unpredictable.

At Convoy Group, we integrate these principles and strategies into our executive protection training programs, offering tailored solutions that impart both theoretical and practical knowledge.  Just as there is “no substitute for rehearsals,”  there is also no substitute for the hard-earned lessons that carefully engineered training failures impart.  Our numerous decades of special operations, private security, and executive protection experience support training designs that enhance operational excellence through realistic learning and expert instruction.