Every time you walk into a room, you naturally begin to assess all of the people around you. You’re looking through the crowd to determine if there is anyone that you need to keep an eye on because they are showing hostility towards and also looking for any familiar faces. Beyond recognizing people we know,...
The reason that I led yesterday’s article off with the example of Nidal Hassan’s attack in Fort Hood might not be for the reason you would imagine. While this was a terrorist act in nature, the characteristics of his attack mirror those of a workplace violence incident. In fact, it meets the exact definition of...
In the military, every operation gets looked at from two perspectives. The first is from the friendly perspective (as a Marine or Soldier looking at the enemy.) The second is from the enemy’s perspective (what he would be thinking looking at us.) This is done to ensure a comprehensive approach to mission planning and, while...
When I was first preparing to separate from the military, I failed in my post-Marine Corps career job search. About ten months before I was set to leave Camp Pendleton, I sent my resume to over 50 companies over a two-month period and didn’t get a single response. I couldn’t believe it. It went against...
We’ve all been there before. We thought we had done enough to get the “yes,” whether it was for a new contract, an agreement with a village elder in a foreign country over the placement of a new well, or the number for the girl you’ve been talking to at the bar. In fact, we...
I posted an article last week that highlighted Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation. The problem with theory is that it isn’t always clear how that translates to real world application. Lately, I’ve been following the Presidential debate and listening to the candidate’s plans to secure our energy independence, so let’s use the example of a...
I’ve always enjoyed healthy debate as a route to learning. Having to defend an opinion or point of view makes a person stronger and plays a huge role in developing a deeper understanding of a topic. There are few people in my life that have challenged me as frequently as Rick Gonzalez, making him a...
A great talk from Amy Cuddy about the effect body language has on the person, definitely recommend taking the 20 minutes to view it. After you are done, take a look at some posts that tie in similar concepts: – She talks about what we refer to as Dominant and Submissive behavior: read what...
We have gone through the 6 different clusters that we use to define a person’s body language and expanded the possible behaviors that you can use classify the people you are observing. The more you practice identifying these clusters will allow you to quickly establish baselines for individuals as well as notice the subtle changes...
After having a conversation with another Combat Hunter instructor about the how confident students should be making decisions immediately following our course, I wanted to find some more information about people’s confidence in reading nonverbal cues. We want our students to be confident after the course, because without confidence in the accuracy of their observations,...
Of the “Must Read” books listed on the recommended reading list, Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction, 7th Edition, by Mark Knapp and Judith Hall is at the bottom for a reason, but not because it is a bad read or without great information. It is there for the exact opposite reason; it is absolutely full...
The foundation of any behavioral analysis program begins with a deep understanding of what a person is conveying through their nonverbal communication. Tying the domains Kinesics and Biometrics together allow us to quickly make decisions about a person’s intentions, capabilities and emotions. The six clusters that we use to classify an individual’s behavior (Dominant, Submissiveness,...
When it comes to observing body language and biometric cues, we want to stress the absolute imperative that we have as observers to put behavioral indicators together into clusters. Because gestures have different meaning in different contexts, we have to be cautious in the conclusions that we come to. One body language indicator alone does...
Predictive Profiling is the guiding concept that has driven the development of the Tactical Analysis course. The goal is to make Marines, police officers, and security professional capable of predicting the 5 W’s for any attack the enemy can present to us. Because protectors can be in any country in the world, preparing for this...
If you want to learn about someone (we will call him the target,) don’t waste your time asking that person anything about himself. You will never get the whole story. This person may guard information, not tell whole truths, be biased, or simply give you the run around. The two people who will give you...