Preparation is the closest thing you'll ever have to a superpower!

It’s invisible when it’s done well, and painfully obvious when it’s not. It is  is absolutely key to any close protection operation and here's why.

1. Because the real work happens before the principal shows up: Most people think CP is about being physically close to the principal: walking them through the lobby, sitting behind them in the car, standing at the side of the room during a meeting.

In reality, the most important work usually happens hours or days before any of that:

• Scanning routes

• Checking venues

• Understanding timings

• Reading the threat picture

• Planning medical contingencies

When preparation is solid, the live operation often looks “uneventful”.When preparation is poor, everything feels like a surprise. A good rule of thumb: If you’re constantly firefighting on the day, you didn’t plan enough.

2. Preparation turns chaos into something you can control: The world is messy. Traffic jams, delayed flights, last-minute agenda changes, protests, random crime, weather… none of it cares about your plan. But preparation lets you shape that chaos:

• You already know alternative routes.

• You already know which hotel entrance is calmer.

• You already know who to call at the venue.

• You already know which hospital is the best option, and how to get there.

You’re not removing risk—you’re reducing the number of unknowns.

Without preparation, every new problem is a crisis.With preparation, every new problem is just a decision:“OK, Plan A is blocked. We move to Plan B.”

3. Preparation is how you see danger before it becomes critical: Security failures often don’t come out of nowhere. There are usually warning signs:

• A pattern of suspicious loitering before a trip

• A spike in crime on a specific route

• Social media chatter about unrest near a venue

• A chaotic hotel lobby layout with no clear escape route

  
  

If you haven’t done your homework, you’ll notice these in hindsight.If you have done your homework, you’ll see them early enough to change something.

Good preparation includes:

• Threat assessment – What can realistically happen here?

• Vulnerability review – Where is our principal exposed?

• Impact thinking – If this goes wrong, how bad is it?

That mindset lets you design the detail so that it’s harder for an attacker to succeed and easier for you to respond.

4. Preparation protects more than just the principal: Close protection isn’t only about keeping one person physically safe. It also protects:

• Reputation – An executive’s image, the company’s brand.

• Business continuity – Getting them to the right meetings, on time and in one piece.

• Legal position – Operating within law and policy, avoiding unnecessary use-of-force incidents.

• Team safety – Making sure you’re not exposing drivers, colleagues, or bystanders to avoidable risk.

Preparation is where you:

• Clarify legal and policy boundaries

• Structure your use-of-force thinking

• Align with corporate expectations (low profile vs high profile, media posture, etc.)

Without that, even an incident you “win” tactically can become a strategic loss once lawyers, regulators or the media get involved.

5. Preparation builds confidence—for you and the principal: Principals can sense when their team is improvising everything. They pick up on:

• Confused directions

• Last-minute “uh, we’ll figure it out when we get there”

• Silent arguments between team members

• Awkward pauses when they ask a simple question like, “How long will it take to get back if this meeting runs late?”

On the other hand, when you’re prepared:

• Your answers are clear and calm.

• Your movements feel deliberate.

• Your briefings are short, structured, and reassuring.

• 
  

That builds trust. And trust is the foundation of any long-term CP relationship.

For the team, preparation gives you psychological stability. You’re not guessing, you’re executing a plan you’ve already walked through in your head (and ideally on the ground).

6. Preparation is what makes teamwork actually work: Close protection is a team sport. Even if it’s just you and a driver, that’s still a team. Without preparation, everyone is working from their own mental picture. The result?

• Mixed expectations

• Mis-timed moves

• Conflicting instructions

• Gaps nobody noticed until something goes wrong

Preparation time is where you:

• Agree on roles and responsibilities

• Synchronise timing and signals

• Decide who’s talking to whom (drivers, venue security, principal, control room)

• Share the same route and contingency plan

• 
  

A simple pre-ops briefing and written plan (even just a one-page outline) helps ensure that, when something happens, people instinctively pull in the same direction instead of getting in each other’s way.

7. Preparation makes “boring” a success metric, not an insult: In good CP, nothing exciting happens most of the time. No one gets shot. No one gets grabbed. No one goes viral on social media for the wrong reasons.

That’s not a sign that CP was unnecessary. It’s often a sign that:

• The principal wasn’t an easy target.

• There were no obvious vulnerabilities to exploit.

• The team quietly shaped the environment to reduce opportunity.

All of that is powered by preparation. Some people chase drama as proof they’re doing something important. Professionals chase predictable, safe, boring days—and they know that level of boring takes work.

8. Preparation reduces the cost of mistakes: You can’t eliminate mistakes. Fatigue, stress, complexity—they all take a toll. But preparation reduces the cost of those mistakes:

• If someone forgets a detail, it’s still in the written plan.

• If the lead freezes for a second, the driver still has a route card.

• If a venue changes entrance arrangements last minute, the advance has already identified a second option.

You create redundancy through:

• Documentation (OPORDs, route cards, contact lists)

• Shared understanding (briefings)

• Rehearsal (walk-throughs, drills)

So, when humans do human things, the operation doesn’t fall apart.

9. Preparation is how you learn and improve over time: Every operation is a chance to get better—if you capture what happened. Preparation isn’t just “before the job.” It also includes preparing for next time:

• After-action / hot debrief

• Honest review of what worked and what didn’t

• Updating checklists and templates

• Adjusting SOPs based on real life, not theory

Over time, this builds a feedback loop:

1. You plan.

2. You execute.

3. You debrief.

4. You improve the plan template.

   
   

In a year, the difference in quality between a team that does this and a team that doesn’t is huge—and visible.

10. Preparation is the one thing you always control: You can’t control:

• When protests flare up

• What criminals decide to do

• How airlines, traffic, or the weather behave

• Whether your principal suddenly changes their mind

But you can control how prepared you are. You can choose to:

• Do a proper threat and risk assessment

• Walk the route in your head and on the ground

• Build a flexible but clear plan

• Brief the team and the principal properly

• Pack the right kit and check it

• Think through “If X happens, we’ll do Y”

That’s why preparation is key. It’s the one lever you always have, even when everything else is out of your hands.

In the end… The best close protection doesn’t look heroic. It looks like nothing much happened, because everything that mattered happened earlier:

• On maps

• In risk assessments

• In advance visits

• In quiet conversations with venue security

• In vehicle checks at 05:30 when nobody else is watching

Preparation won’t make you famous. But it might be the reason your principal lives a long, uneventful life—and never really understands how many bad days they didn’t have because you were ready.

And that’s exactly how it should be!