Understand to Engage

Why

Traditional descriptive intelligence and trend analysis are not enough to outsmart modern opponents. The contemporary security environment is full of challenges posed by states and non-state groups alike. Over the last two decades, it has become clear that all these actors have become increasingly apt in playing the role of both the fox and the lion.

An emic perspective – which takes the groups' behaviour framed by the context and situation as its point of reference – will enable a much broader and more profound situational knowledge than the usual perspective of the 'outside' researcher (the etic perspective). Moreover, this new perspective creates foresight, enabling law enforcers to get one step ahead of their opponents. This is the methodology of Understand to Engage.

How

Understand To Engage consists of three phases, broadly speaking:

• The creation of a 'team or teams', in which mutual trust is established, risks can be taken, long-term goals can be pursued, and mutual communication streamlined efficiently;
• The understand phase, in which the target groups affected by the issue are - according to their standards ('emic') - understood from the inside as opposed to predefined checklists ('etic'). In this phase, there must be the opportunity for experimentation, hypothesis testing, and goal adjustment;
• The engage phase, in which verified hypotheses give rise to (creative) action. Previously built-up networks are used, and successes achieved earlier are exploited further.

What

Understand to Engage is based on innovative behavioural science research methods as a basis for security operations. U2E is unique since it translates 'scientific' behavioural theoretical insights to the specific security context while making them practical.

TGI offers a two-week Understand to Engage course. The course design is a customised process that can be tailor-made to accommodate the client's specific wishes (content and planning-related).