The Security Circle

EP 068 A very frank conversation with our very own Frank Cannon

• Frank Cannon • Season 1 • Episode 68

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Frank Cannon is a distinguished Chartered Security Professional, boasting a remarkable career that spans over four decades. His unique blend of academic rigor and practical application has solidified him as a venerated 'security pracademic' in our field.

Frank's career is deeply rooted in a comprehensive military background, from which he has developed a keen analytical mindset. This, coupled with his relentless curiosity, drives his quest to understand the intricacies of why adversaries attack and how to effectively counter these threats. His expertise shines in devising behavioural-based security awareness programmes, designed not just for compliance, but to instil a culture of intuitive secure behaviour across entire organizations.

As the Founder of Cannon Asset Protection Limited, Frank has been instrumental in mentoring emerging talents in security and providing strategic coaching to Chief Security Officers. His work predominantly focuses on safeguarding mega-construction sites and industrial plants, ensuring the alignment of security measures with overarching business objectives. Frank’s approach is holistic, resonating with stakeholders at all levels and championing cognitive protective security governance.

A keen advocate for the professionalisation of the security industry, Frank's contributions extend beyond professional boundaries, aiming to elevate the industry’s understanding and implementation of effective security practices. His philosophy is simple yet profound: he works best when he is happy, a testament to the balance he maintains between his professional and personal life.

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

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Yoyo:

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference where we can to our members mental health and well being. Thank you. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and now. We want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle. And if you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. Subscribe, give us five star ratings, or like, comment, and share on LinkedIn. It means a lot. Well, I can't tell you how excited I am. You can probably hear me smiling. We've been trying to do this for a little while, haven't we? Frank Cannon, welcome to the Security Circle podcast.

Frank:

Thank you mate, well delivered again, as always, with panache.

Yoyo:

Well, it's taken a year and a half in the making. You'd have thought I'd have learned it off by heart by now, but I haven't. Frank, look, we've been in several social environments. And most of the social environments we've been in have always been, the gathering ment of security professionals, usually with fine clothing and bright lights. It's just one side of the security industry, isn't it? There's another side to it, other than the glitz and glamour.

Frank:

There is, there's those services that we provide to our clients. But before I go on to that, can I just say, Yo? Thank you for what you do, mate, for the impact that you've made and for the hours and hours of learning that I've enjoyed over the last 12 months. And I cannot believe you've only been recording for 12 months. So well done, mate.

Yoyo:

Thank you so much. It's the guests really that bring the magic. Definitely. Oh

Frank:

yeah, I agree with that. Yeah,

Yoyo:

they're the clever ones. They're the expertise. They are the shining pillars of our security community. Oh, I'm just the sellotape, that joins it all up, describe your office for me, so people who are listening can sort of imagine what environment you're in right now.

Frank:

So a few years ago, I was working overseas, in an oil and gas environment, and I wanted to maximize my So I decided to invest in a home office. This home office was built about 10 years ago. It's a six by eight oak framed office with the one side of it is all glass. And that looks out over my garden and beyond into a meadow, a floodplain, which is flooded at the moment on the River Avon. I can see the River Avon. The hills go up beyond the river into, green. Hillside that I could walk all the way through to Salisbury because I'm based in Wiltshire, or I could walk to my west and I stumble across Stonehenge. So that's how close, within a mile of Stonehenge.

Yoyo:

when you tell me you are out walking and about, then that's the environment you are in. That's where you are. It's okay. Yeah,

Frank:

it's, it is. And I get three things from that, mate. I get the fresh air. So I feel much, much better after that. I also get the fitness, the steps and my Fitbit tells me that's really good for me. But also I get to learn and I walk with a pen and notebook and my, my my phone, which I'll listen to you on.

Yoyo:

In fact, it's interesting that you say that because the mobile phone, I think 70 over 70 percent of our listeners use a mobile phone to listen to us.

Frank:

Yeah, and I do, and I think I mean, I'm a frequent LinkedIn poster and I often say that I'm cleaning windows or I'm washing a car or I'm chopping kindling or I'm doing tasks that I don't necessarily have to focus too much on so I can focus on what I'm listening to. And again, sat next to me is my notebook and pen. And in the back of it, I've got all my one liners, which I try and weave into My learning of my storyboards my CAP way, the Cameron Asset Protection way.

Yoyo:

I'd like to talk a little bit about that because you're putting out some really great content, Frank, aren't you? Let's talk about Frank the Man. Why is it that you have this internal need to just not only continue learning but to share everything you know to help others?

Frank:

Because it's what Simon Sinek says I need to understand the why. And if I understand the why, then I think I can communicate more effectively to my clients so that they understand the why as well. I don't want just, I don't want them to buy security as an insurance policy or just something that they, somebody says that they have to have. I want them to buy it because they understand the net. outcome, the benefit of it. So what I do is when I'm, I don't read too much now because I find it quite difficult to learn through reading. I'm a visual person or an audio person, so I listen and watch. When I'm watching and listening, I do read a bit, but when I'm there I'm noting down the why. What is, what's the purpose of doing the thing that somebody's advocating that we should be doing? And that purpose tells me what the net result is. And if I can understand that, I'm going to be more confident when talking about it. I think confidence breeds competence. And if you're competent, then you're likely to be part of a high performing team. And if you can get more competent people wrapped around you, then that team is going to be much more efficient. I'm a document to my, I write everything down.

Yoyo:

I can see you've got Paul Martin's book, The Rules of Security behind you. Is that something you'd be, I mean, you can see it. It's yellow. Great idea, Paul Martin, your publishers, by the way, to make your book like the old fashioned yellow pages, yellow. I call it

Frank:

the yellow Bible and other books, other religious books are available, but that's what I call it. And when it first came out, I listened to Paul, a security Institute general, And I was mesmerized. So I spoke to him immediately afterwards. I took one of the books that was actually on offer at the show, at the conference. I read it. And then I bought 10 copies of it, Yolanda, and I took it back to my workplace, and I shared it out with my senior leaders in the security team, and I said, let's form a book club, and what we did on that book club is we brought them in, we assembled them for 90 minutes once per month, and to get into the room, you must verify that you've read that particular chapter, and each chapter is one of the 10 rules And we broke the meeting down into three 30 minute sessions. The first 30 minutes was what did you learn from reading that particular rule or that chapter. Then we revised what we do about that particular thing. So chapter two is risk management. So we said, what do we do for risk? How do we manage our risk? the third, 30 minutes. So is what do we now need to do to change what we've learned having read Paul's book? So it was, we were using the book club with my senior leaders and we were evolving our practices. And I feel that was a really impactful way of making sure that we knew what we were doing, making sure that we could apply. Good practice, if not best practice and continuing to evolve our processes based on new learning, new knowledge coming forward. And I think we got to chapter five or rule five and then this little thing called COVID kicked in. So we weren't able to assemble, but by then I had about seven non security leaders of the organization wanting to walk through the door. and having read, having purchased the book and having read the appropriate chapter. So we were actually expanding the art of security outside of the security professional domain, but bringing in our health and safety, our emergency response, our licensing officer, people that we work with regularly that heard the buzz, that heard that we were doing something different and they wanted to get involved and they did get involved and I thank them for that.

Yoyo:

I know that not a lot of things are. all bad in the security industry. There's lots of great collaborations going on. There are lots of great institutions and membership bodies doing lots of great things with some amazing volunteers, but also not a lot of things are right. If you could change three things, Frank with the best intentions from the heart, what three things do you think you'd change? I'm making you think now because I'm thinking I didn't really prep you for that question.

Frank:

And I'm already thinking how far do I go with this? So let me prefix this then. So brace

Yoyo:

yourselves, everybody.

Frank:

Yeah, but so, so, so I'm a unionist. I like involving many different people to get the best outcome. I'm, I haven't got a malicious bone in my body. I really do want everybody to succeed. And I'm going to speak from a position of knowledge because I was until recently director and the deputy chair of the security Institute largest membership body for security professionals in the UK. And I did spend a very short period of time as their interim chief executive whilst we're recruiting the current chief executive. So I've got a degree of knowledge. So, what three things could I, would we change to make our profession a more efficient service provider to our partners? First thing is I would tend to ask people to leave their egos at home. And not necessarily bring them into the workplace. What's an

Yoyo:

example, what's an example of that, Frank, leaving a dose at what

Frank:

I mean by that is, is that if we're meeting as a group of professionals I think we should be kind, I think we should look to look at what draws us together, look at the similarities more than what divides us. So let's let's be kind to one another. Let's communicate with empathy. So you need to succeed, Yolanda. I need to succeed. And if we understood what we both need to succeed, we're probably going to get a little bit further than what we would if we were just pushing our own agenda. And sometimes that, that empathy requires compromise. You're not always going to get, a hundred percent of everything you want every time you go into a meeting. That's the first thing I'd say, let's remove the egos. Let's communicate with empathy and let's be kinder to one another to, to create this unified way of going forward. The second thing here goes in. So the second thing is that I think that we, well, I know that we are a multi billion dollar industry, or at least a sector we create a lot of money. We've got, I mean, we've got over 4, 000 sorry, 430, 000 licensed security officers or licensed security operatives working through the SIA. We've got multiple approved contractors. We've got a lot of competency within our sector uh, yet all of our membership bodies are led and managed by volunteers. So I've just been one of those, but inevitably those volunteers are successful people who have an altruistic streak, and they want to pay back. They want to put much, back into a sector that's made them successful. But because they're successful, they're very busy people. And they admit that means that they're time poor. So we've got altruistic volunteers who are time poor leading our membership bodies. And I believe that now is the time to professionalize those that lead our membership bodies. And what I mean by that is they are paid employees of those organizations. And this does multiple, there's multiple advantages there. First thing is that we remove the conflict of interest. So somebody doesn't get there's no allegations placed upon a person saying, Oh, they're only pushing their own agenda. They're building his or her. They are pushing the product that they sell in their business, right? So we remove that. He, we remove that conflict of interest. We also mean that we've got this high performing professional pushing 100 percent of their, his or her time to the benefit of the members. Not to the benefit of anybody else. And that time can be dedicated to move things along. We do tend to have many membership organizations and the security Commonwealth, I think has last count was 43 different members. So the security Commonwealth is a, another voluntary organization that's placed upon the existing. Organizations. And we expect those volunteers. To perform, this, you, to pull the whole industry together. And unfortunately, whilst they have a very commendable vision and goal, it's not achieved. It's absolutely not achieved. And Lord Toby Harris said when he was reviewing the preparedness for London for counter, for terrorist attacks, he said, I wish there was somebody, I'm paraphrasing that, paraphrasing now, I wish there was somebody in the industry that I could talk to. There was no single voice of the industry. to talk to, to get that commercial perspective. And I believe that our membership bodies, and of course I'm biased towards the Security Institute, which I think is a fantastic organization. I think that we could be, become the trusted partners of the police. Our police services and the trusted advisor to our government. And if I would argue that if we were to have bench tested Martin's law or the protect duty, if we'd bench tested it within the industry, more rigorously. We wouldn't have suffered the embarrassment of it going before the select committee and having it, pretty, a lot of the integrity undermined. And I think there's so many people that are pushed so hard to get that where it is today that we should have bench tested, we should have red teamed it. more professionally within the industry, within ourselves. So we rehearse the arguments, we make it battle ready so that when external people, non security professionals challenge the premise of that particular draft piece of legislation, we would have, it would have been more robust to withstand the external scrutiny. And we didn't do that, Yolanda, I don't think. We had a few selected professionals that advised those that are writing that piece of legislation. But I don't think we had the broad church of security professionals who had the chance to air their voice and to give that counter narrative.

Yoyo:

So are we lacking then in something or someone pulling everything together? Because it's weakening of me of lack of leadership when there are, there's always this disconnect.

Frank:

Yes, we are. Yes, we are. And I just emphasize again, I'm not criticizing individual people or I'm criticizing the system. And whenever we perform a penetration test of a site, we always say we are not trying to undermine the individual people working on that particular day. We are undermining, we are trying to verify and validate the efficacy of the systems. And this is what I'm talking about. I'm not criticizing individual people because I know a lot of them personally and they are fantastic, but they are time poor. They potentially have other interests that, that you can't, I tried it as a director, you can't take out your personal interests when you're representing the body from a professional perspective. And also if we want to be, if we want to resonate with the government or the police or other partners our client, our professional client organizations, that we need to have somebody that are dedicated and focused all of the time. If we're going to create a strategy for our membership bodies, then we need to have those advocates. First, of all, we need to write a strategy. Then we need to communicate the strategy. Then we need people out on the road all of the time advocating for that strategic intent. And we haven't got that at the moment. I can't see that. But again, we have some fantastic people and I think, you just need to go into London to see the passion of some of the people that are working in London and I say London because that's the meetings I often go to but, I've been in as a representative of the Security Institute into the SIA meetings. The three times a year meetings that we hold their engagement session and there's some really good passionate people that attend that.

Yoyo:

Yeah.

Frank:

But they are doing it whilst also trying to head up a security department or manage or run a business yeah. Or provide consultancy services to, to a variety of clients as I do the, we are time poor. But if we were to employ somebody full time, and what I'm talking about here is have a series of chief officers, and probably an executive director paid that focused solely on delivering that service that we need. The membership organization would employ them to deliver we have a chief executive officer at the Institute, a fantastic person, a very professional person. But he is a loan security professional in the head office. Everybody else provides support services. So, if we're talking about things professionally, they either come back out to the board of directors who are time poor, very competent people, or they come to the special interest groups and again, volunteers with their day jobs to perform. And again, some fantastic people in the special interest groups, but, and all the other organizations have those as well.

Yoyo:

Frank you talked earlier to being kind and working with humility and empathy. In fact, I had a catch up with Lee Orton yesterday. And he said, since the kindness games movement, and I use that word very intentively because it's not about Lee, it's not about Tim, it's a movement. He found that there was a lot more focus on managing with empathy and empathy in management and leadership in a lot of the conferences he's been to in the last year. So it seems to be that this is something that works and maybe more visible stateside, but surely, If this is what's needed, we can carry this movement of kindness and managing with empathy into our own security practices in the UK.

Frank:

Yes, we can. Yes, we can. But I have to use a phrase, when all is said and done, more is said than done. So, so, we talk the talk, but do we walk the walk? And there's our industry like every other sector is. We have a collective movement, and then we have a competitive edge. So, we are trying to, at the moment, is, I'm trying to get a group of people together to go and communicate into the built environment. We need to speak to those that construct, those that design, those that operate our buildings and places where we all work, rest, and play. We're just restarting, re reinvigorating that process. And we're trying to work out as a collective, what is the message that we as the security sector need to take into, and I'm going to use the construction sector, but I mean the whole building bond, what we need to take into the construction sector. What is the key message? And we've all got to come together and create that key message. Then we need to communicate that key message into that other sector. in this instance, construction, so that they become an intelligent client or an intelligent customer. And then they need to know when to ask or to engage with us as a body of professionals. And then at that point, we then become competitors because we're all trying to bid for that same piece of work. But if we can't get a separate sector, a different sector, the construction sector, recognizing that they need to talk to us or when to talk to us or what to talk to us about, none of us are going to win. So collaboratively and collectively, we can get this to a certain point where we've got an intelligent client or an intelligent customer, then we can adopt our competitive edge to win that particular piece of work.

Yoyo:

I know that you're really passionate about the next generation of security professionals. What do you think the environment is like now collectively for them to join?

Frank:

so we definitely have work to do. It is a safe environment. And I think as a sector we do like to educate and to to mentor the next generation. And we, I think we do we aspire to be role models so that the next generation can see themselves a few steps up that ladder. Next generation for me is every single membership body has got a next gen team, right? And we're all doing exactly the same. There's lots of initiatives. Skills for Security, I think, are phenomenal in setting out or attempting to set out a career pathway for security professionals. There's Those elements, the skill sets, the professional sector, which is licensed, that is such a small part of our overall industry, our overall offering as a group of professionals. So we need to educate our, the youth of today, the younger generation, when they're selecting what studies to take post graduate. State school at the age of 16 and beyond. They need to understand what we can provide. I was in a social setting the other day and there was a young person involved and that young person was trying to get to know what we all did as a profession and we were a group of men. Whitewater rafting were a group of men in our sort of mid to late fifties. And he was running around the boat saying, what do you do? What do you do? What do you do? And my colleagues was going, I'm a scientist. I'm a financial advisor. I run my own business, and he came to me and I was last. And he said, what do you do? And I said, Oh, I'm in security. And he said, Oh, days or nights. And that's how he interpreted the profession of security. And that was the uniform. Yeah, that was the uniform on Tesco's front door, which is they provide a fantastic service. The frontline security officers do, but there's so much more we offer. So yes, we do need to do more. We need to educate. Again, we need to come together. Why does every membership body have a young members group? Why can't we pull together under one strategic goal? I think that we could, the soft target here, and I published something about this on LinkedIn not so long ago, there's a soft target where we can, we could engage all of our established youth groups that are uniformed, that meet regularly, that go on camps, that go on summer camps, weekend camps, and we could start educating them on what does our profession Offer to them. What does it mean to be a risk manager? What does it mean to be an analyst? What does it mean to be a cyber security specialist? An investigator. And these are all the non front, front facing or public facing elements of our profession. And again, there's a lot of people that do a real fantastic job and add value in these back of house roles. so much. And the skills for security setting out that pathway, people often say you need to get a career pathway before we can entice people into the profession. But if you don't get people coming in through first choice careers at an earlier stage, what's the point in having the pathway. So it's a chicken and egg scenario.

Yoyo:

What excites you about security industry?

Frank:

Yeah. A lot does., I mean, I've heard many of your guests say the same. Every day is a different day. Every day is a learning day. I meet so many fantastic people. I do so many different things, my. My history is quite eclectic. I've done many different parts of the profession. And as I mature in my age, and as I start understanding the why, and as I start educating, continue to educate myself, I wished I could go back and do that same job that I did 30 years ago, because I do it so much better now. And it would be because I've understood what it was that I was doing 30 years on. So I'd spent 13 years in close protection. Full time employed close protection for 13 years working very closely with a number of dedicated principals or people at risk. And I was doing half the job I should have been doing. Now I know what I should have been doing. And I would, I do on every occasion, given I, I speak to people that are currently doing that job and say, you know what, mate? Carrying that bag doesn't make you a bad bodyguard, carrying that bag gives you a purpose for being there and you can just let go of that bag as quickly as you want. But, there's lots of different nuances. I am excited. I often sneak out of my bedroom to come down into the office much earlier than what my wife would probably want me to. And when I, see her or I know that she's in the kitchen making her breakfast, I'll sneak back into the house and we'll have breakfast together. So I, I do jump out of bed every day to, to work because I enjoy it.

Yoyo:

I don't know many people that say they do that, Frank. And it's about having real purpose, isn't it? Because I think a lot of us in the security profession really cling on to the fact that if there's no purpose in what we're doing, we simply can't do it. Right.

Frank:

So I'll have a chap would come around and I have just recently a couple of trades people, one built a cupboard for me in my kitchen and another one came and looked at some plumbing for me. And they both left with my storyboards on how to protect a van. How to protect an artisan's van, so it doesn't, so they don't become a victim of crime. I never miss an opportunity to educate somebody. And it's not because I'm pushing something, it's because I know that it will benefit them, because their tools are their trade. I'm watching TV programs at night time, and I think, Oh, what are they doing that for? Why are they doing that? And I know you're a former cop and I'm sure when you watch cop programs, you look at it with, through sort of crin semi cringing and things, I'll watch Countryfile at the weekend, and I'll just see how vulnerable the farmers are to crime and how how much of a service our rural communities are not getting from the police. And that's not the police's fault. We all know this. They're too busy policing a demonstration in the city or a local football match.

Yoyo:

When I was in the police we had the, the, what we call the rural beat. And these guys were so freaking lucky. They had a four by four to drive around in the countryside. They spent most of the time driving around farms having cups of tea and giving advice and, chewing the fat and everything. And we were all out walking the streets and dealing with this and dealing with that. And it was an enviable job, but farmers. Are used to like their campus is huge. So they'll go to one location and another location. They could easily be several miles away and they are not used to having barriers in the way to be able to do their job, which means undoing that padlock, getting that out of there and locking the door again and unlocking that, I say, everything is generally wide open and the chances of somebody physically being somewhere where they could be assets stored at the time. Some of our. Quite often mobile traveling caravan community decides to sort of frequent the area on a little machine hunt. It's already too late and farmers don't have a great deal of CCTV. They don't even have, farm in the middle of nowhere. They don't even really have the setup to have CCTV and preventative measures. So they're a bit of a soft target really. And I think the only thing they can do is have their machinery marked so it's easily accessible. easily traceable.

Frank:

So you raise a very interesting subject there. And rural crime is one of the areas, construction, rural crime and behavior based security. They're my three passions, real passions. I have a lot of interest in the other areas, but they're my north star at the moment. Dr. Kate Tudor just wrote a report on rural crime. and how organized crime interact with the rural communities. And she highlights some really impressive or or intuitive findings. And she just talked about the Roman Egyptians being an organized crime gang. And whenever they move across the country, you often see the crime wave following, not always but often they are very organized and there were, they will travel 300 miles to the police. To steal something or to achieve that goal and hair coursing is another prevalent crime across the rural communities. But the police, they are, and I speak to quite a lot of them they are so passionate about doing what they do. But they're constrained. In our cities, we have business improvement districts. Where we have public private partnerships. In the rural communities, we don't. We have Neighborhood Watch, again, a series of volunteers. But there are many different uniformed security service providers now linking in with local authorities to augment the uniformed police patrol service. And we now work in partnership with the police on deliberate operations where we go out to try and interdict, haircoursing, Lincolnshire Police lead on haircoursing or fly tipping. And there's some things in the news at the moment where, multiple carcasses are being left in different places within Wiltshire or Hampshire, my bordering county, where those that haircourse and the travellers, they want to put their finger up to the police and say, it doesn't matter what you do, we can still practice our illegal sports. there's a lot of business development opportunity again, but the farmers they just need to understand that purpose of our trade, why we do what we do.

Yoyo:

Yeah, it is a bit of a culture change, really, for them, generally, because they just go about their jobs, and they don't necessarily do anything with security in mind. They've never had to, really, before. So other than farming construction, look, there's lots of other areas that security personnel sit in, some other bizarre areas. When you look at your security career, Frank, what are the things that you look back on quite fondly and think, oh, I always laugh at that?

Frank:

Yeah, I love mine. We called it General Police Duty. So I did 24 years as a Royal Military Police Officer. 24 years, that was my first from sort of 16 right through to just after 40. I didn't spend 10 years in oil and gas overseas in Kazakhstan. So I was 28 days in Kazakhstan and 28 days home. And I had a back to back. I then went into nuclear security for five years at Hinkley point C where I was part of a security team there that was building the first nuclear power station for 30 years. And this is during the period where nuclear went from being bad to being good. We're now good by the way, nuclear. Clean zero carbon power generation. And then most recently as a consultant. So lots and lots of different things. And in my service career I did lots of different things as well. And one job particularly I was the visiting forces liaison officer in Hong Kong, which meant that I jumped onto an aeroplane at Kai Tak airport. I flew and landed onto an American aircraft carrier. I then briefed the two star Admiral. About what was going to happen when his fleet, it was his, or was a man, his fleet came in ashore in Hong Kong. Then I was catapulted off on an aircraft, landed back in Kai Tak Airport, and five days later, I then helped the shore patrol, police, and police there visiting American service personnel into Hong Kong. Things like that are fantastic. I, on the night that the Berlin wall came down, I flew to Berlin looking after the four star general that I was protecting at the time. And we were there. Absolutely. Within hours of the first person climbing over the wall, we were there. And we went back for the subsequent weekend to celebrate more. Taking people at risk into refugee camps in Khartoum, in Sudan. There's just so many different things that I've really enjoyed doing that, that if I wasn't in the profession of security, I wouldn't have done. And standing outside on the door at Marks and Spencer's and the pigeon crapping on my shoulder twice, so I was doubly lucky that day.

Yoyo:

Does that pigeon not know who you thought you used to to be? I know, I

Frank:

know, I know. So I just resigned my commission as a military police officer. My very first commercial gig, the pigeon shat on me twice. So there was a message there somewhere.

Yoyo:

And if you could go back and maybe want to do a day over again, which day would you choose?

Frank:

professionally what day would I choose? Probably the day I met the Queen, whilst protecting one of the generals that I was looking after. Probably the first day we landed in Sarajevo, when I was looking after a military general. Oh, no, Frank,

Yoyo:

I can't let you get over that. Frank, let's go back to the Queen. Bless her. May she rest in peace. What was she like?

Frank:

Yeah, I mean, I'm one of a million people that met her. But it was my moment of fame. There's a picture in my downstairs toilet to recognize that particular event. But she advised me to look after her general. Because we don't have many generals. So she was giving me a piece of advice on how to do my business. And she's a person that's been protected all her life. Very competently done. So what did she say? She just said, thank you for looking after my general and please do your job. Well, and I said, I will, thank you very much, your majesty. I mean, I've met her and members of her family many times in support roles. They visit they're really good friends of agent forces. They used to visit us regularly in the unit I was working with at the time. We used to support the visiting police officers when they came overseas. And we provided Protection for them or we provided the secure environment for them to operate in appropriately.

Yoyo:

Who else have you met that's left a lasting impression on you, Frank?

Frank:

My wife. She, she's left the biggest impression on me, my two daughters. But professionally wise many different people. I, I remember there was a well known footballer and a girl band member. They arrived at a party that I was part of. protecting and we escorted him from the car to the house and back again. That was quite surreal because this individual had been playing football for England two days before I'd watched him on telly. And then, two days later, I'm opening the car door and escorting him past the paparazzi and his soon to be wife passed the paparazzi into a very well protected area. Very well known entertainers house and just things like that. They haven't left an impression on me personally, but they have, I do remember those stories and those are the stories that I tell my girls when we sat around the dinner table most nights of the week.

Yoyo:

I bet it's great having dinner with you then, Frank. Cause it's like a bit of a one time band camp with Frank, isn't it really?

Frank:

So what we do is we actually download our days. My two daughters are 23 and 28. Very important to me, very special. My wife is a, she looks after dogs. And she does daycare and overnight care. And we all go our different ways during the day. And we meet up. I mean, I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my wife every day. Well, I'm. In my home office, which so we share a lot of things, but I only see my two daughters at night time so we have a, an hour sat around the dinner table, and we do sit down properly and have good conversations, and I'm sharing, if I've done nothing all day but write a policy document for a client that's not very interesting so I, I reminisce about. And they often say the older I get, the better I was. So, I'm sure I've got a, in fact, I'm going to Sarajevo in a couple of weeks time with a group of guys That we were out there together in 1994 looking after a guy called General Rose, and the city was war torn, it was, there were Serbs surrounding the city, and we were inside, and it was being bombarded every single day. And we're going back for our 30th anniversary. 30 years ago this was. I'm going back for a week and I'm, boy, there's going to be some war stories when we come back after that one. So quite rightly so.

Yoyo:

So what's coming up for you in 2024, Frank?

Frank:

I've just joined Optimal Risk Group. So this is Mike O'Neill and and Rick Mountfield and others, Charlie Swanson and Jackie Davis. So I've just joined that group of people, the organization as one of their senior consultants. And I'm looking forward to working with some really professional people. I've already started. I love it. As a consultant you're probably a little bit lonely but working as a group of consultants you can share ideas and say, I really don't know how to do this. Can anybody help me? And they will help you. There's an ego free environment. So I want to do a lot more of that. We've got some really good clients. I already know that there's some overseas ships coming up to go and validate the efficacy of some of their protective measures at their buildings. I'm getting more heavily involved with the Security Institute again, as one of the co chairs of the Built Environment Security Special Interest Groups, working with people that I really respect and admire there. So that's exciting. At the end of the year, I'm working with a construction expo called London Build 2024. And I'm helping the organizers of that event pull security professionals into, for us as a security profession to reach out to the construction industry. And I'm looking forward to a lot of the non security events that I'm going to as well. So I've got a lot of the security events, as because you and I often chat at them. But I'm also reaching out to the agricultural community, the construction environment community, and helping other organizations build their behavioral based security.

Yoyo:

You're talking about designing in security then are you?

Frank:

Yes. Yeah. Designing insecurity, making them aware the benefits of the defense or the layered defense. And on my behavioral based security program I advocate that we shouldn't be putting another layer of bureaucracy on an existing organizational, cultural program. We should be weaving in secure behaviors into everything they do. Yeah. So it's not, we do security. It's, we do everything securely. And just a very quick example I tried to tease out the similarities or the success factors that other departments in the organization have. And I'll use one example in industrial safety, they have a thing called the Swiss cheese. model. And the Swiss cheese model is multiple layers of cheese, but each layer of that Swiss cheese has a hole in it. And if these holes align, the hazard can go through each of those layers and still cause harm at the end of it, whether it be injury or loss of property or whatever. Well, you're talking

Yoyo:

like a cybersecurity professional there, Frank.

Frank:

So I am. We are. We all speak the same language. Exactly. I wish we did. So what we do in the security industry is we have the onion skin, right? Multiple layers of the onion skin, each layer of which has a vulnerability. So if you understand that vulnerability and manage it. So what I've created is a cheese and onion. Flavored safety and security program. Just the reaction that I'm getting from you there is exactly the same reaction. And I've actually mocked up a blue and yellow crisp packet. So it looks like cheese, onion crisps. And it's that memory, it's that image that people remember. And if we were to put on every single corporate document where it says safety, if we would just put comma security. and environment, health, mental well being whatever, then we're in there and that's all we need to do. Comma security.

Yoyo:

Frank, you're cleverer than you look. Has anyone ever told you that?

Frank:

Being a bit facetious there.

Yoyo:

Cheese and onion security. I love it. I can't wait for 2025. I want the prawn cocktail version.

Frank:

Yeah, there's a bit fishy about that.

Yoyo:

So how important then in this, my last question to you really is mentoring for the security industry.

Frank:

So role modeling, engaging, educating, encouraging and influencing those that are one or two or three steps slightly behind you in your career path is so important. And I'm not just talking about a formal mentoring program, and there are lots of them. And again, most of our membership bodies have, and I applaud that, but I'm just finding, I get a lot of benefit as a mentor just chatting to people and just saying drop me a line and I'll share this with you and often when I hear something, see something or read something, I will send a link to them and say you really do need to listen to this because this is fantastic. That's the security circle podcast. Or you really do need to read this book, Paul Martin, Mike Kroll. Jackie Davis, they're masters of their trade and they've taken the time to document their learning.

Yoyo:

I have people say to me that they've got Mike Kroll's book always by their side because they're often referencing and I have to say this is a compliment to Mike really, but all the great books I mark, I have a light, I have a pen, I can't read them without a pen. I need to underline sentences, put little sticky tabs in. I mark. Pages so I could find something quickly and reference it. And Mike Crowell's book is perfect for that. But also I like Chuck Andrews book about, he talks about the importance of relationships and building networks. And I said this to him only this weekend, I said, it was only when I joined a security membership body back in sort of 2017, 2016, I was like, Oh my God, there's loads of people who love doing what I do just like me. Because up until that point, a very lonely 10 years, I hadn't, I'd been working on my own, very isolated, passionate, not supported. And for me, that was when life changed and that's a message I advocate a lot when I speak to our next gen. What other key messages do you advocate when speaking to next gen, Frank?

Frank:

So, take time to listen to multiple voices. Don't just have one mentor. And I think that's the only way to do it. And don't be scared of doing it your own way. that's what the CAP way, the Canon Asset Protection way is all about, is that I've done things and learned lessons that didn't work. so I recognize that and I've done things and they do work for me. At that time in that environment. So I would advocate that works, but of course somebody else would take that into a different environment. Five years later, working in a different demographic or cultural organization, it doesn't work. So, just, read widely speak to many different people recognize the why in what they're suggesting not just do it. If one of my security officers or one of my security managers. I'd said to somebody outside of my organization, when they asked the question, why are we doing it this way? If they said, because Frank told us to, that for me is the biggest crime that person could do because I want them to communicate the reason why, not the fact that Frank says. And if somebody says, oh, that's policy or, oh yeah, that's the way we do it here. That's not right. That is not right, Yolanda. We need to communicate the why.

Yoyo:

What you're saying then is that we create thinkers in our next generation. We create thinkers. Correct. Yeah. Thank you for adding the frankness on that. I like that. You've franked my conversation.

Frank:

Yeah. Critical thinkers, mate because again, I've Just looked at a document that somebody sent to me and I respect this lady massively and I was critical on it, but not because I was trying to be the smartest person in the room, but because I owed it to her and I want her to, when she releases this document across, because I think it's a really good thing across the profession that somebody's bench tested it for her, and there was a couple of things in there that I thought were wrong. Technically, factually wrong. So I wrote that and then she went really quiet, and I thought, oh my God I've upset her. But actually I connected with her again and she said, oh no, I've moved house. Sorry, I haven't even read what you've written which is good, oh,

Yoyo:

bless you.

Frank:

But but yeah, critical thinkers.

Yoyo:

When am I going to see you next, Frank? What's coming up on our professional social calendar?

Frank:

So for me, as I said, I'm a disciple of the Security Institute. So I'm going to their AGM on the 24th of of April. And then that night we're having our gala dinner. Unless you're going to be in Sarajevo or Gorazde in Bosnia, I won't see you for a couple of weeks because that's where I'm going to be. And then if you want to, you can come and join me at the construction week, construction excellence week at the Excel on the Tuesday, the 7th of May, but I don't think I'll see you there but hopefully I will see some of my security colleagues there because we're trying to reach out to the construction industry. And then of course we swap messages. Probably two or three times a week. Mostly after Thursday because we both love Thursdays.

Yoyo:

We love Thursdays! It's so funny. I have people coming up to me now saying, Do you know what, Yo Yo? And I'll say, What? And they'll go, We love Thursdays!

Frank:

Yeah, it's that catchphrase, isn't it? It's good. It's

Yoyo:

great. It just happened. But the best things do. The best things are never planned at all. And Frank, we've known each other a long time now. You're the only one calling me Yolanda. Like, what the hell? Surely, even you call me Yo Yo.

Frank:

So Yo Yo and Yolanda, it's, it's, if I'm being really serious, then it's Yolanda. If we're being casual, then it's Yo Yo.

Yoyo:

Well, Frank, it's been a pleasure. We got there eventually through goodness knows what travel and cancellations and mainly on my side and people can probably still tell I have a very sort of deep cold at the moment. Who doesn't? Frank Cannon, so much.

Frank:

Yo. Should we tell everybody what date it is today to see how long it takes you to get this one out?

Yoyo:

No.

Frank:

I you've got a long back catalogue. So Thank you for what you do. I really enjoy it. I genuinely do enjoy it.

Yoyo:

Well, it's great to have you, one of the Security Circle's biggest fans, Frank Cannon. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Frank:

Thank you, Yo Yo.