Polymathy in Asset Protection
Studying at John Jay College of Criminal Justice was a tremendous experience for me for many reasons. I was a newly minted immigrant with beginner’s English and a mind ready for exploration. Though I declared my major — Criminal Justice — early on, what startled me in my first semester was an option to take a Speech course. I was lucky to have signed up. Our instructor was an actress with an impressive film and TV career. One of the first things she did for me was to put me in front of the whole class (aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!) and point out my frequent “uhmmms” and “ehmmms”. She later insisted that I fight my fears, embrace public speaking, and participate in a speech competition. At the time, I struggled to connect this experience with my major.
My second revelation came very quickly after the first, when I took Criminal Justice 101 and started exploring various criminological theories which served as the foundation for modern policing and application of justice. Our instructor pointed out that some of the most useful theoretical content and practical applications had borrowed from multiple theories and reached into fields of sociology, education, psychology, architecture, art, and design. This is when the connections started to take shape for me. Then, I got a chance to see for myself.
When my mentor and a dear friend, Paul DeMatteis, gave me a chance to join his team at Prudential Financial, it was, in part, because my resume looked nothing like the multitude of “canned” resumes other students at John Jay dropped off at the employment assistance office. I now think that my unusual background as well as efforts to present myself through an unorthodox resume helped increase his interest.
Thanks to Paul’s own unorthodox way of solving problems, I had opportunities to learn and work on just about every aspect of asset protection: from people operations and counter-surveillance to information protection and design of control processes and technologies, to name a few. In completing each project, I had to borrow from various systems of knowledge related to and far outside of our profession because nearly each problem we were solving required imaginative solutions.
I used the same approach during my 11 years with Kroll. While working on my very first assignment there, I uncovered and helped address vulnerabilities which our client (an international law firm) hadn’t even thought about simply using knowledge systems I had explored before. This helped avoid millions of dollars in litigation, restoration of reputation, and regulatory fines.
Today, when opportunities arise to advise clients on asset protection, I remember how important eclectic knowledge is. This eclectic knowledge is referred to as POLYMATHY.
I must clarify. A person can only be an aspiring polymath because there is more knowledge than each individual could cover in their lifetime. This is what makes polymathy so attractive — the never-ending conquest for eclectic knowledge.
So, how can polymathy be applied in asset protection? I encourage you to think about the following knowledge systems:
- Behavioral Psychology: Asset protection depends largely on sensitivity of controls we put in place to human decision making and behavior. If this sensitivity is out of balance, we get various failures like tailgating, clicking on malicious links, unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information, and inferior facility design.
- Architecture and Design: Everything around us is a product of land and space planning, vertical environment development, and tools designed with the purpose of assisting humans — down to a simple door handle. Having a good understanding of this knowledge system will help reduce issues related to human interaction with built environments and availability of sufficient space for horizontal and vertical deployment of asset protection technologies.
- Epidemiology: Imagine a person infected with a rare but highly contagious virus arriving in your city on an intercontinental flight. Large scale medical emergencies and other similar incidents seriously affect multiple systems and require a complex set of mitigation measures. Those charged with protection should have a good working knowledge of how diseases spread, the far reaching effects entailed, and resources required for mitigation.
- Multiculturalism: Humans are driven not only by their intrinsic psychological factors, but also by the norms of their immediate and extended social sphere. Cultural factors play a significant role in the way we interact with one another and how we perceive and use various environments like office space or a transportation hub. Understanding multicultural commonalities and differences helps increase effectiveness of asset protection.
- Art: In spirit it has no boundaries other than cultural and moral norms. It is the surest way of developing and fuelling one’s imagination and creativity. Imagination and creativity are necessary for solving complex problems like those in asset protection.
- Education: Everyone is teachable to some extent regardless of age. Teaching is a wonderful skill because it is polymathic in and of itself. A person who can teach effectively is very likely to inculcate very useful and necessary information and skills in their students. Because much of success in asset protection is dependent on effective training, teaching skills are indispensable for professionals in our industry.
- Economics: Just think about the constant need to measure, evaluate, and quantify the ROI of an asset protection program. Economics offers both the terminology and methods for aligning quantification results in asset protection with the rest of the organization. This is often the preferred language of the C-suite.
- History: Undoubtedly a vast field. However, there is now a very interesting group of relatively young historians who have been helping connect the dots for current and future challenges of humanity. Just look at the work of Yuval Noah Harari. The value of history for asset protection practitioners is in means and methods of collection, preservation, assessment, and interpretation of historical facts in various contexts.
This list is just a start because, as I said earlier, polymathy helps access volumes of knowledge which far exceed what a person could cover in their lifetime. My hope for asset protection is that in the next 20 years we won’t have to explain the value of polymathy in our profession.
Here’s a link to a book you should consider to help you grow further:
Many thanks for your attention.
Soar above mediocrity!
