Why a Shared Behavioral Vocabulary Matters
In this post, we've updated how we describe our shared vocabulary to align with our current structured observation framework, and expanded on why it matters for mixed-background security teams. This post was originally published on January 30, 2019, and has been substantially revised and republished in 2026.
Every profession develops its own shorthand for describing what its people see and do. Without it, communication takes longer, and important details get lost in translation. The same is true for structured behavioral observation. One of the real benefits of teaching a formalized, systematic observation process is the shared vocabulary that comes with it, giving personnel a fast, precise way to describe what they're seeing to each other, and to document it clearly after the fact.
Describing the Same Behavior, Two Different Ways
Take a look at the video below, and before reading further, think about how you would describe the behaviors this subject is exhibiting.
Two observers watch the same clip and are asked to describe what they see.
Observer #1
"This guy in a heavy coat is walking really stiffly and kind of stilted. Like he's off balance or injured. One arm and one leg seem to be swinging oddly. His left arm is moving a lot and his right arm not so much."
Observer #2
"This guy is kind of limping when he walks. He has on a really thick coat too. He seems to move back and forth, and his arms are moving differently."
Both observers are watching the same person, a person who, in this video, is carrying a concealed weapon under his jacket, and both are picking up on real, meaningful details. But if Observer 1 needed to quickly relay this to Observer 2 in the field, in real time, a lot could get lost or misunderstood along the way. That gap in communication is exactly what a shared vocabulary is built to close.
Where This Shared Vocabulary Comes From
As part of the Just Doesn't Look Right (JDLR) Project, our research with experienced law enforcement officers found something consistent: officers were generally good at picking up on threatening behavior, but they described what they saw using very different, personal terms (Meehan, Strange, and McClary, 2015). That variation is manageable when an officer is working alone. It becomes a real liability the moment two people need to communicate quickly about the same subject.
Consider two officers, one from North Carolina, one from Texas, working a joint security detail at a national-level sporting event. The Texas officer notices someone approaching a checkpoint while repeatedly tapping their waistline with the palm of their hand, a behavior often displayed by someone reassuring themselves that a concealed firearm at the waist is still there. The North Carolina officer calls this behavior a "weapon pick." The Texas officer calls it a "safety touch."
If the Texas officer has to radio a full sentence, "the subject is repeatedly tapping his waist with his fingertips and the palm of his hand, it might be a weapon," precious seconds are lost. If both officers instead share a single trained term for this exact behavior, what we teach as a Security Feel, the Texas officer only needs to say the subject is displaying a Security Feel at the waist. The North Carolina officer immediately knows what that means and can react accordingly.
The Benefits of a Shared Vocabulary
For law enforcement, security, and field-based personnel alike, using a common set of terms for behavioral observation pays off before, during, and after an encounter:
In the moment, it allows personnel to quickly and accurately communicate what they're seeing to each other, whether that leads to further observation, a report to a supervisor, or a decision to intervene.
Afterward, it makes writing a clear, accurate report or incident statement faster and more consistent.
For law enforcement specifically, it helps officers articulate how observed behaviors contributed to reasonable suspicion, and supports clear, confident testimony if a case goes to court.
For security professionals, it supports a documented, defensible account of why a specific individual received further attention, tying observed behavior back to company policy and procedure.
When personnel, and the people they report to, whether that's a supervisor, a prosecutor, or company leadership, share the same vocabulary for describing behavior, cases and incidents get resolved faster and more accurately. We saw this play out directly in a real case, described in Structured Observation in Action: Identifying a Concealed Weapon at a Protest, where terms like Security Feel and Position of Advantage were exactly what allowed one observer to quickly relay concerns to another.
Why This Matters Even More on Mixed-Background Teams
Security teams are rarely built from a single professional background. It's common for a single team to include former law enforcement officers, corrections officers, and military veterans, each of whom came up through training with its own terminology for describing threatening behavior. That diversity of experience is a real strength, but it also means the same "weapon pick" versus "safety touch" gap we saw between the North Carolina and Texas officers can show up just as easily between two members of the same team, sitting in the same room.
A formalized, shared vocabulary gives a mixed-background team a common language that doesn't belong to any one prior profession. It lets a team member who came from corrections, a team member who came from the military, and a team member who came from municipal policing describe the exact same behavior the exact same way, so that experience from different backgrounds strengthens the team instead of creating friction or confusion at the moment it matters most.
This shared vocabulary is also the foundation of the fourth step, articulating decisions, in ourstructured observation framework. It's also why we built a dedicated Threat Awareness in Practice refresher, since a shared vocabulary only stays shared if it's reinforced. OurThreat Observation, Threat Awareness for Law Enforcement, and Threat Awareness for Security Professionals programs all teach this vocabulary as part of the structured observation process.
If you're ready to build this shared vocabulary into how your team communicates, we'd like to hear from you.
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Meehan, N., & Strange, C. (2015). Behavioral Indicators of Legal and Illegal Gun Carrying. Memorandum Report NRL/MN/5508--15-9597. United States Naval Research Laboratory.
Meehan, N., Strange, C., & McClary, M. (2015). Behavioral Indicators during a Police Interdiction. Memorandum Report NRL/MN/5508--15-9598. United States Naval Research Laboratory.