The Evolution of Left of Bang

Choosing To Be Prepared for What You Can, and Can’t, Prevent From Happening

"Bang is the act. Bang is what we want to prevent."

Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life

How do you prevent an attack of any kind from happening?

That question–and the behavior-based approach to observation and threat recognition that came from it–led to the creation of the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter program, facilitated our book Left of Bang being written, and opened the door for countless classes and resources about situation awareness to be created and made available to members of the military, public safety professionals, and the private sector.

“Bang” is an event that you don’t want to happen. It is something that can impact you, your organization, another person, a community, or an entire nation. It might be an attack, a natural disaster, a supply chain disruption that affects your organization’s day-to-day operations, or anything that prevents you from accomplishing your goals.

In an ideal world, “bang” never happens. Being “left of bang” means that we are positioned at a point earlier on the timeline and have the opportunity to influence the outcome of the event.

The ability to get left of bang, and the opportunity to prevent an attack from happening, was in many respects similar to the four-minute-mile barrier. Once it became known that attack prevention was possible, it became more common to hear stories about people identifying and stopping a person before they conducted an attack.

But prevention is just one application of getting left of bang, and it isn't enough. Why? Because there are some events that simply can’t or won’t be prevented.

For instance, after a hurricane is formed, it’s going to make landfall wherever it wants to and there is nothing that humans can do to push a hurricane back out to sea.

A well-resourced adversary can launch a cyberattack on an organization and, even if that organization is seeing illegitimate attempts to access its systems and knows that the attack is coming, it might not be possible to stop the breach.

Sometimes, the people with the responsibility to keep an incident from occurring or a situation from escalating choose not to act—whether that is due to a lack of confidence, political reasons, a lack of “good” options, or self-interest—leaving others to react to an incident that didn’t have to take place.

It is because of these situations that we need to continue to evolve in how we define getting left of bang and reflect on what we do with the precious minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months available to us before a bang event occurs.

Today, being left of bang means that professionals and organizations are not only capable of preventing incidents that can be stopped, but they are also prepared to respond to and recover from the incidents that can’t be prevented.

This might seem like a nuanced addition to the definition, but it really isn’t. Developing the capabilities needed to appropriately respond to and recover from an incident takes time. As we look forward to an uncertain future, what we do to ready ourselves today can be the difference between success and struggle tomorrow.

The time that it takes to develop these capabilities extends beyond proactive contingency planning, educational and professional development opportunities, organizational exercises and drills, and learning from other disasters and crises. It also includes the time that it takes to design an organization from the top down and from the bottom up. How an organization sets its vision, selects its strategy, shapes its culture, forms decision-making processes, and builds capability and capacity through day-to-day operations are even more important to its readiness for disasters and disruptive events.

Being "left of bang" transcends prevention and encapsulates the broader goals of preparedness and adaptability. While the ideal goal is to prevent catastrophes from occurring, reality compels us to dedicate the time it takes to develop resilience in the face of inevitable challenges. By embracing this expanded application of a proactive approach to getting left of bang, organizations and individuals are empowered not only to mitigate threats but to navigate and recover from adversities more effectively.

As the world continues to evolve and confront new challenges, our approach to readiness must be proactive. Get left of bang, and stay there.