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UN STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES
FOR EFFECTIVE ADVISING

parts. Any domineering or patro- cific professional qualities not refully and competently assessed.
nising attitude must be avoided easily found in one person. Good strategic advisers must then-
as it would irremediably com- His deep and wide proficiency in ce be gifted analysts. As already

promise efficient cooperation. policing is crucial: he is expected to mentioned, they are not suppo-
The personal quality that stra- give advice on restoring and main- sed to provide pre-cooked stan-
tegic advisers need in unlimited taining order, preventing and de- dard countermeasures taken from
quantity is patience. Western pe- tecting crime, enforcing the laws; a catalogue, but they must work
ople are natural planners, and on how to build up and run a po- with their local counterparts and
they are used to set milestones lice force; on how to have it wor- devise for each problem the right
and deadlines in all their projects, king seamlessly with other national solution. Custom-made, maybe
expecting them to be respected. administrations. That is way above unprecedented, possibly unique.
The different concept of punctua- the tactical level on which most po- After having identified the problem
lity of some of the local counter- licemen have been operating for and a possible solution, the stra-
parts, their apparent indifference most of their career: the strategic tegic adviser need to work with
to time limits and the consequent dimension demands
halting progression of important a holistic view on the
projects can be a constant source subject, and to get and
of frustration. The strategic advi- sustain that view the
ser’s patience is tested on a daily strategic adviser needs
basis. But he is aware that other a thorough knowled-
ways exist to reach given objecti- ge of the complete sy-
ves, and if they are eventually met stem and all its parts.
with mutual satisfaction, then time- Professional knowled-
liness is not so important anymore. ge in a mission inclu-
A quality that links nature with des full competence
nurture is the ability to give and on the history, geo-
receive different kinds of infor- graphy, economy, re-
mation, i.e. communication skil- ligion and population
ls. For sure it is, at least in part, of the host-State, and
a natural gift: many learned per- as much as possible
sons not endowed with it mana- of its language. The
ge to transfer to others only a working language of
small portion of their vast eru- the mission must be
dition, despite proper training. known to a level that
On the other hand, even natu- permits to appreciate
ral communicators need to fol- its most subtle nuan-
low dedicated courses to learn ces. The root causes
how to master and exalt that of present tensions
talent, indispensable in a suc- and problems must
cessful strategic adviser. Com- be studied in details,
munication skills, complemented and local peculiarities
with the human touch, allow the need to be fully under-
adviser to optimise interaction stood to avoid propo-
with his counterparts enabling a sing actions that, al-
smooth and profitable exchan- beit functional elsewhere, his counterparts on conceiving the

ge of knowledge and expertise. would not be so in that theatre. appropriate course of action. To
Obviously, a good police strate- Knowledge is of paramount im- do that, he must be a good plan-
gic adviser cannot rely only on portance, but is not enough. In ner: any given objective can only
his natural gifts: he must also order to find correct solutions, be reached through a progression
possess a combination of spe- complex situations need to be ca- of successive phases that need to

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