Responsive to Our Communities Needs

By being responsive to our communities, we minimize the necessity to react to our community. It is ironic that our unwillingness to be responsive to people and situations (in the interest of maintaining organizational integrity) actually threatens organizational integrity rather than protects it.

The Collapse of the 911 Hamster Wheel

The wheel has collapsed, cities have cut budgets, departments have reduced staffing - the rules have changed. In the past, no matter how ineffective we were; we could always blame lack of community support, lack of funding and resources. Then we would get more funding, more resources more staff and most importantly, promote all our friends and get all our raises.
We never liked the 911 Hamster Wheel, we complained about it all the time but it has served us well in ‘proving’ we always needed more. Now, there is not more to give. What is the solution?
L.E. culture has always been susceptible to what Zachary Shore in “Blunder; Why Smart People make Bad Decisions” calls exposure anxiety. We fear looking weak and this leads to dangerous cognition traps. We tend to puff ourselves up to appear big and intimidating. We resort to our most base instincts, apply our Newtonian worldview, get out the stick (of industrial age carrot and stick fame) and engage in our communities as if our ends justify our means. However, as with most cognition traps the results tend to be disastrous http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100528/us_time/08599199242500.
On the other hand, this could be a great time of learning and developing. An opportunity to forge strong relationships with our communities, establish new levels of understanding and empathy. This time could produce great new ideas of policing in the 21st century. This could be such a ‘revolutionary’ time that we find ourselves returning to our historic roots of Peelian Principles. We may find that building partnership with our communities IS our basic mission, and if we do not strive to do so with EVERY contact, we are self-destructing and have no one to blame but ourselves. We may begin to honor (and even promote) a completely new cadre of hero’s in our culture. Those who forge enduring relationships of high trust, and through this, find clarity and non-kinetic solutions to complex problems. We could begin to unleash the power of unconditional respect.
As unbelievable as it may seem, L.E. may not be ready for a fundamental change of this nature yet. We are all entrenched in loyalties, fears and biases that produce a plethora of cognition traps. However, if budget flows, do not return to normal levels soon, we might have no choice. We will either become irrelevant observers to chaos and suffering, or an occupying force.
So with cautious optimism – let us not simply watch and observe where the current budget crisis leads, let us take the lead with courage, compassion, integrity and unconditional respect for all people.

A 21st Century Western Front

Two Sides: L.E. in general suffers from multiple personality disorder.

• This is not surprising when it established all its systems and structures from industrial age / Newtonian concepts of behavioral management (carrot and stick). While many have moved on, L.E. seems to believe survival (not to mention the ability to get promoted) depends on maintaining status quo. L.E. organizational cultures pine to find coherence by maintaining rigid structures of status quo. Ironically, the process produces incoherence.
• A few “rebels” believe that adapting to challenges and ambiguity is what produces individual and organizational vitality and relevance. What allows organizations to endure is solid, ever improving processes that are dynamic, adaptive and creative responses. In other words, some members believe that the carrot and stick age has passed. Rather, authentic power to uphold justice is primarily by way of compassion and relationship, not force and coercion. Force and coercion are still very important tools, but must no longer serve as an identity.

One problem:
Well-meaning people on both sides line up from inside and outside L.E. organizations to support what they fervently believe to be right. It has become a 21st Century Western Front. This Front has entrenchments, battlements, offenses, strikes, air raids, guerilla attacks and many, many casualties. Both sides see themselves as the upholder of all that is right and the more effort they put into supporting their “side” the worse the problem becomes.

A Solution:
Chip and I intend to humbly position ourselves in “no man’s land” and demonstrate to both sides that the 21st Century Western Front is an epic waste of life, vitality, time and resources. We desire to lay a solid base for increased levels of tactical acumen and social intelligence. The goal: bridge the gap; unleash the synergistic power of unconditional respect into L.E. organizations and our communities.

Twisted Systems

Research has noted that the average time an officer listens before interrupting is seven seconds! When I share this data with officers, some laugh and say; "if people would just tell me what I need to know, I would not interrupt." This leads to assumption driven policing. We take decisive action that is irrelevant to the reality of what is really going on. It feels good, but solves nothing. In fact, it usually makes things worse. However, it does produce beans to count (stats) and job security – guaranteeing numerous callbacks and arrests to the same locations. Current systems institutionalize this twisted process.

Two of the Biggest Words in our Language - TO and FOR

I frequently have conversations with leaders / trainers of organizations who motivate (or manipulate) other members to listen to, and operationalize policies and teachings by saying something like; “We are absolved of culpability by teaching you this content. You had better do it, or you will be holding all culpability alone.”
In other words, they present the training or teaching as something done TO them, rather than FOR them. One can imagine how this would translate into contact with the public. If I follow the letter of the training expectation doing something TO you, rather than FOR you – while I do not break any policies, most members of our community will sense the ‘handling’ going on and will resent it.

Making Human Factors Work

Imagine all the benefits to your clients and organization as the most frequent occurrence, daily contact with constituents, becomes increasingly and measurably positive and productive.

The most effective way to mitigate high-risk exposure is to conduct everyday activities in a manner that is positive and productive.

A Revolutionarily Traditional Way of Being Police in the 21st Century

Chip and I just returned from the 2010 International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (I.L.E.E.T.A.) annual conference. The experience was nothing short of amazing as we sat under the teaching of, and had lengthy conversations with, some of the top subject matter experts in various disciplines of law enforcement and training. We also had the opportunity to present some of the concepts captured in our book. Two contrasting themes developed as the week progressed. Many attendees were "blown away" by the innovative and progressive manner of our content. However, top tier trainers were quick to remind everyone that what Chip and I were presenting came from basic traditional concepts obscured by our current cultural milieu and organizational groupthink.
Chip and I strive to maintain humility so we can constantly learn; we firmly believe that as soon as we think we have it figured out, we become the problem. We consider multiple disciplines for learning opportunities. For example, Robert Peel’s timeless principles, western and eastern military philosophies of war and soldier traditions, Plato’s Republic, warrior traditions such as Bushido, studies on brain functionality, social research, theology, philosophy, quantum physics as opposed to Newtonian, rich leadership literature and thousands of conversations with hundreds of cops and people from many diverse backgrounds. We listen and consistently discover unifying themes running through all of this diversity. Through this, we have come to some startling conclusions that have unprecedented implications for policing in the 21st century. Our two core statements regarding personal anima and basic mission for policing have far-reaching implications that provide course correction for our profession’s most pressing problems. For example, let us take a brief look at the willingness and ability for policing organizations to be adaptive and responsive to our communities.
Our organizational cultures struggle to find coherence by maintaining rigid structures of status quo. Ironically, the process produces incoherence. Individuals and organizations intuitively set up a few silos of perspective that all incoming information must go into. For police institutions, the informational silos tend to be: 1) Who can we blame? 2) Why is it not our fault? 3) Who can we put in jail? Up and coming managers are in charge of ‘washing’ incoming information so that it streams neatly into one of the three silos. People who have the audacity to give corporate level leaders “unclean” information are despised and maligned. We do this in our struggle to maintain stasis or equilibrium. However, these desires are contrary to policing in complex societies. Exerting organizational effort to maintain an artificial stasis is wasted energy and drains both individuals and the organization of vitality and relevancy.
Ironically, adapting to challenges and ambiguity is what produces individual and organizational vitality and relevance. What allows organizations to endure are solid, ever improving processes that are dynamic, adaptive, and creative. These processes only exist, as responses to challenges and ambiguities in the environment.[1] Responses will naturally become community orientated rather than inwardly orientated - dictated by rigid internal structures of control. The tools our book provides such as the Environmental Pyramid and Rule of 30 combined with the High Core Values /Basic Mission Sight Alignment allows the members of your organization to be responsive, adaptive, and reflexive while still maintaining personal and organizational integrity along with essential organizational identity. By developing an ability to be truly aware and responsive to the operating environment, the organization can continue to become more effecient in the use of time and resources and act on behalf of the community much more effectively.

[1] Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. Berrett-Koehler. San Francisco.