Wednesday, February 19, 2014

How to Keep the World From Bullying You…Book Release



For Immediate Release                                                                                    

February 20, 2014

12:00PM (EST)




Atlanta, GA—February 20, 2014---Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute recently published  a digital book on Amazon Kindle titled, How to Keep the World From Bulling You: Becoming More Assertive & Self Confident for Smart and Gifted Students to address the upsurge of students committing suicide and homicides as a result of bullying. The Bullying Statistics web site reported that 77 percent of all students are being bullied verbally in some way or another including psychological and verbal abuse. Teens ages 12-17 believe they have seen violence increase at their schools. Reportedly, in 85 percent of bullying cases, very little intervention or effort is made by a peer, teacher, or school administrator to effectively stop the bullying from taking place initially or reoccurring.  This book lays the groundwork for parents and students to take proactive measures for tackling the issue head on.  


How to Keep the World From Bullying You…author and former Atlanta police officer Edward Brown says, “I am a survivor of elementary and middle school bullying, so this issue is very personal. My experience as a police officer and professional development instructor led me to begin reviewing the data on the impact of bullying on self-esteem and productivity.  I felt that many anti-bullying advocates were well meaning, but lacked the knowledge to deal with the power aspect of bullying. My approach deals with shifting the power back to the victim through leveraging internal fortitude with external allegiances.”


How to Keep the World From Bullying You: Becoming More Assertive & Self-Confident for Smart and Gifted Students can be reviewed on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IFVNDAU


For more information, call (678) 698-3386.


Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute teaches clients how to be more persuasive and influential in their communication and leadership skills.  Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute was founded in Atlanta in 2002.



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Monday, February 17, 2014

Is Bullying a Public Safety Problem?






Edward Brown, M.S.


Bullying has become a hot issue in recent times. According to the StopBullying.gov web site, bullying is defined as “Unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems."
  

Bullystatistics.org quoted that, When it comes to verbal bullying, this type of bullying is the most common type with about 77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse. These types of bullying can also include spreading rumors, yelling obscenities or other derogatory terms based on an individual's race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Out of the 77 percent of those bullied, 14 percent have a severe or bad reaction to the abuse, according to recent school bullying statistics. These numbers make up the students that experience poor self-esteem, depression, anxiety about going to school and even suicidal thoughts (bullycide) as a result of being bullied by their peers. Also as part of this study, about one in five students admitted they are responsible for bullying their peers. Almost half of all students fear harassment or bullying in the bathroom at school, according to these school bullying statistics. As a result of this fear and anxiety of being bullied, many students will make excuses or find ways around going to school. School bullying statistics also reveal that teens ages 12-17 believe they have seen violence increase at their schools. In fact, these numbers also show that most violent altercations between students are more likely to occur on school grounds than on the way to school for many teens (para. 2).


Edward Brown, M.S., of Core Edge Police Professional Development provides answers to questions on whether bullying is a public safety issue.



Q: Why do you believe bullying has gained so much attention recently?


Brown: As you know, bullying has been around since the inception of humans. I believe it’s gained greater exposure recently, because of the fallout.  In highly publicized cases, the victims of bullying have either committed homicide or suicide. The terrorism that plagues victims of bullying feels unbearable. I’m speaking from experience.  As an elementary and middle school student, I felt like my world was crumbling when I was bullied.


Q: But you didn’t kill anybody or yourself.  What has changed over the years?


Brown: The current environment for any social interaction is perceived as less safe compared to the past.  With the rise of school shootings, foreign and domestic terrorism, and the increase of violence in the media, it feels like  civilization, as we know it, is under attack.  Children and adolescents who don’t have practical life experiences exaggerate the possibilities of violence causing them to act irrationally. Once fear and imagination meet perceived danger, anything can happen.


Q: Do you believe that bullying has reached the level of a public safety problem?


Brown: Yes. If perception is someone else’s reality, then the responses we see being played out in the news, now become a bullying victim’s  option.  As a survivor of bullying, I never thought about homicide or suicide, but I wanted the taunting, pushing, and fear to stop.  In retrospect, who knows what I would have done if I was confronted with the fear faced by today’s youth.  It has become too commonplace that a simple fight I would have had forty years ago, now can end with someone dying.  If the environment has become this incendiary, then bullying definitely has become a public safety problem.



Q: What do you believe are solutions to bullying?


Brown: In my current research, I state that bullying is a terroristic relationship between two or more disempowered individuals.  The bully lacks power outside of physical force. He either suffers from low self-esteem from lack of support and guidance or is socially inept.  The victim of bullying suffers from low self-esteem, self-consciousness, and fails to assert himself out of fear.  Both are engaged in a symbiotic relationship where needs are not being met in their emotional lives. As a result, I talk about the three (3) aspects of power-direct, indirect, and consolidated. Since the youth in many communities resemble the characters in the TV show “The Little Rascals,” where parents or authority figures are rarely around, bullying victims have to leverage at least one of these aspects of power to become free of bullying.


Q: What do direct, indirect, and consolidated power mean?


Brown: Direct power is the ability to meet oppositional power head on.  You cannot bully a person who is physically and psychologically equal to would-be  bullies. Indirect power is using older siblings, powerful friends, and allies to be perceived as possessing power. The individual has power through these alliances, but rarely has to use them when everyone has been put on notice about his support system. And consolidated power is similar to indirect power, but is used as a way of leveraging knowledge and skills.  With consolidated power, an individual who is a math tutor for the high school football team, becomes a valuable resource to that team.  As such, the team protects the asset that allows them to get good grades to play football. Consolidated power uses psychological persuasion to ward off would-be bullies.


Q: In your latest book, How to Keep the World From Bullying You..., you mention that as children and adolescents become older, their physical challenges become more psychological. What do you mean by this?


Brown: My Aunt Ann once told me that as a person gets older, his battles transition from physical to psychological ones.  If a child or adolescent never learns assertiveness and self-confidence, he will grow up to be pushed around in personal and professional relationships. This pushing shows up in unrequited love relationships, the butt of employee jokes, and blatant disrespect in social settings. The individual’s power is still being usurped, although not in a physical form.  Once an individual becomes more assertive and self-confident, the world views and treats him differently. He uses voice, posture, and defiance as psychological weapons.



Q: It has been said that some people who become police officers use their power as a result of early bullying. Do you believe this is true?


Brown: As a former Atlanta police officer, I have seen cases when this was true.  If I had not reinvented myself by becoming more assertive and self-confident in college, I might have been one of them.  Becoming a police officer is the ultimate in direct and indirect power. An individual officer has the power to take life and liberty as well as call for back up (indirect) when situations warrant. The officers I knew who used their power unwisely, and in some instances illegally, were eventually weeded out. Their sense of powerlessness eventually caught up with them.



To view the book, How to Keep the World From Bullying You: Becoming More Assertive & Self-Confident for Smart and Gifted Students on Amazon Kindle, go to: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IFVNDAU

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

How to Impart a Morale Building Model Into Police Operations





Edward Brown, M.S.





In LinkedIn responses to an article on employee motivation and incentivization within police departments, respondents said morale-building initiatives had to involve all parties, police leaders and officers.  The results were contrary to employee motivational theories that place employee morale and productivity on the shoulders of organizational leaders.


Edward Brown, M.S., of Core Edge Police Professional Development provides answers to questions on the significance of joint morale building initiatives.



Q: In your interpretation of responses to morale building being a joint venture within police departments, how scientific was the article?



Brown:  The study did not use the scientific method. Essentially, the unsolicited opinions of respondents served as a basis for a different way of looking at police morale.  I was surprised that law enforcement employees did not place the onus of building morale solely on police leaders.  This seems like a shift in the studies I’ve looked at in the last twenty years.


Q: If you had to make an educated guess, what would you attribute to this change in beliefs?


Brown: Off the cuff, I would say globalization, recession, and individualism have changed the conversation.  The Internet, budget restraints, and rugged individualism have placed responsibilities on employees to become more active in organizational development. If employees are jumping ship for better opportunities, then it is logical that all parties have become free agents. Perhaps these factors have moved the U.S. economy closer to pure capitalism.  The employer/employee relationship has become purely transactional. Each side gives according to the value received. 


Q: How does this altered relationship fare with traditional employee motivation models?


Brown: It’s closer to the true nature of individuals.  Each party acting in their own self-interest bargains for more equity. Police leaders can use this environment to begin the bargaining process during recruitment and hiring.  By tying the self-interests of employees to departmental missions, employees are incentivized, based on their level of performance and contribution.  The employee desiring to coast in his career would be absolved of justifying his low morale and productivity.



Q: How would this model be developed?


Brown: Ron Wheeler, president of Artifact Software, recommended a competency-based career development model where employees would have more control over their career plans.  Police supervisors would lay out the criteria for specific opportunities by which a checklist would be developed between the parties.  Advanced degrees, experience in specialized units, and a willingness to lead would serve as a basis for upward mobility or at least greater leadership opportunities. These new responsibilities would lead to more money, more time off, and greater leadership. Individual employees begin self-actualizing and the department gains dedicated and motivated personnel to further its mission.



Q: How would this model be instituted within police departments?


Brown: If you fail to systematize expected outcomes, they are less likely to come to fruition. Police departments have to create the dialogue and model from the recruiting and hiring phase into the police academy and into in-service training. The idea is to take away all employee excuses for personal and professional development that is equally available to all. By consistently hammering the career development initiative through all the “Touch Points” of employee involvement, the employee will either participate or remain content by inactivity.  The downside to this initiative is that many employees will not choose to lead, grow, or expand. That’s okay.  Low morale stems, in part, from the inability to see clear opportunities for growth and advancement. Even if employees do not exercise these initiatives, morale is maintained by the knowledge that they exist at the will and behest of the employee.  Employees don’t only support what they help create, but what is available to them.


For more information on morale building strategies for your department, visit: The A-Team: How to Be a Top Police Department in Recruiting, Training & Retaining Employees.  Available now at: