How Police Leaders Can Become More Persuasive Speakers for Improving Community & Media Relations

How Police Leaders Can Boost Their Brain Excellence for Leading Innovation

Edward Brown, M.S.

The police profession can be conservative.  Although, police leaders have to juggle the competing interests of constituents, leaders can use innovation to become more effective. It has been said that the higher one goes up the police hierarchy, the less accountability there is. In other words, you cannot force police leaders to consider new ways of doing things unless they view change as aligning with their self-interest.  In keeping with this notion, police leaders who have climbed to the top of their organization should consider their legacy and how history will view their contributions to their department as well as the profession.  Are you satisfied with mediocrity?  Before police leaders can speak persuasively, they must first formulate compelling ideas through advanced critical thinking skills.

Police leaders, as transformational leaders, use their insatiable curiosity and ability to spot departmental inefficiencies to innovate services.  But, what is innovation?  Innovation is simply the foundation of new beginnings. In short, looking at old traditions through new lenses.  Through innovation, you can discover new ideas, learn new techniques, offer better quality, and even help personnel increase productivity.  However, what many police leaders do not realize is that innovation can be used to help move their department to the next level.  “Next level” sounds cliché, but the mission is really to focus on the ability to think about a police department as a living organism and feeding it the proper nutrients to grow.  Corporations are always borrowing ideas from other industries to improve productivity and profitability, which is part of their DNA.  Police departments shouldn’t be any different.

Police leaders can use critical thinking to innovate and transform their departments in several ways.  It can be as simple as having access to the right information so that they know what the latest and greatest schools of thought are. Taken from the IBAR Critical Thinking Method, formulated by Edward Brown, this is called “Benchmarking.” In benchmarking, you compare and contrast your departmental operations to industry leaders, standards, or best practices. By comparing departmental operations with these standards, leaders are able to select the options best suited for their usage.  

Think it is too difficult to manage innovation on your own? Simply send your most promising employees to a critical thinking class to encourage them to look at your internal operations differently.  Or, assign a  group of creative people to manage innovation independently. Leaders will be amazed at the services  that can be improved, as well as the efficiency of even the simplest of tasks, when innovation is encouraged. Leaders have to be secure within themselves when a transformational idea comes from someone else or the process is doomed for failure.

Because of the reluctance to change, innovating is a challenge to get started. But, there are enormous resources available to effectively begin the process. Start reviewing books, websites, organizations, and many more avenues that are available on innovative thinking.  Although you are spending time, resources, and money on finding the answers, learning how to make your department innovative, will enhance your department’s operations.  Innovation changes every single day. Have you thought about your true  contribution to the police profession and how your legacy will be viewed? If you haven’t, you still have time.

For more information on developing the critical thinking skills necessary for innovation, click here: 

http://policerecruitmentandselection.core-edge.com/events

Self-Assessment Through Critical Thinking is a Key to Productivity Within Police Departments

 Edward Brown, M.S.

What would inspire police personnel to dig deeper in providing better services to the public? Does policing cause employee burnout or is the employee doomed for failure from the start?   The sad fact is that many people are unproductive, because they have not developed the critical thinking skills to become more productive.  In part, it isn’t their fault.  My teachers up until college seldom asked me what I thought about anything. Kindergarten to Grade 12 education is fundamentally about remembering—facts, dates, and people.  It wasn’t until I went to college and later graduate school that I began improving my critical thinking skills. Fortunately, part of my graduate school experience included law school, where critical thinking is the core of the curriculum. So if I had to go to law school and later receive a master’s degree before I became an effective critical thinker, how could the average person become a better critical thinker without enjoying similar experiences? 

Whether you have a college or graduate degree or no degree at all, it is important to determine whether you truly have developed the critical thinking skills to be productive in the workplace, particularly within police departments.  It all starts with an adequate assessment of yourself.

Getting started

Although self-assessment, for some people in group settings, can be a good start in building a positive attitude and outlook in life, this might not be applicable to all people, especially to those who prefer to do things on their own. 

If you are one of these people, who would rather do things on his or her own, then now is the time to realize how a big self-assessment can contribute to your being more productive. Experts say that if one starts with the process of self-assessment now, it will be easier for him or her to be productive and accomplish greater things for themselves and for the people that they love in the future. 

Experts agree that for one to excel and be successful in life, the concept of productivity is very essential. This is because knowing how to be productive, even when you’re down, creates unforeseen opportunities unavailable during any other time.  Being productive also serves as an inspiration that keeps your spirit high no matter how challenging the times may be. This rang true when I served as a police officer with the Atlanta Police Department. At a certain point, most officers want a new challenge or change from the norm. Although policing is one of the most fascinating professions you can experience, after some time, activities can become routine. On many occasions, officers wanted more opportunities and felt these opportunities would somehow fall into their laps. Of course, that’s not how it works. Consequently, many police officers became less productive and did just enough to get by.  If critical thinking skills training was offered in the police academy or during In-service training, it could create a win-win  situation.  Police officers would know what to do to create opportunities within the police department that were self-fulfilling. And the police department would encourage innovative and ingenious ways for getting the job done.  

For those who want to start being more productive, it would be best to begin with a self-assessment by following these two tips:

- Discover and re-discover your purpose in life. Indeed, the most powerful thing that can help a person get started with self-assessment is discovering your cause or your purpose in life. Once you are able to do this, you can find a reason in your heart for becoming more productive. The reason may be for the betterment of yourself or for your family.  No matter what it is, it is important to anchor yourself to a motivation that promotes productivity. 

- Be thirsty and hungry for something. For people who are just starting out with the process of self-assessment, enjoy the process for the end result. This is because wanting to learn the concept of productivity alone would not fuel your drive to aim for greater things or heights.  If you really want to use self-assessment to excel and be productive, don’t be content with what you have right now nor merely go through the motions without an objective.

It is best to always be hungry for knowledge as fuel for learning. If you are consistently learning new things (inside and outside of policing), you will be able to acquire new skills and even boost your self-confidence in the end.  Although it may be unlikely or impractical to immediately enhance your critical thinking skills through formal education, if you can engage in some form of critical thinking training to improve your productivity, you are encouraged to do so. One of the greatest yearnings we have as human beings is to be seen as significant as well as leave a legacy that defines our life.  If we can understand and embrace our unmet need to create legacies, we will be moved to become more productive.

To gain the tools for becoming more productive through critical thinking, visit: http://policerecruitmentandselection.core-edge.com/events