How Police Officers Can Leverage Skills in the Marketplace

Edward Brown, M.S.

Police officers need to become more business minded and market-driven to reap the ancillary benefits of policing. Do you know police officers, who seem to always juggle extra jobs? These police officers are using some of the skills of policing, but are not maximizing their skills to full potential towards their pre/post retirement career.

Edward Brown, M.S., of Core Edge Police Professional Development, provides questions and answers about ways of using police skills to expand professional opportunities and income potential, particularly during budget cuts and economic crises.

Q: When did you begin looking at leveraging police skills?

Brown: It was probably after 8 years of policing with the City of Atlanta Police Department. I began looking at the challenges I was facing trying to remain motivated within the job. Since I had an interest in human development, I thought professional development within police departments would be worth pursuing. 

Q: So, what happened?

Brown: I began writing books about the police mindset, lifestyle and morale building. At one point, I became frustrated in my attempts at educating and convincing department heads of the value of leadership development and morale building.

Q: That seems odd. Leadership development training is consistently offered within police departments. Why do you think it was so challenging to promote the value of leadership development and morale building?

Brown: Good question. During the 1990s, the field of employee morale and motivation was being discussed more frequently due to the optimism at the time. Clinton’s Presidency was inspiring people to try new things in pursuit of fuller lives. I didn’t see that transfer into policing based on the extreme consumerism by police officers. Many police officers had second and third marriages, child support, cars and houses that made them reticent about trying new things. But, that’s just my observation looking back.

Q: When did you start believing that police skills could be leveraged into the marketplace?

Brown: For me, it took some time. But, this isn’t necessary a new concept. Some police officers have had side businesses or operated security companies all along. Many of them never accelerated their ambitions to see how far their creativity could take them. That is, unless they were in danger of losing their job. Then it became a  matter of survival. To be market-driven requires becoming a free agent. In that, you are constantly looking for opportunities that tie into your interests and skill sets. For example, I currently have an interest in private investigations. I’m going through the certification process with a company operated by a retired police sergeant I used to work under. I’m combining my interest in research and analysis with a general interest by the public for access to more detailed information. My initial interest began as a patrolman.

Q: What is your 3-step process for police officers to  leverage their skills and become more market-driven?

Brown: First, determine the high interests or passions you have within policing. Is it theft recovery? Executive protection? Private investigations? Risk Assessment? Psychology? Everything starts with an interest. Second, begin taking police training courses that build the skills within that interest. Most police training is free, so it’s the most cost-effective educational investment you can make. Third, once you have developed certain skills and relevant work experience, begin leveraging your potential in the marketplace (government, private and non-profit). The key is to have options that lend themselves to staving off burnout in addition to pursuing a more fulfilling life.

Two things that are sure-fire ways of increasing depression and burnout are: 1.) Waiting for opportunities to develop without a concerted plan of action, and 2.) Working in an unproductive and inefficient manner, waiting for the next 10 years to go by until retirement. I know officers doing that right now and they are miserable. The choice is yours.

Edward Brown, M.S., is a researcher and lead instructor for Core Edge Police Professional Development.  Ed is a former Atlanta police officer and has trained command staff and supervisors throughout the U.S. on communication and leadership development skills.

He has advanced legal training from the University of Dayton School of Law and a master’s degree from Mercer University in Public Safety Leadership.

Ed is the author of nine books including: Police Leadership: The Morale Driven Police Department and The A-Team: How to Be a Top Police Department in Recruiting, Training and Retaining Employees available at Amazon Kindle.  

For more information, visit: http://plr.coreedgeprivatelabelrights.com

How to Emulate the Sports, Music and Military Industries for Police Recruitment & Retention

Edward Brown, M.S.

A Google search was conducted for the question, “How long does the average person stay in the military?”  The results suggested that a large number of military personnel leave after 4 years. Other results showed 6-8 years. But, rarely are enlisted personnel staying twenty years or more. What could this mean for police recruitment? The military could be a bonafide feeder system for police departments.

Edward Brown, M.S., of Core Edge Police Professional Development, provides questions and answers about police departments using the best practices of the music, sports and military industries to enhance recruitment and retention efforts.

Q: What aspects of the music and sports industries do you think police departments can benefit from?

Brown: The music industry no longer invests in the longevity of artists. Due to the rapidly changing tastes of the buying public, record companies have begun using a conveyor belt system for artists. Meaning, when an artist creates a hit single, that’s all that’s needed before the company moves on to the next artist. Police departments should look at the life span of a police officer's career in 3-4 year intervals. Just long enough to reap the investments of training officers. Officers who show growth potential can be provided more advancement opportunities. Also, this could tie in with the military by having police officers enlist with a department contractually for 4 years. Contracts could be extended and renegotiated based on performance and tenure. Additionally, police departments could use the military as a feeder system, just as professional sports use the college sports system. By implementing best practices of other industries, police departments can reinvent themselves.

 

Q: Why do you believe these models can work within law enforcement?

Brown: Because most organizational development is based on the military model. Take any successful organization, old or new, and you will see that: 1. Decision-making is made at the top of the hierarchy and 2. Market forces and societal changes drive innovation. Corporations restructure their operations to fit organizational needs.  Police departments can do the same.

Q: Based on your knowledge of police departments, are they inclined to use best practices within other industries to improve their operations?

Brown: Typically, if one department tries a new approach and experiences success, other departments often will follow. With budget constraints and the natural apprehension of police leaders, a department has to show a method is effective before others will invest in it.

Q: What final advice would you give police leaders for being more innovative?

Brown: Just as CompStat is used to identify crime patterns and problems, a business trend-tracking arm of the department allows for the identification of ideas and solutions within other industries that can be applied to police operations. Consequently, data can be accumulated for tracking crime as well as business trends for improved operations.

Edward Brown, M.S., is a researcher and lead instructor for Core Edge Police Professional Development.  Ed is a former Atlanta police officer and has trained command staff and supervisors throughout the U.S. on communication and leadership development skills.

He has advanced legal training from the University of Dayton School of Law and a master’s degree from Mercer University in Public Safety Leadership.

Ed is the author of nine books including: Police Leadership: The Morale Driven Police Department and The A-Team: How to Be a Top Police Department in Recruiting, Training and Retaining Employees available at Amazon Kindle.  

For more information, visit: Top Cop

Why Police Officers Have to Help Build Morale within Police Departments

Edward Brown, M.S.

Becoming an effective leader is a notion bandied about within the private and public sectors, regularly. Leadership pundits from John Maxwell to Jim Collins have created a cottage industry on the subject of leadership. However, there is very little written or said about the power of front line employees to improve organizational morale. With the inordinate amount of information on leadership development at the supervisory and upper management levels, what role can police officers play in the global economy for improving departmental morale?

Edward Brown, M.S., of Core Edge Police Professional Development, provides questions and answers about the bigger role police officers can play in building department morale.

Q: It appears that you are shifting leadership and morale building initiatives from police management to police officers. What is the rationale behind your thinking?

Brown: I have had to evolve 180 degrees in my thinking on morale building initiatives due to the changing work environment in the global economy. If effective leadership is somehow connected to morale building, and we are not producing more and better leaders based on statistics, our compass must be off. Perhaps the age-old question as to whether departments should be ran from the top down or bottom up in decision-making didn’t go far enough. Obviously, ultimate decision-making and responsibilities rest with supervisors and managers. A better question would have been, “How do police departments meet the needs of its mission while satisfying the needs of its personnel?” In the highly competitive global economy, individual drive and determination determines morale and performance. This level of competitive options warrants different questions that may not have been asked in the past.

Q: Besides the global economy, what other factors do you believe requires morale initiatives to be officer-centric?

Brown: Departmental poaching, budget cuts, the Millennial Generation and departmental retirement, dropout rates and death. Many new cities are incorporating or annexing from larger cities to gain more control over tax dollars. More areas that are affluent are developing, forming their own police departments, and recruiting police personnel from other departments. With larger cities losing tax dollars from breakaway cities, these new cities can offer higher pay, better benefits and a higher quality work environment.  In addition, the Millennial Generation is motivated by more freedom and entitlements than their predecessors.  Consequently, departmental initiatives have to consider this shifting mindset. Finally, officers are retiring, resigning or dying faster than they can be replaced with quality applicants. Many departments have begun lowering their standards just to attract “qualified” applicants.  Whatever leverage, large centralized police departments once had, has rapidly dried up.

Q: So, as a result of these changes, what should be done to enhance morale and productivity?

Brown: My research on employee motivation and morale led me to the works of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins wrote a book called, “The Selfish Gene,” which postulated that humans, through biology and social engineering, operate solely in their self-interests for maintenance and survival. If we accept Dawkins’ theory, then our actions towards building departmental morale should consider the self-interests of applicants and employees.

Q: Interesting. How would this  work?

Brown: Well, police vetting from application to background checks to psychological services is effective in creating an indoctrination process much like fraternities, sororities and the military. When people have to earn their way into an organization or profession, they feel more valued once they’ve been accepted. However, once inside the organization, this acceptance wears off.  “Gung Ho” turns into complaints and diminished aspirations. If during the recruitment process, the applicant’s core needs and motivations are discovered; those needs can be used as career development indicators.  An officer can be moved around  and assigned based on the needs of the department as well as the needs of the officer.  Burnout usually comes with repetition and lack of reward. This professional development cycle would take 20-25 years for the average officer, which would stave off mediocrity and pessimism.  Assignment rotation would not be punitive, but aspirational. 

Q: Assignment rotations don’t sound new. Many departments implement this process now. What’s different?

Brown: The difference is the philosophy and psychology behind it. If during the recruitment process, I express a desire to become a Homicide Investigator. If after 5 years of working the streets, I have shown exemplary performance, my supervisor should be encouraging me to submit my investigator request forms. Computer software could be utilized within human resources to ensure that hire anniversary and assignment change correlate. If I have changed my mind, based on overall performance, I should be given the flexibility to choose assignments that are available.

Q: That sounds ideal, but what about situations where resources are limited and manpower short?

Brown: Let’s take the Smyrna Police Department (Georgia) that has 94 sworn police officers. There are 5 divisions, including a uniform division that handles everything from street patrols to special operations. Additionally, there are 10 full time investigators. If there are at least 10 sections within the uniform division and investigations, an officer could be reassigned every 5-7 years. This does not include supervisory promotions.  When an informal poll was given, officers said that rotation assignments based on individual interests would boost morale and productivity. 

Q: Have all police officers bought into assignment rotations as a conduit for morale building?

Brown: No. One officer said that he had been offered opportunities within his department, but rejected all of them. He enjoyed his days off and extra jobs and felt another assignment would interfere with his plans. Now, he is feeling burned out and recently applied for a new assignment. However, since burnout has set in, he wants to move right away, admitting that getting up in the morning to work has become a psychological struggle.  Since assignments are at the pleasure of the department, police supervisors and managers should push officers out of their comfort zone for the good of the department as well as the officer. Although officers that are more ambitious will create and develop their own morale building strategies through professional development, underachievers may have to be provided compulsory options.

A supervisor to officer conversation might go, “Officer Smith, over the last 6 years you have improved the community oriented policing (COP) initiatives in the McDaniel Glen City Housing Complex. We want to move some officers to learn some of your best practices for community buy-in.  Do you want to a.) Teach new officers, hands on, by working with a specialized unit before taking the next sergeant’s exam, b.) Assume an instructor’s role within the police academy for new recruits and in-service training, or c.) Become a field-training officer (FTO)?  Which one do you want to do based on your police application response to improve the quality of life within our city by taking on more challenges and responsibilities?”

Edward Brown, M.S., is a researcher and lead instructor for Core Edge Police Professional Development.  Ed is a former Atlanta police officer and has trained command staff and supervisors throughout the U.S. on communication and leadership development skills. He also is an Adult Education instructor for the Atlanta Public School System.

He has advanced legal training from the University of Dayton School of Law and a master’s degree from Mercer University in Public Safety Leadership.

Ed is the author of nine books including: Police Leadership: The Morale Driven Police Department and The A-Team: How to Be a Top Police Department in Recruiting, Training and Retaining Employees.  For more information about improving morale within your police department, check out this information: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J3I58H0

Changing Minds: How Police Leaders Can Influence Employee Behavior

Edward Brown, M.S.

The ability to influence the thoughts and behavior of others is singularly the most important skill a leader can possess.  Dutton (2011) developed five strategies for changing people’s minds, which include:

• Keeping your message, short, sharp, and simple to convince the person it’s true

• Focusing on the benefits to an individual

• Surprising a person by providing an alternative to his or her way of thinking

• Speaking with confidence and assurance

• Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes

Dutton’s framework is an excellent synopsis to changing someone’s mind or at least getting people to consider another point of view.  In this vein, charismatic leaders use these techniques, but add a few more layers to changing not only a person’s mind, but encouraging groups of individuals to consider a leader’s perspective.  Some of the strategies charismatic leaders use to change the minds of others are:

• Describing current conditions compared to the ideal. Charismatic leaders fully understand that people act in their self-interest and will generally change behavior when conditions are severely uncomfortable.  However, this discomfort has to resonate with an adverse situation that individuals fear.  An example would be a real estate agent that shows a prospective buyer a run-down house in a questionable neighborhood. When the real estate agent shows the prospective buyer other houses in more desirable surroundings, the buyer is more inclined to consider the latter houses for purchase, because the buyer fears investing in a house where his or her quality of life will be harmed.  If you want to change the minds of others, exaggerate current conditions as being abysmal and describe how accepting your recommendations would be transformational.

• Communicating to both regions of the brain. Charismatic leaders embrace Dutton’s idea of speaking with confidence and assurance, but go one-step further. These leaders speak with passion and commitment that serves as a means of rattling the minds of others.  Have you ever thought something to be true, but began questioning its validity once someone provided contrary facts and spoke with extreme passion?  It was not just an issue of not holding steadfast to your belief; it was the feeling of uncertainty that came about through someone showing more enthusiasm in conveying the idea.  By demonstrating steel determination, passion, and confidence, you become more influential and persuasive.

• Encouraging others to do small acts. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini is his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion discussed the impact of getting people to commit to small acts as a means of influencing behavior. The basis of Cialdini's concept stems from the notion that if people begin acting on behalf of another person through small acts, the need to be seen as consistent encourages a level of commitment on people's part.  As charismatic leaders assign tasks to would-be converts and through small acts, the casual observer becomes a full-fledged zealot to the mission of the leader. To change the minds of others, create opportunities for participation. There is an old adage that people support what they help create.

It is often said that the most challenging thing to change is a made-up mind. By using the strategies of charismatic leaders, not only can you change minds, but lead innovation within your  police department.

Excerpts from The A-Team: How to Be a Top Police Department in Recruiting, Training & Retaining Employees.

To read more on positively influencing your police department, visit: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFZO2V6  

Reference(s):

Dutton, K. (2011).  Split-second persuasion: The ancient art and new science of changing minds.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.