Edward Brown, M.S.
BusinessDictionary.com(n.d.) defines a Learning Organization
as an “Organization that acquires knowledge and innovates fast enough to
survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. Learning organizations
(1) create a culture that encourages and supports continuous employee learning,
critical thinking, and risk taking with new ideas, (2) allow mistakes, and
value employee contributions, (3) learn from experience and experiment, and (4)
disseminate the new knowledge throughout the organization for incorporation
into day-to-day activities.”
Essentially, police departments are bonafide learning organizations when it comes to the
technical aspects of policing. Police academies and in-service training are
extremely valuable for updating officer survival techniques, legal and
constitutional considerations, and liability issues. Even field training is valuable on an individual level. However, what happens with
the 30 years of experience and information police supervisors and officers leave with when they
retire? Where are the archives that house this information? How can police departments become better
knowledge managers reminiscent of research libraries and information curators?
Could experience be packaged to create POST certified training?
Fundamentally, other learning organizations
have begun using action learning as a methodology for retrieving internal
experiences and translating it into documented information. Study Guides and Strategies website (n.d.)
defined action learning as “…learning and problem-solving strategy for
organizations, whether commercial, government or non-profit. The focus is to
increase employees learning capacity within an organization while responding to
a real world challenge in a cross-departmental team. Reflection is an important
part of the experience.”
Study Guides and Strategies broke learning actions into 6
(six) components, which are:
- Takes advantage of its members’
own actions and experience
- The experience of
"exchange" can generate fresh approaches across departmental lines
(networking), and help build systemic innovation and learning capacity within
the organization.
- Begins with a period of strategic
questioning of the problem
- Sets action items and goals
- Regroups to analyze progress
- Reflects upon, and documents, the
process
How would this work within police departments? First, police
leaders would determine that there is a problem within their knowledge
management system. Veteran supervisors and officers who do not systematically
pass on their experience to personnel keep police departments in a regressive
mode. Even U.S. prisons have become criminal universities for inmates passing
on best practices to other inmates. To
stay ahead, police departments have to view police experience as vital to
knowledge management. Second, by enlisting police personnel as archivists using
current resources within the training section, there are no additional
expenditures for maintaining a database of interviews and biographies, video
logs, and publishing center. Third, designating a curator ensures that all
information is catalogued and used within academy and in-service training. Fourth, police departments that institute a
knowledge management component within their department become the epicenter for
other departments in retrieving these best practices. Departments could even
charge a user fee for the information as well as offer POST credits, not to
mention a consultant fee to help set up knowledge management centers within
other departments. Finally, retiring supervisors and officers create a legacy
that is self-fulfilling as well as valuable to police operations. A hundred years from now, future police
supervisors and officers can review how past supervisors and officers made certain decisions that may be germane and relevant for that time.
If the old adage, “Knowledge is Power,” has any validity, it
is critical that police departments maintain the most important part of this
edict of knowledge, experience. By preserving experience that becomes wisdom,
police departments can maintain the quintessential aspect of power.
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 supervisors within
the Atlanta Police Department as well as police officers throughout the state
of Georgia and abroad. Ed is also a consultant to police departments in
archival and knowledge management.
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: A Badge Without
Blemish: Avoiding Police Corruption and The Secrets to Communicating
Effectively with Police Officers.
Reference(s):
Study Guides and Strategies (n.d.). Action Learning. Retrieved from: http://www.studygs.net/actionlearn.htm
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