Excellence in Training

Time to Rise to the Occasion

It has been said that in time of stress "We do not rise to the occasion; we sink to the level of our training."

I believe the original purpose of this statement was to highlite the importance of effective training, not to provide an excuse for poor training and less desirable performance. Unfortunately, I have heard a number of trainers use this statement as a statement of fact. While I agree that in times of stress we revert to the level of our training it is time trainers stopped embracing this statement as a philosophy and started to do something about it. 

If you truly believe your officer will sink to the level of their training what does that say about your training? More importantly, what are you doing to change your training? If your training does not truly prepare officers for the challenges and threats they will face in the field, then stop making excuses and change the way you train your officers. 

Start by talking to officers, reading use of force reports and talking to supervisors to find out where officers are failing to meet the challenge so you know what you need to change. Ask officers what they need more of, and what they need less of in training to better prepare them for the threats and challenges they are facing in the field. Too often we think we know what officers need and forget to ask them. 

"Let no man's ghost say that my training failed him." Unknown

It is not acceptible to use budgets, time constraints and limited resources as excuses not to provide effective training. Be innovative. Be imaginative. Find ways to conduct effective training on a limited budget. Reach out to other trainers through organizations like ILEETA (www.ileeta.org) and find out what other trainers are doing. The annual conference is a great opportunity to train and network, but there are resources available all year through ILEETA. Attend other training programs and talk to fellow attendees and trainers. There are great classes put on through Winning Mind Training, LifeLine Training, FLETC Rural Policing Institute, FLETC's Office of State and Local, and the FBI LEOKA program. 

As I have stated in this blog before, I am not a fan of 'thinking outside the box'. We live in a box world (budgets, policies, manpower issues,POST standards, etc) so start by cleaning out the box you have and then work on getting a bigger damn box. By cleaning out the box I mean getting rid of that stuff you have been doing for years just because it is easier to keep doing it than it is to create new programs, new lesson plans and new training stndards. You know the stuff I am talking about, and if you don't know ask your officers. 

Your commitment to Excellence in Training will breathe new life into your training and help to ensure that when faced with threats and challenges in the field, your officers will rise to the challenge by rising to the level of their training.

Please share your examples of your innovative training ideas so I can pass them along to your fellow trainers who read this blog regularly. By sharing you may save an officer's life. 

Go to LifeLine Training and register for the one day Below 100 / Survival Instincts training program to be held in Glen Ellyn, IL on Sept. 19 and 20. 

Take care. 

Brian Willis

If you are not an ILEETA member go to www.ileeta.org, review the membership criteria and join today. If you have never been to an ILEETA conference then begin setting aside $3.00 a day into a conference account and go to the 2012 conference. It will be one of the best investments of your training career.

If you are interested in booking Brian Willis for a presentation, keynote or course contact him at winningmind@mac.com. You can visit our website at www.winningmindtraining.com for a list of presentations and courses Brian can offer your organization, staff training function or conference.

 

Changing Culture

As I speak to law enforcement professionals around North America I continually hear people start a sentence (an excuse really) with the words “I am just a”. I am just a patrol officer, I am just a corporal, I am just a sergeant, I am just a trainer, I am just a Lieutenant, etc. What follows in an excuse why they cannot make a difference in their organization, an excuse why they are somehow not responsible for effecting a change in the culture of their organizations. 

When I talk about the culture of an organization I am referring to shared beliefs, shared practices and shared attitudes. The Below 100 initiative by Law officer Magazine (www.below100.com)is about changing some of those shared beliefs, practices and attitudes. Specifically, changing the ones that are resulting in large numbers of officers being killed and injured every year in the line of duty. Shared beliefs, practices and attitudes about wearing seat belts, wearing body armor, driving speeds and complacency. 

"You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless." Caroline Myss 

It starts with you. Ghandi said “you must be the change you wish to see in the world. Start by watching Derek Sivers TED video on how to start a movement at http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html. Begin with yourself and model these desirable behaviors. If you do not wear your body armor every day, start a new ritual today of wearing your armor. If you do not wear your seat belt in your patrol vehicle, start a new ritual today of wearing your seat belt. If you are in the habit of driving too fast, slow down. If you find yourself sliding into an attitude of complacency, change your attitude and your habits. Then seek out one other person on your shift or in your agency to be  what Sivers refers to as ‘the first follower’.

We must stop killing ourselves because we are driving too fast and neglecting to wear seat belts. In today's world it is inexcusable for officers to go out on the street without wearing body armor. Recruits in the academy should be wearing body amor every day so it becaomes part of their daily rituatual. Trainers in the academy also need to be wearing amror every day to avoid sending the message that wearing armor is just a 'recruit thing'.

As trainers you are in the best position to help influence the culture of your organization. The key is to stop making excuses, remove the words "I am just a" from your vocabulary and begin to take action. 

Take the time to visit the Below 100 website at www.below100.com. Read the articles and download the posters and resources. We are working on scheduling a number of Below 100 Train the Trainer courses for the fall. I will keep you posted on dates and locations. If you are not based in the United States this initiative still applies to you. Cops around the world are being injured and killed in the same ways and these strategies are applicable to every law enforcement organization. 

Take care.

Brian Willis

If you are interested in booking Brian Willis for a presentation, keynote or course contact him at winningmind@mac.com. You can visit our website at www.winningmindtraining.com for a list of presentations and courses Brian can offer your organization, staff training function or conference.

 

Adopter or Adapter?

One of the blogs I subscribe to is Seth Godin's. Godin is a marketing guru, author, speaker and innovator. Recently one of his recent blogs was titled Adopt vs. Adapt. While it was written relating to sales I believe it speaks directly to trainers:

Adopt vs. adapt

An early adopter seeks out new ideas and makes them work.

An adapter, on the other hand, puts up with what he has to, begrudgingly.

One is offense, the other is defense. One requires the spark of curiousity, the other is associated with fear, or at least hassle.

Hint: it's not so easy to sell to the adapt community.

Seth Godin

The question is are you an early adopter or an adaptor? There are some great trainers in North America who are early adopters. Many of them are members of ILEETA (www.ileeta.org). These are the trainers who are continually seeking new, better, and more effective ways of delivering training. These are the innovators. They are the trainers who do not rely on the most expensive equipment and the newest fads and gimicks to provide quality training. These are the men and women who believe being a trainer is a calling and not a job. They set aside their egos in search of more effective ways of delivering their training and they are willing to share their knowledge, their time and their experience with others. 

The people who concern me are the trainers who are or have become Adapters. In the training world the adapters are those who have become comfortable with the status quo, those who have embraced mediocrity, those who see innovation as too much work, those who have been worn down by the constant battle for time and money for training, those who go through the motions in 'preparation' and presentation of material, those who are unwilling to learn from others and share with others, and those who use the words 'have to' when refering to training rather than 'get to'. The adapters see training as a job. 

Godin is right when he says "It is not so easy to sell to the adapt community." The ideas around Excellence in Training are not easy to sell to adapters. I have tried and will continue to sell the thoughts, ideas and philosophies around Excellence in Training. The adopters take these ideas and make them their own. The build on them and find ways to improve their training. They give me feedback on what I can do better and how my ideas can be tweaked and enhanced. They share their successes and their failures.

The adapters say things like "this is a bunch of bullshit", "these are good ideas, but they will never work in our department", "our officers will never buy into this", or "our Chief or Sheriff will never buy into this". Adopters find ways to make it work, adapters make excuses why it will not work. 

If you realize you have become an adaptor then you have two choices:

1. Make the decision to change and commit to becoming an adpoter, or
2. Do yourself and your officers a favor and get out of training and find your true calling withing your agency. 

Take care.

Brian Willis

If you are not an ILEETA member go to www.ileeta.org, review the membership criteria and join today. If you have never been to an ILEETA conference then begin setting aside $3.00 a day into a conference account and go to the 2012 conference. It will be one of the best investments of your training career.

If you are interested in booking Brian Willis for a presentation, keynote or course contact him at winningmind@mac.com. You can visit our website at www.winningmindtraining.com for a list of presentations and courses Brian can offer your organization, staff training function or conference.

 

Original Thought and Training

Over the last 22 years as a law enforcement trainer I have come to the realization there has not been an original thought or original material in about 100 years. Everything is recycled. As trainers we simply take the knowledge and information that is out there and we repackage it, reframe it, and retool it in original ways to put existing information in context for our particular audience and profession. We come up with original ways of interpreting and applying existing information. In reality it is the application, interpretation and delivery of material that is original, not the information itself.

In the book Be Excellent at Anything the author Tony Schwartz quotes George Keller as saying "One of the paradoxes of creativity is that in order to think originally, we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others." Schwartz goes on to point out "Information, in short, represents the raw material from which original thinking emerges - and the more knowledge ones has, the better the base."

When you attend an ILEETA Conference (www.ileeta.org) one of the things that becomes immediately apparent is people's willingness to share. They willingly share their time, share their knowledge, share their experience, share their information, share their material and share the credit. ILEETA is an organization of peers and the majority of members are very willing to share everything they have knowing two things:

1. Everything they have they first got from someone else.
2. The people they share it with will give them credit when they use the material themselves.

There are some trainers in the law enforcement community however, who want to hoard all 'their stuff' because they are afraid someone else will steal it. My experience is if you are not willing to share, then people may steal it, however, if you share they are likely to give credit to you as their source. There are some who want to accuse other people of 'stealing their stuff'. The reality is we are all using some variation of the same stuff, and just repackaging it differently so, if you are one of those people get over it. We all got our stuff from someone else, from a book, from an audio tape, from a presentation, from a conversation or from a class we took.

Professional speaker and trainer Joe Calloway talks about Becoming a Category of One (I would recommend reading his book by that title). His premise is that you need to focus on becoming a category of one by setting yourself apart from others through your preparation, your presentation, your content, your relevancy, and your style and stop worrying about people stealing your stuff. 

The bottom line is this. Do not plagiarize other people's work. Do not take someone's else's speech, article or powerpoint and claim it is yours.  Do however, learn, study, read and borrow from others and always give credit. Doing so helps to spread the important messages and reinforces what should be the bottom line for all of us, which is keeping officers safe. 

Brian Willis

If you are not an ILEETA member go to www.ileeta.org, review the membership criteria and join today. If you have never been to an ILEETA conference then begin setting aside $3.00 a day into a conference account and go to the 2012 conference. It will be one of the best investments of your training career.

If you are interested in booking Brian Willis for a presentation, keynote or course contact him at winningmind@mac.com. You can visit our website at www.winningmindtraining.com for a list of presentations and courses Brian can offer your organization, staff training function or conference.