Fixing Your Organization Starts Up Top!

Today I will dive into how to fix organizational dysfunction.  Simple, right?

Well, kinda.

Whatever size department you're at, big, small, or smack in the middle, that ship can turn the right direction.  Send this anonymously to a Chief, Assistant Chief, Colonel, Major, Captain, LT or Sergeant that doesn't trust their people.  Complains about their people.  Doesn't even like or respect their subordinates.  

Let's start turning the Titanic today.

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Good morning. Welcome back. Hope July is treating you well. Everybody was safe over the July 4th holiday. And welcome back to real life. So I want to get into some changes that I think most agencies around the country and probably the world would benefit from in the long run. And most of these will start with the chief or sheriff. That's where the shift is going to have to come from. And it's going to have to trickle down through every layer of leadership. You've heard me say it before. If you've listened to a single episode, officers are trusted with taking freedom and taking life, but they're weirdly micromanaged in certain ways and don't make a lot of money and work rigorous, weird hours. And so there's this expectation that the actions of an officer where they have to make a decision in one tenth of a second about whether they pull the trigger, whether they throw a punch, whether they bump a car to spin it off the road. And those are analyzed by judges of the Supreme Court over months and years. They're analyzed in slow motion by defense attorneys. So I say all that to say if we want professionals, we need to treat them like professionals and we need to pay them like professionals. If you don't pay officers appropriately, they're going to find other ways to make money. And in this economy with $450 a gallon gas and $7 dozen eggs, you know, if you pay an officer $40,000 a year, they're going to have to make money elsewhere. And that means they're going to sacrifice something for their paycheck, whether that's probably time or morality or something. Something is going to give so that they can make more money than you're providing. Whereas if the agency provides for the officer, you can expect well-rested, more professional staff. A lot of chiefs and just throughout the management chain, just their way of viewing the person who's doing the job, the detectives, the patrolmen, the motor cops, all this stuff, the narcs, is like it's not with trust, it's not with respect. It's looking at them as subordinates. And I think a shift to they do a different job. They're not less than the chief. They simply have a different position within the organization would go a long way. Chiefs or sheriffs showing up to roll calls, genuinely wanting to know what's wrong. Showing up to a night shift roll call consistently, showing up to homicide at 1 a.m. when they're called out not to run the scene, not to take over, not to talk to the manager and not to talk to the lieutenant or the sergeant on the side that's out there going, hey, shouldn't they be doing this? But to get a feel for the environment and maybe what needs to change or how they can better support that investigator. You know, we limit pursuits. I spoke on the last episode about pursuits and why they should be broken off. I also think that they should be left pretty much completely up to officer discretion. If we can trust the officer to make the right choice, we don't need to manage them. We don't need the supervisor coming over the radio. As soon as they say, hey, they're taking off, the supervisor won't need to come over the radio and go, break it off, unit. The officers won't have to try to keep their engine noise down while they're talking on the radio to not freak anybody out. All these things will come with it if you give the officers trust and the agent trust to function autonomously, because we all know if you're the sergeant 10 miles away and you're just hearing things on a radio, you do not have the same decision-making power as the person who's seeing what's happening. So anytime you're having to supervise by radio, you are showing a lack of trust for that individual. So why are they even wearing a badge and carrying a gun if you have to micromanage them? So you got to pay them enough, you got to show them respect. And that comes with having a higher standard and not, you know, you're not going to accept the bullshit. If the officer's making 100 grand a year and, you know, getting a couple, you know, a mental health day a month that they can take or whatever, and having access to all this counseling stuff and support and helping them through a difficult career, you can expect them to be more, to be higher functioning. You can probably have less supervisors. And the supervisors that are working can focus on other things than managing. They shouldn't even, nobody's going to be calling them really with questions because that the officers that go to that department, let's say St. Louis became like this, St. Louis police. We'll say East St. Louis, because that place has kind of a reputation. And they become known as the highest paying agency in the country. And they let the officers work. And if you break or bend the rules, yes, there will be repercussions. Your job is in jeopardy. But if you're trying to do the right thing, they got your back. And they're going to err on the side of this guy's probably doing the right thing. We hired him. We gave him a gun. So he's probably going to do the right thing. You know, you would end up with the right people going to St. to East St. Louis, and East St. Louis would change for the better. And short term, would it cost money? Would there be a growing pain? Yes. Bumping the salaries up, people would bitch and moan and complain. The firemen would be up in arms, even though they sleep at work. And I had to throw my little shade there. But the point being, over the years, the lack of lawsuits, the reduction in supervision, the successful prosecutions instead of, you know, taking stuff to trial and losing because the officers are better at their jobs and they're more professional. Okay, I'm going to stop beating up. Management needs to trust the officers. If you don't trust your officers, I don't know, man. I say go work somewhere else, dude, where you have people you trust. If you feel like you have to constantly be on them, that's on you and you need to change something. Something's wrong. And they're probably not just all a bunch of bad people, lazy people, mean people, thieves. There's something systemically wrong here. I spoke about pursuits before. There needs to be a way to end pursuits. That's a policy that needs to change that that goes with it. I've heard of foot pursuits being terminated, even sergeants coming over the radio telling people to stop chasing someone on foot. Give me a break, dude. That's madness. I mentioned a mental health day a month. I don't know exactly how it looks, but you know, when I was on the streets and every agency I've been at, it's very rare that somebody is like, hey, you doing okay? Like it might be your friend, but somebody in your supervisory chain, like, hey, can you come in my office? What's going on? Like you're different than you were. I'm here for you. And they get that feeling that the boss is there for them. So I say all that to say, you know, hypertension, number one killer of cops, right? They are stressed out by life. We're all going through divorces. We're all, you know, all cops are going through stuff. They're going through, you know, child custody fights. They're going through battles. They're going through internal battles. They're coming home with blood on their clothes. They're having to buy gear out of their own pocket when, you know, they can't afford a dozen eggs. We're all going through stuff and it leads to all this stress. And I'd love to see the organizations more proactive about targeting that stress. I interviewed Danny Baker, Marine Sniper, and 14-year veteran of the Greenville Police Department. He spoke very highly of how they handled his issues. They plugged him into somebody, a great counselor that he connected with, and they offered him help. But a lot of places it's not like that. The automatic response is we got to cover our ass. We got to reduce liability, get her badge, get his gun, and then we can figure out what to do, but they need to be off the street. And a a proactive, not waiting for the explosion or implosion, but actually proactively going, hey, let's identify problems. Let's intervene as early as possible. I mean, I interviewed what's his name? Drew out of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, and he talks about intervention on mental health consumers at six different stages of the criminal justice system, from Intercept Zero, which is prior to their dealing with the criminal justice system, Intercept one, where they're dealing with a cop, all the way through intercept five, where they're on probation. They've already been through court, they've done their time and they're out on probation and intercepting them to keep them out of the criminal justice system. Well, let's take care of our own. Let's look at the blue line and the blue wave or whatever you want to call it. Let's look at it a little differently. Instead of, you know, people think of the blue line of silence. You know, if somebody does something wrong in front of you as a cop, like you shouldn't report it because you're on the same side, which is bullshit. That person's a criminal if they're a cop and they're doing crime. But let's make it more of like, let's actually support each other because sometimes, man, we're our own worst enemy. And I'm sure some of you are probably nodding your heads because you're on a shift where people are talking bad about each other, sleeping with each other, going out doing dumb stuff after work, you know, engaging in infidelity and just being general jackasses. And if we make that change, we can expect more bread in our bank account. You know, those $7 eggs won't look so bad and we won't have to work all the time. And just the quality of life changes. But it all just starts with upper management. It's a shift in policies, it's a shift in how they look at things to we got to take care of these people because I want 10 and 20 year employees, veterans. I don't want to always have rookies. I mean, when I was supervising my shift, I had 26 officers on the shift when I first got there. Man, I think I had one dude with 10 years experience, one with five. Pretty much everybody else was three and under. I mean, there's something wrong there. That says either people quit like crazy, which they did. That place was leaking like a sieve, or people go to specialized units and patrol becomes a dumping ground. That should be not how it is. That that's a policy change. We're not taking the best and brightest off patrol. We want the face of the department to be the best and brightest. We're going to take a lot of pride in being patrol. I was very eager to get off patrol. Patrol can be a fucking burnout, man. It can be kind of exhausting. And you're dealing with people that are mean and they're lying to you all the time, and you're dealing with bullshit calls and, you know, civil stuff that has nothing to do with us, but they want you to turn the kids over, but there's no paperwork, blah, blah, blah, and stuff that's not in our wheelhouse. And it's a tough job. It wears on you. So managers, sergeants, check on your people. You want them to stay working there. You never know what that question is going to do. If you see somebody who's a little off, they're usually talkative, they're keeping to themselves. Or they're usually motivated. Their eyes are red when they show up in the morning and they're not really doing the job anymore. Something's going on. They might not need discipline. They might need someone to listen. You might say, What's going on? And you don't even know that they just lost custody of their kids, or that, you know, they're in the middle of some dispute and it's super aggressive. And they get emails from an opposing lawyer every day about stuff they have to turn over and they're just in their head all the time. They're not present at work. It might not be because they're a shitty employee. So, supervisors, talk to them, not at them. Listen to them. You don't have to be in charge of them all the time. You can just be there as a friend. And upper management, get your sergeants to do that. Make it a directive. Hey, I want you checking on somebody every week. Keep your eyes out. Keep your eyes on your shift and take care of them. I want them all working here at the end of the year. You know, it's kind of like when I coach kids' sports, I tell the parents at the beginning: my number one goal is that your kid looks forward to practice. I don't care if it's the highest level of competitive sport. They should look forward to practice. They should want to play on their own, and they should want to play again next year. They should be bitching if it's not a practice night. And during the off season, they're like, I wish I was back at practice. I want to train. It's the same with this. If the cops hate coming to work, you can't just shake your head at that and be like, oh, they're not tough enough. Or like, yeah, this probably, they're not cut out for this. It may be something else, maybe an external factor that you can help eliminate. So check on your people. That's again, that goes back to if the chief shows respect on down, if the sheriff does, that is showing respect. If you have a dear friend that you see hurting, you would check on them. So go ahead and push that culture. And even if they got nothing going on, even if they're just making bad choices or whatever, and it may just wake them up. It may do a lot better. You don't have to hammer every nail than you coming at them and going, hey, I'm tired. Every time I look in here, every time we have a roll call, there's one empty chair and it's always you. You fix it or I'll fix it. Like there's a lot of supervisors that talk like that and think like that. And it's a polar opposite to go, hey, you've been late a lot lately. Talk to me, because that's not you. Do you see the difference in that? Like, that's total respect. That's this is not your character. These are your actions. But your character is not the actions that you're taking, be it tardiness or you know, laziness or whatever that person's exhibiting that's out of character. And if you're paying enough and you're the premier agency in the area, you're East Freaking St. Louis, where everybody in the country's going because they're just paying their people, taking care of their people, giving their people extra leave, and you know, adjusting to shifts that, you know, as adjusting hours as needed, whatever, just being a good place to work. That conversation just feels different if you really don't want to lose the job. I remember starting and I had a college degree when I started as a cop. And because of that degree, if you didn't have a degree, you started at 32,000 a year. If you had one, you started at 37.5. And I remember people talking crazy to me on the street, and I'd go, something along the lines of, hey, motherfucker, my salary starts with a three. So I can make more money picking up trash. Don't cross me up. Like, don't disrespect me for no reason. Don't talk to me crazy. I'll tell people that. That's how I was thinking. It's like, I don't really care about this job that much. So if somebody talks to me too crazy, like, I wouldn't say I'm like a street dude, but like, uh, you're also not going to disrespect me like that. Whereas now I've got a more professional mindset where I'm like, you know what? They're probably having the worst day of their life. They're dealing with a cop. They may have been done dirty by a cop before, or their cousin was, or something. So their little behavior is not going to get to me. It's not that serious. But that's a huge day. You know, if you're making $37,000 or $32,000 a year, like, give me a break, dude. I could do any job. I can go work at Geek Squad. I can, you know, greet at Best Buy and make that. So we got to do a little bit better in that regard. So I'm going to wrap it up. Just it all comes down to management needs to not only trust their officers, but show that they trust them. Still hold them to a standard. It doesn't mean you get away with murder. It doesn't mean you get away with all kinds of shit. It means there is an expectation. You're you are actually expected to meet it. It's not expected or else. It's, yeah, my 26 officers are going to do the right thing. I don't need to review random body cans because I know they're doing the right thing. And then you can hold them to that standard. If they're out there talking crazy to people, you know, you can hold them to a standard and say, hey, the standard here in East St. Louis is we don't talk to people like that. They might act like that, but we don't do that. So I hope you get on board because I want you to stay on this team. And I want you working here for 20 years. I think you're a good officer. But the way you're talking to people, the way you're escalating things, that's not how we do things. So is that something that we can make a change on? Like, can you adjust that? That's totally different than what the F is your problem? Here's your reprimand. It's I expect more from you. You're better than this. Is this who you want to be when Jesus comes back? Or something like that. So I hope this was helpful to somebody. I hope some chief of police or sheriff or assistant chief listens and in a meeting they speak up. They don't just sit there like a minion, like a yes man and listen to people spew stuff that they don't agree with. And chiefs, let me just say this. And all managers, you deal with up and down. Chief, yeah, you're the chief of police. You answer to a city council, right? You answer to the politicians. You're bait, you're more or less a politician. Sheriff is elected, that's a whole different thing. They don't really answer to anybody. They answer to the people every couple of years when it's election time. But if you're a sergeant, your job is not to blindly pass down whatever the lieutenant says. If you disagree, for God's sake, be a man or a woman. And for God's sake, speak up in that meeting. If they're saying some bullshit, that's your job. And go, sir, it might be 20 people in the meeting. Sir, I don't agree with that. I'll, if you order me to tell my officers that, I will have to, but I don't agree with it. I think it's going to hurt the agency. I think, I think doing that's going to hurt the organization. You might need to do it in private. I don't know. But if you're just going to be a yes man, that you receive an email, you forward an email. You get a word in your ear and it comes out of your mouth. Why do you even need to exist? Your job is to manage down, but also to filter stuff from above. And if they're doing something inappropriate or stupid or immoral or that they don't realize is going to hurt the organization, but you actually know the boots on the ground and you go, I know these guys. And if I tell them that, like, this doesn't go well. There's no way I can deliver this message and it goes well. And I don't agree with it. Not just it's an unpopular but necessary decision, but this is boneheaded. But a lot of people will sit there and then, you know, you might have 20 sergeants in a meeting and they leave and they start bitching in little pockets. And to me, you are soft as Cinnabon. You are soft and sweet if you sit there and listen to something you don't agree with, and you're a sergeant, you're making $70, $80,000 a year plus OT, and you're sitting there listening to something that you are a veteran law enforcement officer, you're a resident agent in charge at a federal agency, and you're listening to something that you're like, this is bullshit. This is wrong. And you don't speak, shame on you. Because that is your job. It is not to collect a check and screw over the people below you. It is to support what's right, to enable them to succeed, and to be a voice. And if they want to shut you down and laugh you out of the room, that's on them. But if you lack the self confidence to speak up and open your mouth when it's wrong, don't do that job. Don't take that supervisory position because you might as well not exist. They can tell your people directly. You're just a yes man. End of rant. Have a great day. Stay in the AC.