About a week ago a rookie officer was sitting in my office and we were talking about improving his performance on the street. During the course of the conversation I asked him, "So, what's it gonna take to turn this around?" He looked at me perplexed and asked, "What do you mean, sir?" I told him that the perception was he was lacking in survival mindset and aggressiveness on the street, what he was going to do to turn that perception (or reality) around? He stopped and said, "No one has ever asked me that before." We then set upon a course of action to change the direction he was heading in.
Simple Question
It really is a simple question but one that is frequently ignored. You, me, everyone that wants to modify our behaviors, improve our performance, work safer (the list is endless) needs to ask ourselves, "What's it gonna take..."
Will it take serious injury before we start training more effectively? Will it take another officer killed by his own pistol after a disarming before we begin carrying a back-up pistol? Will it take a heart attack before we lose 25 pounds and start working out? What's it gonna take for us to achieve our goals? "I'm going to become more proficient with my pistol," is a great statement to make and indeed is in fact a great goal but how do we get there? Competence in suspect control is a great idea but training at some strip mall dojo with no resemblance to reality and no intense training regimen could result in your teeth being knocked out as you get into your "cat" stance on the street and scream, "Kiai!"
Honest Self-Assessment
First of all, in order to make improvements and improve your chances of winning a street encounter, you must take a hard look in the mirror and ask, "Are most suspects more in danger from me than I am from them?" Now we all have someone out there that can hand us our head in a basket but the question refers to most of our encounters. If the answer is no, then assess in what areas you are deficient. Don't substitute technology for preparation. I'd rather take a 110 lb. officer who can and is prepared to kick butt and take names and is armed with a Taser® than a 170 lb. slug just armed with a Taser (that whole Steinbeck quote about "The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental" comes to mind).
Once your assessment is complete, write down your goals. This is an important part of the process. If you don't write it down, chances are you won't achieve it.
Getting There
Motivational guru Zig Ziglar has for years touted the benefits of a systematic goals program. In the book Over the Top (Zig Ziglar Corporation, 1997) Ziglar recounted the research done by David Jensen of the UCLA School of Medicine found that, "These results also confirm the academic literature on goals that, over the past 20 years, has shown that those who set goals perform better in a variety of tasks."
According to Ziglar the best way to format your goal setting is in the following order:
- Goal: (Whatever it is you want to achieve, obtain or improve upon)
- Benefits: The basic tenet, What's In It For Me?
- Obstacles: Time, money, whatever it is that might impede your actions
- Skills/Knowledge: Things you need to obtain to fulfill your goal
- People, etc: Instructors, trainers whomever you need along the path
- Plan of Action: A road map to follow along your way
- Date of Completion: When you want to achieve your goal. Although it might need to be amended later, don't leave an open date.
Along the Path
"Anything worth having is worth working for." I don’t know how many people influential in my upbringing reminded me of this truism. Also true is that some goals are not easily achieved. In our hurried lives the greatest impediment seems to be time - or rather lack of time. Life-saving skills require sound basic training and continued skill maintenance. These require the expenditure of time and we all frequently make excuses about our lack of time but like the old car commercial, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later." The problem with waiting for an event to motivate you "I'll start tomorrow, next week, next month..." is that we are always putting off until tomorrow what we should be doing now. The end result of turning your training, abilities and health around now is that you receive benefits the entire time. Maybe the violent event that we train daily for never happens... or maybe our confidence is manifested in our attitude and body language and is perceived by those who would have done us harm and prevented it. Either way this is a win/win for us. We reap the benefits of our preparations, not pay the price for reaching our goals.
It is a Violent World
We can attempt to ignore it and hide our head in the sand like an Ostrich but the nature of our work is such that though we deny violence and violent people exist, they have a way of finding us. Without preparation we are then vulnerable to victimization - shocked and dismayed by the attack - they then find us curled up in a ball our last defense being the fetal position similar to what brought us into this world.
"Turning this baby around" requires an understanding that if preparation does not begin today, there may never be a tomorrow; that skills, tactics, abilities and good health are the basis upon which a safe police career is built and that they can never be allowed to tarnish or dull. You are in the driver seat. You have control of the wheel, and the direction must be set by you and navigated by you. There will be obstacles along your path of that it is certain but as Robert Frost wrote, "But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
