From the archives: Survival mindset: Fake it 'til you make it?

First appeared in PoliceOne.com September of 2012

What I’m about to say may burst your bubble and make you so ticked off you can’t even finish the article through your angry eyes. I’m going to meddle with our collective and perhaps necessary cultural mythology. I’ll be branded a heretic to the religion of officer survival because I’m going to rail against cheap thinking that replaces reality in the minds of many of our police officers today. And I’ll even throw in a Bible verse to make the atheists and agnostics think I’m narrow minded and exclusive. All ready on the firing line?

The survival mindset is overrated.

Hold your fire. Maybe what I really mean is that survival mindset is misunderstood, misapplied, and misdirected.

Let’s do a little thinking about what sometimes passes for a survival mindset.

Are you overweight, out of shape, and full of junk food? Then you don’t have a survival mindset, you have a good luck charm. Your positive attitude isn’t going to push more oxygen through that extra few miles of blood vessels you’ve got weaving through your fat cells. If you had a genuine survival mindset you’d go for a walk every once in a while and stop popping buttons off your shirt.

Is your personal life a mess? Then you don’t have a survival mindset, you have paranoia and control issues. Your so-called will to survive is limited to not getting killed on any given day. A genuine survival mindset comes with a lot of reality checks and life balance.

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,” says Proverbs 23:7.

How can you be a survivor in one area of your life and not all? Real confidence applies to every facet of your life, not just your swagger in uniform.

Are you as ready to sacrifice your life for a heroic cause as you are to survive combat? If not, then you have a strong sense of self-preservation, not a survival mindset. If you are quick to criticize officers who have died in the line of duty by spouting off that they just didn’t have a survival mindset that’s usually a sign that you’re whistling in the dark in denial about the realities of dynamic lethal encounters that you just can’t process. A deep survival mindset accepts death as a reality that does not deter what you have to do.

Do you approach your duties casually because you can handle anything that comes up? Overconfidence is not a survival mindset. It’s just cocky and stupid. Are you afraid of what other officers will think if you ask for a back-up? Do you rush in to prove you’re not afraid of anything? That’s posturing for your buddies, not solid police work.

Do you ignore advice of senior officers or cops from other agencies because you think you have the best, newest training? The survival mindset wastes no information. It seeks out small nuggets and puts together bits and pieces from every person, every trainer, every offender, and even people you don’t like. The officer who thinks they have arrived at their peak of knowledge and proficiency is not survival minded, but small minded. The true warrior is a humble learner.

Do you make light of death, tragedy, sorrow, and see emotion as a weakness? Then you’ve got a light-weight coping skill, not a tough survival mindset. Survival deals with reality and processes in a slow, mature way. Survival does mean suppressing your emotions appropriately — not ignoring them in yourself or others.

I recognize that I haven’t given a good definition of what a survival mindset is — just a few examples of what it isn’t. My goal is to start a discussion about whether we are really training today’s officers in that attitude, or merely brainwashing them to think that mindset trumps discipline and training.

It does not.

Bravado, posturing, boasting, pretending, and ignoring our fears are useful tools. Sometimes we do have to fake it until we make it. But as a lifestyle, they are poor substitutes for a survival mindset that will rise to any occasion, yields to learning, and balances the will to live with the will to live well, and with the courage to die. 

From the archives: 7 habits of unsuccessful departments

This originally appeared on PoliceOne.com October 2010

Last week, Chuck Remsberg did an article — 7 habits of successful departments — that offered some excellent suggestions and best practices.  Unfortunately, we sometimes see police leaders who end up doing the exact opposite of what one may call a best practice.  So it seems fitting that we follow up with an article on unsuccessful departments. Without further delay — but with a respectful nod to Stephen Covey — here are seven characteristics of weak police agencies.

1. Serving the Wrong Customer
The first customer of a police leader is the officer in the patrol car. If officers treated citizens the way some supervisors treat officers there would be complaints rolling in on a daily basis. Compassion, communication, respect within a department creates the same attitudes on the street. If you want cops who care about the citizens you need leaders who care for their cops.

2. Pretending to do Community Policing
Chiefs are forced to claim they are doing community policing and will attach that label to the slenderest thread of something that resembles it. Genuine community policing involves bringing diverse interests into a discussion of community problems. Line level officers are critical to the success of collaborative efforts and must be empowered with discretion and resources.

3. Assuming IntegrityPublic relations, crime prevention, and community meetings don’t amount to community policing but often are substituted for the hard work of communicating and collaborating.

Some departments over-assume police delinquency and have no trust in the professionalism of their officers. At the equally distressing opposite end of that spectrum is a department with no accountability and no healthy policy in place to maintain integrity.

Audits and reviews of all aspects of policing that are subject to discretion and abuse should be a part of operational structure. This includes evidence, petty cash, working with youth, drug enforcement, traffic enforcement, and attendance patterns. Monitoring officer conduct maintains discipline and serves as an early warning system for officers who need guidance. It also indentifies, rewards, and encourages integrity.

4. Exotic Training
The default training strategy of ineffective police departments is “scheduling by brochure” — the lack of a focused set of training objectives in favor of catching training as it happens along. While it’s good to offer specialty training to keep officers interested and motivated, sending an officer to underwater evidence recovery school makes little sense when basic competencies remain un-mastered. Underperforming police agencies fail to establish a cohesive and relevant training plan.

5. Bootstrap Counseling
Agencies that do not attend to the psychological health of their officers will suffer loss of productivity, shortened officer careers, and higher levels of sick leave and injury. Ignoring the traumatic events — or defining traumatic events as “just part of the job” — creates a sense of hopelessness in officers that can lead to a slow erosion of their effectiveness. Regular supportive and preventive services should be as important as any other department operational consideration.

6. Line-led Culture
Leadership requires the establishment and maintenance of culture and tradition. Departments that fail to create a sense of identity, mission, and purpose from its leaders will create their own out of the basic human need for identity and belonging. Values of hardened and cynical officers can dominate an agency if not countered by positive and rich symbols, ceremonies, language, and traditions established by high-performing leaders.

7. Unshared Leadership
Leaders who fail to understand that they are not always the smartest person in the room fail to cultivate the intellect and influence of their officers and staff. Ideas must be genuinely welcomed, available for consideration, and rewarded. Leaders may not want to share power, but it is essential that they share influence. Not every idea is a good one, but not every good idea comes from the command staff. Underperforming law enforcement agencies are almost always governed by fear of engagement with managers.

Effective policing is accomplished through an artful blend of strong leadership and discipline, balanced by trust and support of those who do the hard work on the streets. Mutual respect and communication will strengthen the agency and multiply its effectiveness in serving the community.