While watching Stuart Armstrong’s presentation from the 2021 Sport Movement Skills conference on the weekend there was a quote he shared from Christina Katz that jumped out at me: "Reach down and pull someone up. Then reach up and ask someone to pull you up. We are all in various stages of being the puller and the pulled. Nobody is at the top. We are all climbing together." The last three lines are important to reflect on and embrace. We are all on a journey. None of us are at the top. We are each in various stages of being the puller and the pulled. If we are going to enhance our … [Read more...]

Let me be clear about a few things up front: I am in complete agreement that our training, and our training methodologies need to be evidence based and research informed. I do, however, feel there is a third element that is often missing and that is Practically Applied. There are numerous questions we need to ask, and seek to answer regarding research and I will put them into three buckets: What? So what? Now what? The research findings begin to answer the “What?” questions.  The next group of questions are “So What?” questions because data without insight is of limited … [Read more...]

Recently friend and Mentor Chris Butler recommended I check out The Human Diver blog by Gareth Lock. Reading Lock’s post on The Importance of Psychological Safety in Debriefs led me to click on the link to a document on the DEBrIEF model: How to improve learning after diving. Below are some excerpts from that document that would be very helpful to conducting debriefings in law enforcement, both in training and in the field.  “A debrief is a simplified investigation and is an essential tool to understand what didn’t work, why and how to improve. What is … [Read more...]

"Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life." Wisława Szymborska, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature It is easy to fall into the trap of acquiring knowledge for the sake of acquiring knowledge, believing that knowledge is power. As Wisława Szymborska points out in the above quote, however, “Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out.”  I am a huge advocate of Embracing the Power of Questions, and this is something we explore in the Dare to Be Great … [Read more...]

“If you don’t go, you won’t know what you don’t know.” This is a phrase that popped into my head during an ILEETA Live event hosted by three great trainers and leaders Brian Hill, Todd Fletcher and Joe Willis with special guest host Graham Tinius, who is also a great trainer and leader. We were discussing why trainers should attend the annual ILEETA Conference in St. Louis. This conference should be on the list of “must attend” events for every law enforcement trainer at least once. Being part of the ILEETA community since the organization was founded 20 years ago and attending every … [Read more...]