Recently Steve Magness, the author of Do Hard Things, a must-read book for trainers, had a LinkedIn post with an important message for trainers. The tag line for the post was “Consistency trumps just about anything else. Stay in the game.” In the post he states, “A key to elite performance is staying in the game long enough to allow your talent to fully express. A rush to greatness can often impede our development.”
Magness lists four keys in this journey:
- Be patient.
- Focus on consistency over heroic efforts.
- Play the long game.
- Keep and develop the joy of the pursuit.
Continual professional development of police trainers is a critically important, but often overlooked and undervalued component of our collective journey to continually enhance the quality and effectiveness of police training. This needs to be a process not just a program. This is an insight from a recent Excellence in Training Academy interview with Jamey Gadoury where we discussed leader development. A process requires a long-term commitment by the trainer, ideally in collaboration with his or her supervisor and their agency, to their continuous professional development.
Your agency, state, or province’s instructor development course is a good starting point, but it should be just that – a starting point. A 40-hour instructor certification course in defensive tactics, firearms or other specific disciplines is one step on the journey, but it is just one step. Just because the certifying body only requires you to recertify every three years does not mean that you do not need to do anything in those three years to advance your skills, knowledge, and craft.
“No matter what you have accomplished or achieved you are always going to be good relative to what you can become. Greatness is inherently a dynamic process, and not an end state and the moment you start to think of yourself as great, your slide towards mediocrity will have begun.”
Jim Collins
Attending professional development courses for trainers offered by several credible training providers are excellent steps on the journey. It is critical however, to think beyond the courses. The information provided in those training programs is important, but more important is what you do with that information after the training. What you do to advance your knowledge and understanding of the principles and concepts taught in these courses, and what you do to apply those principles and concepts in your training is the key.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
Conferences like the annual ILEETA Conference and Expo, are a great opportunity for trainers to get exposed to a wide range of content designed to facilitate your growth and development and to connect with brother and sister trainers from multiple countries, all of whom are committed to the advancement of police training. As important as this conference is in advancing the knowledge, skills and understanding of the participants, of more importance in what trainers do between conferences to continue to advance their mind, body, and craft and to apply the learning by running a series of small, well thought out experiments.
“Deciding is not doing, and wanting is not choosing. Transformation will not take place because of what you decide you want, but because of what you choose to do.”
Eric Greitens
Stay curious. Be patient. Be consistent in your journey to learn and grow. Focus on consistency over heroic efforts. Play the long game. Keep and develop the joy of the pursuit. Stay in the game until you lose the joy of the pursuit of continual professional development, or lose the passion for teaching and developing others, then move on from training.
Take care.
Brian Willis
Winning Mind Training – Providing practical training to law enforcement professionals in the areas of instructor development, Performance Enhancement Imagery, leadership, and mindset.
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