For the last number of years I have had the privilege of speaking at the opening ceremonies for the annual ILEETA Conference as the Deputy Executive Director. At the 2024 conference I spoke about Seeking, Sharing, and Implementing. While the message was directed at conference attendees it applies at a broader level to all of us in the training community, all year.
As trainers we need to be continually seeking. Seeking new information, insights, knowledge, skills, and wisdom. Seeking to connect with fellow trainers and engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate. Seeking ways to enhance the design and delivery of our training. Seeking ways to make changes within the constraints that you have of time, resources, funding, and flexibility to implement change. Seeking out relevant research then seeking to answer the three critical questions – What?, So what?, and Now what?.
The next steps are sharing and implementing what you are learning. Share with your fellow trainers. Share with your supervisor. Share with your administration. Share with the people who design the curriculum. Share with the people who attend your training.
Implementation is about striving to make small incremental improvements in your training. It is about thinking like a scientist and running a series of small, well thought out experiments that are grounded in and informed by the research.
I shared three quotes during that presentation. The first was from Eric Greitens and it talks about making the choice to act.
“Deciding is not doing, and wanting is not choosing. Transformation will take place not because of what you decide you want, but because of what you choose to do.”
It is easy to make excuses and put off making any changes. We need to stop making excuses and instead be continually making improvements. That is why I shared this second quote from Theodore Roosevelt as a challenge.
Do Something Now.
If not you, who?
If not here, where?
If not now, when?
I ended with the following quote from Maya Angelou, which I have been challenging myself and fellow trainers with for the past couple of years.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
If we know better and do not do better, shame on us. I realize many of trainers work in environments where you may have limited ability to change curriculum. We can, however, still take action to make improvements in training by changing the way we deliver the curriculum. There is always something we can do to make a difference. If you ask the right questions and do some digging, you may find you have a greater ability to influence training than you think.
Let’s be clear. This is not about being critical of trainers in the past who were doing the best they could with the tools they had, the training they had, and the information they had access to. I started delivering law enforcement training 35 years ago. If I knew then what I know now would I teach differently? Absolutely. But I did not know and could not have known. I was fortunate to work with a team of very dedicated and open-minded trainers and as we learned about new and better ways to deliver training, we modified what we were doing.
Much of the research that influences my current thinking was not even done back then. We certainly did not have access to the volume of information we have now. The internet had not even become publicly available when I started delivering training. We had to go to actual bookstores to buy physical books. Even as the internet started to become accessible to the public there was not the volume of information available through the internet that there is now.
We also need to step back from criticizing researchers and educators based on what they wrote 40 years ago about motor learning, skill acquisition and how the brain processes information. For many of them, if you followed their work over the years, you would see that they changed their understanding, beliefs and teachings as any good scientist should.
Let’s start wherever we are in our journey and move forward with an open mind and a commitment to seeking, sharing, and implementing.
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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