In a recent 3-2-1 Thursday Newsletter, author James Clear shared two questions from Richard Hamming’s talk, You and Your Research.
Those two questions are:
- What are the important problems in your field?
- And if you’re not working on them, why not?
Every trainer should be asking themselves these two questions on a regular basis. By important problems I am not talking about flavour of the day issues that the special interest groups and politicians say are important. Those may be important, but too often the claims that they are important have no foundation in fact, evidence or reality.
If someone was to ask you the first question, “What are the important problems in your field?” what would your answer be?” What are the problems that you as a trainer and a leader feel are the most important problems facing the men and women of your agency right now? In fact, take a few minutes to reflect of this and write out your answer. If you are a contract trainer them what do you believe are the most important problems facing the profession you serve right now?
Now, ask yourself the second question. What are you actively doing to address those problems? If you are not actively doing something to address these important problems through education, training and modelling, why not? What excuses are you allowing to get in the way? Is it support from your boss? Time? Money? Resources? COVID-19? If the problems you identified are truly important, then set aside the excuses and get to work on addressing the problems.
It is likely that the problems you identified have developed over time. Addressing these problems will take time, patience, perseverance and constant pressure relentlessly applied to correct. Some of the problems will require changing elements of the culture and culture change is never easy.
You do not have to do this alone. There are others in your organization or circle of influence that, if asked the first question, would identify the same problems. Co-op them. Create a team of people in your organization who are all dedicated to addressing the problem(s). Many of these issues are likely best addressed by a dedicated team of people coming at them from different levels and perspective, all with a common goal.
Personally I believe that the two most important problems in law enforcement today are:
- A leadership void created by leadership being a course and not a culture in many agencies.
- The lack of professional development training for law enforcement trainers. Most of the training is simply certification and recertification.
What am I doing to address these issues?
Leadership Void
I have developed the Dare to Be Great: Strategies for Creating a Culture of Leading workshop which I deliver both in a live one day workshop and now in an online workshop at www.daretobegreatleadership.com. I also have started writing a weekly Dare to Be Great leadership blog on the same website. A number of the interviews I do for the Excellence in Training Academy focus on leadership and what trainers can do to address this issue.
Professional Development for Trainers
I teach a variety of versions of the Excellence in Training program ranging from 4 and 8 hour conference workshops to 3 and 5 day Excellence in Training Courses. I write a weekly Excellence in Training blog post hosted at www.brianw260.sg-host.com. I also have the Excellence in Training Academy, a membership site for law enforcement trainers. Currently there are 268 hour long interviews with researchers, authors, trainers, officers and change agents in the Member’s Area along with 23 webinars. I also have a 3 day Performance Enhancement Imagery workshop.
I continue to actively recruit trainers to ILEETA, and provide scholarships for trainers to attend the ILEETA conference. In 2018 I started the ILEETA Learning Lab and have recorded close to 100 interviews for ILEETA members.
Is what I am doing going to change the world? No. Will it have a small impact? I believe it will. I also believe in and share the message below from Bobby Kennedy:
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”
Robert F. Kennedy
If we each work to change a small portion of events we can help write the history of this generation, and this generation will influence future generations. In that way we can all play a role in creating a legacy of learning and leading in our profession.
This takes us back to the two questions:
- What are the important problems in your field?
- And if you’re not working on them, why not?
Take care.
Brian Willis
Winning Mind Training – Dedicated to the heroic men and women of law enforcement.
Dare to Be Great Leadership – Committed to helping you on your leadership journey.
The Excellence in Training Academy – Where trainers come to grow. Join the Community of trainers committed to the pursuit of excellence in and through training. Use the code eitblog to get the first month’s membership (Individual or Training Unit) free.
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