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11.06.2015 SDVOB, veteran Comments Off

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16.03.2015 cyber crime, cyber security, employee engagement, insider threat, leadership, management, security threats Comments Off

Seven types of leadership styles that help to develop rogue employees

rogue employees

A short time ago, I authored a post describing how executives are contributing to the development of “rogue” employees; you can read it here:

7 warning signs you’re creating rogue employees.

One reader commented on my post and asked if I would balance the conversation by creating a corollary list that identifies what leaders (and executives) do to create toxic working environments that contribute to the development of rogue employees.

So, I penned the following list of seven caustic categories of leaders that I feel help to create these environments:

The reluctant leader: They really didn’t want to be in-charge of people, through words or behaviors, they give you the feeling that they’d rather be back doing “real-work” than being a leader. They will care very little about training and development, innovation, or accountability, and will shun any activities that will cause them to act as a leader.
- How this develops rogue behavior: Without leadership support, people will begin to act on their own, circumventing security policy and controls to get the job done. In the absence of real leadership many will take the lead, making decisions that are not necessarily in the best interests of the organization.
The self-centered leader: They are more concerned about their own achievements, and are always worrying about how bad you will make THEM look if you don’t perform well. You’ll hear them talk about the job they want rather than working the one they have. They will have no time for staff that isn’t helping them to look good.
- How this develops rogue behavior: This demoralizes staff and may lead them to sabotage organizational efforts, especially if senior managers don’t intervene on behalf of the staff. This can result in lost productivity, lost loyalty for the organization, and ultimately loss of good employees.
The gloom and doom leader: They are negative about everything – we don’t have enough money, our company/agency sucks, management is worthless, just be glad you get a paycheck. They are also the ones who poo-poo on any ideas their staff may offer – “don’t rock the boat, we don’t have the time, we already tried that” – rather than being supportive, they do their best maintain the status quo.
- How this develops rogue behavior: This too demoralizes the staff and may lead them to hurt the organization. Disheartened staff might also seek external interactions and opportunities that could be exploited by others who want to hurt the organization.
The sociopath leader: They are quick to tell you how “lucky” you are to have a job, and how important they are to YOUR success. Rarely will they apologize for being wrong, nor will they be concerned about the consequences of their actions, and they will be also the ones to take personal credit for staff accomplishments. They will also be the ones to force polices and rules on their staff that they won’t apply to themselves.
- How this develops rogue behavior: People working for this type of leader may take on characteristics of the sociopath. In an effort to “win over” the boss, they will take shortcuts, bend the rules, and abuse or hurt other people in the organization. They too will have little regard for security policies, especially ones that they perceive will prevent them from making the boss happy.
The absent leader: They seem to be busy all the time; with what, no one knows. They are never in their office and never seem to have time for their staff. When they are cornered, they defer you to someone else: “Got a pay problem? Go see HR” or “Looking for advice? Talk to (fill in the blank); just don’t bother me” – no one can nail them down for anything.
- How this develops rogue behavior: Working under the absent leader is very frustrating, and over time, can lead to people in the organization to simply no longer care. People may try to do their best, but even with best effort, mistakes will be made, and eventually people will get fed up and either leave or take revenge against the leader. Either way, the organization will suffer.
The interfering leader: They are the micromanagers, distrusting of the abilities of their staff. They love to control every aspect of their organization, believing that they their staff cannot perform as well as they do. If they do delegate work, they will in your knickers every day, questioning staff actions and decisions. Rather than developing their staff, they are more likely to move or remove staff that don’t perform up to their standards.
- How this develops rogue behavior: Opposite of the absent leader, this one just loves being in control. However, the results will be the same. After a while, people will just give-in to the leader, try to effect revenge on his/her actions, or will pack up and leave, possibly taking organizational information with them.
The minimalist leader: They just want to do the “absolute minimum” that needs to be done to “check the boxes.” Most likely they have been there for a long time and are quick to warn you not to stick your neck out as it will get cut-off. They will be the ones to tell you “we’re not responsible for that” or “just go back to your cubicle and do your job.” They stomp on any creative or innovative ideas, and suck the life out of their staff.
- How this develops rogue behavior: Similar to the absent leader, this one actually prevents people from doing the right thing. Over time, this can lead to the same results as many of the other types of leaders described above.

I honestly don’t think that preventing ‘rogue” employees is rocket-science. If you take the time to be genuinely interested in your people’s lives, give them opportunities to grow and be creative, along with the opportunity to contribute to higher organizational goals, and thank them once in a while, they will be much less likely to want to go “rogue” and hurt you or your organization.

But, do the opposite – treat them like furniture, ignore their needs, stomp on their personal goals for growth and development, and yes, they will be pissed off. And, if you piss them off long enough they will:

Leave your organization (with your proprietary/sensitive information); or
Do something to sabotage your organization’s success; or even worse
They may just stay-on, get promoted, and be there to piss off everyone else you place beneath them.

I hope this is useful…let me know what you think…

Thanks…r/Chuck

01.03.2015 leadership, Strategy Comments Off

Save the Truffula Trees: It’s your only hope.

I watched a video a Navy colleague had done some time ago about a unique way he led his command in Pensacola, FL. Now a Navy Captain, Sean Heritage worked to merge two worlds:

The structured, top-down, organized, bureaucratic world that is the U.S. Navy;
With the entrepreneurial, agile, creative, and much messier world of companies like Facebook, Google, Apple.

I invite you to watch his video below:

I was particularly drawn to his comparison of “people” to the “Truffula” trees of the Dr. Seuss book (and movie) The Lorax, and how it resonated with me – why is that organizations SAY that people are their most important asset, but continue to treat them otherwise?

The truth is that in most organizations, they take better care of their furniture than they do their staff.

If instead, they would really invest in their people, with development of good managers, better alignment of staff to work, reduction is stupid or useless rules and processes, better alignment between personal and business goals, increased opportunities for personal growth and development, etc, I think it would solve so many other problems these organizations face today – stagnant productivity, low morale, lack of creativity, high staff turn-over, increased cyber-security risks, and others.

r/Chuck

P.S. If you don’t get the reference to the Truffula Trees, than you probably didn’t watch his video 🙂

02.12.2014 Community engagement, community policing, justice, law enforcement, leadership, public safety, Sir Robert Peel, Uncategorized Comments Off

Police Chief Explodes on Protesters: Pure gut-wrenching emotion ensues

Repost from LinkedIn on November 28, 2014.

Wow, if you don’t think that cops really care about their communities, please watch this video – Here’s two different sources:

Milwaukee Police Chief Flynn’s take on crime, racial disparities goes viral – JSOnline http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/283504501.html
White Police Chief Loses It and Tells the Blunt TRUTH About Black Crime [VIDEO] http://conservativetribune.com/police-black-crime/

Unfortunately, what Milwaukee Police Department Chief Flynn said is true (and very sad):

80 percent of my homicide victims every year are African-American. 80 percent of our aggravated assault victims are African-American. 80 percent of our shooting victims who survive their shooting are African-American.

Now they know all about the last three people who have been killed by the Milwaukee Police Department over the last several years but not one of them can name the last three homicide victims we have had in this city.

The fact is the people out here who have the most to say are absolutely MIA when it comes to the true threats facing this community.

The sentiment Chief Flynn so emotionally communicates in his message is similar with what I have said in other – we need to take better care of each other.

When I was little, I lived in NYC. On the edge of an Italian, Puerto Rican, and Greek community in Queens. Honestly, there was no way I could get away with anything close to what young people are doing today. If I tried to swipe something from the neighborhood candy store, that store owner was on the phone to my parents even before I left the store. On the street, my neighbors, my Aunt down the block, and even the postman was watching me.

I just don’t see evidence that neighborhoods today are like that – what I see are neighborhoods who seem to prefer having police officers to do it all, or worse, they turn a blind eye and hope it doesn’t affect them.

I agree with others in my field who believe that we need those affected communities to step-up and take action. Community leaders (with the support and encouragement of local law enforcement) must take responsibility to address the factors in their communities that lead to crime – violent, or otherwise. After all, if the communities themselves are not engaged, how can we possibly expect the police to be successful trying to turn things around on their own?

And, BTW, this is not anything new. This is really what community policing is supposed to be about – no, it’s NOT about putting little kiosks in 7-Elevens. (IMHO) community policing is all about the COMMUNITY getting involved, with the support of local police – I believe a good part of community policing is about the community policing itself.

This theory actually goes back 185 years, to 1829, when Sir Robert (Bobby) Peel, (considered the father of modern policing) penned nine Principles of Policing instructions that he gave to every new police officer. Specifically principle #3 said:

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

These are VERY powerful words; let me break this down for you:

In order for police to maintain respect and approval of the public…
They must secure the willing cooperation of the public…
To help to ensure that laws are observed.

So, for police to be respected, they must work to get communities to police themselves – a very profound statement.

Sadly, without a significant change in perspective on BOTH sides, the current situation will continue – police will do their best to fight crime, but they will not be successful (to the extent that Pell’s principle #9 calls out below) until communities step fully in the game and work to take better care of each other.

I leave you with the full list of Peel’s principles (yes, with the British spellings), and although I am not a police officer, if I were, I think I would still consider all nine of these principles still valid today – text in parentheses on a couple of them is my interpretation:

To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment. (this is why police forces were formed – interesting that they were formed to PREVENT legal punishment – wow, this could be the subject of another posting)
To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. (in today’s always on video world, I would counsel every officer to behave as if there’s a camera on them 24/7)
To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective. (I’m not sure getting an MRAP is inline with this principle)
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. (Very interesting quote – “police are the only ones paid full-time to do what every citizen is responsible for doing..wow)
To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

02.12.2014 body camera, body worn video, Technology, video, video surveillance Comments Off

Police Chief: Planning to use body worn video? Here are 39 Questions to answer.

Repost from LinkedIn on November 26, 2014.

Body worn video (BWV) is all the rage with law enforcement. While the jury is still out on its true effectiveness to improve relations between law enforcement and citizens, initial evidence does point to positive results for both its wearer and the public.

Whichever side you’re on with respect to use of BWV, here are 36 questions I’ve compiled that any agency Chief or Sheriff should be able to answer for officers, the mayor/city council, county council, and the citizens they serve.

What kind of body work camera should I use? (Chest/Head)
What resolution quality do I need?
How much do they cost?
How will I pay for them?
Who do I give it to?
Who don’t I give it to?
What training do I have to give to users?
How do I get police union support to use them?
How do I get citizen support to use them?
How do I get political support to use them?
When do I turn it on?
When do I turn it off?
Do Ii have to tell people it’s on (or off)?
How do I handle witnesses who won’t step forward if they know they’re being recorded? (new 12/5 from LEIM)
Will officers be allowed to have casual off-the record conversations? (new 12/5 from LEIM)
Are there times I have to leave it off?
Are there times I have to take it off my body?
Do I have to have it on when I’m not on a call?
How long should I store the video?
Where do I store the video?
Can I store it with a 3rd party provider?
What will it cost me to store the video with a 3rd party provider?
How do I know my video is secure with a 3rd party provider?
What do I do if the 3rd party provider loses my video?
How do I access the stored video?
Who else can look at the video? (Intel)
Who can I share the video with? (LE reasons)?
How do I share the video with other LE?
Do I have to get permission from others in the video to share it?
How do I handle videos of the inside of people’s houses? (Non-criminal)
If the subject asks for a copy, must I give it to them?
Do I have to give it up in a foe request?
Do I charge citizens for copies of the video?
Are the cameras reliable?
What if the camera fails to capture a critical incident? Will others see this as a cover-up? (new 12/5 from LEIM)
Do the batteries last for a whole shift?
How do I recharge the battery?
What if it not operable, should I not take a call?
How do I maintain the cameras?

If I missed any, add them to comments below…

Thanks…r/Chuck

16.11.2014 employee engagement, leadership, management, motivation, Strategy Comments Off

You’re unhappy and unmotivated: You need employee engagement!

Wow, I was really enjoying reading this post: Lies We Believe About Employee Engagement until I came to this paragraph:

“Far too many people do not know how to enjoy even the simple things of life and create personal success. They expect others to entertain them, to create opportunity, and even to do the work. Many workers lack the skill and motivation to accept responsibility and accountability. They want to be led but don’t want to follow. They want to be taught but don’t want to learn. And when life deals a blow, they lack the motivation and skill to overcome adversity. Instead they seek pity and help.”

What a crock of crap…i would argue that these are all symptoms of defeat, caused by continual abuse by managers who treat their furniture better than they treat their people.

I submit that every employee on day 1 looks forward to doing meaningful work, at a good wage, to be trained and provided the tools to perform their job, and to be recognized and rewarded for having done well.

Unfortunately, many organizations treat their staff as “human capital” instead of humans, placing them under untrained managers, who learned management from the last generation of untrained managers. They are also subjected to (frankly) stupid administrative rules that seek goals of efficiency over human engagement.

If you truly believe that people “lack motivation” than you really do not understand what motivation is. It is the product of “understanding the value of what you do” and “having the confidence to be successful” and I submit is the organization’s responsibility to address both areas:

Do your staff r-e-a-l-l-y understand the importance of what they do?; and
Have you helped them have the confidence to be successful.

It’s important to remember that people (in general) are ALWAYS motivated, they just might not be motivated to do what YOU want them to do. While i agree that selecting the right employees is important, I think it’s what you do with them after you hire them that determines how well they will serve your organization – here are five questions to ask yourself:

Did you follow through with all of the promises made to the person you hired? Or did you put them in a different job than you promised?
Did you provide them with the training and development you promised them? Or did you say you can’t afford for them to take the time off for that?
Did you put them under competent leadership? Or did you stick them under an abusive or untrained manager?
Do you provide them with the tools and materials to do their job effectively? Or do you have mounds of bureaucracy and administrative bean counting they must endure to do their jobs?
Finally, do you have programs in place to reward and incentivize intrinsic motivation, innovation, and self-direction? Or do you just focus on compliance to “that’s the way we do it here” mentality that kills the human spirit.

Employee engagement (IMHO) is really not that hard – start with treating your employees as human beings, treat staff the way you would want to be treated, and for god’s sake – get rid of those managers that you know you should have let go a long time ago. r/Chuck

10.11.2014 child exploitation, FBI, human trafficking, IACP, sex trafficking Comments Off

IACP 2014 – October 25th – 28th, Orlando, FL – Day 2 – Child Sex Trafficking Session

mjw headshot The next session I attended was On The Front Lines of Child Sex Trafficking. I somewhat dreaded this subject matter. As a parent, I cannot imagine a situation where my daughter would be kidnapped, trafficked as a prostitute, and maybe never seen again. It sounds just like the story from the movie Taken, but the reality is out there and all around us. We don’t see it, but that disgusting, murky world is out there.

This session was only 45 minutes long, but it was just enough to get us through some sobering facts, and a couple of videos to give us an idea of this crime.

Kelly Burke, IACP Program Manager for Child Protection and Juvenile Justice introduced us to the panel, and spoke of her work. The first video showed us how mothers subject their children to sex crimes, how pimps lure young teenage girls into prostitution, and how these victims are around us, sadly unnoticed.

We were told that Police Officers are taught the 3 R’s.

Recognize – perpetrators or indicators.
Rethink – change your mindset and look at the clues around; and
Respond – refer to the proper Child Sex Trafficking expertise, phone someone who is an authority and can advise you of the situation.

There are six training videos available, and we were shown the first one which involved a situation on a Texas highway. An officer stops a car which is speeding. There is a male driver, a female front seat passenger and a young teenage girl in the back. The officer is suspicious, checks the drivers license, and all seems well, he asks a few questions, then lets them go.

Using the 3 R’s, we are shown the scene again, but this time the officer approaches it quite differently. He again checks the male drivers license, then asks the female front seat passenger a few questions, and this time he looks around as she is answering, and he takes in some clues that are around.

A very nervous young girl in the back seat, who will not make eye contact on answering questions;
The reluctance of the female front seat passenger to hand over her phone for the officer to check;
Small packages in the back seat; and
Spider tattoos on all three passengers in the car.

He asks the male to stand outside and go away from the car, then he questions the two females separately. On talking to the nervous girl in the back, he rings his unit and gives her name, it turns out she is a missing teenager, on further inspection in the car, he finds various sex paraphernalia and a bunch of hotel receipts. With this information he contacts a person who works with young people who have been rescued from forced prostitution. This person advises him on the next step, and will send someone over to take the girl to safety.

Part of this video also shows an interview with a young woman who was saved from this life. She said that you are beaten over and over again, and raped many times, until you are broken, and completely at the mercy of your captors.

Michael Harpster, FBI Section Chief for Violent Crimes Against Children spoke about working with Kelly over the last eighteen month; since then about 4,100 children have been recovered. Michael also strongly recommended that in the event of a situation where you see a suspicious situation with a child or chidren that may be involved in Sex Trafficking, to call someone with Child Sex Trafficking expertise. These people will understand the situation and can handle the individual involved.

Steven McCraw, Director of the Texas Dept. of Public Safety reminded folks that although ‘We are doing a great job!”…. still there are signs out there that we are missing. Most girls are looking for an opportunity to escape, and we have to recognize signs of this. There has been great success in rescuing children from prostitution, and a good success rate of taking the ‘assholes’ of the street (Steven’s word, but quite appropriate). The youngest girl that he knew of who was rescued was 13. These young girls live in fear, but the traffickers like to get young girls because they can manipulate them and fill them with fear. It is still a sad situation, but Steven is very happy that results are being made.

This session left me happy and sad – happy for the rescued young people, but sad because they have had such a traumatic time, which will no doubt scar them. It lso bothers me that this is still going on; all around us. And all for what…..greedy people who just want to use them for their own personal monetary gain – what a grim side of the human race. I really really hope that the tables are turned on the evil that causes this. Because basically, no human is born bad, and no human is born to be enslaved.

Speakers:

Kelly Burke, Program Manager, Child Protection and Juvenile Justice, IACP, burkek@theiacp.org
Michael Harpster, Section Chief, Violent Crimes Against Children, FBI, US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC
Steven McCraw, Director, Texas Dept. of Public Safety, Austin TX
Nazmia E.A. Comrie, Program Analyst, Research & Development Division, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC

Resources:

08.11.2014 computer security, cyber crime, cyber security, security, security threats Comments Off

IACP 2014 – October 25th – 28th, Orlando, FL – Day 2 – LE Cyber Threats and Attacks

mjw headshot Day Two at IACP and straight in early on Sunday morning to attend the Cyber Threats and Attacks Facing Law Enforcement Agencies session. Having attended the last two Cyber Threat Summits in Dublin, Ireland, I am well aware of the challenges we are all facing everyday in trying to protect our technology.

Mark Gage opened with a very worrisome statement, saying that we spend so much money trying to protect everything else in our lives, but not enough care is given to protecting our information and identity networks. We are at risk every single day, just by viewing Facebook or opening up an untrusted email attachment our phones/laptops can become infected, and spread malware.

We should all know better, in-fact we do know better, we know the risks associated with all these things, but yet we are all capable of making silly mistakes and suffering the consequences.

Mark says the most important thing is to educate your staff, consult with those you share systems with, do not use the same password for everything, and make your password changes a minimum of 90 days. It’s also critical that we keep all software up to date, particularly anti-virus software, and implement back up procedures. For companies, he suggests paying money to employ IT staff or contractors.

George Arruda spoke next of the worst day for him in Sept 2013, whilst driving on holiday in Florida, he received a phone call, which gave him the news he dreaded – a virus had locked down ALL of Swansea Police Department’s files thanks to a vicious virus called Cryptolocker!

The only way to get the files back was to pay a ransom of bitcoins, to some criminals out there in cyberspace. He didn’t know who there were, or where they originated from, but he gave the order to pay and get the files back.

A cyber security expert was called in and he advised against this, but they eventually began the transactions of transferring bitcoins and they started to get data back. The main problem here was that they did not have back up, so they were indeed in a vulnerable position.

Having amassed a very large amount of data, this incident shook the Swansea PD. On the back of this, George gave advice to everyone – Back Up Everything and teach your staff NOT to open anything suspicious, and only have ONE administrator access with a password.

Steve Sambar warned of the dangers of terrorist cyber attacks, and the worry of, if they attack, what do we do? Who will be responsible for handling it? How long will it take to cover? We face so many threats every day, human error, insider threats, external threats. Many big corporations have suffered already. For example, Target had 40 million accounts hacked in Dec. 2013, and Ebay’s database with 233m users was hacked in Feb. 2014.

Jim Emerson had the last word, delivering a fast paced description of the emerging threats and challenges. Everything is happening faster, he said, and we have to understand the reality of what cyber security is.

He showed two short videos from IACP about cyber security, these are available on the IACP website. Jim wants us to:

Check carefully where is the suspicious email coming from.
Be aware of who you connected to.

Jim also stressed the importance of this being a day to day footrace, and it never ends. He is right, and we do not want to be sorry when it is too late.

Until next time…take care of yourselves!

r/Mary

26.10.2014 Health, law enforcement, Officer health, Uncategorized, Wellness Comments Off

IACP 2014 – October 25th – 28th, Orlando, FL – Day 1 – Mindful Resilience Training

mjw headshot I’m back at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference this year, after missing out on 2013. This year it’s in the wonderful Orlando, Florida sun, and the amazing Orange County Convention Centre, which will take me the rest of the week to find my way around.

Today I attended the Mindful Resilience Training: Integrating Mindfulness Practices to Enhance Officer Safety and Wellness education session. This was chaired by Lt. Joe Carter and Detective Jennifer ‘Missy’ Elliott, both from City of Falls Church Police Department in Falls Church, Virginia.

Jennifer opened up the session with complete honesty about the reality of working as a Police Officer. “Law Enforcement can be toxic” said the first slide. “No one prepares you for the reality of the job“, said Jennifer.

She thought she was strong, but after working and witnessing such crimes as homicides, crimes against children, suicides, accidents, she was haunted by the images constantly coming back to her. No one told her to talk about it – all Officers witnessed similarly awful scenes, but no one spoke about them. She kept it all inside her, and pushed it aside, but then she started to have nightmares and panic attacks.

She was also scared to say anything to her colleagues in case they thought she was crazy. She started to get really bad back pain, and joint pain. Eventually after many cortisone shots from her Doctor, he suggested she tried Yoga. At first she thought this was nuts, and she was very doubtful, but what transpired after her first yoga session, made her realize that ‘this stuff was good’! She felt a clear mind/body connection with the deep breathing and a calmness too.

Shortly after that first session, Jennifer got her first homicide call. Her first reaction was of panic, which she had started to experience before, but she started to do her deep breathing and when she arrived at the scene, she was calm. She assessed the situation and took charge, and made clear decisions. Her colleagues noticed how calm she was and commented on it.

Jennifer became passionate about Yoga. She knew this was something that all her fellow officers could not just benefit from, but it might just help to save their lives. The very sad reality is that suicide is the No.1 killer of Police Officers in the USA. So she set up a yoga class for detectives, and funded it from her own pocket to start of with. Initially it was scoffed at, but all the attendees realized just how good and calm they felt.

Jennifer went ahead, and spoke to HR to get the funding for a regular class, and also an agreement so Officers did not have to pay themselves for yoga. It has been very successful. Now Jennifer Elliott is spreading the word to all Police Departments about just how necessary it is to look after their Officers, and to ensure they have healthy minds and bodies – after all, healthy officers give more to their departments and in turn, to the communities.

Joe Carter spoke briefly after Jennifer, and he said that they are trying to keep Officers alive and healthy, not losing them to suicide, heart problems and many stress related illnesses. He wants to prioritise, keeping Officers’ minds healthy in order to not make mistakes on the job, while under duress. A stressed mind, one that cannot not think calmly, will be more likely to make bad decision in a volatile situation. Joe said that by speaking to many officers who had lost friends or colleague to suicide, that the big regret is not having something in place to cope with all the stresses that police are under.

I really do think that this is one of the most important education sessions of the whole conference, and I felt that many more should have been there. There is a very real problem out there with stress in everyones life, but it is doubled in law enforcement with many extremely, emotionally charged incidents that they have to deal with on a daily basis, and this coupled with the ‘normal’ stresses of family life, financial worries, marriage problems, makes for some very worrying statistics for Police Officers.

There really should be a Wellness/Mindfulness program in every Police Department, where yoga and meditation can be practiced to allow peace and healing, and to achieve and sustain a healthy mind and body. I applaud Jennifer Elliotts’ honesty on telling her story, and I really do hope that her passion becomes a reality in every state.

Speakers: Detective Jennifer Elliott and Lieutenant Joe Carter

Agency: City of Falls Church Police Department, Falls Church, VA

Resources:

Until next time…take care of yourselves!

r/Mary

10.08.2014 Uncategorized Comments Off

What do insider threats and girl friends have in common?

They both can screw you over pretty good if you don’t treat them well!

So here are seven things you and leadership can do to keep your employees loyal to your company or agency.

Choose for the long-term – Just as no one goes into a long-term relationship or marriage expecting it to end, be sure to hire employees who can be there, and support you over the long-term. Do your due diligence; know their background, ask the right questions when you interview them. Do you get the sense they want to be with you for the long-haul?
Follow through on what you promise – Once they are onboard, follow through on the promises you made to them when you interviewed them – are they being paid what you promised? Are they in the job you promised? With the advancement path you promised? Do they have the authority you promised?. If circumstances change and you cannot, deal with it up front and either renegotiate the offer, or let them go.
Show them you really care – Don’t say “our employees are our most important asset” and then treat your furniture better than you do your staff. Remember, 90% of company’s value walks out the door at 5pm each day. Work to take care of your employees professional and personal needs in a way that sustains the loyalty they had for you on day one.
Know what’s important to them – Actively seek and document what is important to (at a minimum) your high-value/high-risk employees, and talk about these things this regular performance reviews. This overt act will go a long way to developing the trust you need to keep good employees from turning into insider threats.
Share what’s important to you – Just as important, communicate to your employees what’s important to you – organizationally, and on a personal level. Building trusting relationships depends on both parties opening themselves a bit to talk about what’s important, like fears, vulnerabilities, dreams, and goals, or other factors that might affect the relationship. Employees whose value systems align with the organization do not turn out to be insider threats.
Show sincere interest for their well being – Take time to check out how other factors are affecting their loyalty. Did you put them under an abusive manager? Are they overworked? Are there other personal or family issues that if not addressed, can affect how they feel about working for you? Employees who live a balanced life – professionally, personally, physically, and spiritually are less likely to become insider threats.
Be all in, or don’t be afraid to end it – Finally, if you can’t keep your promises, or determine that someone you hired cannot keep theirs, don’t be afraid to end the relationship. Keeping an unhappy or disloyal employee around will just compound the problem – just as the U.S. Army if they should have recycled Mr./Ms. Manning when he was first discharged from boot camp. Better to dole out some severance pay now than grow a disgruntled employee that will cost you 10, 100, or 1,000 fold a few years later.

At the end of the day, it really all comes down to making a real effort to hire the right people, give them the opportunities you promised them, and taking the time to check in with them to see if they are still glad they came to work for you.

Remember, no one that comes to work for you on day one wants to hurt you, so take the time and effort needed to keep them feeling that way!