The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | May 2017
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Group-think: a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members ' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.
In group-think mode, participants have no realisation of threats, are quick to explain away evidence not fitting with their viewpoint, and are blind to the moral implications of a policy. Furthermore, they tend to stereotype their enemies, and ignore evidence that challenges their thinking. Doubters have subtle pressure exerted on them to keep quiet, and a doctrine of collective responsibility is used to stifle dissent outside of the group.
Yet again, this harks back to Chief Williams’ research. The 5 strings of his FACTS theory( Fundamental Association of Control Trust and Success in LE) is a type of group-think. Gordon Graham says that in our culture, as soon as you raise your hand to say there is a problem, you suddenly become the problem! Good people leave, and there’ s a reason for this, because they have identified problems lying in wait that no-one wants to deal with.
Raising your hand becomes a risk in itself! However, think about this …. Risk is the currency of progress.
You are a leader and you should be confronting group think, not siding with it. This is one of the challenges of moving from Buddy to Boss; you need to recruit good people, you need to listen to good people, and you need to retain good people( that’ s Rule 2 of Admiral Rickover’ s approach to risk management) – people running complex systems should be highly capable.
As a leader, it is your role to confront bad behaviour, if you continue to ignore any identified pessimism, you are not being true to a leader’ s role. Either you use your position( rank) to change it,( but be mindful that according to John C. Maxwell that is the lowest level of the 5 levels of leadership), or to make a lasting change, you need to confront it. You need then to understand the issues and risks to the organisation, define it as accurately as possible so that you fully describe what is happening / could happen, and then search for a solution before agreeing a way forward. Gordon Graham reminds us that ethical leadership is about doing the right thing.
Gordon reminded us, too, that most people would love to do the job of a law enforcement officer, they would indeed offer good money just to go out for a ride in your police car, but they know they can’ t do your job. The law enforcement profession is still a noble profession, just like West Point, let’ s keep it that way.
Day Four was reserved for the annual leadership Staff Ride component of the NJSACOP Executive Institute. In the early 19 th century the Prussians / Germans pioneered the concept of staff rides with their own up and coming staff officers as the fledgling German Empire created its first General Staff. The concept has been adopted by the Americans throughout the late part of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, so much are they reliant upon the excellent learning in the field, that many US military leaders have studied leadership on the battle fields throughout the world, some large battles and some small, all are of value to the best leaders. Personnel selection, vision, command, decision making, motivation, logistics, communication, situational leadership and learning from mistakes are amongst leadership lessons to be taken from the field.
So it is with the Battle of Paoli( later to be known as the Paoli Massacre!). But, what is there possibly to be learned from such a small battle, one which is relatively unknown, even in the psyche of Americans?
General Anthony Wayne, fighting on behalf of General George Washington, camped comfortably at Paoli, Pennsylvania; he was a local, he knew the hills well, and he knew the farmland and woods close to Malvern. He knew his people. He was on home turf. Paoli, incidentally, received its name from a local tavern, indeed many of these Philadelphia-area rural communities were named after local taverns that linked communities together over vast areas of farmland. His task was to get behind the British, harass them, and strike at General William Howe. He was only some 4 miles to the rear, it was night time, so he set camp, and lit fires around the camp on the hillside surrounded by woodland. He had no plans to tackle the British that night, despite being ordered to attack the British( George Washington has already had a number of defeats of late, and he didn’ t want more).
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