Good management means getting, right? Getting the most from:
- Your people
- Your equipment
- Your limited resources
Jack Hawley, President of a management consulting firm to top corporations, takes the opposite tack.
In his book Reawakening the Spirit in Work–The Power of Dharmic Management, Hawley says that leadership is about giving:
- Giving of yourself
- Giving with no deal about what you're going to get in return
Hawley says there is a universal, organizational principle that never sleeps, that is always at work, and that explains the giving formula.
It's Simple Math
Employees give to the organization in direct proportion to what they perceive the organization gives them.
So when Hawley consults with organizations that complain about the lack of commitment from employees, he asks about the organization's commitment to its people.
More important than the organization's view of its commitment to its people are the people's perceptions.
The Japanese Management Secret
In the late 1970s and early 80s the Japanese were beating America's business butt in the global economy–especially in the automotive, steel and consumer electronics industries. In response, American corporations began to study Japanese businesses to discover the secret to their spectacular innovation and productivity.
What they learned was that Japan had a new form of capitalism called "human capitalism." Instead of focusing on exploiting workers (getting the most while giving the least) and maximizing dividends for shareholders like Western companies, Japanese businesses emphasized employee cooperation and loyalty, employee training, and reinvestment and profit sharing.
By involving workers more directly in corporate decisions, responsibilities, profits and goals, the Japanese fashioned a management system that yielded higher productivity, better quality control, fewer strategic blunders and happier workers.
Hawley summed the Japanese secret up in one word–REVERENCE.
REVERENCE for
- The mission
- The product
- The customer
- The employee
Is your department committed to its officers?
- Does your department have such reverence?
- How is it expressed?
- Do your officers and citizens (the customers) feel revered by the department?
- How might the department answer these questions? By asking officers and citizens.
I asked officers. The response stunned me.
An Unscientific study
One of the topics I train on is police ethics. Within that broad subject, I train on the ethics and legality of police use of deception. In one such training, I presented the real life scenario of the FBI's use of deception in interviewing Richard Jewell, a suspect in the bombing at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta.
The methods used by the FBI came under harsh media and public criticism when it turned out they had the wrong suspect. (One suspects that if these same methods had determined the criminal responsible, the public might have responded differently.)
The ethics of the agents' methods were something about which reasonable minds can differ–and do, when I present the methods to officers across the country. The methods were, however, legal. On other methods of police deception, courts often disagree on what is legal. That's why training is important.
Additionally, the interrogating agents obtained prior approval from their superiors for the deception they used. Still, in the wake of the public outcry, the agents were disciplined.
My purpose in presenting this scenario was to point out that "legal" may not equal "ethical" and that the public's response to the question of what police deception is acceptable may depend on whether such deception is used on guilty or not guilty people.
My purpose was NOT to uncover officers' perceptions about their departments' commitment to them. That happened, however, when I asked the audience offhandedly,
How many of you think that if YOU engaged in legal deception for which you obtained prior approval–in a nationally high profile case–that your department would "back you" if there was a big public and media backlash?
This training was in the Midwest, our nation's heartland. There were 40 to 50 folks attending from a multi-state region. They ranged from rookies still in field training to chiefs and sheriffs. Not one hand rose.
That's when I realized that I'd stumbled from the murky arena of police use of deception into a potentially huge leadership issue with significant ramifications. So I began repeating this question across the country. The most hands I've ever seen raised are about 5-10% of an audience.
This means 90–95% of officers surveyed believe
- If they made a tough call in a high profile case
- With their supervisor's approval
- In an area of police conduct the courts often don't agree on
- And the public and media later went after them
Their department wouldn't back them.
Bottom line
From my unscientific surveys, a lot of police officers do not trust their departments' commitment to them. Without such trust, departments shouldn't expect much commitment from their officers. It's a simple formula, if not an easy one.
Departments can start building trust by asking their officers the questions posed in this article–and listening to the answers.
Departments can continue building trust by then asking officers what they need from the department to feel it supports them and is committed to them–and listening to those answers.
Then, departments must give their commitment–wholeheartedly.
Reverence is intense commitment. Departments can expect such commitment from officers in direct proportion to how much commitment the officers perceive they get from the department.
