What is the level of trust in your agency?
If your answer is something like “not much,” Jim Pfautz might be able to suggest some ways to help.
Pfautz runs an outfit called Self Solutions http://selfsolutions.com/%5d located in Annapolis (Md.). He helps agencies fix problems by first assessing their ‘health’ or the way the members of the agency interact with one another in specific ways.
Focusing on the Basics
This method of analysis grew out of Pfautz’s Navy career, where he evaluated commands for effectiveness on the USS George Washington (CVN-73), a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
In 2008, the GW experienced a fire, which started in an air conditioning and refrigeration space before quickly spreading to other parts of the ship. The fire took 12 hours to extinguish and 37 sailors were injured.
Pfautz said the following investigation showed that the GW excelled at accomplishing short-term goals, like launching and recovering X aircraft in Y hours, but did this at the expense of safety.
Many shortcuts were taken, standard procedures were not followed in favor of expedients, and people were reluctant to report problems when they came across them for fear of retribution.
The final report found the fire was entirely preventable. The ship’s captain and executive officer were relieved of their posts, effectively ending their naval careers.
Pfautz said he took that lesson and developed a method to remove the barriers to excellence in organizations, such as communication problems. “The method does this by taking the traditional approach to solving problems in a police organization is to apply training, technology, or some other add-on solution,” he said.
“We look at taking stuff off of the plate and focusing on basics,” Pfautz said.
Identifying the Problems
Self Solutions uses anonymous surveys of all personnel to provide the data needed to identify problems. This is more cost-effective than face-to-face interviews, takes less time, and ensures that everyone’s voice is heard equally, Pfautz said.
The questions are more qualitative than quantitative. Instead of asking something like, “How many hours are you engaged in actual police work in a typical shift,” a more likely question would be, “How comfortable are you with reporting problems to your supervisor?”
All the survey instruments used are validated and customized to fit that agency’s unique culture and situation. None of them are off-the-shelf, boilerplate questions.
“We measure team/group performance. That separates us from more traditional survey companies that are measuring things like personality or preferences,” Pfautz said.
Working on Solutions
Once the problems have been identified, Self Solutions works with the agency’s leadership to address them.
“The health of the organization often boils down to three variables: communication, trust, and integrity,” Pfautz said. “These are always interrelated. Information has to flow freely to and from management and operations personnel.”
The “trust” factor applies to the information itself (Is this information reliable? Am I getting the whole story?). Trust also applies when deciding whether to report a problem.
“We try to encourage a reporting culture,” Pfautz said.
Reporting identifies problems. The supervisor or other person taking the report has to evaluate the information, assess it to determine if there is a real problem and decide or collaborate with others to determine a solution.
Unless the report is patently false, the person making the report has to have trust that he will not become the bad guy for making the report.
“We try to create a data-driven, not a drama-driven culture,” Pfautz said.
Conclusion
Leadership is often about asking tough questions, but some leaders refuse to ask those questions of themselves. The “us vs. them” mentality between management and the troops that pervades many law enforcement agencies creates FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It keeps people from reporting misconduct, which leads to bad cops, civil rights violations, and lawsuits. If there is no atmosphere of trust in the organization, the quality of the work performed is stagnated.
