Cop Talk

• Obtain your state law enforcement instructor's certificate, which requires you to go through a short course on how to be a teacher. You will be required to stand up in front of your colleagues and talk for some time while teaching them a new skill. You won't have to worry about them laughing at you, because they are just as bad.
• Take a Speech 101 class at your local community college, if you have the guts. You will look like a dinosaur sitting in the classroom, but if you are lucky you might recognize someone that you chased down the street at four o'clock in the morning, but didn't catch then.
• Volunteer for the "kiddy cop" assignment, D.A.R.E. You will go through an intensive teacher's mini-course and actually have to stand up in front of a non-police audience for a 40 minute block of instruction daily. The bright side is that if the class gets out of hand, you can probably take 'em without calling for backup.
• Join an organization such as Toastmasters, with other professionals who are interested in honing their public speaking skills. The bad news is you probably won't know anyone there the first time you go, but the good news is you can possibly out "cuss" them all.
• Reserve e-mails for what they are best used for: brief directives. Sensitive conversations, in-depth issues, or otherwise situations that require more than a few sentences should be done face-to-face. My rule of thumb is that "if it requires a paragraph, then a phone call is warranted."

You have spent a lifetime learning to communicate in dire situations that only cops can endure. The key is understanding that the rest of the society does not experience these things, and over time as the business world leans more toward effective communication, we step further away. Our worlds, in many ways, are diametrically opposed. Just imagine how valuable you could be to an organization if you developed speaking skills like a teacher, or someone else who talks professionally, coupled with your wide variety of emergency experiences? Consider this yet another stage of developing your marketability.