Learning Across the Life of a Career

For me, 2015 will be a milestone year. 

I was born in November 1965, among the first wave of the Gen Xers so prominently studied, critiqued, and worried over as we came of age in the late 80s and early 90s (we were the over-privileged, under-parented latchkey “slackers” coming to ruin America and the world with our shiftless, ennui-driven ways, remember?).  This means I turn 50 this year, something so utterly ridiculous as to defy all reason; I was just 24, like, a half dozen years ago, after all, and starting my career as a young cop practically last week!

And then I remember a second milestone is coming in March 2016 when I hit 20 years and earn official entry into the “KMA Club.”   So, that will be cool…

When memories of youth and all that came before and led us to where we are now seem so crystal clear, it is really easy to feel snuck up on by something like turning 50.  Other times, that I’m getting older is not so surprising at all.  I was an enthusiastic athlete as a kid and unfazed even facing larger, stronger, and simply better athletes (in some sports I was more enthusiastic than talented… or smart); now I feel the tweaks and twinges of long ago hits, falls, and violent twists.  Throughout my career, in law enforcement and other often physically dangerous jobs, I never shrank from going hands on when necessary, and occasionally took risks and pushed the envelope; the reminders of a physical youth sometimes come in the form of middle-aged aches and pains.  Pictures are terrible liars; I simply don’t look quite like I did in old photos anymore even if the day-to-day changes are so subtle as to pass unnoticed.  And in these days of social media you can’t fool yourself for too long; all it takes is a couple high school friends bragging about their grandchildren, or looking more than a bit like Uncle Jesse in the pics they post, for reality to make itself known (BTW, if you immediately caught the Dukes of Hazard reference, you’re getting up there, too!).

- - - - -

I’m also someone who possesses a unique blend of more or less constant, low-grade hypochondria and a disdain for the very idea of my own mortality.  I fear cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, aneurisms, high blood pressure, blindness, and a whole host of other things I’ve never had and probably never will, and work hard to counteract the effects and appearance (and behaviors) of age.  That’s what led to me being in a yoga class last week where the instructor was talking about how even master teachers still remain lifelong students, something I wholeheartedly agree with.  It made me think about what I’ve learned, all I’ve mastered, and, as often happens – as should happen – as we grow in skill and knowledge, how very little I truly know.

I also thought how so many of us become too satisfied with where we are, too complacent to see where we should grow, and too smug to know where we’re being passed by.  Complacency Kills is an oft-repeated phrase in law enforcement and a message we’ve pushed as long as we’ve been writing.  Most often we mean it quite literally; becoming complacent dulls us to real dangers, rarely encountered but deadly, when we suddenly find ourselves facing them.  We’ve expanded the meaning to complacency in our personal lives, emotional well-being, and health – all areas of life we are prone to complacency.  Remaining a “student for life” is one of those areas we often let slide, especially in law enforcement where reverence for “the old ways and good ol’ days” and favoring experience as the best teacher is so common.  But society and people evolve, technologies improve, understanding expands, and what we know (or thought we know) becomes obsolete.  Committing to lifelong learning is one of surest ways to feel and stay young and relevant, and key to personal and professional efficacy.   

The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.  - Newton D Baker

Althea and I were both told upon graduating college, and again during and after grad school, that as you attain more education and learning what becomes ever more obvious is how little you really know.  The education you’ve received is not about having all the answers; it is about learning how to uncover them. 

We were taught to embrace what we don’t know, acknowledge and own it, and bear the responsibility of learning what we need.  Expertise is fleeting when new revelations and better ways of doing things are discovered or developed, and continuing scholarship changes the drives new innovation in science and technology, sharper understanding of our world and we who inhabit it, and reveals new knowledge. 

Law enforcement, like any other field, is supported by knowledge and best practices that are evolving.  Are you allowing yourself, and your base of knowledge, to evolve, or are you stuck in the past, relying on being “good enough” or holding tight to old understanding of people, technology, and techniques?

Your ability to learn depends partly on your ability to relinquish what you’ve held.  - Milton Hall

To learn is to fill a void and sometimes the void must first be created in order to refill it. For instance, if someone develops or research reveals a better tactical response to an active shooter then, in order to adapt it, we must first purge prior, less effective strategies.  If you are a new FTO and your understanding of how to motivate and train the newest generation of officers is rooted in the way you were motivated and trained as a rookie 23 years ago, you’re in for a shock. 

That “the way things used to be” eventually drift into obsolescence is understood and accepted in most professions and innovation is encouraged.  Not so much in law enforcement, is it?  Of course, progressive and experimental police leaders do exist, and younger officers bring new ideas and a different frame of reference to the mix (sometimes spurring “generation gap” disputes), but ours is largely a conservative – and occasionally outright reactionary – culture.  We like what we know and know what we like, so don’t come around with any of your radical new ways!

And yet society moves on in confounding ways, weaknesses in “the way things are and ought to stay” are revealed, and officers increasingly find themselves under the gun both literally and figuratively.  Learning to adapt is critical, embracing new skills and ideas key to adapting, and having the humility to admit we might not hold all the answer to the questions that challenge us the necessary first step to learning.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

Whether you like or accept it or not, how you learned to be a cop and have been practicing your trade will look very different than how you do it going forward.  As the world we police becomes more diverse, the impact of the information age alters the worldview and understanding of younger generations, and current events shape future politics and paradigms.  This is not to say nothing everything will change, or the ways of the past and present lack value, but how static has policing really been?  Technology, historical tides, more comprehensive training and better educated cops, law enforcement specific research, and other modernizations have all driven law enforcement’s evolution.  There is no reason to believe this will change, and changes will likely come faster than ever.

Consider current events:  As I write this, police officers feel under siege in the outraged aftermath of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, et.al.  The protests, cultural demographics of the demonstrators and their supporters, social ecology of the communities most at odds with police, influence of media, and all the factors that have sustained the rift’s momentum represent enormous changes with which we now contend.  To meet this changed world we must understand it, and only with humility and intentional learning will we be able to understand, respond to, and stay connected with society.

You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf   - Jon Kabat-Zinn

The temptation to trust too much in what we already know while scoffing at the idea of innovation, new philosophies, and the very thought that how we practice policing is not the culmination of all possible accumulated expertise is great; really, though, we know that’s not true and the job will look very different in short order.  How often do we hear retired cops talk about how glad they are to be out of the game “with the way the world is now?”  How many veterans bemoan the changes to laws, practices, and expectations that have swept through in just a decade or two?  Change always happens, and learning is a constant if you want to stay on top.  The trick is to stay at the crest of that wave, always in tune with the subtle variations in the surf.