July, 1996

                         Point of View
               The Four R's for Police Executives


                    By James D. Sewell, Ph.D.
________________

Dr. Sewell is Director of the Criminal Justice Information
Services Division for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
in Tallahassee, Florida.
________________

For grammar school students of by-gone eras, basic education
centered around the three R's--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.
Today, instructors who teach police management and leadership to
executives or those who are just beginning their ascent into
administrative positions need to focus on a set of professional
basics--reading, 'riting, rhetoric, and roots.

In real estate, success hinges on location, location, location.
For the law enforcement executive, "communication, communication,
communication" serves as the axiom for success. Effective
communication involves both input and output. The input comes
from reading; the output, from 'riting and rhetoric (oral
communication). Combined with an individual's roots, which
encompass philosophies, values, and experiences, these elements
form the cornerstone for executive development.

Reading

Reading often is the nemesis of law enforcement executives. The
volumes of documents crossing their desks can be overwhelming.
There is a never-ending flow of staff studies, reports, and
correspondence. The papers found in their in-baskets beg for
movement to their out-baskets. An abundance of other reading
material and work fills their briefcases to be taken home at
night.

Considering that all this information is pertinent to their
departments, do these executives think that there is time to read
anything else, even if they could enrich themselves by doing so?
Most likely not.

Yet, the need for the contemporary executive to be well-read and
knowledgeable in a number of areas cannot be disputed. In this
age of technology and information overload, the adage "Knowledge
is Power" becomes even more true. Gaining power through knowledge
requires executives to develop broad reading patterns and
speed-driven, organized habits.

Executives can stay ahead of the information power curve in a
number of ways. Trade and professional journals, such as Police
Chief, Law Enforcement Technology, and the FBI Law Enforcement
Bulletin, allow executives to stay abreast of trends in the
profession, technological and programmatic innovations, and new
law enforcement management techniques. Journals outside
traditional law enforcement literature, such as Public
Administration Review, Harvard Business Review, The Futurist, and
Governing, promote a wider view of issues with a potential impact
on law enforcement. Finally, daily papers at the local level or
those with expanded perspectives, including USA Today, The Wall
Street Journal, and The New York Times, can serve as predictors
of political, social, and economic issues and forecasters of
change.

Books on management, especially such classics as In Search of
Excellence by Tom Peters and The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes
and Posner, offer insight into a variety of topics applicable to
virtually any law enforcement agency. Police executives only need
to use imagination, insight, and energy to take a book's message
and make the transition from the corporate to the public sector.

Santayana, the Spanish-born U.S. philosopher, humanist, and
essayist, posited that "those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it."1 Hegel, a 19th-century German idealist
philosopher, more cynically held, "What experience and history
teach is this--that people and governments never have learned
anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."2
Regardless of one's point of view, historical analyses of law
enforcement issues or other important events and people offer a
perspective from which executives can learn.

Sun-tzu's The Art of War, one of the earliest known compilations
on the subject of war and strategy, serves as a primer for
corporate strategies. Biographies and autobiographies provide
insight into the personalities and tactics of political,
military, corporate, and law enforcement leaders.

Books and monographs that focus on the strengths and weaknesses,
successes and failures of public and private programs not only
can be food for thought but also can identify the political and
programmatic pitfalls that accompany efforts at institutional
change. Most of these volumes contain ideas that law enforcement
executives can transfer easily to the law enforcement or
community setting.

But, what of the volume of material that contemporary executives
constantly must digest? Reading, like any other learned skill,
requires commitment and practice.

For the successful executive, this means scheduling uninterrupted
time for serious reading and prioritizing reading as any other
administrative task. It requires learning how to scan a variety
of reading materials for meaningful information without becoming
bogged down in minutiae. It also may mean enhancing one's
existing reading level by completing a speed-reading course or,
to manage one's time better, using services that summarize new
executive-level books, provide them on tape, or publish
newsletters that focus only on specific issues, such as
supervision, diversity, or communication.

'Riting

The power of the written word, especially in this age of
electronic information exchange, cannot be underestimated. It
follows, then, that the ability to express one's values, ideas,
and programs effectively remains critical to the success and
survival of any public or private sector executive. Those who
meld the executive role with the art of wordsmithing recognize
that this skill relies on both knowing how to write and
practicing it continually.

Effective writing requires the ability to assess the target
audience and tailor the writing to the audience's needs and
reading level, not the author's. It is based on a commitment to
quality that forces an effective writer to edit and re-edit until
a document is clear, concise, grammatically correct, and
structurally sound.

Law enforcement executives face a variety of audiences that
require their writing skills to be sharply honed. Within their
departments, personnel must understand clearly the executive's
vision for the agency, the values upon which this vision is
based, and the articulation of day-to-day policy on procedural,
managerial, and operational issues.

Within the community, the executive must be able to respond to
correspondence from a myriad of constituents, articulate the
department's vision and mission to political leadership and
special interest groups, and translate the department's position
on issues so that the average newspaper reader understands the
executive's editorial responses or "op ed" pieces. Success
requires enough flexibility for the executive to adapt fluidly to
the unique needs, levels of understanding, and technical
expertise of each of these diverse groups.

An important and often-forgotten audience for an executive's
writing is other law enforcement executives. As programs come to
fruition and executives analyze their successes and failures, it
becomes not only expedient but also professionally responsible to
share such information in professional and technical journals and
magazines. Law enforcement can only grow and gain insight by such
meaningful dialogue.

Writing for professional journals and magazines should be viewed
by experienced executives as a personal obligation. Executives
who contribute to and promote an ongoing exchange of ideas give
something back to the profession that has nurtured them. With
this obligation comes an added responsibility to influence the
direction of law enforcement.

It is most difficult to write for an audience of one's peers, but
this audience should not be ignored or treated lightly.
Executives must recognize that they do have something to
contribute and that it takes time to convey that knowledge in
writing. An increasingly popular alternative, especially for
first-time writers, is collaborative writing, that is, working
with a colleague. Such an approach not only allows for the
expression of two perspectives but also can reduce some of the
initial trauma of "going it alone."

Rhetoric

The most successful leaders in any field can express themselves
effectively and persuasively not only in writing but also when
communicating orally. John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther
King, and Ronald Reagan each demonstrated the ability to paint a
picture of his vision of the world so that others could envision
and be captivated by it. Such a skill is no less critical in
those who lead law enforcement agencies.

Yet, skillful oral communication is not so much a product of
innate ability as one of desire, training, and practice. While
the desire comes from within the individual, the training that
forms the platform for exceptional performance in oral
communication readily can be acquired.

Most institutions of higher learning offer courses in public
speaking. An increasing number of police academies incorporate
courses in public presentation because the needs of the
profession have dictated it. Perhaps most beneficial, though, are
those organizations, notably Toastmasters International, that
provide the training, ongoing opportunities to speak, critical
feedback, and social support necessary to excel at public
speaking.

While training lays the foundation, practice, not just the
ability to "wing it," allows executives to refine their
presentation skills. Rhetorical and oratorical abilities come
from adequate preparation. Executives must concentrate on the
subject matter and dedicate time for preparation. They must
select a topic carefully that conveys a meaningful message, and
they must exhibit the energy and nonverbal skills that make the
audience active participants in the communication process.

Yet, as part of the four professional R's, rhetoric requires a
component not ordinarily included in its definition. This
component is the ability to listen. Effective executives not only
must articulate their visions and persuade others of their
beliefs but they also must listen actively to the rhetoric_the
words, feelings, concerns, and nonverbal expressions_of others.

Active listening, with its emphasis on body language, hearing,
and understanding, is critical to the communication process that
allows executives to integrate their visions with the actions and
responses of others. Rhetoric, then, accentuates the exchange of
verbal and nonverbal communication between executives and their
constituents.

Roots

As law enforcement's role continues to evolve in response to
communication needs and social change, it is imperative that its
executives develop a sense of roots. Such roots are grounded in
the professional and personal philosophies, values, and
experiences that form the basis for decisions, actions, and
visible displays of leadership.

The successful nurturing of these roots requires certain acts.
Nurturing means continually thinking, reading, and incorporating
individual experiences into the philosophical underpinnings of
one's own professional and personal life.

To nuture their roots successfully, executives first must take
the time to develop their own philosophy, to determine who they
are and for what they stand. An unspoken mandate dictates that
they identify those points of honor and integrity of greatest
value to them, points that are subject to neither negotiation nor
compromise.

Second, executives must be willing to live their philosophy. The
adage "walk the talk" becomes an even more important truism for
contemporary executives. Integrity spoken must become integrity
lived.

Further, executives should accept the Socratic principle that
"the unexamined life is not worth living" and critically
evaluate, even challenge, the practical application of values
that they express. One way is to use the four professional R's as
focal points for reflection and self-examination.

Finally, executives must be willing, through role-modeling and
mentoring, to encourage up-and-coming executives to develop
personal and professional philosophies and values of their own.
The challenge becomes the maintenance of an environment that
allows one's staff to learn to make decisions, to make mistakes,
and to grow in preparation for the mantle of leadership.
Within that environment comes the expectation that mentoring is
an integral part of the organization's culture, that all managers
accept the responsibility of developing the agency's future
leaders. It means developing clinical skills that allow
executives to observe proteges critically, to analyze their
behavior as leaders objectively, and to facilitate the networking
necessary for proteges to develop their own personal system of
knowledge and support.

Conclusion

The preparation of today's law enforcement executives requires an
effective integration of learned skills and natural abilities, as
did teaching America's school children in earlier days. The
successes of present and future executives will depend on their
ability to communicate--using reading, 'riting, and rhetoric_and
their reliance on, and understanding of, their roots to guide
their actions. With these skills and abilities, law enforcement
executives will be prepared to direct their profession
masterfully into the next century and beyond.

Endnotes

1 George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905-1906, vol. 1, chap.
12 (New York: Macmillan, 1981).
2 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of History (1832),
trans. J. Sibree from Great Books in Philosophy (New York:
Prometheus Books, 1990).

Sidebar

Focal Points for Reflection and Self-Examination:
The Executive's Challenge
Read, for instance:
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
(1989)
- A Call to Character by Colin Greer and Herbert Kohl (1995)
- The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard (1994)
- Megatrends 2000 by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (1990)
- Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader by Craig R. Hickman (1993)
- My American Journey by Colin Powell (1995)
- On Our Own Terms: Portraits of Women Business Leaders by Liane
Enkelis and Karen Olsen (1995)
- Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers by
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May (1986)
Write:
- Your autobiography, especially a description of your greatest
moment
- A statement of your philosophy and your vision of the world
- Your vision of the future
- Your definition of success
Talk: (Rhetoric)
- With individuals different from you in race, gender,
lifestyle, and education
- With your parents, your mentor, your boss, your significant
other
- With people who work for you and for whom you work (elected
and appointed officials as well as citizens)
Think: (Roots)
- What is important to you
- Where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years
- For what accomplishment you would most like to be remembered
- How you want to be described in a eulogy
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