Ever wonder why so many public safety professionals feel like they are constantly fighting their own organization? The answer might be hidden in ancient history … specifically, in the Roman Army (circa 264 BCE – 146 BCE). Even today, we see ancient structures causing the same problems they did thousands of years ago. To understand why, we have to look… Read more →
There is an old survival truth in the backcountry: nobody likes a surprise avalanche. Yet, walk into almost any corporate office or municipal agency, and you will find brilliant professionals operating on what I call the mushroom theory of management—keeping their boss in the dark and feeding them manure, hoping somehow a masterpiece will eventually sprout. In reality, nothing destroys… Read more →
Inconsistencies in interpreting policies and procedures expose public agencies to unnecessary risk by creating legal liabilities, operational inefficiencies, and a loss of public trust. When organizational guidelines are open to wide interpretation, agencies inevitably experience uneven enforcement and a cascade of costly challenges that undermine their overall mission. Legal and Financial Vulnerabilities When rules are misapplied, the resulting exposure spans… Read more →
In far too many organizations, an inordinate amount of leadership energy is being quietly drained by a familiar, exhausting dynamic: the workplace parent-child relationship. Executives, directors, and supervisors routinely find themselves acting less like strategic leaders and more like exhausted guardians. They spend their days reminding adults to simply do their jobs, intervening in petty interpersonal squalls, constantly pleading for… Read more →
It is a quiet but dangerous and expensive reality in many organizations: the employees who do just enough not to get fired, those who skate by on the bare minimum, hide behind initiative-killing policies, undermine communication, keep secrets, and do it all in return for only signing the back of their paycheck, are sometimes the very individuals climbing the organizational… Read more →