“Confronted with a task, and having less information available than is needed to perform that task, an organization may react in either of two ways. One is to increase its information-processing capacity, the other to design the organization, and indeed the task itself, in such a way as to enable it to operate on the basis of less information. These approaches are exhaustive; no others are conceivable. A failure to adopt one or the other will automatically result in a drop in the level of performance.” —Martin van Creveld, Command in War

I received a newsletter from Brian Willis of Winning Mind Training, that offers some great advice on not being afraid to make a fool, of yourself. Yes that's correct; in the risk averse culture of law enforcement he recommends not being afraid to make mistakes. In my view this is sound advice because making mistakes and then applying the lessons learned to become better is what it leads to. The current state of things in law enforcement when it comes to mistakes is all too often to punish for them.

As cops we often cry loudly about the lack of training in our profession (I am guilty myself). However while we complain and whine about the seemingly lack of interest in ongoing training we also miss the opportunities to train and learn from the everyday lessons available to us. Those lessons that come from every call we respond to and every shift we work.

The New York Times has a great article "Ready, Aim, Ready? that discusses the importance of not only traditional firearms training but the need for scenario based training. Firearms skills are perishable and decision making skills the same hold true, the skills are perishable.

On-the-job training and experience is often stated as “the way” to learn the job of policing. What does this mean to us cops? Does it mean with time on the job we’ll get better at what we do, automatically, or magically from working shift after shift and handling call after call? Every time we race to the scene and charge towards the sounds of danger and come out safe with suspect in custody, mean that we have somehow gotten better just by being there and participating in the dangerous encounter?

By Major Joseph H. Albrecht, United States Army,School of Advanced Military Studies(SAMS) 

You got to be able to think on your feet. You got to be flexible. I can’t stress that enough. That has been our success . ~2nd Lt., Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2004

“I learned that good judgment comes from experience and that experience grows out of mistakes.” ~General of the Army Omar N. Bradley

Followers of this blog and those I have worked with know the workshops I run utilize tactical decision games, in the form of pen and paper exercises, tabletops and force on force free play exercises involving the use of Simmunitions. Also in these workshops we stress the importance of identifying lessons learned utilizing the after action review process. These training methods all stem from creating and nurturing both the individual and organizational cognitive and physical skills necessary to observe, orient, decide and act while according with an adversary(s).