Building a winning team culture can be challenging, even for the most motivated leaders. It can be frustrating when the culture feels like it’s holding your academy classes back. The long hours, intense training, and constant demands can be overwhelming.
However, a strong, positive culture is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a game-changer. It can make all the difference between an academy that churns out average officers and one that produces exceptional leaders.
Imagine a dynamic, cohesive unit working seamlessly towards a common goal, with everyone, including recruits and academy staff, motivated and thriving.
Let’s discuss a few practical tips to revolutionize the culture in police academies.
The Team Culture Arrow
Think for a moment about any team, group, or organization you have been a part of. It could be a high school or college sports team, an academy or military recruit class, or even your current or past work environments.
Was it a winning culture or a toxic culture?
Was there an emphasis on building a winning team culture?
An arrow can be used to measure where your culture stands. This Team Culture Arrow can help identify whether your environment is on the path to success or veering towards toxicity.
The tip
The tip of the arrow represents the top 5%–15% of your team. These are the leaders — captains, hardest workers, go-getters, and those who consistently demonstrate high levels of discipline and effort. Coaches, bosses, teammates, and co-workers have complete trust in them.
They will run through walls if you ask them.
Members at the tip of the arrow are accountable. They do not complain, blame, or make excuses. They bring a positive, can-do attitude to the environment. There is no sense of entitlement, only a sense of gratitude. They view success as something earned.
The back of the arrow
The back of the arrow represents the bottom 5%–15% of your team. This group is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the tip of the arrow. These are the blamers, complainers, cheaters, and excuse-makers. They bring a toxic, negative, me-first attitude to the team environment.
There is a lack of discipline and work ethic. They may have a strong sense of entitlement, often blaming others when things don’t go as planned. They are likely to lash out in times of high stress and duress.
The middle of the arrow
The middle of the arrow, comprising 70%–90% of the team, is where team culture is formed.
With a very strong tip-of-the-arrow group and a weak back-of-the-arrow group, the middle will model itself after the tip. They will strive to follow the lead of those at the tip, gaining the trust of their peers, teammates, coaches, and bosses through hard work, discipline, and a team-first attitude. In essence, they work toward becoming part of the tip of the arrow, leading to a successful, winning team culture.
On the other hand, if a loud, contagious back-of-the-arrow group, especially those in leadership positions, dominates, it can pull the middle of the arrow in the wrong direction. If complaining, blaming, making excuses, and a me-first entitled attitude are allowed to run rampant, the culture can become toxic, causing the arrow to move backward.
Where do you want your culture to be?
Think back to any team or group you have been a part of, whether in sports, work, academy, recreation. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Where do you think you were/are on the arrow?
- Where do you think your teammates feel/felt you are on the arrow?
- Where do you want to be on the arrow?
If we are open-minded and recognize that we bring back-of-the-arrow traits to the table, we can work on making the change. We can take advantage of neuroscience, or more specifically, neuroplasticity. This allows us to start rewiring our brains with tip-of-the-arrow traits while minimizing back-of-the-arrow behaviors.
Let’s look at some team-building drills that can help accomplish this change.
The “cruiser” performance under pressure and team building drill
Why does your brain go offline during high-intensity exercise?
When we perform high-intensity, lactate-inducing exercise, lactic acid is produced in the muscles and red blood cells due to decreased oxygen supply and the breakdown of glucose. As the intensity and duration of the exercise continue, lactic acid accumulates and spreads into adjacent muscles. Once this accumulation exceeds the body’s ability to clear or buffer the lactic acid, the muscles begin to burn and lose their ability to contract effectively.
Lactic acid is then broken down into lactate and hydrogen ions. While lactate and lactic acid are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Lactate, which serves as a fuel source for the body and brain, is produced when lactic acid loses a hydrogen ion.
The extra hydrogen ions accumulated in the blood eventually reach the brain, where they build up, creating an acidic environment in both the brain and the body. The brain must work hard to counteract this acidity through buffering mechanisms.
According to a 2018 study, “high-intensity aerobic exercise leads to metabolic, circulatory, and neurohormonal changes at the level of the brain.” These changes can result in beyond optimal arousal levels and “a temporary reduction in cognitive performance.”
The need for buffering takes energy that the brain draws away from other processes. Essentially, the brain becomes overloaded trying to manage several tasks and control multiple systems simultaneously, which can impair clear and rational thinking.
However, as your muscles adapt to lactic acid accumulation and your brain is challenged under these conditions, it can become more autonomic. In other words, you can retrain your brain to stay functional during these “stressful” situations.
A team-building drill that incorporates elements of this in combination with situational pressure is the “Cruiser” drill.
This is most effective if a baseline is set in the first or second week of the Academy. Step by step:
- Each squad of 5-10 recruits line up before a police cruiser.
- Squads are given 5 minutes and instructed to memorize all items in their cruiser, including the location and placement of each item. Instructors will take baseline photographs of the inside of each vehicle, including the trunk.
- Once the time is up, the staff instructor or PT staff notifies recruits, and they return to their line.
- Recruits are then led away from the vehicles to perform 15-20 minutes of rigorous PT. Ensure that recruits are led far enough away from the vehicles to ensure they do not see the instructors disassembling the items in the vehicles.
- While the recruits participate in PT workouts, the staff instructors will go through each vehicle, taking out and scattering the belongings on the ground around the vehicle.
- Upon completion of the PT workout, recruits are then returned to the vehicles and separated into squads.
- They are given 5 minutes to restore the vehicles to exactly how they were before they left to perform PT.
- At 5 minutes, instructors will notify the recruits to return to lines. Instructors will take photos for the debriefing session.
Notes:
- Did the recruits work together as a team to memorize the items?
- Did any recruit(s) step up in leadership during the drill?
- How did the recruits respond to the pressure of putting everything back as a team within 5 minutes?
- Did they work collectively as a team to put the items back?
Daily PT self-appraisal
We learned this from our friend Tom Newman, the former Performance Director for Yale Athletics. At the end of each PT training session, each recruit is allowed to appraise their level of effort honestly. Scores will be recorded in the recruit’s journals or notebooks. The scoring rubric is as follows:
- You did the bare minimum expectation.
- You put in some effort and try to get yourself out of your comfort zone.
- You went above and beyond. Put forth a great, inspiring effort.
- You went above and beyond. Put forth a great, inspiring effort. And…you made your teammates and everybody else in the room better.
Conclusion
Imagine a police academy with unwavering camaraderie, where officers-in-training embrace both victories and failures as stepping stones toward excellence. Picture a united group of recruits, where every team member uplifts and supports one another.
A commitment to building a winning culture in your police academy will create a ripple effect, raising the bar as these recruits become sworn officers in their respective departments.
A winning culture transcends academy walls. True culture exists even when the leader, coach, or boss is absent. By fostering a culture of hard work, discipline, support, perseverance, and trust, you’ll proudly watch a group of exceptional law enforcement professionals emerge from your academies.
Tap into the transformative power of a winning culture and forge a new path toward success.
About the co-authors
Christopher Baker has been in law enforcement for over 30 years and is currently serving as the Chief of Police for the Berkley Police Department located in Southeastern Massachusetts. He has had a successful and varied law enforcement career working in both the suburban setting as a Narcotics Investigator and urban law enforcement setting as an Anti-Crime Detective for the Transit Police Department in the city of Boston. Chris is the co-founder of Synergy 911 Corporation and is part of the creative team that developed the I.M.P.A.C.T. Critical Incident Response Program, 4 Ls Violent Intruder Program, Integrated Police and Fire Rescue Task Force Training, Critical Site Assessment and Assessment Program as well as countless customizable full-scale scenario-based trainings and tabletop exercises. Chris has been involved in training his entire career and has taught thousands of officers and civilians in critical incident and active shooter response.
Eileen Goodick has dedicated the past 27 years to police training. Prior to accepting the Academy director position, she held several positions, including health and wellness director, medic, classroom instructor, and program administrator for both recruit and basic reserve programs. When not serving law enforcement professionals, she has also volunteered over 7000 hours of her time over the past two decades to organizations including the Special Olympics, Cops for Kids with Cancer and the Jimmy Fund. In 2019 she led team police chiefs in the Jimmy Fund Walk in honor of the late attorney Patrick Rogers. In 2021 she led her team in honor of Weymouth Harbormaster Paul Milone, who lost his battle to cancer in December 2020.
