[00:00:00] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We, Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee.

[00:00:15] Dan: It's lovely to talk to you again, Pier. And, you know, you started last time show with with the podcast you've listened to. Well, I've been doing the same thing. I've been out and about listening to the Potters and um, I was listening to Juan one podcast which is called The Rest is Politics and that's excellent. But they were advertising a show called Battleground Ukraine. And as we and have Ukrainians living with us at the moment, I thought I probably need to get to know about what's going on in that war. And this is hosted by a war historian and a war journalist. Very interesting show.

[00:00:47] And um, on this show I was listening to, they interviewed so Richard Dan, who was the ex, he's the ex-head of the British Army and. The thing that was really interesting to me, that sort of resonated for what we're trying to do here about how people get stuff done together.

[00:01:02] It's not the sort of thing we'd most of us want to do or endorse, but you know, the, he talked about the failure of rushes in invasion of Ukraine and where it went wrong, and it really fits into the conditions for success that you and I always talk about on this show.

[00:01:19] Pia: so is it a competence thing 

[00:01:21] Dan: It covered all of them, actually. So I think that starting at the top, and I've, I've reorganized what he said into these things, but you can really pass that three Cs, clarity, climate, competence lens across them. 

[00:01:31] But the first thing was, you know, they did have a clear goal. So their goal was a lightning strike from Belarus to take out Kiev and basically make regime change happen. Now, obviously that just did not happen. They did not get to Kiev.

[00:01:44] The first thing that went wrong was actually around clarity. So they had no commander control, he says, and they didn't even have a clear leader. Interestingly, Putin was sort of leading that invasion from Moscow. So it led to just total chaos about what they were, how they were gonna try to achieve their goals. So that was, as usual We see many teams doing this. I've got a clear goal, but actually I haven't really figured out how I'm gonna achieve it. So, so that, that was the first thing.

[00:02:09] The climate was fascinating. He said, these are very military things. They didn't achieve air superiority and they didn't integrate their air and land forces. That's quite technical. The thing that was hilarious to me, which I didn't know about, really interesting, was the logistics was supposed to be via the railway and through Belarus. Which should be fine, but the, but while the Belarus government was a, supporting Russia, The railway workers were not. So they managed to undermine things on the railway through sabotage and strikes and just not showing up to work. So the logistics just failed completely. So they had to put all the resources coming into Ukraine onto the road. So that made them vulnerable to snipers and and attack from other angles from the Ukrainians. So it all just sort of, that went wrong. That went wrong as well, which was really, I thought that was fascinating that, 

[00:03:00] Pia: Well, It is, isn't it? It's that, It's that estimation that you've got people supporting you and actual fact they're white anting you, that end up becoming, the win lose of the whole situation. We've all had a lot of that. We think, Oh, that happens in politics all the time I'll have somebody to support and it no

[00:03:16] Dan: and in teams and we have these stakeholders, don't we? We see these teams with stakeholders that just aren't supporting them and they report that quite often. But that phrase, white anting, Pia, is something I learned from you. Just talk a bit about that cuz it's quite Australian, but I think it sums up exactly how this works.

[00:03:31] Pia: So, so white anite form a termite and they can bring a whole house down and nibble at a time. So everything looks pretty okay, um, on the, on the, outside. And it is crumbling as it is being eaten one bite at a time internally. And, you know, I'm sure like in, I don't think so much in the uk, but definitely down here you have to have, you have to have a lot of termite reviews of your house to make sure that they're okay and you can you can find out that you've got a beautiful looking house, but it's being slowly eaten away. So yeah, these tiny little insects cause great damage. And I suppose in that situation, therefore you, you, you're relying on the ability of people to get behind a common vision. But if they're not and they're actually usurping.

[00:04:17] Dan: Yes, 

[00:04:18] Pia: A whole bunch of reasons that haven't been taken well that's what happens. 

[00:04:21] Dan: It's brilliant. White anting I think is something useful for any team to know. Even unfortunately.

[00:04:28] So just the final part, of course is competence of where they fell down. they had very poor discipline on the battlefield for comms. So they were using their mobile phones and you could track that. I saw someone on Facebook tracking Russian soldiers actually through their mobiles. But the interesting thing was about mindset. They had been briefed that they were going to be liberators of Ukraine. Of course they were not. But they'd also just come off exercise. They'd been on exercise the whole winter on the border. And so they had this exercise mindset and Dan says that's very different from a combat mindset. So, there was a real mindset thing at play here in the Russian troops as well. Both behavioral and mindset were against them.

[00:05:06] So it was quite interesting as he ran down his list of his analysis of what happened, how it really was right across those conditions of success that any team needs to get stuff done, even if they do have a clear goal. So I thought it was really that was fascinating to me and I thought a really detailed analysis by someone who knows what he's talking about.

[00:05:25] Pia: And I think that it is a human, the humanness of the situation is just, it is so important here. You know, It's and, and I think our guest today Adam, Verducci is we were keen to talk to him because in a similar way the US police force has had some pretty public situations where those three Cs have gone to court and loss of life and caused an untold amount of pain. So we want, we wanted to meet the human face, not make judgements about that, but understand and, I think our listeners will really enjoy and feel like that the whole, the heart is put right, right, back into what this is all about. Trust and community and bringing the human to really difficult situations. 

[00:06:22] Welcome Adam. Really lovely to have you joining us today.

[00:06:30] Adam: I appreciate being here. Thank you so much.

[00:06:32] Pia: So tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:06:35] Adam: my name's Adam. I am currently, I've been serving as a uh, police officer in the central New Jersey area for a little under six years. Prior to that I coached baseball. I worked in emergency management. I have a uh, a long history of teamwork, per se. my life is basically, I was thinking about today has been all about teams from a very young age.

[00:06:56] Dan: This is gonna be very good. This is very gonna be very good. And we're gonna start by giving to get to a little bit, No, a bit about you using the famous conversation starter card. So I'm gonna choose on genuinely at random from the middle of the pack, which I've been shuffling incessantly. So let's go for this one. The hardest lesson I've learned is. Woo. That's a stinger

[00:07:16] Pia: Yeah. Welcome to the show, Adam.

[00:07:19] Adam: Is right out, right outta the gate. I've learned a lot of hard lessons, sometimes the hard way. But uh, I think the hardest lesson that I, I've learned is that, you can only be in control of, of so much, especially in my job. There's so much. I only so much I can do, and at certain points that sometimes is difficult to come to grasp with. But there's uh, there's only so much we can do, especially, you know, individually, but a, as a group, uh, there's a lot of things that are out of our control, and some good and some bad, and you just kind of have to accept that, uh, certain times.

[00:07:54] Dan: Well, we might come back to that Adam we won't touch on, on that sort of mental preparation you have to do in the in your role. But why did, when you start us off by really taking us into your world. I have to say, is I'm sure for Pia as well in Australia, for a Brit, you know, sort of the thought of being a police officer on the streets of New Jersey gives us a chill, to be honest. So, but take us into that world. Take us into what's it actually like?

[00:08:19] Adam: So I, I work in a uh a small to mid-size agency in a middle class town. We probably have 20 some thousand residents in 32 square miles. So, I work in the patrol division, which means I'm the officer you see on the street in the car every day for the most part. I'm assigned to a car by myself, so it's me. I work with the same squad, so my patrol squad, the guys I work with every day are the same. We all work the same shift. So we get to know each other very well. And then during the day, my tasks are, whatever somebody calls 911, we go. And sometimes that varies from uh, an animal complaint, we got a crazy raccoon or something like that, all the way up to heart attacks and fights and, and things of that nature. So we do a little bit of everything.

[00:09:08] Dan: Crazy raccoon. That's, we haven't heard that phrase on the show yet, so thank you,

[00:09:14] Pia: And so tell us a little bit about the relationship that you have with the other squad members, cuz that's really interesting cuz you are part of the same squad, but you're in your own car. 

[00:09:25] Adam: So we work, we're assigned a squad, and I've been on my squad for two years now. And we're close. We like to when we can, we like to eat meals together, obviously, with emergencies going on and calls for service, that's not always possible. But when you work with the same group of people for so long, obviously we become very close. So close that we start to really get to know each other probably more than we even think. To the point where if I hear somebody on the radio just by the sound of their voice over the radio, I can tell, okay, something maybe is going on here. I can almost feel a little bit of nervousness in their voice and that may change the way.

[00:10:02] Okay. I, I should hustle over there because I think he's got something or something like that. So we really get to know each other well. We know each other's strengths and weaknesses. We know what we rely on certain people for, Hey, this guy's good at this and this other person that, you know, they're, they're really good at this. Let's, Hey, can you do this for me? Cuz I know you're, you're good at it. And at the end of the day, we work as a team. We're all doing the same job and uh, we're, we're moving towards a common goal.

[00:10:26] Dan: And have you had the same people on that squad for a long time, or do people move through? I'm sort of getting at that thing of how do people, it sounds really tight. How do people enter that sort of tight knit squad?

[00:10:39] Adam: Yeah, so the way we do it is we're, we shuffle up the squads probably every two, two and a half years. Every agency's different. So it's, this is not necessarily across the board uh, with police work in general, but the way we do it is we shuffle up our squads every year and or every couple years, and we guys get transferred, you know, that goes into a different division, goes into traffic Detective Bureau. But the patrol guys, if you're in patrol, you're pretty much staying the same. There's five guys on my squad, when we've been working together for for two years now, and, you know, we get together when we're not at work relax and things like that as well.

[00:11:12] Pia: So if I understand this correctly, so you've got five of you in five separate cars covering a geographical area on a shift. Is that just so I can picture it in my

[00:11:25] Adam: Yep. Yeah, that's correct. So there's five of us. We're on our own car and sometimes uh, depending on how we're feeling, we'll say, Hey you take over here. I'll take over here. Sometimes we just all kind of float if we're just feeling that way. I'm lucky that I have a supervisor who's uh, Very supportive, and he's, he's very easygoing. So whatever we kind of decide for that day or that night as long as we get the stuff that we need to get taken care of, done we get to kind of go on patrol and, and do what we want.

[00:11:51] Pia: And what's the goal? So for the five you, do you start off the shift with like a common goal? So like there's been an event or something's happened or do you get a briefing? How does it

[00:12:00] Adam: So, yeah, what we do is at seven o'clock is when we have our roll call, So we'll all sit down. The boss, the sergeant, will go over any, you know, major incidents that have occurred, anything we have to know about, hey, we have to keep an eye on this business or, or Hey, this is what's going on in another town. They had this kind of burglary, something like that. So he gives us a briefing, and then after that, once we kind of have all the info and then we'll go from there. And then we also, we'll kind of trade with the group of officers who are coming off shift. So if we're working night shift, we'll talk with the day guys as we come in and say, Hey, you know what, what'd you guys have today? Oh yeah, we dealt with so and so that, you guys maybe going back over there later on or, you know, we had this keep an eye out for this, this person.

[00:12:48] Dan: So how much overlap do you have with the previous shift or, and hand over to the next one?

[00:12:53] Adam: The way we do it, cuz we're not a huge agency, we don't, sometimes we'll have an early car, so someone will come in an hour before and they'll work six to six instead of seven to seven. That's, we don't always get that opportunity just based on staffing. So sometimes there's really, one shift is done at seven and the next guys, the next group they start at seven o'clock.

[00:13:13] Dan: And do you end up working together on the ground sometimes with a big incident? Do you actually end up working as a suddenly as a out of your cars, as a sort of in person team?

[00:13:25] Adam: Oh yeah, that's, I would say most of the calls we go to, most of the incidents it's a multiple officer response. So, my whole squad, yeah, we're all in separate cars, but okay, hey, we got a crash in a busy area of town. Now we need four people because we have maybe somebody that is injured, then we have to still work on traffic control. Someone actually has to do the crash investigation and determine what was the cause of this crash. So there's a lot of roles to play and it's, we have to come together as a group. Or if we get a, a burglary, hey, we need somebody to look for evidence. Let's another guy start canvassing houses, looking for cameras. So while we are individual in our vehicles and we're a single unit we are a team as we come together to manage and, uh, to address incidents and uh, things like that.

[00:14:15] Pia: So are you the overall leader? Is there a, Is there a hierarchy to this or is it quite an autonomous team that sort of, that runs itself? How, what's the structure?

[00:14:24] Adam: So it's a somewhat uh, kind of runs itself. I I'm by no means the, by no means the leader. I am by no means the leader, but we do have a, it's a paramilitary organization. I ha each, we have four squads. Each squad has a supervisor. There's a, a commander of the patrol division, and then he reports to our uh, director who's who, the overall, he's in charge.

[00:14:47] Pia: but that's uh, that, that probably is like many, and that's probably like a military structure. That's what it looks like on paper. But when you're on the ground, it's a different story, isn't it, to some degree, because you, you're having to respond as five individuals coming together to solve the problems that you find out on the streets of New Jersey, really.

[00:15:07] Adam: And things happen quickly too. We don't necessarily have time to always do things, you know, as you, as they would in the military where it's, hey directly, so on and so forth. Uh, a lot of times we have to make quick decisions, so, uh, sometimes the first guy who gets there, he's the one on the radio saying, This is the resources that we need. It doesn't necessarily go to the supervisor maybe on the other side of town, or he may be doing something else. And when he's not there, and another officer may be filling that supervisory role of that scene, of that incident and then doing the coordination. Okay, we do need an ambulance. We need a fire truck, We need a street sweeper, or we need animal control. 

[00:15:44] Dan: Adam, we talked to a lot of people on this show about teams having diversity. Different people having different abilities and different ways of thinking and so on. Of course, if that's done well, it can be amazing, but it's essential also that you bring co, you have cohesion in your team, don't you? How, how do you sort of harness that, the differences in your team to effectively get the job done?

[00:16:06] Adam: So that, that starts from, I would say day one. We have a diverse group of people coming from different backgrounds and. You know, some guys in college studied history and economics and really the whole gambit of things. Some other people have worked other professions and then got into police work. But then when we come together and you go to the police academy, which for me was 20 weeks long, everybody's trained to the same standard. So everybody is, is taught the same thing. And that way, continuity wise, if you do, you work on another squad or, or somebody else is working with you filling overtime or something like that, we're all aware of our policies and procedures and then, of laws and regulations within, you know, state of New Jersey. So, we all come from different backgrounds, but because we're trained similarly or essentially all the same we're able to have that cohesion where anybody can almost fill any role.

[00:17:02] Pia: Which I guess must be, because you just don't know the situation that you're going to be faced. So, you know, what might a typical day look like that you've gotta have that degree of flexibility? What are the types of calls like, you know, just give us a bit of a, a sped up version of what a shift might look like.

[00:17:18] Adam: I would need 12 hours to tell you exactly what we do every day. Uh, so, for us, because we are, my agency is, is on the smaller side, the patrol officers, we do handle. 99 and a half percent of calls. We don't have a special unit that goes out for domestic or anything like that. We have to be able to handle that. So we do the gambit from burglar alarms, fire alarms, things like that, to medical calls, to, to assaults and to domestic incidents to burglaries and thefts, car accidents. And then we do traffic enforcement as well. So, you know, that's part of people getting pulled over. Not nobody likes it, but that's part of traffic enforcement and, and roadway safety. So we kind of cover almost all the aspects of police work, at least in my patrol division here.

[00:18:07] Pia: What's the thing that you fear the most, that you just think, God, I just hope this doesn't come up on my shift?

[00:18:13] Adam: I mean, really anything uh, anything with kids, juveniles, I just is, I hate to see juveniles be put in, in bad places. It does happen. It's never easy and it's difficult to prepare for, certainly. And you know, just because they don't have the exposure to the world like adults do. So a lot of times uh, you know, it's rough when dealing with juveniles, especially if they're victims of crimes and things like that.

[00:18:38] But you know, obviously there's a lot of unknown with what we do. Any incident can turn south. I've gone to uh, abandon 911 calls, which is for us a daily occurrence where, you know, sometimes on your phone you call 911 and, and I've had those, you know, turn into domestics and turn into to people bloodied and things like that. So you kind of always are expecting the worst and you have to prepare for it mentally because you don't wanna be off your game. You don't wanna be shocked when you see something. You wanna be able, Okay, what would I do if this happens? Or if this situation comes up while you're on your way, even to the simple calls.

[00:19:13] Pia: Because people's behavior Is sometimes very difficult to be able to gauge, isn't it? And it can change very quickly. And you know, I think that, let's be honest, there's been quite a bit in the press about, the US police and in Australia here, we, the police are armed, but in the uk they're not. So it's a different scenario of people listening to this. How are you feeling being part of the police force with, with all these stories? I know you gotta, you got a spotlight right on you. 

[00:19:47] Adam: No, it's a, it's a spotlight and uh, unfortunately, sometimes it's, it's cross hairs. Uh, it's, we are the target unfortunately, just based off the uniform that we wear. And that's part of what we do as an agency is try and let our community know that hey, we are, we're just like everyone else. We go to bed at night just like everyone else. We have families, lives and things like that. And yes, sometimes we do have to be the bearer bad news or arrest people or issue citations. And it's not something that we get enjoyment out of, but it's part of what is important within our society. It's just a role that, that we've chosen to take on. And a lot of times we get to help people and really make a difference.

[00:20:21] But it's not necessarily easy all the time. But we as a community have try and do what we can to, to connect with the community, participate in community events and let people know, yeah, it's a uniform that we wear, but we're just like everyone else. We're, we like to have fun when we're not at work. We have families and dogs and things like that. So, 

[00:20:39] Dan: Indeed. Adam. Just coming back to that point you made earlier with the cards about needing to learn to, your lesson was to know you couldn't control everything. Just talk to us a little bit more about that and also how your, just think about that mental preparation and that you have to go through constantly for the role and how your team can support you in that and what does that look like?

[00:21:04] Adam: The thing about not being able to control uh, everything is there's some calls that are difficult to go to. If we, we do get a call that starts as a CPR call. It ends up we're not able to make a save. Cuz those we're normally the first people there, you know, if somebody calls it and then EMS come and, and they generally take over for us. But sometimes, especially as a younger officer, I was maybe having a hard time with man could, did I do everything right? Did I apply the AED correctly? And, and all of that stuff. And you have to, at the end of the day, know that if you did your best, you did what you were trained to do, to, to the best of your ability. And, and sometimes the outcome is outta your control. And the way, as a team, as a squad that we help each other out with that is a lot of times we will talk about events that have occurred. And my agency's very supportive of, you know, especially if we have had serious bad events, bringing in outside people to help counsel us through some of those things. So we're fortunate that we have that support. But as a squad we're able to debrief and say, okay. You know, next time? Should we do this? Or, Hey, you did a good job with this. There was just nothing we can do, and we kind of help each other out through that process.

[00:22:12] Pia: I think your point before about we're just human like you and we wear a uniform, you know, you will have a human response. And I did wanna go back to that because it really struck me that, you are put into situations that you really don't know what's going to happen. So the relationships that you formed, I would imagine if you're in quite a small town, is quite likely, you know many of the people and you've really spent your time building those relationships. Does that help? Because does that make the difference, rather than going in as a faceless face in a uniform?

[00:22:50] Adam: It definitely does. I think the big word, you know, we like to use is trust. We want the community to trust that police, as you know, in general, are there to do the right thing. And uh, are there to support the community and to help the community in any kind of emergency that they have. We want that trust within the community and the public. It's very important to us. Uh, so we hold ourselves to a high standard and we operate in a professional manner. But having that trust is very important. We like the community to support us, and that way we can support the community the best we can. It's important.

[00:23:22] Pia: Because that's a different way of going about it, isn't it? If you build that trust first and then being humans, we often stuff up, so we get ourselves into sticky situations and we do need a bit of a referee or an umpire or somebody to really, which is sort of that role in that respect. 

[00:23:39] Adam: It definitely is. It's. You know, it's, unfortunately sometimes we have to hold people accountable for their actions. And we do have to play that referee. And it's important that the community can say, Okay, you know, hey, I am taking responsibility for this and it's not, these guys aren't out to get me. This is what, you know, the repercussions for my actions. And on the other hand too, that, that community support and that trust goes the other way, where somebody may reach out and say, Hey I think something's going on here. And I, can you guys look into this? And we trust that it's gonna get handled and that you guys will do the best that you can to help, just keep the neighborhood safe. Things like that.

[00:24:12] Dan: I'm just thinking that about the, you know, seeing policing in the uk it's a really complicated role, isn't it? Because you are doing that community role and at the other end is, you know, arresting people and whatever you need to do. But also you are trying to involve the community, aren't you? In fighting crime. It shouldn't be the police that is actually fighting crime and keeping it, It's a, it's a community act, isn't it? That you lead in a way and you, you help with.

[00:24:41] Adam: because at the end of the day, nobody knows the community and nobody knows that neighborhood better than the people who live there. They know the anomalies and what sticks out and what doesn't and what, what may be normal and, and what is the abnormal. And they can identify that a lot of times, much earlier and much better than we can, because those are the people who live there. That's the community, that's the neighborhood. So they, they know what, what sticks out. So we rely on them to, normally they're the, the first step in the crime fighting process. 

[00:25:12] Dan: And Adam, how do you connect with other services? What does that look like? Because I imagine a lot of these instances you meet them, but how does that whole picture work where you're trying to work with the fire department or whatever?

[00:25:24] Adam: So as the, as a smaller town, I guess, per se uh, we do get to know over time the firefighters and the EMTs in town. And putting a name to a face is. To me at least, very important where I can say, hey, hey Joe, this is what I need from you. Or, hey Ron, how can I help you? What, What can I do to assist you guys? Even though the police are there, this is really an EMS call. So how, what can I do to help you out? You need help lifting? Do you need me to run and get something from the ambulance? Or, what can we do? And it's. That's a team effort, but an interagency team effort.

[00:25:58] You know, We have people from all different backgrounds and, and who are not trained the same way and who are, you know, experts in their own specific discipline all coming together for one type of incident. When we have houses on fire, it's the firefighters who are taking over the firefighting effort and the police are kind of standing back and we're maybe doing interviews and taking photos for evidentiary value and things like that.

[00:26:20] In a big incident, everybody has a role to fill, whether you're a police officer or a firefighter or a public works employee, uh, there's a lot of different things to be done.

[00:26:29] Dan: And I don't wanna put words in your mouth, Adam, but it's something we encourage teams to do is what, just what you describe, which is to get really clear on what you need of them and offer and ask, ask them what they need of you. It sounds like you just get really clear on that.

[00:26:44] Adam: It's very important and, and a lot of times point blank, you know, you have to look somebody in the eye, especially because the scenarios and the, the events that we're on and the scenes that we're on are stressful situations. Things are rapidly evolving and changing. So that clarity of information and saying, I need this from you, or What do you need from me? And if, if I don't understand what they need or how I can, I'll have, can you explain that to me? What specifically do you want me to grab or what specifically can I do? Because it, a lot of times things, like I said before, they, things evolve and happen quickly. So we wanna make sure that we're not wasting any time and, and emergencies can be solved and brought back to a, a calm level in a short period of time.

[00:27:24] Pia: And have you seen things evolve over the six years that you've been in this role? Are you seeing the complexity that the lives and I guess the challenges that people are facing in your community, you seeing that increase?

[00:27:37] Adam: Oh yeah, it's uh, I mean, one from a legal perspective. Case law is constantly changing, so it's something that we have to be familiar with about new decisions from the courts that may change the way we do our search and seizure policy and may change the legality of things. We recently had the decriminalization of marijuana, so that was a, for us, a huge change within the way, the way we operated things are completely different. So we all had to basically relearn these new guidelines and, and, and learn, that hey, our job is changing.

[00:28:09] But also from, you know, another hat that we wear a lot of times is somewhat of a mental health. We're the kind of sometimes the first responders to mental health emergencies, and by no means are police officers, experts at mental health. We rely on outreach services and things like that, but we're generally the first ones there to settle things down. And with covid and isolation for a lot of people and, and all that, that we definitely noticed an increase in our mental health emergencies based off of isolation and for a lot of people, lives just getting completely changed outta work or working completely differently now. So we, we do see a lot of evolvement, especially in my six years.

[00:28:49] Pia: And that puts you again, right at the front line of somewhere where the pressure cooker spills, spills over. I know you, you probably didn't hear this, but we did have a funny few episodes back in the last season where Dan recounted the experience of losing his bike and the interaction with the UK police service who managed to give his bike back to the criminals that actually stole it.

[00:29:13] So this was, Yeah, but the point of raising it was, is that the complexity is, is increasing, but the resourcing hasn't. And they were actually, they had to actually send two people to Dan's house because they weren't quite sure what his response might be to the bad news that actually they had made a mistake.

[00:29:33] Dan: Yeah, you could see it, you could feel, I mean, they were delightful, but you really felt at the pointy end, there was a woman police officer who came to tell me the news and and a male police officer who was definitely there and stab this to make sure that nothing bad happened. You know, sort of you realized that it was a very, you know, it was lovely sitting on my sofa, you know, we had a nice chat. It was lovely, but you could see immediately the police role can go from, would you like a cup of tea to, something far more violent. And it really was the span sitting right there.

[00:30:04] Adam: But a lot of times, you know, a, a lot of the way we get things done I would say a cup of tea, but we're more coffee drinkers.

[00:30:10] Dan: Of course of, 

[00:30:12] Pia: Something stronger.

[00:30:14] Adam: But, But, a lot of times that's the way we try and accomplish a lot of what we have to do is simply by just having a, a normal conversation with somebody. Trying to assimilate. I've found to be very helpful, even if it's a small thing, I like your dog. I have a dog too. 

[00:30:28] Pia: Finding points of commonality.

[00:30:30] Adam: Yes, especially some, someone who's experiencing, in crisis or in a, in a traumatic event, that commonality of, hey, we both like sports a lot of times goes a long way, and it makes us certainly a lot more effective in what we do. And I, I think that's another thing that builds trust within that individual and the officers that they're dealing with.

[00:30:49] Pia: It's so often the things that you do in between the emergencies. And the same thing happens in business. It's the things you do in between to build the relationships that make the difference when the crisis or the dramas or the challenges happen.

[00:31:05] Adam: And for us it's, it's really, it's simple. When we go to get a cup of coffee, having a two minute conversation with someone, that leaves a lasting impact or I would hope would leave a lasting impact where they could say, Hey, you know, I was talking to an officer today and I don't remember their name, but I know that they were a nice person and they were asking about my car, or something like that. And that trust, I think, goes a long way within a community.

[00:31:29] Dan: I have to say Adam, I feel the people of Montgomery in very good hands. It's great to hear your yeah, your thinking and the, despite the challenges, the way that you bring your whole self and your team to that. It's been wonderful to hear that. Adam you've got lots of experience in multiple fields of teams. You mentioned baseball, fire service, police. Given all of that what if, could you boil this down for our listener? What could they do, do you think, differently just to bring their own team together to get stuff done?

[00:32:01] Adam: I think uh, for someone who's the leader of a team the important thing is to remember that at the end of the day, we are all human. And not losing sight of the human aspect of a lot of what goes on, whether it's in police work or in business. That we don't all go home and get plugged in and, and recharge at the end of the day. People I think at the end of the day wanna be treated like people and like humans. And, and at the end of the day, we all are. And uh, sometimes our teams are a lot bigger than what we think our teams are

[00:32:29] Dan: Wonderful place to bring it to a close Adam, coming back to the human. Thank you. That's what we're all about here, and it's been an absolute delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to to share your wisdom with us and our listeners.

[00:32:43] Pia: Hope you don't get a call about a sort of an err raccoon that needs

[00:32:47] Dan: Get the crazy raccoon

[00:32:49] Adam: I'll, I'll, I'll keep my eye out for your bicycle.

[00:32:52] Dan: Thank you. If you wouldn't mind. If you wouldn't mind. 

[00:32:55] Pia: I think what really resonated for me was, gosh, there's a lot of volatility. There's no ordinary day when you're in a patrol car. And even if you're in a relatively safe in inverted commerce neighborhood, you know, as Adam talks about, you know, one particular incident, a burglary can suddenly become very difficult, and turn into something else, and you've gotta be on hyper alert. So you're humans and we sort of oscillate in and out of good days. I think I got a different view of quite of the pressure You're under.

[00:33:35] Dan: interesting. I saw a video of It was actually the British police. It's only two of them. It is not sort of, as you know, I've had some very good experiences with uh, with the individuals in the, in the British police. But you know, some saw them arresting a skateboarder who was approaching the funeral cortege or something, I think it was of the Queen and, oh my word. They really escalated that. They were quite violent. And you know, it was an example of the opposite is there's a volatile situation and I felt, I really felt like someone like Adam who's so calm, I felt would be able to moderate that situation, not escalate it. So I think the individuals themselves are important, but I really liked also the way that building trust with the people around you can help to do that as well.

[00:34:18] Pia: And how much they're looking out for one another. He could detect where somebody was just by the tone of their voice. And I think that is a way of, sort of in advance supporting one another as you go into that volatility. Because your job is to create that trust with the people that you've got and talk everybody down. Not escalate. Particularly if you're armed. But I think, you know, having a bit of compassion about the pressure that they're under, and Adam made it sound, he was such a safe pair of hands, he was utterly reassuring. But it's not all going to be like that. And I would imagine that if you're in, you've seen a lot, you're in a difficult neighborhood in a difficult city, and it's your 300th night th

[00:35:02] Dan: Yeah.

[00:35:03] Pia: under pressure. 

[00:35:04] Dan: Things happen. Yeah. And you need your team, and you need the team around you. And also I, I really got the sense of him building that relationship with the community, so it's not us versus them, but actually that they feel that they've done that work in advance. That as they go into these situations with any luck, they've got people around them who, who trust them to do the right thing.

[00:35:25] Pia: The uniform is the job he has to do, but it doesn't give him power. And that was a really defining insight because that's how he sees himself, which I would've thought would go a long, long way to build that trust in the 

[00:35:38] Dan: Yeah, I think so. And I think the learning for anyone in teams, now we are in some, obviously not, it's not as dangerous as the situation Adam finds himself in, or maybe not as volatile. But we are all in, we all find ourselves in new and difficult situations. And I suppose the question is what can we do to build trust with those around us? And to be the one that doesn't escalate, but finds a good way through. So yeah, it was a, it was, he was example to all of us. So wonderful to talk to Adam. 

[00:36:06] But that is it for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at spotify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. Also, please do give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:36:29] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.