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Why does it take so long and seem so difficult to change organizational culture in law enforcement agencies? We will talk about buy-in, management, leadership, and organizational culture change specific to law enforcement agencies.
Join the Department of Criminal Justice at Minnesota State University, Mankato as they explore a variety of hot topics related to criminal justice! Guests will include department faculty and community guests.
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Intro: Welcome to the Let’s Talk Government Podcast that is provided for you by the Department of Government at Minnesota State University, Mankato located in Minnesota in the United States. I am your host Dr. Pat Nelson the chairperson of the Government Department. I want to thank you for joining us as we explore different topics about government. Some may be surprising to you and some may not, so please enjoy.
Dr. Nelson: Welcome to episode 18 of the Let's Talk Government podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about changing organizational culture in law enforcement. I'm joined by Dr. Thor Dahle and Dr. John Reed from the law enforcement program at Minnesota State University, Mankato. You will recognize our honored guests from prior episodes of the podcast. And I do want to remind you that they both have experienced as leaders of law enforcement agencies and do research in this area. So I think the best place to start, and it's hard to define organizational culture, but how about if we start with you, Dr. Reed, what are some examples of organizational culture?
Dr. John Reed: Well, I th I think, uh, culture has always been something that there's no definitive definition. If you will, in regards to culture, you look at a lot of information that academics have written and you'll get a different definition every time. Uh, you, you read something, but I think a lot of things that are involved are basically the attributes of an organization, uh, the values, leadership, behaviors, structure, um, communication, and everything, all the way down to hiring and recruiting how you do that are involved in setting a culture for an organization.
Dr. Nelson: How about you, Dr. Dahle? What do you think of when you hear about organizational culture?
Dr. Thor Dahle: Well, I think that, you know, it's harder depending on the size of the organization, the larger it is, the harder it is to set the culture. But I think most times it's, does it have a feeling of family? Does it have a feeling like collegiality where you feel like you're working together on a team going in the same direction, or do you feel like a bunch of independent people all doing your own separate things? So setting that culture, I think is about communication, accountability, you know, making that organization, setting that culture, which is always hard to define, but that it's a team oriented approach where people feel part of an organization as a part instead of a part from the organization where they're just off on their own,
Dr. Nelson: You know, and I think Dr. Dahle brings up a good point. Is there so many different law enforcement agencies across the United States? So there's different cultures and you have different sizes of agencies. So if you have a very large state agency, you'll see that there's many subcultures within it, like the divided up by precincts or squads, but the majority of agencies in the United States are smaller agencies. So we see that leadership kind of top down. So, all right. So let's, let's kind of dive down into some of these examples. And when we talk about structure, we talk about formal and informal power structures. What does that kind of lead you to think about Dr. Reed and how would that influence culture?
Dr. John Reed: Well, I think a lot of it, as far as the hierarchy or the structure, the way it's established by the actual leaders of the organization, uh, actually in culture, it's classified into high, moderate, and low, and obviously a high hierarchy. Uh, there would be more formality to the organization where as a lower structure or a flat or structure as it's known would be more of pushing that decision-making to the lowest levels were more so patrol officers on the street could make more of the decisions rather than it be centralized at, at the top of the organization. Uh, so there's a lot of that structure. And I'm sorry, I didn't pick up on the second part of your question.
Dr. Nelson: Um, what is kind of the difference in power structures between formal and informal
Dr. John Reed: Formal and informal? Yes. Uh, you know, there's a formal power structure, which is basically the hierarchy of the organization. Uh, and, uh, as you might know, do you go to the person who is in charge of you, or are you able to go across different areas of the agency, uh, with that going through your boss, then there are also informal power structures, which are informal leaders, people who don't actually have rank, uh, but carry a lot of power and influence throughout the whole agency, uh, or it can even be an S uh, like you were mentioning different, uh, districts or different platoons that carry a lot of influence in those particular platoons. And to be honest, some of those people, uh, carry more weight as leaders than people who are designated, uh, with rank and who are considered, uh, by name to be leaders.
Dr. Nelson: Dr. Dahle, how about you? What do you see as kind of being the difference or the balance between formal and informal power structures?
Dr. Thor Dahle: Well, John talks about the kind of structures being a hierarchical or less, those organizations that are more tend to be more hierarchical. I think oftentimes may be tempted to neglect those informal leaders that operate at lower levels, which if you worked at, if anybody's ever had a job doing anything, it's not unlikely, the boss is walking around, watching everything that you're doing. And there's nothing that could be more true than law enforcement, the law, the lowest level people are out there doing the work without anybody watching them. Well, maybe body cameras these days, but generally there's nobody looking over their shoulder telling them exactly what to do so that it's at their own peril, that a leader that's trying to set an organizational culture ignores those lower level leaders, because they are the ones who set the tone for those work groups. You can have, you can have pockets of greatness or pocket pockets of the abyss, where, you know, good ideas go to die, where officers or employees or officers won't be part of that, that culture, because they haven't been approached. They haven't been felt like they're part of that, that organization and whatever change you're trying to make.
Dr. Nelson: So if you have a new chief coming in, whether let's say either they're promoted internally or coming from the outside, why can't they just immediately change an organizational culture? What do they run into that they can't just change it? What do you see as being a barrier to that? Dr. Reed, let's start with you.
Dr. John Reed: I, I think, uh, it can be a number of things. It can be, um, the, the customs and norms of the agency when a new chief goes in, especially from the outside, it's difficult to know what those customs and norms are. Uh, you have to, while, while values are somewhat consistent across the board. Um, and when I'm saying across the board, I mean, with all, uh, law enforcement organizations, each agency may have something a little bit different that they value. Uh, you have to learn those things. And, uh, just the types of different behaviors that they engage in. As an example, uh, I, the first organization where I worked, which was a large organization, uh, had a culture of letting patrol officers, uh, make a lot of decisions. And, uh, when I made chief, I went to another organization and I had sergeants and lieutenants coming to me and asked me what I wanted to do with fairly trivial matters, uh, that, that didn't by any chance, need to come to cheap, but that was the culture there that the chief made all the decisions. Uh, and it took a while to, to change that culture, because you might imagine people are number one, didn't know how to make decisions, which was almost unbelievable to me, but you would think about, uh, everybody knows how to do that, but unfortunately, people don't, if they're not accustomed to it. The other thing was, is that they'd have to learn that they were going to make mistakes. And those mistakes had to be, uh, you know, more or less mistakes of the, the heart versus the mind. If it was just a, um, a mistake, uh, you had to be more accepting because they were trying something that they didn't do. But a friend of mine always mentioned, and that he probably has a good sign, that changing cultures, like turning an aircraft carrier in a stream, uh, it's difficult to do. And, um, those are just one example of some of the cultures, but you need to look at, you know, communication styles, uh, which is Dr. Dahle said are a huge thing, because the way you send communications out, um, as you might imagine, all communications get filtered. So you need to make sure that the message you're intending to send gets down to the lower levels without being filtered.
Dr. Nelson: What do you see as being the challenge there?
Dr. Thor Dahle: Well, it's been said that police departments are an upside down bureaucracy. So when you walk in the door and you're brand new, you're on the bottom of that pyramid, you know, you're the bottom of the trying to, it's an upside down pyramid, so to speak. And you're trying to make some decisions about how you're going to move this entire organizations without really knowing the landscape. So, you know, before a person comes in and starts, you might have all kinds of good ideas, but it may be something that's been tried there before. And there may be a reason why it didn't work here. Now we get this idea that we watch an agency in another part of the country do something. It seems like a great idea that every idea is generalizable to another location. So you also need to develop that political currency to get people to want to be part of the change. It's like John was saying, it's a slow turn for that aircraft carrier to turn around you. Aren't going to walk in one day and say, I'm, I have all the ideas. You know, you ha you want it to involve as many people as possible in that to help make that change occur. Because if they think, you know, you're the genius with a thousand helpers, and you're going to walk in there and you're going to lead all the change and you just need them to help you. That's probably not going to work you're you need them to be part of that too. Like Dr. Reed said, was create that communication, develop it so that, um, you know, who are the leaders, what needs, who, who it needs to be part of a change. And then how are you going to do that? Because change is difficult for most people you're going to walk in. Maybe you really do know what should be done. Maybe you, your experience is something that's not familiar to them, but because it is unfamiliar for many people that might be important too, for that change, that might be very hard to do, to accept some new idea. And if they start resisting it, once they build those walls, it's a lot harder to tear them down then to avoid them built in the first place
Dr. Nelson: You know, it almost seems counterintuitive because law enforcement officers are usually so authoritative and controlling. I mean, that's part of our personality, but they react really negatively to authoritarian take Thoratec and leadership styles. You know, they respond better to transformational and servant where you involve them in part of the decision-making making sure they have buy-in, but the second you get authoritative on them, most of them will blow, throw that wall up and say, you don't know what's the best for me. So it's just an interesting contradiction, isn't it? So let's talk about communication. We know that there's filtering, especially if there's multiple ranks between the chief and the patrol officer, um, what kind of, communication's important for organizational change and how do you get your message out if you're the chief doctor Reed, let's go back to you. What do you think?
Dr. John Reed: Well, I think there are a number of different ways. Uh, you know, obviously, and I've seen chiefs do this a number of ways, or I should say, attempt to do it a number of ways. I have a real good friend from a large agency that is really big on email, and I would complain to him about that, that I didn't think that that was a good idea that, uh, the concept of management by walking around is probably a lot better. Uh, but I think you need to communicate that, uh, like I say, by going down and talking to people, especially like in a large agencies, go to the different districts, uh, go to the different shifts. And I can tell you right now that that is extremely hard for a chief of police to do, uh, to hit all of the districts and talk, make sure they talk to all of the people. Uh, but I had, uh, I went to a school one time and they were discussing where this chief, uh, had a organizational chart on the back of his door and he had every person listed on it and he went around and he made a point to see each person one time a year and talk to them, uh, in depth. So more than, than just five minutes, probably about a half hour, 45 minutes, and a number of the students in class, we were all saying, how in the heck does this guy have a time to do this? And, um, we were asking that and, and, and the answer was, uh, he didn't have time not to do it because all the issues that he avoided dealing with by talking to those folks individually was far more beneficial than the time it would've caused him to straighten up all the rumormongering, the miscommunication and those types of things. So I think it's extremely difficult to do, uh, but you have to get out of your, and you have to go around and communicate. I mean, there's no way most of the lower level off say the lower level employees don't want to hear from the full fourth or fifth person in the organization. They want to hear from, uh, the top person and what that person wants. So I think that that is extremely important, even though it's very, very difficult.
Dr. Thor Dahle: Yeah. I think at a certain point, of course, I couldn't agree more as far as what John was describing, that the, um, what I think is important is that there has to be multiple lines of communication. So it can't just be one choke point that's coming to that leader. So yes, there's a place for chain of command for sending messages and up and down, you know, the, the, the command structure, so that everybody's theoretically knows exactly what's going on. But I worked with chiefs in the past who did something similar, which they call the chat with the chief. And although the organization was probably too big to realistically get through everybody and say a year, maybe every, perhaps every day, maybe, maybe not quite every day, but frequently an officer would come up, meet with the chief and they would just chat just like Dr. Reed said for 20, 30 minutes about whatever. Um, so that's just, that's an informal thing. Another one is setting up a committee, which did not have any of the middle management people in it. So it was the chief, maybe an assistant chief and a line level committee of people that were elected by each work group to represent that work group. And this committee, which sometimes middle management doesn't care for, because it feels like they're being circumvented, but it, it got rid of that filter. It's an for example, what's in Churchill during world war II was concerned that people didn't want to come and give them the bad news. And a lot of times people don't want to come to the chief and give them the bad news. So we set up a statistical office to make sure he got the bad news filtered, bad news. And not that it's always bad news, but typically that's the news that people don't want to tell you. They don't want to tell you the night shifts upset about something. So, or no district four is upset about something. So if you have that, those other lines of communication, you have an opportunity to get that information before it blindsides you in the newspaper.
Dr. John Reed: And I think Dr. Dahle brings up a great point. Something he said reminded me, it's kind of a silly little thing that happens, but it can tell you, it kind of, uh, exhibits how difficult that all of this is even communication. But, uh, when I was chief of police, I would call people up to the office to do, as Dr. Dalley was talking and talked to him a few minutes and, uh, some people came up and they said, well, yes. Or do you want? And I'm like, well, I just want to talk to you. And they said, well, uh, we're used to, if we come up here of, to being in trouble. And so I switched, that was kind of the culture. If you go the chief's office, you're in trouble. So I kind of had to switch that around to where I went out to, where they were working to meet with them, um, to, to actually talk to them. But it just gives an example of when you're planning this stuff. And just one small little thing can, can somewhat cause you an issue when you're asking people to come up to have a good talk. They think it's for a bad purpose.
Dr. Thor Dahle: I had a similar experience, just kind of the opposite was that when I became chief, I was new to the place. And, uh, but I wanted to ride along with officers and get a feel for the different shifts. And so I told this officer, I was going to come out ride with him. And so I get there, it's almost the same thing as did I do something wrong. And once we got past that, though, we went out and did went on calls and you a person doesn't recognize the benefit of that immediately until you hear other people telling stories about the time the chief rode with somebody and you went out and dealt with calls and how cool that was. So I think Dr. Reed's exactly right. It's getting away from getting out from behind that desk, away from that intimidating structure as best that you can. You're not the title is still there, but to make that conversation a little bit more easy,
Dr. Nelson: You know, I was just thinking of an example. When I got promoted to Sergeant, we had to work in multiple precincts and one precinct had a culture of the Sergeant never came to your call unless they, you called for him. Right. And I, uh, I had policed in a precinct where the sergeants rolled by all the time. And so I was rolling by traffic's officer, like, what are you doing? Are we in trouble? Are you micromanaging us? I'm like, I'm just seeing if you're okay. And they're like, Oh, you're out of the office. So it's just, it's interesting how even within an organization, you can have different cultures and like, plus the fact that I'm trying to learn your geography. So if I can find where you're at, that's helpful too. So, all right. So, so it sounds like you do really need that connection with the line officers and maybe the first, first line sergeants, but how do you balance that with your upper management and your middle management, the ones that you've chosen to help you with your vision and your change, organizational culture, how do you involve them? And what's important to involve them with, to change organizational culture and you may not get to choose everybody and upper and middle management. Right. So what do you do with them? Go ahead, Dr. Reed.
Dr. John Reed: Yeah, I think, um, I think that's going to be dependent upon what you said here. You're going to have some people that you did not choose and that, uh, may be totally against the direction in which you're going. Uh, and those things are, are difficult to deal with. Um, you, you need, uh, to work around that and some fashion because, um, the majority of those people, uh, if they're against, you are going to put out bad information and those types of things. So you really need to work to in your structure to place those people where they can do good work, uh, but, but not hurt you immediately when you're trying to change the structure. And while you're doing that, uh, you actually need to get those folks and, and get them on your side and get them to help with these different projects, uh, and get their input and those types of things. Uh, I, I think that's really important to get middle managers. And as you talk to chiefs, usually you'll say, well, who are the most important supervisors out here? And, and we had a discussion earlier. I think the sergeants are extremely important when you're trying to get stuff done. Uh, however, you, you need to have everybody in between there on board too. And I think a lot of that is involvement, getting them involved in the process, making sure that they understand, uh, where you're going, uh, and where you want to go get their suggestions and get, so you can get buy in from those people.
Dr. Thor Dahle: I think it's especially important when you're new to that position, that you set up something that makes it clear. They are part of the decision making process. So if you're going to, I mean, having a council where people can come in, discuss ideas, freely, get angry, you know, you know, have a reel, can have spirited debate about things. And, and, and, and then see at the end of the day that that discussion actually mattered. You can't walk in there with a preconceived notion, you know, instigate a discussion, have it go the opposite direction and say, well, I'm the boss. I'm going to do it this way. Anyway. Then what was the point of the discussion? So if you, if you set up those opportunities, that ownership is much easier. If they can see their fingerprints on what is, what is the change? What is happening? What are, where's the do what's the direction we're going? If they can feel confident, there's that, you know, they're having put then the buy-in's a lot easier. It, it can be a little bit bloody sometimes because of all these other things we were talking about, about setting up alternative lines of communication. And, and then at some point you're definitely going to get information that contradicts what some, you know, administrator told you, or the perspective is different and they may feel offended. So it's, uh, it's, you're walking a tight rope sometimes. It's, you know, I think sometimes people think we're being the chief must be easy. You get to tell everybody what to do. Well, it doesn't exactly work that way. You have a lot of, you know, different power structures within the organization that you're, you know, politically, you're not the chief, you're not the president. You know, the mayor, the city council, the County commission, depending on the law enforcement agency has oversight over you, you know, to some degree. So it, those middle managers are critically important and setting up a culture where they feel like they're part of it and not just being told what to do all the time, I think makes, makes it a lot easier for them to deliver your message, even at times when they don't necessarily completely agree. And you can't have them coloring that you can't have them showing up in a briefing and saying, well, here's the new order from the chief. I know this is ridiculous, but this is what we're doing. And that's less likely to happen if they feel like they really are a team member, instead of just, you know, a piece
Dr. Nelson: I will wholeheartedly agree with that as, as someone who was told to do some ridiculous things as a Sergeant. And even if you push back up with why it was ridiculous, it's important to be heard. So, all right. So we know that a law enforcement agency is a public agency. How can we invest in our officers and our sergeants and encourage cultural change, um, without using just punishment, because we hear let's make more policies, let's discipline more people if they violate the policies. And we do know that punishment is not the only way to have change happen in an agency. So if you were the new chief somewhere, what kind of ways could you reward people for buying into the change and why would that be more important than just punishment? What do you think Dr. Reed? What do you think?
Dr. John Reed: I, I think there's, uh, all over the years, uh, going back 20 or 25 years, uh, up into present, there used to be a lot of ways, a lot more ways I should say that you could reward people than you can today. Uh, however, uh, there are a bunch of ways as far as, uh, helping them move along in their career, uh, providing certain training that may be of interest to them, uh, that, that we would do that we would try to provide, uh, rewards to people based on area in which they preferred to ride, uh, on a beat or something, uh, things of, uh, but, but the one, I think, more so than any is to provide training toward their career. For example, if, if they wanted to be a detective, uh, probably two or three years before, uh, they were eligible to be a detective, we would temporarily assign them to the detective Bureau for a couple of months, or we would send them to a certain training that they wanted to go to for managers. We might send them to the FBI Academy or, you know, to Southern police Institute or Sims or something. Um, so, uh, I'll a lot had to do with training or those types of things and help them develop career. I would agree with that. If you can find anything that feels like they're being rewarded instead of punished all the time. So sometimes we would do is if an officer was part of a significant case, maybe it's not normally what they would follow up on. Let's say it's a homicide, but they were part of initiating it. They might be pulled out of their normal duty to work on that case. Maybe not doing the interrogations of suspects and such, but they're there to either participate or observe. And in that case and it getting put together. So, um, that can be a reward training or becoming a trainer, something that we can't typically can't just give somebody money. You know, that's pretty rare that you can, well, almost impossible to give somebody money. So it's, it's the feeling that they're being recognized for good work. So if even participating in a committee, which sometimes that feels like punishment, but, but you're part of the committee discussing, um, a change in the use of force policy or, or firearms selection, or, you know, if you're buying a new squad car, anything where you can get input into what line level people are using day-to-day and let them be part of that discussion.
Dr. Thor Dahle: I think they see that as a reward and if punishment is necessary, it doesn't always have to be what we've traditionally done. It can be like education-based discipline. So you point out to somebody through the disciplinary disciplinary process, they did something wrong, but then you ask them to learn about what that was, and then being able to help others teach them why, whatever it was went wrong, or how you could handle this differently. Um, so instead of getting us a letter of reprimand or a suspension or something like that, you can let them become better in the process. So I think traditionally we've always thought the hammer, you know, certainly in early my experience, there was, there was one tool and that was the hammer that was wrong. Bang, you know, there wasn't a lot of, you know, pats on the back. It was it's up to some degree that was generational and times have changed. Generations have changed. And if you continue to do that, you, uh, push out some of the best employees. They don't want, it just will not work there anymore. Or as Dr. Reed said before, they'll fight you when you need them.
Dr. John Reed: One thing that's really important that Dr. Dahle mentioned in that last little segment, we were talking about two, but with the communication, but even this really benefits the organization, uh, not only the employee. And by that, I mean, if you can give somebody training, uh, you know, that wants to be a detective. It helps him understand why certain things are done. It, it, uh, T Chis or informs that person, but it also, uh, allows them to see the why's behind the reasons things are happening. Why do tech detectives want this and this and this? And it helps them do their job better until they do get to the point where they can be a detective. And it's the same thing as mentioned in that prior segment, Dr. Dahle was talking about if you can be really flexible and people, a lot of times people think a policy's dumb because they don't ever get, uh, informed of the why's something's happening. Uh, and, and I know when I grew up, you never asked why, uh, but, but I know that's a big thing. Uh, th th that, you know, it's the end of my career. I was explaining why I was doing everything. And I think it was an interesting thing Dr. Dahle said about, and it's very, very true when you think, Oh, well that person's the chief. They can do whatever they want and just say it, and then it's done, uh, things, unfortunately just don't work that easily.
Dr. Nelson: Well, I think you've got both brought up the point of sometimes the reward can be very, just publicly acknowledging good work. Right. You know, this person did a great job here, or they're doing this. I just think of like the implementation of the body cameras, how that policy had so much punishment associated with it. Oh, you didn't turn it on. You'll get reprimanded where it's actually a lot of learning and remembering to do that. Just like getting a new piece of equipment. Right. So there's different ways to do it. So. All right. Well, great. Talk about this. Let's think let's kind of think about some wrap up thoughts about changing organizational culture. Um, so what would you do if you're a brand new chief coming into an organization that you knew had issues with their communities, the community relations, um, some very public use of force situations in your first week, how would you approach your change, trying to change that organizational culture? What would you do? I'm going to start with Dr. Reed. We'll put him on the spot.
Dr. John Reed: Okay. I think the first thing you want to do first coming in is, is a lot of people might think this sounds funny, but I think the first thing is end up, uh, you're going to have certain values, uh, and look at the department values, which you should already know before you get on, on site. Uh, but it's to set up meetings with personnel, set up meetings with community members, uh, and do a bunch of information gathering because each one is going to have different ideas, different, uh, problems to see if these are our perceptions, uh, or these are actual truths and stuff of what are realities I should say of, of what's going on. But you got to consider to perception is reality. So, uh, you know, I, I think the first week I would be awfully busy doing that, to determine, uh, exactly what information they had. You've mentioned, use of force and, and building trust. Those aren't things that you can do immediately to change, but, but you have to have some sort of open communication to start that process. Uh, and, and there's no better time than the first week to get out and start doing those things. Um, I think if the values of the organization, because everything builds off of those values, including the structure, if it appeared that those, uh, weren't the values that our organization believed in, uh, I will try to get, uh, some people to, uh, start setting up committees, gathering information from the top commanders there on people that we will want to set up to see what our department values actually are. And is that something that we would want to change? I get representatives from all the units and so forth, but I think that first week, uh, which is an extremely short time, I think it's going to be a lot of information gathering to, to determine exactly where you are in that organization or exactly where the organization is in relation to the community and the problems you're having.
Dr. Nelson: All right, Dr. Dahle, your first week on the job.
Dr. Thor Dahle: That first week is really tough. I mean, if anybody's ever walked out on a stage in front of a bunch of people that first time, it's, you just feel like the spotlight's on you. So it's really nerve-wracking. So what I would do is I would take that first week off, just skip it, just get no, actually that is such an answer that I would expect from you. You've got to get a lay of the land, you know, and the hard part is if you're brand new and you're in that sort of position, you are a magnet for all kinds of people from the community. Want to get in to see you first. So the mayor, city council, other prominent city leaders and, and, and businesses, and the hard part would be to say, no, you know, to set, because I think that the opposite is what you need to do, which is immerse yourself in the organization. You'll have time to meet all those other people. Uh, later also you need to show the organization that they come first. A friend of mine had a sign over his dead, his desk that said, uh, uh, miss mission first officer's always, and that was a message to them where they stood in the organization. So that first week, I think it's just, you don't make big decisions. You don't come out and do a lot of press conferences and get your picture in the paper and on television, that all that's too easy for a chief kid, get out and meet as many people as you possibly can. The different shifts, the organizations, units within there and spending actual time with them, um, and taking notes. You're going to meet a lot of people, and it's almost impossible to remember everybody and everything they said right away. Especially if you don't take some notes, it's like being a student in class and walking out, realize that you didn't write anything down. Probably not gonna remember a lot of that. Not that I've ever seen that happen, but you know, if we would be just as guilty, if we don't, you know, show that we're invested in what they're telling us, and, and there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, I don't want to write that down. In fact, whatever award really for that person to whatever it was, they told you is so important that we had to stop. So you wrote that down. So to me, it's, it's showing where your priorities are, which is the organization beating as many people and the places that you may not have initially thought of records, you know, places that don't see a lot of attention, finding those places, the evidence technician, which is frequently, the person that works in the basement, you go find those people and, and meet them, show them they're part of the organization. And that gets around, you know, that you went all over, you know, so at that first week is critical and, and tough because you might have to tell some important people. No, no mayor says I'd like to let, like to meet this afternoon. I'm sorry, mayor. Um, I'm riding along with officer Johnson today at two o'clock. I can't meet you then. So it's you, you've got to set the tone as quickly as possible.
Dr. Nelson: Well, I would even say and people that are promoted from inside the organization needs to do the same thing. You know, they need to go back out and familiar them, familiarize themselves with their entire organization and connect and then worry about the community and everybody else. So. Great. Great. Well gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. I know we could keep talking on this. Like you said, we're turning an aircraft carrier in the middle of a stream. It takes a while and there's lots of ideas that go along with it. So thank you for joining me.
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