I sat down with Gordon Graham the other day and talked at length with him about law enforcement trainers. (By the way, I ll use the latter term interchangeably with instructor and teacher as we progress.) If you re not familiar with the name, Gordon is widely regarded as one of the premier instructors working with law enforcement and many other professions. Sheriffs, police and fire chiefs, city managers, human resource officers and yes, even regular street cops have learned valuable even career and/or life-saving information from this man. Gordon is a great storyteller, and had he been born centuries before, surely he would have been the one chosen to pass on the tales that become legends and the facts that turn into history.
I ve had the privilege of knowing Graham since we were both teaching at an Orange County, Calif., college in the early 1990s. Since then, I ve taken the opportunity to attend Graham s classes. I do this not only to learn about the topic at hand, but also to learn how to be a better instructor from one of the best I ve ever seen. With this fact in mind, I recently had an epiphany (also known as a great idea which, frankly, is quite rare for me) that this would be a good forum to share Graham s advice for both aspiring and veteran instructors.
He d just returned from one of his many trips around the country when we started talking at his house on a recent Friday afternoon. The conversation began with Graham reminiscing about a traffic stop he made one night in the 1970s, not too long after being cut loose from his California Highway Patrol (CHP) training to work on downtown Los Angeles freeways. He had pulled over three male suspects in a bad area with no backup and did not really control them once they were out of the car. Moments later, a black Rambler (yes, a Rambler) pulled up behind him. It had magnetic LAPD signs on the doors, and within seconds, three Los Angeles Metro Division cops exited the car. They immediately sized up the situation and quickly got proactive with the suspects. Soon all three were in custody for carrying concealed handguns.
Graham realized he was in over his head to the max. His young life could have ended right there. One of the LAPD officers recognized his need for immediate training. Graham remembers being given an awareness adjustment with the words, You dumb #%&*, you almost got yourself killed. From there, rather than taking a we re better than you because we wear a different uniform attitude, this veteran officer Jimmy Vasquez invited Graham to ride with him.
Graham refers to this as a formative incident in his career in which he saw the decency of professionals firsthand. He took the invitation and rode with Vasquez and other Metro officers. He recognized his need for a crash course in Street Survival 101, and thanks to these cops, he got it. Graham developed a better sense of how to safely work the streets of Los Angeles and a great deal of respect for its police officers.
Graham had spun this story in response to my questions. With that, he gave the first piece of advice he has for law enforcement instructors: It doesn t matter who your students are or where they work. What matters is that as you stand in front of them, you remember they re all there to learn from you. Regardless of the uniform or the agency or even their sex or race, make them better at their jobs the same way Jimmy Vasquez did for Graham.
Graham then started talking about what it takes to make a good law enforcement instructor in today s environment. He quickly listed his top three characteristics and then provided some thoughts about each:
- Ability to deliver the message;
- Experience and credibility; and
- Passion for the job.
Ability to Deliver the Message
Cops often refer to Graham as the edutainer. Not only does he effectively communicate, but he does so with a consistent display of humor (he s quite hilarious at times) that compliments and stimulates the learning process. In his capacity for humor, Graham is widely recognized as a consummate master. One of his mantras is leave them laughing, leave them learning. This is good advice for any instructor as long as the message is delivered in an appropriate manner.
Graham s basic formula is to use his humor as a method to enhance the learning process for the students. To illustrate this, he recounted how he once attended an eight hour presentation on headlight analysis. Headlight analysis? For eight hours? Shoot me right now and get it over with! Yup, that was my reaction as well.
But the truth is, the instructor was so good that he made the topic one of the most fascinating classes Graham had ever attended. This instructor successfully delivered the message on a difficult topic and made a difference with his students.
In this vein, a basic truth about teaching cops is apparent: You must get and keep their attention if learning is to take place. Humor can be a very effective tool to help you accomplish this.
Graham s recognition as a law enforcement instructor started off by word of mouth from cop to cop that this guy is funny as hell. It wasn t an overnight process, but by working hard at developing his presentation skills and knowledge, while also controlling stage fright, it finally progressed to people saying This guy is funny as hell and knows what he s talking about.
Graham is the first to admit that he s challenged in some areas like coordination and the patience to handle people who complain about his officers. But blessed with a good sense of humor, he s parlayed it into an integral part of his instructional success, especially when it comes to delivering the message.
And that s really the bottom line: Facilitating the learning and getting the message across so cops can be safer and more successful in their work.
Graham and I agreed that this is a calling. Instructors must want to carry out this kind of career mission rather than being assigned to do so or teaching to benefit one s own ego. The most important person in the classroom is each student who is there to be part of the learning process.
In this context, Graham s next piece of advice is this: Whether you re a new trainer or a veteran instructor, it s important that you develop and maintain your own unique style of effectively delivering the mission.
Experience & Credibility
Graham s first step toward becoming a law enforcement instructor took place during the time that the hallucinogenic drug PCP was starting to become a significant problem in Los Angeles. He researched the physical and behavioral effects of the drug and developed a PCP Officer Survival Guide. Photocopied and folded to fit inside a ticket book, it was originally just a tool to help Graham and his friends handle these dangerous suspects. It was revised a number of times, reproduced and eventually distributed to other cops.
From this came his first instructional experience. Due to his expertise and his experience, he was more or less ordered to train CHP Division Commanders and other ranking officers on the effects of this drug as well as the do s and don ts of dealing with people under the influence. If you weren t around at that time, PCP had a significant impact on law enforcement. And, as I hope all of us would do, Graham put a lot of effort into preparing for the presentations he made to the CHP brass and later other cops.
It s not an option to look like a moron when you re standing in front of a bunch of brass and peers who want to be educated on an important issue and he didn t. Graham s experience in dealing with suspects under the influence of PCP allowed him to give his audience a better understanding of how to effectively deal with these potentially dangerous individuals. He was on the road to becoming a trainer of cops.
From there, Graham found himself involved in teaching a wide range of topics, all of which he developed through experience and expertise. These included hazmat, civil liability, risk management, workplace harassment and so on. When he graduated from law school, he became the de facto CHP expert on civil liability as well.
As we talked, Graham drew a direct link from experience to credibility. Clearly, the latter comes most effectively from hands-on experience. You may have sat through classes with self-appointed experts on a topic. Cops see through this due to their developed BS detectors. But how does an instructor legitimately develop this aspect, especially if the firsthand stuff doesn t always come their way?
Graham answered with another example from his formative cop years. As a new highway patrolman, his training officer told him to learn from others who had the credibility and experience he needed. He was instructed that whenever he was in court waiting for trial on an arrest, he should not waste time just waiting in the hallways. Instead, Graham was told to check in with the master calendar clerks to find out what interesting matters murders, kidnappings, robberies, narcotics cases, etc were on the docket for that day. He would then sit in the courtroom and listen to veteran police officers even the legendary types like the old LAPD Hat Squad detectives as they testified.
The benefits from this were two-fold: First, he learned vicariously through the testimony of these professionals. Through this process, he received an incredible learning opportunity focused on a wide range of topics, including how to run an investigation with attention to the details that would pay off with a guilty verdict. Just as important, by watching these veteran officers, he also learned how to be a good speaker in front of a public audience. Unflappable was one term he used to describe these cops on the stand, and clearly the object lessons have paid off for him.
This carried on throughout his career, including developing his expertise in narcotics thanks to the guidance of several LAPD cops, such as Mike Guy. Mike had at that time accumulated a huge number of narcotics influence arrests and convictions. Rather than taking a negative attitude towards an eager-to-learn officer from another agency in this case the CHP Mike Guy took the time to help Graham develop his own narcotics experience and credibility.
So, there are a couple of good experience and credibility object lessons for law enforcement trainers/instructors in these stories. First, if you re interested in teaching a topic but don t have the experience and credibility, find ways to develop it. Second, if you re a seasoned instructor with tons of experience and credibility, take the time to help those who are trying to follow in your footsteps. Right now, we re seeing a huge loss of cop knowledge all across the spectrum due to the baby boomer retirement effect. To soften the loss, Graham suggests departments capture the knowledge and even war stories of veteran officers before they leave. He explained that war stories often possess some very important learning points. So long as they are not heavily loaded with BS and ego trips, these can be a valuable resource for passing down lessons learned rather than allowing them to just disappear with the retiring officers. Even if the department doesn t pursue such a program, I think it would be time well spent if you as an instructor talked to the dinosaurs at your shop who are willing to share their knowledge so that it can be archived in some form before they move on to the well-deserved joys of retirement.
Passion for the Job
How well do you relate to the men and women who come into your training with the impatience of youth or the demands of other responsibilities, wanting to learn yet tolerating a perceived waste of their time? How committed are you to your role as a law enforcement instructor? How about going in as early as needed to set up the classroom or the range so it s ready for your students before they arrive? Where do you fit as far as the above criteria?
If you re currently a law enforcement trainer or aspire to be one, it boils down to having a passion for passing the knowledge from one generation of cops to the next. Graham thinks our best officers those who really want the job should be selected for this critical role. It's up to you to decide whether or not you share the passion for this unique opportunity in law enforcement.
Working the streets is great, booting a door on SWAT is terrific, hitting a house with a narcotics search warrant in your hands and finding the primary suspect holding the dope is a taste of sweet success. But when done with good intent and true dedication, the passion for training cops has its own built-in reward. Graham has experienced this numerous times and perhaps you have too. This is when former students approach you to talk or call or send an e-mail. In whatever form, the message is the same: In one way or another, you made a difference in their lives through what you taught them. If you re truly dedicated to training cops, this is where the passion for teaching really pays off with a moment of personal satisfaction. It s a gift you ll take to your grave, as I suspect Graham most certainly will. And it s perhaps a self-sustaining effect as well. In other words, through your passion for providing good training, you may indeed instill that same passion in the hearts of those you teach and therefore help mentor the next generation of law enforcement instructors.
There s a great line during the movie Gladiator. Before he leads his men into battle, Russell Crowe s character tells them, What we do today will echo into history. This powerful phrase came to me as Graham talked about what he s doing now that he s retired from the CHP. Of course, like many of us in law enforcement who enjoy teaching and training, he really hasn t retired in the classic sense. Instead, recognizing that he s in the last third of his life, Graham has again focused his energy and talent on his next career evolution: With a life-long commitment to law enforcement, he wants to take everything he s worked on for more than three decades and create a platform that will last past him. All of his work is embodied in Lexipol a company designed around his innovative Five Pillars of Success with the goal of improving the quality of public safety policy, procedures and training in America. You can see for yourself by visiting www.lexipol.com.
There s a need for more Gordon Grahams in our world. While you and I may not possess the same level of skill and success as Graham, if we commit ourselves to developing and maintaining our experience, credibility, passion for teaching cops and ability to deliver the message, we just may find our own level of success.
Keep in mind, one of the best indicators of instructional success comes when former students contact you to share that something they learned from you made a difference in their careers and perhaps even saved their lives. For a dedicated law enforcement instructor, there may be no greater reward, no greater level of success.
Note: We believe so strongly in what Gordon Graham is doing, we re providing a regular video feature on lawofficer.com. Click on the link in the upper right of the home page. You won t be disappointed. eds.