#intelligentpolicing – Simon Guilfoyle’s ‘Systems’ Thinking

Since long before I retired from the police and like many others, I became increasingly disillusioned by the levels of inept management within British policing. Although I often expressed my views on the matter, they were often ignored. This was mostly due to my lowly position in the hierarchy of policing, along with a (perceived) lack of any formal qualification actually ‘allowing’ me to formulate or have an opinion…

When there was any interest expressed in my opinion, it was usually shown by platitudinous (deaf) ears. I had to do things differently, firstly I sought to add credence to my opinions with academic study. Secondly, I turned to blogging and social media where I set about trying to publicise the issues I was concerned about, the ones that were impacting on operational police officers and the public they serve.

I engaged in regular debate and contributed to various blogs and forums looking at policing in general, police reform in particular and got my head around some management theory. I started to take an even greater interest in the wider public sector issues, government austerity measures, politics and the policies impacting upon police service delivery.

During this mostly educated (but also sometimes anecdotal/opinionated) engagement with others, I have found some very interesting, knowledgable and highly experienced people on my virtual travels. In addition to all the somewhat simplistic (but still valid) opinion of many, I found the views and sound observations of Inspector Simon Guilfoyle to be of great interest.

I contend that all numerical targets are arbitrary and cause dysfunctional behaviours, but argue for relevant and proportionate performance measurement within a systems context…(InspSimon Guilfoyle)

Simon, in a similar vein to Steve over at The Thin Blue Line Blog (but by different methods), seeks to cut out the cancer of current management methods in policing. His ‘systems’ thinking, in addition to being interesting, is also presented in a manner which is very easy to understand.

Simon produces ’evidence’ based and ‘academically’ sound information and opinion, often published in humourous manner via his blog on the subject (see here). He has highlighted many of the issues currently driving the predominant management methods within policing today. He previously pointed out how; the impact of targets on policing delivery are a crime in progress. There is (thankfully) an increasing group of people within policing who are now in total agreement with his views, I would also count myself as part of that group.

In addition to the interesting and acclaimed pieces of work he’s done on the subject recently, Simon has now produced a book about ’systems’ in policing (see below). His book is receiving some great comments and many recommendations; it has to be commended to anyone responsible for management within policing.

This book could be game changing for the police service. Systems thinking theory can be viewed as complex and challenging, but not for Simon Guilfoyle. In this book he provides a comprehensive and cohesive explanation of the theory based on years of research and his practical experience of applying systems thinking in a policing context…(Ch.Supt. Irene Curtis)

Simon’s book is also available as an Amazon Kindle e-book (click image) and more reviews can be found HERE.

Intelligent Policing: How Systems Thinking Methods Eclipse Conventional Management Practice by Simon Guilfoyle - A Triarchy Press Publication
Foreword: John Seddon
Book type: Paperback (and e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-909470-05-7

Today, despite mostly trying their best, many police managers are actually prevented from doing the ‘right’ thing for their officers, for policing delivery and for the public they supposedly serve.

On this morning’s Chris Evans Breakfast show (BBC Radio 2); Baroness Julia Neuberger, whilst discussing the news of Margaret Thatcher’s recent demise alluded to a predominant problem here - ”If you want to lead, you won’t always be liked.” Too often, our political ‘leaders’ (and police managers) are far too preoccupied with public opinion and press relations. They are so tied up with pandering to that opinion, be it actual or perceived, they end up being just too busy to actually do their job.

There is no doubt that management within any public sector organisation is an undertaking that is an onerous task these days however; the most important task is simply to manage the delivery of a good ’service’ to our society, nothing more and nothing less! Perhaps the time has come for police ’managers’ to try some new methods?

You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew…(Albert Einstein)

Try some ‘systems thinking’ in your police leadership and management, not for you but for us!

Random examples of previous articles from my blog

• Police Scotland: The way forward for British Policing? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• #SocialMedia: Inspector Gadget and Satyagraha (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• British Policing: The Engineer of It’s Own Demise? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• #Policing – Hard times ahead but still got my fingers crossed (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• #Policing – The fallout from #Bettison (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• British Policing: (Avoidable?) UKcop #FAIL (bankbabble.wordpress.com)

How come there’s all this bullshit when I’ve only got two cows?

The now familiar “You have two cows“ jokes were originally a parody of the typical educational examples used in introductory-level economics course material.

A typical example is: “You have two cows; you want chickens; you set out to find another farmer who has chickens and wants a cow”.

The above example was used to show the limitations of the barter system, leading to the eventual introduction of currency and money. Some later examples of the jocular parody include…

• SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows. – You give one to your neighbour
• COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. – The State takes both and gives you some milk
• NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.
• BUREAUCRACY: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.
• CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
• RBS (VENTURE CAPITALISM): You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.
• SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
• AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.
• GREEK CORPORATION: You have two cows. You borrow lots of euros to build barns, milking sheds, hay stores, feed sheds, dairies, cold stores, abattoir, cheese unit and packing sheds. You still only have two cows.
• FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
• JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide.
• ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You decide to have lunch.
• SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.
• CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
• INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.
• IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the sh1t out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.
• BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad and, despite reading the label carefully, you find one of your cows is actually a horse.
  • WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive but more difficult to reach than your two sheep.
  • SCOTS CORPORATION: You have two cows. It’s open to debate as to whether or not you own your cows, or they’re just a constituent part of the greater British herd.
  • NORTHERN IRISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. After hundreds of years you still can’t decide if they are Nationalist or Republican cows… Oh Feck!
• AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for lunch and a few beers to celebrate!

I wonder how the ‘two cows’ illustration should be applied to the British Public Sector and in particular, the management of our Policing and other emergency services? Any ideas?

#SocialMedia: Inspector Gadget and Satyagraha

This week saw the demise of Inspector Gadget (see below), now ‘followers’ and even the mainstream media are asking – Did he jump or was he pushed?

Gadget’s blog was active for seven years and enjoyed some 13M+ hits, more popular even than some political and/or media blogs and hardly the popularity expected of some ‘fringe’ commentator or “silly” author, as Gadget was once described by the then Policing Minister Nick Herbert.

Although his musings were often a little caustic, some would say bordering upon ranting, I for one would suggest the closing of his social media accounts will be a great loss to both the police and the public alike…

One of the best-known anonymous police bloggers and tweeters has ceased writing after seven years of providing a sometimes irreverent officers eye view of the world of policing – at a time when officers who blog or tweet unofficially are coming under increasing pressure to give up their activities…(guardian.co.uk)

But why did Gadget start blogging? As The Monday Books Blog (below) pointed out; we now live  in an era when many senior coppers are more adept at spin than in catching serious criminals. A factor that was probably the initial spark for Gadget and one that became clear after attending a training seminar.

He said it was “60 mind-numbing minutes of complete nonsense” but it was also his love of and for ‘the job’ that was always behind his comment. That and a desire to explain to those he served (the public), what was happening to their police service and why.

Inspector Gadget – Officer Down: …This country’s police were once the envy of the world; now they struggle to retain the confidence of their own people and have long since lost the support and confidence of the British public…(The Thin Blue Line Blog)

As Gadget et al continually pointed out, much to the annoyance of their senior officers and politicians alike; our British policing system is now “weighed down by political correctness, burdensome targets, excessive paperwork, non-core police activity and incessant government tinkering”.

Few blogs last anything like that long – certainly not when they’re updated two or three times a week…(The Monday Books Blog)

There are fewer officers than ever before on our streets. Policing still requires a root and branch overhaul – not the piecemeal structural reform so beloved of successive governments. As many have pointed out previously and I include myself here; “there needs to be a cultural rejuvenation that restores to trained professionals the freedom to take their own decisions”, obviously within the law. The following strap line to Gadget’s blog was chosen with good reason.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing…(Edmund Burke)

Four days ago Gadget wrote what I believe was his final post - George Dixon wouldn’t have stood for this crap – in it he wrote; ”Here, as Rodgers and Hammerstein once wrote, are some of my favourite things… Favourite Colour: Blue Favourite Book: 1984, George Orwell. Favourite Film: The Great Escape Overall Favourite Quote: “I am no Inspector Gadget” Tim Godwin OBE QPM, Dep Commissioner, Met Police . Favourite Quote about me: “He is not an Inspector” Nick Herbert.”

Those close to the Gadget say “he has grown frustrated at the cuts to the police service and feels he is unable to enact any change through his writing.” It is not known whether he has been directly warned by senior officers in his force however; he’s actually quit at a time when several officers tweeting under pseudonyms say they are being intimidated off social media by their bosses.

 

Too many senior police officers, politicians and business managers espouse continually about supporting  openness honesty and freedom of speech for their employees however; it appears comment is only ever allowed freely when it tows the corporate line and certainly never if it appears to question the capability and ethics of the organisational leadership. If this is true and I suspect it is, this is not only a worrying trend but also, it flies in the face of recent and much heralded changes to government policy designed to protect public sector whistleblowers.

Whistleblowing legislation is to be overhauled and a government consultation held to investigate whether the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 is failing to protect those who speak out from being victimised, harassed and even sacked by their employers…(guardian.co.uk)

Social media platforms can be very powerful tools and should always be used responsibly. Over recent years there have been many people, for whatever reason, use social media as a platform for their rantings and defamatory, discriminatory or malicious purposes. Social media has given a louder voice to the individual however; there is a fine line between acceptable and improper use and behaviour.

A political blogger who sparked online uproar after being arrested for filming a council hearing has been ordered to pay £25,000 in libel damages to a council’s chief executive over what the high court described as an “unlawful campaign of harassment, defamation and intimidation”…(guardian.co.uk)

Most professional people acknowledge the fact that in sensitive jobs like the police, military and healthcare, Twitter and Facebook needs to be used with the greatest of care. It’s one of the reasons why so many have individuals have feared using it and why so many organisations still frown upon its use by their employees however; it is possible to make social media work professionally. Every organisation needs to understand the implications of social media and have a policy about how it should be used.

I have read the ACPO guidelines on social media use for police officers so you don’t have to. I totally get the operational and personal security stuff. Let me summarise my views on the rest for you. It is the people who make and implement stupid decisions who damage public confidence, not the people who write about it…(Inspector Gadget)

In 1921 C.P. Scott, Editor of The Guardia.n at the time said “Comment is free but facts are sacred” – we all have an entitlement to our opinion, shouldn’t those comments be listened to (and acted upon) when they’re delivered by someone who knows/understands what they are talking about and are based upon fact?

Individuals and/or organisations should have no fears about social media, so long as it is being used properly and factually however; what they do need to worry about is having their ineptitude exposed because of it.

Perhaps a few more of us should try to adopt a little of Gandhi‘s methodology and insist on some truth – the Satyagraha ethos - ”be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Related articles

• Police blogger quits as officers come under pressure over unofficial tweets (guardian.co.uk)
• Farewell, Inspector Gadget (mondaybooks.wordpress.com)
• UK Cop Shuts Down Social Media Accounts, Citing Official Pressure (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• Social Media and Blogging…. (inspjulietbravo.wordpress.com)