What Problem Does This Solve?

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We explore why organizations rush toward new tech, convinced that shiny equipment will solve their deepest problems when often the issues are fundamentally about training, judgment, and decision-making.

• The Boeing 737 MAX case study demonstrates how technological "fixes" without proper training led to catastrophic failures
• Most resource decisions are reactive, not strategic, with organizations buying gear instead of investing in people
• Tools are the default solution because they offer tangible ROI, political safety, and avoid accountability for leadership
• Technology enhances execution after a decision has been made but doesn't affect whether the decision itself was appropriate
• Training operates "left of bang" by teaching when to act and how to assess situations, regardless of available tools
• The critical question: "If you removed all your high-speed gear, would your people still make good decisions?"
• The real ROI comes from developing good judgment under pressure, not from acquiring more equipment
• Rather than measuring success by resources spent, focus on measurable outcomes and performance improvements

Don't forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber-only episodes. If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend. Training changes behavior.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior
Podcast.
In our experience, we often seeorganizations and individuals
rush toward new technology andequipment, convinced that these
shiny solutions will solve theirdeepest problems.
But here's a critical questionmany fail to ask what problem
does this solve?
In today's episode of the HumanBehavior Podcast, greg and I
explore the reasons behind theallure of new gear, highlighting

(00:21):
the significant differencebetween perceived solutions and
genuine needs.
We discuss real-world examplesand practical strategies to help
listeners identify when newequipment truly adds value and
when it merely serves as acostly distraction or a pacifier
for other problems.
Join us as we dive deeper intounderstanding the human behavior
driving these decisions anduncover how enhancing
decision-making skills andinvesting in training can often

(00:42):
provide more substantiallong-term benefits than simply
upgrading gear.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
We hope you enjoyed the episode.
Don't forget to check out ourPatreon channel for additional
content and subscriber-onlyepisodes.
If you enjoyed the podcast,please consider leaving us a
review and, more importantly,sharing it with a friend.
Thank you for your time andremember training changes
behavior.
All right, greg.
So for today's conversationwe've got a good one, and it's

(01:07):
around the central theme of whatproblem does this solve?
And that question alone is avery simple thought experiment,
thought exercise that you canuse in a lot of situations and
we're going to get into that.
But I'll give sort of somebackground on this and just in

(01:28):
general, we've talked about thiskind of before in general, like
what we provide is a thing witha K, not a thing with a G, but
we'll get into kind of like whythis kind of keeps happening
over and over again in a numberof different areas.
And so the idea is a lot oforganizations will often invest
in tools to fix problems or thatare, you know where the problem

(01:49):
is actually fundamentally abouttraining, judgment,
decision-making.
We assign a technology to thatand that's kind of like
throughout human history we'vealways come up with
technological solutions toproblems.
That's not generally the issue,but the issue is it's kind of
becomes the wrong solution.
And so we're going to talkabout today about why you know
we have that tendency and why,you know, not only is it
ineffective but it can be veryoften dangerous.

(02:11):
And so you know me, I watch alot of uh, when I do watch TV, I
usually watch some, some sortof documentary.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah Well, unless my, my wife, you're not watching
Golden Girls.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
And then then we're watching Real Housewives of
whatever, which I can't stand,but I also find it extremely
informative and very, veryinsightful into pop culture and
society as a whole.
But that's a different episode.
So today I watched one on theBoeing 737 MAX.
And so there was all theseproblems with it, right, and so

(03:04):
there was all these problemswith it, right?
So Boeing, their 737 MAX wasdeveloped to compete with rival
competitor Airbus' more fuelefficient, larger plane.
So rather than designing a newairframe from scratch, having to
go through that whole processmassive investment, all kinds of
stuff you have to do, what theydid was they took their
existing 737 platform and addedlarger engines.
Now, the key reason why they didthis was because the you know
pilots who are currently ratedand certified to fly the 737
would not have to go through anyrecertification process.
It wouldn't be something long,meaning it could be adopted very
quickly.
Everyone like this, like, hey,this gives us this new
capability.
Everyone still has the you knowthe requirements to continue to

(03:27):
fly the plane, so we don't haveto change anything.
Wow, this is a great solution.
And look at what it's going todo for our bottom line.
You know, it's basically thesame plane.
So that was kind of the conceptbehind it.
But the problem with this newdesign of adding these larger
engines is that the placement ofthe engines cause the
aircraft's nose to pitch upwardunder certain flight conditions.

(03:49):
Now, I'm not a pilot, butthat's not always a good thing
if your nose starts to pitchupward.
And so, because this designissue what they had, they said,
okay, well, we're going tocounteract that and we're going
to create a technological fix.
And so they said, rather thanagain spending the time and the
money and the resources andpulling pilots offline and

(04:10):
getting them trained up and hey,this is what happens, but you
can counteract that what theydid was they just implemented
this new system called MCASManeuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System.
So the idea was the MCASautomatically pushed the nose of
the plane down if it detectedthat the aircraft was climbing
too steeply.
Now, once again, greg, I am nota pilot, but I think, for a

(04:32):
significant amount of the timethat you're flying, you don't
want the nose of the plane to bepushed downward during your
flight.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I'm not going to sit here and believe that Boeing
made a mistake, okay, so ifyou're trying to get me to 100,
I'm just saying that's a littlehard to follow.
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, I don't want to get.
I like my life, I like beingabove the ground.
I don't want to get taken outby some Boeing team.
No, but so here's the thingthey didn't.
Boeing didn't train pilots onthe existence of this MCAS
system, didn't boeing didn'ttrain pilots on the existence of
this mcast system.
And a lot of the pilots I foundout after the investigation
they were unaware that was evenon their aircraft.
So they're flying this planethinking, okay, yeah, it's the

(05:10):
same plane, yeah, newer, biggerengines, whatever.
They didn't even know thatthere's this thing in there that
might push the nose of theplane down.
So you know, it also relied ona single sensor and if that
sensor failed, this system againthat pushes the nose of the
plane down could activateincorrectly.
So from this, there were twofatal crashes Lion Air and
Ethiopian Airlines occurredafter this MCAS forced the nose

(05:33):
of the plane down repeatedly.
Flight crews obviously had noidea what was happening, so
therefore they had no idea howto correct it.
So people said, oh, it must'vebeen pilot error, it's like.
Well, no, it's not my fault ifI don't know what's going on, I
can't diagnose the problem andlet alone, even if I did
diagnose the problem, know howto solve it, because no one
trained me right.
So the core failure?
Obviously, boeing tried tosolve a design challenge with

(05:56):
automation and software.
They failed to invest intraining in the human beings who
would be responsible formanaging that automation.
They relied on the tech insteadof investing in decision
support, orientation, crewreadiness, situational awareness
, those kinds of things.
So, basically, boeing gavethese pilots a new capability
without giving them thecognitive framework to manage it

(06:18):
.
So it's like here's this newthing, go out and you'll be fine
.
Well, that's not how that stuffworks.
And so the end result of thisone 346 lives lost worldwide
grounding of the entire 737 maxfleet.
Boeing, I believe, lost over$20 billion in costs and legal
claims it's probably even higherthan that and then years of

(06:39):
reputation damage in theaviation safety, which then
compiles anytime you have anyother problem right, that's, you
know becomes the issue.
So, like I said, the big,central theme of what we're
talking about today is you know,just what problem does this
solve?
That's the central question oftoday's podcast and today's

(07:01):
discussion.
And what you know?
It's a very simple, you know,it's a simple thought experiment
to coming up with any newsolution to anything.
It's like well, what problem?
We often come up with solutionsto problems that don't exist
sometimes, and when it comesdown to these types of decisions
, like most resource decisionsare made reactively, not
strategically.

(07:21):
So the idea is okay, somethingwent wrong, let's buy something
to fix it.
Okay, people say they don'tfeel confident or something's
going on.
Well, let's buy some gear,right, rather than investing in
our people, let's go invest in aproduct, a system, an app and
then just let our people figureit out.

(07:42):
So you know you have to addresssome questions, right.
Is this fix, addressing a rootcause or just the symptoms?
Are we solving for performanceor just for optics?
Right, and tools?
I've also seen we'll get intothis tools are often used as
shortcuts for difficultconversations, or they're used

(08:04):
in place of having a difficultconversation, and so really, the
gear becomes a pacifier, notreally a solution.
So that's kind of big picture,greg, and I know you have some
other examples there, but I'llstop and let you jump in here as
well.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Thanks.
So first I didn't want to havethis discussion based on the
title, so when I first read youknow what problem does this
solve?
The first thing I got is aponytail Friday shirt wearing
guy in the board meeting that'sleaning back and asking that
question with his arms above hishead with his fingers

(08:39):
interlaced Right.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
And then the second image I got that's the guy.
No, no, no, no, no.
But that's that's the guytrying to sound smart, not
actually asking the wrongquestion, right?
That's why I'm trying todescribe that.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, the scientific term is douchebag the same
douchebag has inside of his coatpocket, his wool coat pocket, a
laminated card and there's afollow-up question is how do we
scale this pocket laminated card?
And there's a follow-upquestion is how do we scale this
?
And he has no idea that eitherof those questions are, you know
, douchebag one-on-one, thatthey're just to make it look
like he's paying attention andinvolved in it.
Then I started reading into itand and when I got to the, the,

(09:17):
the 737, I couldn't believe thenumbers and I couldn't believe
it was Boeing.
But then you wrote somethingand it really stuck, it really
resonated, and you wrote thatmost resource decisions are made
reactively, not strategically.
And we have a bunch of policeofficers and law enforcement
corrections courts that listento the show or that we know

(09:38):
personally.
And I would say, just changeout Brian's sentence just a
little.
Most resource decisions aremade reactively, not
strategically.
Now let's take that samesentence to the dojo floor.
Now let's take it slide,stopping up to a police call
where shots have been fired andsomebody's down and maybe an
officer's down.
Now let's take it out to thetraining that we're doing on the

(10:00):
shooting range.
If we're making our decisionsreactively and we're not
implementing or inputting thenew and incoming information
strategically, then we're goingto slide directly towards the
problem at full speed, with nofurther chance of solving it
than we had when we were on theouter ring circle in the drain

(10:23):
looking at the problem.
And what do I mean by that?
I mean that you have tounderstand that if we don't
create a cognitive framework forproblems, then we're never
going to solve it.
And, Brian, you said you know,are we solving for performance
or just for optics?
Do you remember during this, acouple of years ago, within the
last five years, where policeagencies oh man, you can't have

(10:46):
an American flag on your policeuniform, okay, that's going to
piss some people off.
And then we went the other way.
Well, you don't want to haveshined black boots because that
brings in the militant.
What we are doing, Brian, is ona whim, or on one written
complaint, or on hearingsomebody say man, that certainly
seems like it.
You know, it's a point ofagitation.

(11:06):
We were changing policy and andit's the same answer over and
over and over what?
What thought did we put behindthis before we decided to go
forward and fix it Right?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
And and you bring up kind of reinforcing the point
that you know this, this toolcan be.
When I said you know this, thisa tool can be.
When I said you know tools areoften used as shortcuts for
difficult conversations.
So rather than having adifficult conversation, we
wanted to point to the flag orthe boots and say that's the
problem it's like well you'rethat, that's clearly not the

(11:39):
issue.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like you know, it's like what?

Speaker 1 (11:42):
what does that have what?
What does someone's shoe haveto really do with the situation?
Or is that symbolizingsomething larger that alludes to
the problem that you'reactually getting at, but you
don't know how to articulate it,so you can point.
But you, but I can point tothat, I can point to that thing.
You know what I mean.
So I say, well, that's gotta beit, it's, it's, it's the, it's
the red hat you're wearing andit's like well, okay, no, it's

(12:07):
not.
That's a symbol of somethingthat you don't like, so I want
to get.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
I know you yeah, you had a good example of that,
spurred a memory motion link forme.
Oh yeah, and I'd love you tobring that up too.
So I lived through somethingthat most Americans have long
forgotten and and let me be thehistorical record.
So the civil war the civil war,being the musket man.

(12:35):
So there was a thing that cameout while I was a copper called
anti-lock breaking, and theycalled it ABS.
And we had a fleet full of, of,of, of, of, of, and they called
it ABS.
And we had a fleet full ofChev's.
And then we had the other, thebig gosh damn boats that I can't
think of the name of them, thatwere out there as the Mark
police cars, and all of thembecause there were fleet

(12:56):
vehicles.
They all came straight fromGeneral Motors with the ABS on
it.
Now, there wasn't a warning,there wasn't, by the way.
We changed all the systems thatwe told you about before they
were just on it.
Now, there wasn't a warning,there wasn't.
By the way, we changed all thesystems that we told you about
before they were just on there.
And the idea behind it was sound, because it was supposed to
allow a driver to maintainsteering control and shorten
stopping distance, andspecifically for emergency
situations like slipperysurfaces, the gravel roads,

(13:20):
those types of things where, ifyour wheels would lock up,
you're going to skid and losecontrol.
The only problem, withouttelling us about it and without
the additional training CapriceClassic and the other one I
still can't think of.
They put them on the fleetvehicles and said, hey, let the
let the gosh damn accidentsbegin.
So what happened is that whenyou press down on it, you had
first thing that came back was apulse rate.

(13:42):
The pedal would actually pushback towards you and it was a
rhythmic pattern like boop, boop, boop, and then, when it did
that, it made a clunking soundin the firewall cluck, cluck,
cluck.
And so you thought somethingfailed and you thought, holy
shit, the car's falling apartand you weren't stopping.
Well, you were stopping, youwere slowing speed and lessening
the inertia, but with the brakepushing back on you and that

(14:05):
noise, you thought you had asystems failure.
So people were just slidingthrough intersections and
ramming the car in front of themand oversteering.
Oh my God, I could tell you thestory.
And we were in gosh damn,what's the name of that little
city at eight mile, in KellyHarper Woods maybe and end of a
long pursuit and a dangeroussituation with shooting during

(14:26):
and after the pursuit.
And Rick Buley came up becausewe called for another car and
locals were on the scene andRick Buley had the brand new
sled on the fleet and he waspressing it and threw up his
hands to tell us I'm coming, andwent sliding right through the
crime scene and almost killedall of us and took out a light
pole, and so we went back to theadministration.
I mean, this all happened in aweekend, brian, and we're going

(14:48):
like what the hell happened toour scout cars?
And all of a sudden oursupervisors came the general
owners was literally across thestreet, came back and said oh,
it's the ABS.
So we nicknamed them theanti-STOT brakes because nobody
could figure it out.
Now, brian, with a short amountof time and with all the
complaints that we had and allthe dangers that happened to him

(15:09):
, it evolved significantlybecause we were speaking
directly to the people that wereputting them on the cars and
they were going oh wow, what agreat test case.
But I would ask you this.
I would say wouldn't it havebeen great to try a UX
experiment just for the hell ofit?
and say put some people out inthe parking lot with, like you

(15:31):
know, cones and water bags andstuff, and brian had never
occurred.
And and no, I'm gonna get onand say, oh yeah, we did all
this, brian it never occurred.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Well, yeah, they, they, no, they, they.
I'm sure they they tested it.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
But but you know, there was no, there was no there
was no sharing of what thatwould be.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
no, and and that was the thing, because you mentioned
that and I was like, oh my God,I still remember when I was
like 16 years old, so I hadn'tbeen driving legally for that
long, right and so I had to lockup the brakes.
Same thing Someone cut me offand they jumped out into traffic
and I remember just slamming onthe brakes and at that point I
know the ABS had changed alittle bit, but it was like this
really rapid, like feeling onyour foot which is really weird.

(16:08):
And then so what did itautomatically cause me to do is,
oh my God, there's somethingwrong.
And then I lift my foot up andthen I have to put it back down.
So the idea was that the ABS isthere, you know it works.
You stop faster because, ratherthan locking up the brakes and
sliding through, you actuallywill stop faster.
It's been proven to show that'sa better system.
But the first time youexperience that you're like, oh
my again, it's so counter toanything you've experienced so

(16:31):
far that it's completely foreign.
Until you have that experienceunless you have, it was just.
I still remember that.
Exactly what intersection I wasat too, because I almost
clipped the person.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Two completely different age groups.
Brian is much older than I am.
Two different things that welike.
Brian's a clog fanatic and Icertainly hate clogging.
And we could go down and say theMerc Grand Marquis is that it
Might be.
And what happened is we bothcame up with the same experience
.
So to me that's significant,brian.

(17:01):
And if we look at anotherairline thing, one of the things
that we talk about in class isthat when you think that your
engine is stalled, what do we do?
Intuitively, we know that whatwe need to do is bring the nose
down to gain the thrust, thelift, get the engines going
again.
And what do we do though?

(17:21):
We pull up because we're afraidof the ground again.
And what do we do though?
We pull up because we're afraidof the ground.
So your natural reaction on theABS was to fight the ABS, which
was actually doing the work foryou.
But guess what, if we don'thave a mental component and we
don't have a training component,then it's going to be like gosh
, damn, Martian arithmetic.
So no, the Crown Vic, the CrownVictoria, was the other one
that had it.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah.
So this is.
You know, it's alwaysinteresting to me, kind of like,
why tools are the default, andso it's really important to
understand that, how much itaffects us as humans.
Obviously we're sort of primedfor technological advancement.
That's how the human race hasstayed alive.
We've had to adapt to somesituation to make it easier for

(18:03):
the purpose of survival.
I mean, it's just ingrained inour DNA.
But the tools often become thisdefault for a number of fairly
simple reasons.
One tangible ROI right.
I get a return on investment,it's easier to budget, it's
easier to understand the costand what I'm going to get back
from that.
It's much easier to show offhey, look at this thing, look at

(18:26):
what we bought versus we'lllook at this new capability of
our people, or look at how theythink now.
So it's very, very easy just topoint to it and say there's the
camera, there's the metaldetector, there's this.
We have this thing now.
This thing is going to save us,this thing's going to help us,
we can rely on it, it'seffective, it's been tested,

(18:52):
it's been engineered and most ofthe time, really good and does
exactly what it's supposed to do.
I mean, I'm not bashing thetool or the technology itself.
I'm bashing how we use and howwe interact with it, and so it's
easier to point at something.
And then, just because ashumans we have sort of that
simplicity bias, right, wegravitate towards solutions that
are easier to understand andimplement.
It's easier to equip a personthan to train one.

(19:14):
If I take you right, somerandom person off the street,
and I go, okay, what is thisperson capable of?
But then I put you in a uniformand I put gear on you and I
give you a weapon system and Igive you all this stuff.
Well, suddenly, okay, well,this person, yeah, they've got
all the tools they need.
It's like giving someone youknow, hey, here's your garage,

(19:35):
completely built out foreverything a carpenter would
ever need.
Wow, this is awesome.
It's like, do you have anytraining in being a carpenter,
cutting wood or anything?
No, it's like, well, that's alluseless.
Then I mean, it's that partcomes first, and so I'm not
trying to oversimplify that.
It really is that simple.
Sometimes, and, as you know,with anything, with any

(19:55):
organization, it's politicalsafety, right, I can say, and
which I would go one stepfurther with political safety
and said it just makes us feelbetter, right, if I get better
gear right One.
It's a better soundbite, it's abetter headline.
It's not going to causefriction with people or unions
or culture or accountability.
It's like, look, I dideverything I could.

(20:17):
I got my people the best gearout there.
It's like okay, and we pat eachother on the back for that.
But it's like okay, and we pateach other on the back for that.
But it's like sometimes it'sjust done to make us feel better
and a big one.
There's less accountability withthat Meaning.
There's sort of this I canavoid being introspective and

(20:38):
really digging in deep, becausetools don't challenge leadership
decisions.
They just don't.
Tools aren't going to talk backto you, they're not going to
say, hey, this is so messed upor we're being used incorrectly.
The tool is just going to doexactly what it was designed to
do, and so there's no feedbackloop, there's no feedback
mechanism.
Well, training does that.
Training actually says, oh shit, are we doing this right?

(21:01):
Is this the right thing to doat?

Speaker 2 (21:03):
this time, Because now you're going through the
steps of doing it Exactly.
It'll magnify it, It'll shine alight on it.
So to that end and you broughtup a couple of great buckets
there, Brian.
And so if we talk about ROI,simplicity, political safety and
introspection, if we just havethose to throw some darts at you
know Nico's a lieutenant on thefire department, so very proud

(21:25):
of my son, Nico.
It's amazing that he has timeto do anything with all the fun
he has.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, I know, especially now he's got the
grandparents to watch the kidand the dog anytime he wants.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
So now you're reading me, so I'll give you an example
.
Federally mandated politicalsafety one smoke alarms, okay,
and we talk about smoke alarmsfor commercial and residential,
but there's a glaring studythat's been around for a good
long time that says thatconventional smoke alarms aren't
effective at waking up children.
In fact, only about 20% of thetime are they able to do that.

(21:58):
Okay, nobody's addressed thatyet because the body count's not
high enough.
Do you get what I'm trying tosay?
So right now, the return ofinvestment seems to be enough
that, even though it's apolitical thing, nobody's
touching it.
Well then we talk aboutintrospection, and I wrote down
let's get ahead of this.
Can you imagine the firstcouple of people?
And, look, homelessness hasbeen around since there's been

(22:19):
people without homes.
But I mean, if you talk aboutriding the rail and the old bum,
you know cutting into the woodto say, hey, this place has got
good stew.
Or you know, watch it, thisguy's got a shotgun or whatever
else.
Cops a long time ago andmilitary, certainly, brian,
you'll remember this came upwith the idea of refugee camps.
Refugee camp was a short-termsolution for somebody that was

(22:42):
displaced by a moment of crisis,and guess what those tend to
turn into a long-term.
Hey, we wanted to get ahead ofthis, but nobody thought what's
the expiration date on this?
When does this turn into apumpkin?
This is no longer a goodsolution.
And now the hygiene and thisand the waste and the you know,
and some of them because of thedrug use or the mental health

(23:03):
challenge, and what happens isit gets out of control.
But, brian, at the beginning weall had good intentions, we all
patted ourselves on the back,going in right.
Give you just one more.
I remember when we had to get anew oven and remember we live
in the middle of nowhere, so wehad to order the shit from
Denver.
That takes a week to get thereby rail and then to find a guy
to install this system in ourhouse and there was a little

(23:26):
metal flange that he hadinstalled on the ground and a
metal flange on the bottom ofthe stove.
And I was like, what's that for?
And he says it's for tip overs.
He said that the old stoves,you could grab them and when you
tried to pull them away fromthe wall they would tip over and
land on you and a lot of peopledied and so I called horseshit.

(23:50):
And then you know what I foundout A child injures themselves
from furniture-related tip-oversevery 30 minutes in the US and
a death occurs every couple ofweeks from this.
So what it is is we don't knowwhat we don't know.
So when you're asking about theproblem, okay, if we don't
invest a little bit of time toreally take a look at what
problem we're solving, what weend up doing is solving for
symptoms or solving forsomething that's on the
periphery, a spiral and is thatthe best expenditure?

(24:13):
Look, we're always talkingabout.
I'll give you one gosh, damnmore.
You remember this?
Back in the day I was one ofprobably five in the state of
Michigan police rifleinstructors.
I got certified, went out toagencies and back then it was
the M16A2, the M14, the M1Garand.
Those were the policesemi-automatic rifles that
people had.

(24:33):
Why?
Because the agencies weregetting them from that
government plan, remember.
The government would outsourcecertain weapon systems and then
police agencies could pick themup for zero.
And then what happened is thatsome of them someone that went
through the training that I wentthrough could carry that weapon
on duty.
And then they came up with therack where you had the shotgun
on one side and you could haveyour police rifle on the other

(24:54):
side.
You know what the movement isnow.
The movement is now back then,every chief of police hated me.
Nobody's going to police rifle.
Why would we ever need this,brian?
Look around now.
Agencies are retiring their Rem870s, saying the shotgun, the
police shotgun, is too dangerous.
We have to go to the policerifle.
Now, when it comes to research,research light, when it comes

(25:17):
to, I'll vote for the, thepolice rifle, democratic action,
or or the loudest voice in theroom, or some new chief or
general that wants a point andsay I brought the military the
p38 that takes lead dog in thesled, and now we get an entire
agency retrofitting theirvehicles or getting a new decal
or doing something else wherethey think they're on the right

(25:39):
path, brian, but at the end ofthe day, it's the training
that's a missing component Ifyou invest in training you
invest in your people.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
You invest in the cognitive mind.
Well, that's the whole debateof training versus tools, right?
It's what's the real ROI, what'sthe real return on investment?
And sometimes you do have toquantify that, and I remember
working with the Army years agowhen we were implementing and
giving the buy-off with the ASATprogram, and they had to
quantify it and say, well, it'llcome down to basically the cost

(26:09):
of a new pair of boots, andthat's tangible.
I can, I can understand that, Ican, I can use that.
But the, the, the, the ideaabout the training versus tools
and what the real ROI is is youknow, gear is just this, it's an
at-bang solution.
So it it.
It can enhance your executionafter, after a decision has

(26:34):
already been made.
It does not affect whether thedecision was appropriate.
So we're saying, we're sayingwe're, we're going to, we're
going to fast forward, that,okay, this is going to happen
again, we're going to likely runinto this, so this is how we're
going to respond to it.
Better, right?
I mean that's basically whatyou're saying, because buying
something that helps improveyour reaction time tells me you

(26:54):
are accepting that the situationis going to happen again and
you're choosing, you're making achoice.
We're not going to do anythingabout that, we're just going to
wait till it happens again, andthen that's what we're going to
do, and so that's the conceptbetween training.
Is that left of bang?
Investment?
Right, it teaches when to act,how to assess why certain
behaviors emerge, all of thatstuff.

(27:17):
But have you trained people toidentify the situation where the
tool is even needed?
Have you shown them torecognize ambiguity, risk and
prevent indicators?
Because if you're, if we're notdoing that, then then the tool
just becomes an.
It will eventually becomeanother problem, another issue,
another.
We're eventually going to haveto get a new one.
You remember, oh, I did yousend it to me.
You just remind me because youbrought up the smoke problem,

(27:38):
another issue, another.
We're eventually going to haveto get a new one.
You remember, oh, I think didyou send it to me?
It was just remind me, causeyou brought up the smoke
detector, one, but the fire, thefirst, the one of the fire
alarms, where they said that youknow they wanted to cut down on
people pulling fire alarms uhuh, you know, just for no reason
at all.
So this one reached in it.
It.
It grabbed your arm and lockedyou in.
So now you're sitting therewatching a school start on fire.

(28:01):
And then you got to choose Do Ilet everyone know, or do I burn
to death, or do I not pull?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
the fire alarm and save myself.
Think of that, Brian.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
And we go, that's we go, that's we do.
Well, that's so stupid, it'slike no, but that's the first
iteration.
Or that's how do.
Well, that's so stupid, it'slike no, but that's the first
iteration, or that's.
That's, that's how these thingswork.
It's going okay here we gotthis new thing and we implement
it.
We don't realize, like thesecond third of effects, we
don't say what else could happenfrom it, and so that that first
model, there's going to beerrors.
The, the mcast system in the737, fixed the problem.

(28:36):
It just no one knew that.
It solved the issue that hadbeen created by putting these
new, larger engines on andchanging where they were at, on
the wing or whatever.
It solved that problem but itcreated a disaster, it created
catastrophe.
That was all completelyavoiding things.
So it's like those questions,you know, that's the kind of

(28:58):
heart of the matter.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
To start, with Yep, and I would add this, so I don't
remember the name.
My memory's gone now, folks,I'm sorry.
Fentanyl's a hell of a drug,lois.
What's the gear turning point?
Called for your TA-50 in theMarine Corps.
Remember the place that was outat Penn where you had to go and
there was a shipping thing andthe SIF, the Consolidated
Issuing Facility, exactly.
So you know that I used to forCombat Hunter back in the day.

(29:22):
I used to have to trek acrossthe country with my little
Sharpay Jaeger.
And Jaeger had a buddy and Ican't remember his buddy's name
that worked for the SpecialForces community I think it was
Woolley or Woodsy or Woobie orwhatever.
That was out in Grand Junctionand he manufactured boots and
sleeping bags and gearspecifically for the JSOC
community.
That was the best in thebusiness, and so Jaeger was

(29:45):
always getting that shit, youknow, at the lead and had
insider track information.
And so I remember we met himout one time at that facility
and he was going through some ofthe gear and he was a really
nice guy.
And so we were standing thereand it was a bunch of colonels
from the Senate and it was abunch of generals that were
listening in on the conversation.
And there was one guy and I'llnever remember his name, but he

(30:06):
was a civilian advisor that cameto audit what we were doing and
he said you know, the questionhere is do I want them to have
that set of boots or thatsleeping bag in their TA-50 when
they go to combat or do I wantthem to have Greg's training
before they deploy, andeverybody got quiet for a minute
and said, well, why are wechoosing that?
And he goes.
That's exactly what we'rechoosing for every dollar and

(30:29):
minute and classroom that wewere taking up.
Brian, you remember when we wereworking for the Marine Corps
and you, shelly, and I were inthat shower with the open door,
shitters, and that was the onlyplace that we could do the
training.
We were all sitting on MREboxes inside and projecting on
the concrete wall, like atFlores or one of those places,
and people were coming in andtaking a shower after gym and

(30:51):
everything and the cord keptgetting unplugged or somebody
would get electrocuted.
And we have to slow down whilewe're doing CPR.
We never invested the samemoney or mindset or anything in
training until when, until thebody bag stopped coming back.
So the first time a body bagcomes back, everybody goes full
speed.
Let's stop this.
Whether it's cops, whether it'ssecurity, doesn't matter what

(31:14):
it is, and let's take all thesesteps.
And then there's a flurry oftyping and all the shit goes on
the news and everybody talks agood story and buys a new decal
for the vehicle or red and bluelights or whatever right, and
then what happens is time goesby and we forget all those
lessons learned and we go backto doing shit the same way that
we always did it.
Until what?
Until the next emergency comesup and that becomes the

(31:35):
historical perspective that wego from.
Is that, see, I told you weneeded that, can opener, you
know, new light, whatever else?
We have to stop thinking likethat.
What we have to do is we haveto have a practical answer,
because you wrote it, and whenyou sent me the message that we
were doing this, you wrote thatno device will ever outperform
good judgment under pressure.

(31:56):
And I highlighted that rightthat meant more than any of
those other things to me.
Yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, it does the work of threeitems.
Yeah, it's cheap and it'sunbreakable.
But you know what, if you can'tthink your way out from under
the situation, you'll never openthe pouch that it's hidden in.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
And the kind of ironic thing to me with a lot of
this is everyone is concernedwhich they should be about
liability, and so it's like,okay, well, this is something
we're liable for.
So you knew or should haveknown, but lawsuits are rarely

(32:37):
ever about your lack of hardware.
That's not where it comes from.
They're about lack ofjustification or their lack of
training or decision making orall that stuff that we're
talking about.
And these mistakes don't happenbecause of outdated equipment.
They're happening because ofoutdated thinking.
And then, of course, some ofthe cases we're bringing up, the

(33:00):
mistakes are happening again,not because of outdated
equipment, because of newequipment, exactly the new thing
, and it's going to cause issues.
And it's like we come to thesolution.
We go, okay, we slap the table,like you said oh, I think this.
And, yeah, we like what Billthinks, and you know what Greg?
Greg's one of our top guys atthat, our top guys at that, so

(33:20):
that's what he thinks.
We're going with it.
It's like, well, well, hang on,like maybe, greg, your opinion
is completely correct, 100,right, and it's the standard and
everyone should believe it andthat's what you should do.
But but your solution hasnothing to do with the actual
problem right it's, it's asolution to something, some
extraneous factor, yep.
Yep, right, and again it goesback to just how you know we are

(33:42):
.
And man, when I anything, Iseen something new coming down,
right, it's the whole, you knowyou.
Okay, great, you gave them ascalpel, but you didn't teach
them anything about anatomy.
You gave them this thing, butyou didn't teach them about the
context of it.
So it just becomes thisabstract thing that I just point
to and you know what it justworks, or it's just this thing

(34:05):
that we do, and so whensomething happens and it goes
wrong, I'm, I'm fucked, I'mscrewed I mean, you know it's
like, come on so and I, you know, and obviously we're, we're all
about.
We're all about people andhumans and and people I've heard

(34:26):
described as is, you know, thehuman weapon system, and that
that's fine.
Just the human system you wantto, you call it, that, that's
fine.
But but you know, tools are,are inert objects, they, they,
they, the, the person utilizingthe tool is, is the weapon
system.
It's not, it's not a gun, it'sthe person operating the gun.

(34:46):
It's not, you know, it's a humaninteraction with it.
And then this goes to how Ilook at all issues.
Like you know, it's not thatdrugs aren't the problem, it's
drug addiction and people'sinteraction with the drugs that
are the problem.
The gun is a piece of metalsitting on a freaking table, so
it's the's interaction with thedrugs that are the problem.
The gun is a piece of metalsitting on a fricking table, so
it's the human interaction withthe gun that the problem is.
And so it all comes back downto that.

(35:07):
But when you, when you do that,that you're, you're, you're one,
you're assigning responsibilityto people, and everyone loves
doing that in certain situationsand saying you're the problem
and this is what it is and theygot to go.
But when it comes to then youaccepting responsibility for
that, it's like, well, no, if Iwould have had a better tool or

(35:27):
if we would have had this thing,then I wouldn't have done that.
It's like, no, we're not, wehaven't mastered sort of vanilla
yet, we haven't mastered basicsyet.
So, so why are we doing thisthing when that situation or
that, that solution to thatproblem, we could just avoid the
problem in the first place, andI don't think we do that right.
We're not very good at well,which is we make little strides

(35:51):
or advancements, or people willsay it and they'll go, hey, yeah
, that's a great concept or idea.
And then they'll go buy the newthing and it's like, well, wait
a minute.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
And tell you to stand down because, well, you don't
know, or not even tell you tostand down.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
So I'm like, yeah, we'd love to do that, but we
don't have the money.
It's like, yes, you do.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
That's what I'm trying to say, brian.
Turn it into a choice.
They turn it into a decisionand try to get you on board
going you, and try to get you onboard going.
You just don't understand thepressure we're under.
You know this is an immediatething that we need to do.
Yeah, okay, and Wiggies, that'sit.
Wiggies, the best tools in theworld for special forces.
Folks, look up Wiggiescom andif you go there, make sure you

(36:30):
give a shout-out to Brian and IHoly shit, my memory is horrible
.
Look back in the day.
You know that the Edge was thepremier self-defense shooting
shoot move and communicateacademy for everybody.
And one of the things that wedid on the range is we had these
little baby paper platesbecause they were very cheap at
the dollar store, the littlewhite ones with the corrugated

(36:51):
edge that were probably I don'tknow six inches around, and then
we had much less what wouldthat be?
Three-inch diameter, and thenthe other ones that were
probably six inch diameter right, no shit about math and a
staple gun, and we would staplethose up, and what you were
taught to do is, from theholster, then from the ready,
from whatever position that youwere, you had to put a number of
rounds in each one of thosetargets.

(37:12):
Then we transitioned to a papertarget that was significantly
bigger, with a small mark thatwas on it, and it was that hit
the small mark with your bulletand then make each subsequent
bullet touch the hole from thefirst bullet, and we would work
on that under speed and duress,and then, at the end of the day,
we turned the target over andit was a human target with all

(37:33):
the X-rings and the 10 rings andeverything else on it, and
people go holy shit, I can'tbelieve I shot that.
Well, then guess what we did?
We deconstructed them by havingthem shoot at those targets and
they couldn't hit a gosh damnthing.
So what's the worst thing whenyou're shooting?
It's you, how you think underpressure, the pressure that you
put yourself under because thetool that you have, the firearm

(37:54):
and the bullets, aremanufactured to specification to
fire and function the same wayevery time.
So if you put them in a machineand a vice and held them there,
they would never miss.
There would have to be amalfunction for them to miss.
So what's the thing thatcontinues to go wrong with
systems?
And that's the person, thehuman capital that you have out

(38:15):
on the street every day, nomatter what that human is doing,
whether they're a schoolsecurity guard or they're
working for your HR or anythingelse.
It's how they perceive,anticipate, how they react to
whatever is going on.
And, brian, I can tell there'sstill a problem because we still
, after the shooting at theJewish Museum, what do we get?
We get, oh, pre-attackindications.
Museum what do we get?

(38:36):
We get, oh, pre-attackindications.
Let's look them up.
Yeah, okay, let's laminate that.
Just saying pre-attack, thattakes us down the wrong road.
Understanding anomalousbehavior is much more important
than whether it's a ninemillimeter or 40 cal.
But why do we fight that Lowestcommon denominator?
It's much easier to go to myrange instructor, it's much

(38:57):
easier to go to my drivinginstructor or my self-defense
instructor and ask them what'sthe flavor of the day?
Nobody would argue right now.
Jiu-jitsu is the flavor of theday for police.
Okay, is that going to be thesame in 11 years?
Nope, not even close.
Okay, and I'll predict thatright now.
I won't be around.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So it's funny how fast it went from.
It went from.
You know.
Hey, all the data and all theresearch shows that.
You know, mobility issurvivability and if you go to
the ground you are X amount morelikely to get killed or get
into this situation or havesomething bad happen to you.

(39:37):
So you don't ever want to, youknow, be on the ground.
And then that was quicklyreversed.
You're going to the ground andit's like again what, what, what
, what, what?

Speaker 2 (39:47):
just had a complete flip flop there, or is it like
what's my argument?
Constantly with on coffee table?
Okay, writes a number of booksVery popular is out there.
First of all, he's not a policeexpert.
He was you don book.
It's very popular, he's outthere.
First of all, he's not a policeexpert.
You don't qualify as a policeexpert by speaking to cops or
writing a book to cops.
That's not how that works.
Second part of that is a lot ofhis research is based on SLA

(40:09):
Marshall's work and when you goback and you start taking a look
at faulty research methods, howmany people can we in our
industry go back and point towhere they went and took the
wrong exit, brian, and juststayed with it for a good long
time?
And there's stuff people stillquote it and you know it's like
anybody in situational awarenessthat says, hey, the OODA loop
is the most important thing,cool your jets, romeo.

(40:31):
The problem is that you're notseeing the big picture because
you're too close to it andyou're making money.
The idea is, put your boots onthe ground inside of that circle
you know doing Kodokan Judo andfight your way out.
Well, how do you do that?
Good judgment under pressure.
And what does that meanCognitive.
What does that mean?
Strategy If you use a goodstrategy, you will overcome any
opponent, and that meanspredicting and not getting into

(40:53):
the situation.
So what happened with theairlines?
The airline goes let's just puton a bigger engine.
And somebody in the back of theroom yelled out you know what?
That's brilliant.
We already got pilots that cando that.
And then when they had aproblem, what did they do?
What did they do?
What was their?
What was their flash?
To bang on that, brian.

(41:18):
Well, let's put another machineon machine and it's like hang on
here, we're in a new domain.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
We've lost the plot here on what we're trying to do,
and those are some of thecommon mistakes in any type of
resource allocation.
You brought it up as like, okay,we're choosing between
something, or there's a finiteamount of resources and time,
right, so we have to figure outwhat's the ROI, what's the best
bang for the buck, and so, likewe've talked about, the tech

(41:44):
solution is always the simpleanswer.
But if I'm not alsoincorporating some sort of
training timeline and pipelineand implementation, detailed
implementation plan, that couldcompletely backfire.
And then you know, you, if you.
So that means if you have a newtool, new piece of gear, but
you're still using old SOPs,that 737 is going to crash, like

(42:07):
you're, you're, it's going tocrash and burn and kill everyone
, so so that that's the wholething.
So it's like, if you're goingto have these hardware upgrades,
you have to have sort of orsoftware or, you know, mindset
upgrade or training upgrade forthe individual, and I think that
that's always the necessity,and then from that you don't
always necessarily need ahardware upgrade.

(42:28):
So you're, if you're, if you'recutting out that training to
afford some piece of gear,whatever that is like, you have
to realize that then and say,well, you have to give something
.
You have to give something up inorder to gain something, right?
Always, no matter what it is,you always have to give
something up in order to gainsomething.
So what are you gaining versuswhat you're giving up?

(42:49):
Are you getting the value there?
That's just a life you know youcould.
That's just a life motto.
Right, you have to givesomething up in order to gain
something, but as long as whatyou're gaining is greater, has
greater return on investment, ismore effective for you, is a
net positive than what you'regiving up, then you're doing

(43:09):
okay, right.
You're doing good, right, butthat's not always the case in
these.
And so the buy before weanalyze it.
This is going to make us safer.
That's not a strategy.
It's just not.
I mean and and and that's the I.
It's where are you startingwith?
This?
I think is my biggest issuewith this.

(43:30):
And plus, you know you justtalked about all the range stuff
and, and I agree and I'm notbashing anything that people are
doing, and I certainly don'tget into tactics, techniques and
procedures, you know.
But when you say like, hey, yougot to be able to think
critically under pressure, yougot to.
You know, we got to have thislevel of skill it's like, well,

(43:52):
you're still talking about thehuman and a lot of that stuff
came from especially like thetier one military units, and
it's like, well, look, they canthink through the situation and
think under pressure because itthere isn't pressure yet,
because they've fired so manygosh darn rounds that they can't
miss if they tried right.
I mean, it's just like the tierone, the special mission units

(44:14):
that do a lot of like hostagerescue stuff, like that.
Right, I've trained and workedwith those guys.
And it's like we do so manyreps in training that you can,
you, you will, you just won'tget it wrong.
You can't because you only knowhow to do this right thing.
So when something comes upthat's non-standard, you're not
overwhelmed in this situation.
Your cognitive load is lessbecause you've done it so many
times.

(44:34):
Well, guess what that takesyears and years and years and
years of training experience toget to.
So the military tier one unit.
Well, they have that time, theyhave that luxury, they have
that budget, they can afford todo that.
But most places can't.
Those are the only types ofplaces that you can get away

(44:54):
with that kind of stuff at, andso it's like we're not even at
where our failures are reallyhappening.
And the reason I was bringing upthe range stuff is in the
decision-making.
In that too, that has to dowith with the, the sort of the
cognitive load in thosesituations.
But more gear is equals morecomplexity, which equals more
points of failure.

(45:14):
I mean, the more things youthrow at it, the more likely
something is to go wrong.
And so each new tool youintroduce, you got to reorient,
you got to get reps, you got tohave the right context to make
it use effectively.
And so if you're doing all ofthat additional training that
you know you're going to have todo when we get this new thing,

(45:35):
is it worth it?
Or do we just do some new typeof training, save our money on
the new thing and figure outwhat the real problem is?
And it's like that analysis isnever done.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Let's shit in a punch bowl, shall we?
And let's serve it up fresh toeverybody, because we get a lot
of trainers that are on here too.
So if you're a cop and you're atrainer, answer the following
question have you ever been on ahomicide or a suicide where it
was a .22 long rifle?

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, what about a .32?
What about a .38?
What about a .9?
Go all the way through thedifferent calibers to the worst
handgun, which was a single shotpocket Derringer, all the way
up to an M98 Barrett with a .50cal.
You've seen them all.
Okay, so it's more importantfor shot placement, but we all
talk about stopping power.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Why do we talk about stopping power?
Because of fear.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Why do we talk about it?
For fear?
Because we saw the Norinco bankrobbery.
We saw the West Hollywood.
We saw the agents in Floridaget overwhelmed when they went
to make the traffic stop and theguys outgunned them.
We saw the coppers fromCalifornia Highway Patrol laying
on the slab in the morgue andwe say never again, that's never

(46:45):
going to happen.
So we have leather gear withhigher capacity magazines, and
then you know now what we'redoing is we're chasing the gear.
And you know, what we should bechasing is the critical
thinking.
Because if you can outthink acunning opponent, we know from
the pathology that you can killsomebody with a 22 or a 38 or a
32 or a gosh damn slingshot, youknow or a nut or a bolt that

(47:09):
came off the neighbor'slawnmower.
So so we understand physics.
That's something we can wrapour brains around.
But what we don't understand ishow critical thinking will
trump any new tool, any newresource that you try to bring
to bear.
The problem, the age-old problem, before deployment in Iraq
what's the turning radius onthis Vick?
And none of them knew.
And how far can it run if youget shot in the oil pan?

(47:32):
And none of them knew.
And, brian, you remember thatyou, teacher and I, we dropped
the mic and walked off the rangebecause we didn't want to die
with those idiots when they werein combat.
They were shipping all thatgear over and not one person
asked the question hey, whathappens if we hit and the airbag
deploys?
Is the Vic out of service?
What happens if we get T-bonedin the intersection and the
vehicle shuts off?
You remember those and Brian,that's that now I don't know

(47:54):
time, but that's like 20 yearsago now that we were asking
those questions.
What happened to that?
What happened to the curiosity,brian, where all of a sudden
somebody in the back, gutenberg,raises their hand and says I'm
a Newton, better, this doesn'tsound like the best idea, but
we've gone past that, becausenew shit looks cool and it's a
race gun.
And now I want to be like afast roper.

(48:15):
That's not your job.
The more time you're spendingon the range, you're not on the
road.
The more time you're spendingflipping those tires, you're not
out meeting your community.
Now do I say that they canexist in the same space?
Of course they can, but that'swhat you should be working on.
You should be working on yourstrategic, operational, tactical
plans, not buying new gear andspending all that money you
don't have here's it comes downto.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
You know the kind of like well, what questions should
we be asking?
And how do we analyze?
It how do we get to the kind ofhow do we actually scope the
problem?
And these are really goodquestions to ask, but the
problem is they have been kindof like you alluded to of your
person in the board meeting atthe beginning of this talk of

(48:58):
how do we scale this.
It's like wait, you haven'tsolved, the haven't solved the
problem yet, or what?
problem does this solve?
It's it's not.
It's not that, though, likecause.
What those, those questions dois.
It forces you to define,clearly define what the problem
is, and when you go through thesimple thought experiments, you
go oh wait a minute, we minute,we're not really approaching

(49:19):
this correctly or we're notbeing clear in this area, and so
I always do.
That, obviously, is whatproblems are solved.
But it's like, what is theactual performance gap?
I actually just even thismorning you saw Gary Klein, dr
Klein, who we had on, who welove, he posted something about.
He's like look, when people dohistorical perspective and they

(49:41):
do these case studies or dowhatever we're all feeling
obsessed with, or we getenlightened to what happened,
meaning, okay, here was the time, here's the maps, here's the
decision that was made, here'sthe caliber or here's this,
whatever.
It's like well, but we don'tever get into sort of well, what
contributed to these decisions?
Why did they do that?
What were all of thesecontributing factors?

(50:02):
Because if I can break thosedown into three biggest ones, I
know well these are the threebiggest concerns and then I can
go back to other situations.
Well, wait a minute, these areall the same three.
Wait, these are the same threecontributing factors.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
You know what I mean.
Sometimes it's something younever expected.
It's dehydration, it's lack ofsleep, it's that person didn't
understand the graffiti.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
It's something simple .
Many, many times it's sayingwhat's his name?
Gabriel Princip.
You know assassinated Archduke,you know Fernandin, and that
started World War I.
It's like, no, no, that was not, that's not, that was.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
What did that become?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
It's like no, no, that was not.
That's not.
That was that.
What did that become?
It was no, that was that litthe kindling that was sitting
there soaking in gasoline andmounting and mounting and
mounting.
But but all that stuff was theissue, not him carrying out that
one single act.
It wasn't, wasn't that?
It was all of this other stuff.
And so it's like what is theperformance gap?
What are the costs of notinvesting in our people?

(50:59):
And even the?
I see it pop.
I still see it pop up, likeonce a year on LinkedIn where
someone posts the.
You know it was.
Maybe it was attributed toSteve Jobs or whoever.
Probably no one ever said this,but it was.
It's like clickbait, but it'slike, well, where.
It's like they said, well, youknow, hey, we got to train up
these people, we got to do allthis.
And it's like, well, what if wetrain them up and we give them

(51:19):
all these skills and all theseresources and they leave and
they go to another company?
And the response is okay, well,what if we do all that stuff?
Or what if we don't do any ofthat and they stay here and they
don't leave?
And it's like, oh, yeah, I getthat.
You have to look at it in thatway.
But where these questions?
Where do most of our criticalincidents begin and where do

(51:39):
they go wrong?
Like, where did it actuallybegin?
Where did this start?
Because we often get laserfocused on just that.
Here's the problem.
It's like no, no, no, no Wind,that tape back.
So where?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
did that begin?
I love the NTSB, brian.
Why?
Because they're the mostintrospective agency that we
know.
They're constantly going.
How many hours did he fly?
What plane was it?
What was the barometricpressure?
What were the weatherconditions at the station?
What was the radio?
Look, we never do that.
What we do is we get a PIO tostand in front of people and go
look he had a gun.
Look he had a gun.

(52:08):
Look here, while we slow downthe tape, he had a gun and
turned on our officers.
Why?
Because, again, fear drives howwe're, after action, reviewing
those incidents.
Yeah, and we see that.
We see that every day.
You I'll tell you what youepitomize this discussion when
you sent me if you removed allyour high speed gear, would your
people still make gooddecisions?

(52:29):
You know what?
If you're listening to thesound of my voice, write down
Brian's words and ask yourselfthat question.
And then ask a friend thatquestion If you removed all the
high-speed tack gear, all thatcool stuff that you got, would
your people on the road still bemaking good decisions?
Would your people in theclassroom, would your employee
at the cashier or at customerservice?

(52:50):
Because that's what it appliesto.
It applies to improvingyourself, right.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Well, yeah, because it's like okay, if you got rid
of all of the tools, would theperson still be able to solve
the problem?
Would they still be able to doit?
But here's the thing peoplewill not.
How many organizations do wework with where they are
unwilling to answer that or askthat question?
Because now what?
Well, now I know, now I knowwhat the problem is.

(53:16):
Now I'm liable for it ifsomething happens.
We have staffing, people westill need.
It's like, well, that's not, youjust identified a problem, like
you give.
You always give the example.
You know everyone's got someonewhen things go wrong and he got
person a is on it.
It's like who's there?
Oh, person a, send themeverything they need, just just

(53:37):
do what they tell you.
Wait, who's there?
Oh, person b, get them out ofthere and go send person a.
It's like, well, if you alreadyknow that, right now you know
you've identified what thefucking problem is and and so
you actually are liable now,because if you can go back and
say that, and you knew, thenit's dead weight.
At that point they're notproviding a value to the

(54:00):
organization.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
I had one personal situation I'd like to share
because you know I want to tellmy story.
So here we are in Afghanistanworking with the Ministry of
Interior.
So here we are in Afghanistanworking with the Ministry of

(54:28):
Interior and they say listen,working with our coalition
partners, we'd like to develop apatch, because patches were
more important than coins backthen.
And let's have a good designpatch.
And every single one of themhad a rifle and a lightning bolt
and a machete and an explosionand all those other things.
And I said, well, what aboutShauna Bashana?
What about standing shoulder toshoulder?
And they go okay, well, we canput that on there, of course,
but what else can we put on?
I go wheelbarrow and a shoveland a rake, and they laughed me
out of the room, brian, theylaughed me out of the room.
A couple of weeks later I get acall and go hey, can you come
back and see General?
I can't pronounce his name.
And I go, yeah, and we go backand here's all the reps in the

(54:50):
room and they go hey, we likethat patch design.
You know what.
We are so hung up on being theforce.
You know that in othercountries, when you see a shield
, that means defense.
When you see that on anAmerican patch, that means we're
going to use the shield to beatyou down and then hook you up
and drag you out of there.
You know, it's all in perception.
And the perception of havingthe high speed equipment is for

(55:12):
you to placate the people thatwork with you and for them not
to be scared.
And right now, take a big doseof SDF up because you're saying
I'm not afraid when I go on theroad.
Of course you are.
If you weren't, you wouldn'thave all that stuff.
You would invest in your A game, and your A game is critical
thinking.
That's the performance gap.
You know what?
Report writing talking topeople walking up and carrying

(55:33):
on a conversation, brian, that'swhere your money is right there
, because if you can do that andyou can shoot reasonably well,
you'll be fine.
Right, but that's not where westart thinking, would you agree?
I mean, you're an expert, asubject matter expert.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
I am but and that goes back to a lot of that
really has to do with how wemeasure things right.
And there's a great I don'tknow who said it, I think John
Peters uses it a lot where it'syou know, not everything that we
measure matters and noteverything that matters gets
measured.
And so how do you do that?

(56:11):
And this goes into even the PTstandards, physical training and
how that stuff changes, andeveryone's like, well, you
should be able to do this andyou should have to.
It's like in no way let me bevery clear in no way do any of
those exercises and the time youget on those exercises
translate to how you willperform your job under pressure.
You just don't.

(56:31):
Obviously, you want to be inbetter shape, you want to do
this, but that's not the thing.
But because I can measure it,because I can time your mile run
, greg, because I can count howmany pull-ups you can do, Well,
it's easy for me.
But I can measure or I canscore your target.
Right, I can score that.
I can say, well, here's thenumber and that's either a pass

(56:54):
or that's a fail, or that's needretraining or new this, and so
it's very simple.
It's very, very, very, veryfucking simple, right?
Is it inches?
Is it meters?
Is it money?
How are we measuring this?
It's like, well, what aboutoutcomes?
And this has gone even,especially with policy too.
I mean, how many times have youseen like a politician or

(57:14):
someone be like, oh and we spentthis much money on this
initiative?
It's like that's not ameasurement of performance.
The amount of money you spent,that's the cost.
That's not measuring theoutcome.
What did we get from that?
What came of doing this?
What came from and and and?
Because it's a little bit morecomplex, people stay away from

(57:36):
it and they go.
I can't justify that in abudget.
It's like, well, if you'rethinking in terms of yearly
budgets, then you're fucked,you're, there will be zero
improvement.
You know and that's my biggestthing about any plan coming in,
especially I always.
You know, politicians are justa great example.
No one goes running for themayor of a metropolitan city

(57:58):
saying here's my 10-, 15 and20-year plan for reducing crime
in the city.
Not one fucking one does that.
Why?
Because, well, that's kind ofhard to measure.
But I can point at this numberthing right here, even though
that might have to do with thewell, we were on a lockdown and
things changed and then theeconomy changed and that's like

(58:20):
all of these extraneous factorsmight have been the issue, that
not anything that you did.
In fact, some of the stuff thatyou did may have had a negative
impact on it.
So we don't know how to measurethis stuff, and that's just
very.
Then it becomes implicitly hardto understand as a human what
I'm getting out of something,because I have to see it.
I have to feel it, even ourprivate sector clients, greg,

(58:41):
what did we hear?
From someone who said you knowwhat?
I was hesitant, I didn't buyinto any of this stuff.
But you know what Everyone saidyou guys were the best and you
got to bring them in.
And, oh my God, I am completelybought in.
I never knew we were going toget this much out of it.
I never knew that was going tohappen.
Because and why?
Because?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
they've never seen anything like that.
You get results and they sawtangible results, Brian, last
night on the news Blagojevichfrom Illinois, you're right, oh
boy.
Blago Lagogevich from Illinois.
You're right, oh boy, he was onpointing and counseling people
and taking them to task and I'mthinking, wow, did you learn?

Speaker 1 (59:17):
that when you were in prison.
Well, that's the thing.
So here's the thing about him.
He was kind of railroaded bypolitical corruption and he was
also a part of politicalcorruption.
So it's like you can't be theperpetrator and the victim Like
that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
But what I thought and wrote down when I was
watching him last night.
And you're spot on and I lovethat Brian's a Chicago boy when
he talks about laws and legaland bending rules and stuff, I
listen because I understand he'sgot a different perspective.
But I was thinking last nightwhen I was watching him that you
know what you will see anincrease in your home security

(59:58):
if you only have a sign thatsays this property is protected
by so-and-so alarm system.
It's a fact and if you put thatup okay, if you close your gate
, just latch your gate when yougo to work it will increase your
safety and security at home.
But, folks, if your life dependson it, at the end of the day
it's just a fucking sign andsomebody is going to call you on

(01:00:19):
it and somebody is going toclimb that fence and they're
going to poke their head in yourhouse.
So are you prepared for that?
So all these talismans, allthese totems that you're waving
out there, hey, this thing isgoing to be it, it's the,
there's going to be a new thing,and guns and ammo is going to
copy on it and car and driver.
And now you're going to say wasthat?

(01:00:40):
Did we save a life by spendingthat 1.8 or 3.6 or whatever
million dollars?
And and I'll shut up after Isay this Do you remember the
gosh damn camouflage pattern forthe Navy that made it
impossible if you fell?

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
overboard To see.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Okay, do I need to say more?
And anybody out there that's in?
The Navy thank you Okay, butremember we used to be role
players and it was like what thehell is that?
Well if somebody thought thatone out come on, come on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Where are we?
Where are we in?

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
this and you know what, if you removed all that
high-speed gear, are your peoplestill making good decisions?
And if they're not, you'rewrong and it's okay to throw in
the towel and back up and startover Tabula rasa.
Reset is not a bad place to besometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yeah, and you know again, I'm not.
You know again, I'm not, youknow, anti-gear or anti-new tech
.
I, I, just I.
I don't think a lot of placesneed to be concerned with it,
meaning some of those things aregoing to work themselves out
over time and there's alwaysgoing to be a new thing.
You don't have to be on top ofevery little thing that's that's

(01:01:49):
happening in new things.
It's just not because some ofthem are going to go away and
some of them are going to stickaround, and when it sticks
around, go, okay, I guess I'lluse that then.
I mean, it's not a lack ofinnovation or not being forward
thinking, it's going well.
Here's what we know works andthat's going to be the bedrock

(01:02:10):
foundation of everything that wedo.
And then, as new things come in,right, I can ask the
appropriate questions, adoptthem.
If I think it'll help me in theway we do things, because it
should come from you, how manyplaces have we been where it's
like, well, you know, we got toget them better at this and
their decision making needs toget a little bit better?

(01:02:31):
And you know it's difficultbecause it's complex?
It's like, well, you know, wegot to get them better at this
and their decision-making needsto get a little bit better.
And you know it's difficultbecause it's complex.
It's like here does thisdecision, this thing you're
about to do, is it aligned withthe vision, the mission and the
values of your organization?
Oh no, okay, then don't fuckingdo it, you got it.
Or change the vision, missionand values, or change We'll
fucking do it, you got it.
Or change the vision, missionand values, or change what it is

(01:02:52):
that you're doing.
All right, if that's what youhave, because then you'll
identify oh wait, a minute,we're not doing things correctly
.
We actually do have to do this,and it's you are an influencer,
Brian no-transcript.

(01:03:42):
Stay proficient and qualified indifferent weapon systems, right
?
So it was a whole bunch ofdifferent ones, and so the way I
shot was like with mysupporting hand, which is my
left hand, I had a specific way,which a lot of people do, and I
would sort of have my thumbpointed straight out
accompanying that side oraccompanying my hand if it was

(01:04:02):
in a pistol.
And it's like because people go, well, you can hold it this way
and then you can move this overand you can move your arm here
and do that, and I go, yeah,that's great, but here's the
thing this manner in which Ihold this pistol is the exact
same way I can hold that M4 andthat Rem A70 and that M203.
And so I learned one way and Ican use it in a whole bunch of

(01:04:24):
different weapon systems indifferent situations, absolutely
.
So it's not go, I don't have tothink about it, it becomes the
way I do things.
And it was like such a simpleway for some people to see like,
oh, I get it, if you do thingone way and you can use that in
a multitude of of uses, that'sbetter than learning 17
different things or or 10different ways of doing

(01:04:45):
something or all these different.
It's like, dude, you gottasimplify, you gotta take the,
the.
It's like it's like your firstdeployment or first time ever
doing something, compared tolike later in life.
Like you know, my firstdeployment, dude, I had every
mag pouch filled.
I had a drop, you know magpouch that I carried and it was
on man.
And then years later I was likehey, do you have a?

(01:05:06):
Anyone got a rifle or pistolfor me to carry, cause I would
love to have one?
Anyone got a rifle or pistolfor?

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
me to carry Because I would love to have one.
It's like get rid of all thatstuff.
Think about that with yourTA-50.
I remember every time that Ideployed to Iraq or Afghanistan,
the military sent me with everypiece of issued gear that I had
.
And there was me with front andback and duffel bag, drag and
everything else, until I got tomy unit that was going to start
my rotation through that country.
And guess what I did?

(01:05:33):
I threw everything in a Connexand when I was flying back out
of that country theyreintroduced me with all that
gear.
It was not one of those items Iever used, so turning that shit
back in was pretty easy.
What happens is you're takingup part of my load that could be
used for other things salientthings that we sat down and
thought about and said thistrumps that.
No fight there.

(01:05:55):
And then the second part isBrian.
A cognitive efficiency makes iteasier for me when, in a
situation, it takes items off ofthe table so I can consider the
products at hand and come upwith a strategy not be reactive
mode all the time.
So these are the problems weneed to be solving, buddy.
This is it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
And I guess my kind of final word would just be that
you know, if you can afford thegear and the training, great.
But if you have to choose, man,I just always choose people,
always bet on people.
I agree, they're going to bethere anyway.
They're always.
They always have to have aperson there, so why wouldn't

(01:06:36):
you want to invest in thatindividual as much as possible?

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
And Brian, if I had to give a final quote because
it's a great episode, I lovetalking about it it would be to
quote Balin out loud it'sraining vaginas, so I mean that
just epitomizes how I'm thinkingabout it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
I'm not familiar with that one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
That's a young girl that has Tourette's and a great
show, and every once in a whileshe slips a zinger out in the
public and just you watch howpeople get fallen in with that.
So I'll send you a photo.
Yeah, really.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Yeah, well, you lost me on that one, I'm going to
have to look that up on YouTubeafter this, unless it's not on
YouTube Alien Out Loud, myfavorite show now.
Oh my gosh.
All right, I'm going to have todo my homework on that one, but
all right.
Well, we covered a lot.
If anyone obviously has anyquestions, just reach out to us
humanbehaviorpodcasts atgmailcom.
Go to the Patreon.

(01:07:26):
There's more on there.
You can get recap of everythingwe talked about.
You can ask us questions andgive us ideas on there or things
that you were thinking about.
And yeah, I think that's aboutit, but we covered a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
There's a return on your request, but I appreciate
everyone.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
I appreciate everyone for tuning in and for our
Patreon members who support us.
Keep up the suggestions andquestions we like hearing from
you all.
Thank you all for listening tothe episode and then if you
could give us a like or a thumbsup or rating in the best way.
Even if you can't do thePatreon, just share an episode
with a friend, say, hey, checkthese guys out.
It really helps us out a lot ingetting the message out.

(01:08:01):
So I would appreciate that.
But thanks everyone, and don'tforget that training changes
behavior.