April 21, 2025 • 36 mins
Michael Cantrell returns with a passionate exploration of the evolving corrections landscape, sharing significant professional milestones while introducing his upcoming new book, "Power Skills: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, Public Service, and Beyond."
The episode begins with exciting news about Cantrell's appointment to the Advisory Board on Corrections for the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA). This significant development represents a deliberate effort to bring corrections expertise into an organization that has traditionally focused on law enforcement training. Through panel discussions and networking at the ILEETA conference, Cantrell helped identify critical training needs in corrections, including leadership and Correctional Training Officer (CTO) development, specifically designed for correctional environments and based on a new CTE (Coach - Train - Evaluate).
At the heart of this episode is Cantrell's compelling discussion of his upcoming book on emotional intelligence and soft skills. He shares how his perspective transformed after hearing these capabilities described as "superpowers" rather than merely empathetic exercises. Through personal stories and practical examples, Cantrell breaks down the four components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
Cantrell challenges listeners to recognize that every correctional officer is a leader who can positively influence workplace culture. He emphasizes that communication significantly impacts perceptions of professionalism, whether through face-to-face interactions, emails, or other channels.
Ready to transform your effectiveness as a corrections professional? Listen now to discover the "Power Skills" that can elevate your career and improve workplace culture.
Keys to Your New Career: Information and Guidance to Get Hired and Be Successful as a Correctional or Detention Officer by Michael Cantrell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello and welcome back to the Prison
Officer Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell.
I'm glad you've come back andjoined us, got a lot of stuff to
cover today.
I've been doing a bunch ofstuff and I want to share it
with you.
A lot of it has to do withthings that are happening in
corrections, big improvements,things I'm excited to be part of
.
So I'm going to go through awhole list of stuff and we will
(00:22):
discuss each one of them.
The first thing I want to startoff with, of course, is
pepperball, and I want to thankpepperball.
I think they've been oursponsor here for more than three
years, so they're what keepsthe lights on and keep the
podcast going and I I appreciatetheir sponsorship.
Uh, if you get the chance, Iknow the pepperball is going to
be out at the mock riot inmoundsville, west virginia, may
(00:43):
5th through 7th.
So if you're out there, you getthe chance to go visit the the
mock riot.
Go say hi to ronnie and sharon.
They're they're the ones thatset up the mock riot for
everyone and keep it going, andwe're very happy to know them.
But pepperball will have abooth set up and uh, so stop by
the booth and talk to carl Ithink will's going out there,
(01:05):
maybe, joe and stop by and talkto them and thank them for
sponsoring the podcast.
I would appreciate that if youwould mention it to them.
So if you get the chance, stopby and thank pepperball.
I'm also teaching somepepperball classes coming up
pretty soon.
I've got one in uh in aprilwilliston, north carolina or
north dakota my fault Williston,north Dakota.
(01:26):
Then I got another one in Taos,new Mexico, coming up, and then
Samarkand Training Academy inNorth Carolina.
So if you're interested in oneof those classes, go to
wwwpepperballcom that's oursponsor and check out the
training schedule and I'd loveto see you in one of the classes
.
Another big thing that happenedthis year for me and, I think,
(01:47):
for corrections I got invited to.
I've been a member of ALITA forquite a while the International
Law Enforcement Educators andTrainers Association so I've
been doing that for quite awhile.
I think I wrote my firstarticle for the journal back in
2014.
So I got invited to come in andbe part of the advisory board
(02:08):
on corrections.
So I'm very thrilled to be partof that and bring a little bit
of my knowledge, my experienceyou know what I learned from you
guys and bring that there forthem to bring corrections into
the fold.
I guess is the way I'll say it.
You know, ilead is a greatorganization.
It's been around for a longtime but their focus has kind of
been law enforcement.
(02:28):
They realize that correctionshas kind of been off here to the
side and they want to bringthem into the fold.
And I guess what I'll say firstis you know the vendors and the
classes that I saw.
A large portion of those affectcorrectional trainers just as
much as law enforcement trainers.
So I lead as a goodorganization as it is.
(02:50):
I'm not going to say I lead asgetting improved by bringing
corrections in.
It's a great organization butwe just want to add some
specific correctional stuff.
But I mean, if a force scienceinstitute that works, whether
you work in corrections orwhether you're working in a law
enforcement, you knowunderstanding use of force, the
(03:12):
science behind use of force, andif you guys never looked them
up, they're great.
I got to sit through one of VonKleim's Graham versus Connor a
new perspective, I think was thename of the class and I got to
sit through and it was wonderful.
I absolutely learned a lotthere.
But classes like that at thatlevel and the instructors that I
got to see while I was there.
(03:32):
You know people I've heardabout for a long time, so it was
great to do that be part ofthat.
Part of what they asked us to dowas to hold a panel on
corrections and invite people into discuss what I lead to
encourage more membership fromcorrections and more
correctional people attendingthe conference.
(03:53):
So myself.
David McRoberts, who's aretired correctional captain
from Wisconsin and he works as acorrectional consultant, now
works with companies that buildhardened fortified facilities
for corrections, so he's got alot of knowledge.
Gary York was on the panel anda lot of you know Gary York.
He's been on a couple of ourepisodes.
I've been on his podcast.
(04:14):
He's an author and he's alsothe host of True Prison Stories,
so Gary was on there.
And then a new friend which Ihadn't met before and I hope I
don't tear up his name too bad,but it's Ron Scheidt,
c-h-e-i-d-t, and he's a longtimeprobation and parole officer
and advocate and correctionaladvocate.
(04:35):
So those were the four peoplethey put on the discussion panel
and then we had two differenttimes, one on Monday and one on
Friday, where corrections wasinvited or everybody was invited
but we ended up with a lot ofcorrectional officers, detention
officers, probation and paroleofficers, you know, instructors
from everywhere acrosscorrections were there, even a
(04:55):
representative from riskmanagement who insures jails and
counties and that was veryinteresting to talk to him.
But so we listened and we tooknotes and we're planning on how
we can improve the correctionsportions of Aelita next year.
Of course, one of the things wecame up with or asked about was
(05:16):
what needs to be developed, andpeople were pretty much in
agreement.
You know there's a lot of stuffout there duty to intervene,
anything that has to do withretention.
There's a lot of stuff outthere duty to intervene,
anything that has to do withretention, recruitment, that
type of stuff, risk andliability management, use of
force, correctional trainingofficer, which I'll talk about a
little bit more about somethingthere here in a minute.
But those were all classes andsubjects that people wanted to
(05:40):
see more of in the correctional.
You know, scope of training wealso talked a lot about.
I feel and you guys maydisagree, you may see something
different than what I do I feellike law enforcement gets a lot
more opportunities at trueleadership training, and I'm
talking good leadership training, not what somebody at your
agency just comes in and puts aPowerPoint together for two
(06:03):
hours, which is what I got for along time.
So leadership training fromoutside sources, from people who
have led and understand and arestudents of it.
So they talked about doing someof that with
correction-specific leadershipclasses.
So it was a good time.
I enjoyed ILETA.
If you've never been there now,ileta is just not the
(06:24):
conference.
There's a whole bunch ofresources.
You can go on Aelitaorg Ibelieve I'll put the link in the
show notes to make sure I getit right but you can go to
Aelita and there's resourcesthere.
You get the journal, the Aelitajournal, four times a year and
that is a great resource.
It's written by some of the toptrainers Todd Fletcher, miles
(06:44):
Cook.
I mean there's just a ton ofpeople that are out there in the
training world who writearticles for the Aelita Journal.
I've written, I think, four orfive myself, so it's a great
resource.
And then once a year they havethe Aelita Conference and that's
held in St Louis at the UnionStation.
(07:05):
I think there were 120 vendorsand I heard from somebody that
there were almost 700participants.
I don't know the number ofclasses.
But what I really liked and Ididn't get to go to everything I
wanted because I was teachingclasses also but one of the
things that I liked was you canjust go to any class you want.
(07:25):
You just pick what you feellike you need and the classrooms
are open, except if they'recertification.
I mean, if you're getting acertification, you have to sign
up for those ahead of time andyou have to meet the
requirements of the class.
But I know there's at least ahundred classes there that are
just open and you can just golearn from some of the best and
(07:46):
if it's not what you want thatday, you can get up and go to
another class.
But it was a really greatformat and I enjoyed it.
I went to several classes, asmany as I could.
I got to see the vendors.
I spent a day helping work thebooth with the guys at Command
Presence, so we had a great time.
I learned a lot, got to see alot of what's out there.
You know some shooting systemslike.
(08:09):
Of course I knew Milo, I'd beenaround Milo, but there were
some others out there virtualreality type stuff that I found
really cool.
There's a what do you call themRadio controlled, like robots
with cameras.
That were really neat.
So there's a bunch of stuff outthere that I had not seen at
SHOT Show or that I hadn't seenat the Mock Riot.
So check it out.
Check out, aelita.
(08:30):
If you're a correctional trainer, you need to be part of it.
You really do.
It's going to give you accessto some of the top trainers
firearms trainers, leadershiptrainers in the country, so I
highly recommend it.
If you have any questions,shoot me an email and I'll help
you with what I can.
Next, I'd like to talk a littlebit about Command Presence.
It's one of the companies Iwork for that I teach classes
(08:51):
for, and earlier this year wesat down and we talked about
developing a correctionaltraining officer program.
Now Command Presence has afield training officer program
for law enforcement and it isgreat.
We're so busy with it.
Sometimes it's hard to keep upand keep the instructors.
They're just going constantlyto teach this.
(09:11):
I got to sit through one fourweeks ago I think it was down in
Louisiana and I truly enjoyedthat getting to see how they set
up that FTO program, the waycommand presence is approaching
it, with a coach, trained andevaluate.
You know, we saw, or we saw,when I was young, when I was
coming up through corrections,it was ran more like basic
(09:34):
training, you know, as opposedto having somebody come up and
talk to you about what theyexpect out of you and then show
you what they expect out of you,give you an opportunity to do
it right and succeed at it andthen evaluate you.
I was used to.
You know here's what you do.
Come back tomorrow, we're goingto put you through this and you
(09:56):
get evaluated right there andif you didn't do it, then you
know you did it again and youdid it again and I really like
this coach train evaluate methodof the FTL program they have.
So that's something we've beenworking on.
I'm happy to announce that Julywe're going to have that out and
I've got a couple of classescoming out.
If you're interested, we'regoing to have a class in August
(10:19):
in Ingham County, michigan.
It's a brand new.
That's going to be the firstcorrectional training officer
program.
It's a three-day class, so comeup there.
I'd love for you to be part ofthat class.
I've also got another one inSeptember at Green Lake,
wisconsin, and love to see youat that one, if you get the
chance.
I mean, if you want to go toone of those, go to
(10:40):
commandpresencenet.
That's my company's that I workfor.
That's their website.
Go, check outcommandpresencenet, and I'd love
to see one of those new CTOprograms.
Let's see what else.
If you haven't been onCorrections 1 in the last week
or so, jump on there.
I just got a new article up.
It's called the Culture ofCompliance Breaking Destructive
(11:06):
Patterns in Correctional Facfacilities, and you know we're
talking about leadershipfailures and, when that happens,
how that culture can turn toxic.
You know we're seeing a lot ofthat in the news the New York
officers who were involved inthat use of force up there I
forget what they're up to.
I think the last I looked therewas 18 that have been indicted
on that.
And that's the way these thingswork when somebody does
something wrong, the tentaclesgo out.
(11:26):
I was involved in one of thoseone time.
I wasn't even at work when theincident happened, but I had
worked at a control center acouple of weeks before and so I
was part of an investigationbecause of what someone else had
done on an escorted trip to thehospital.
That's the bad thing when one ofour people does something wrong
(11:48):
, there's tentacles that go outthrough there and, as part of
the after actions, everybody'slooking for blame, everybody's
looking to find out who made amistake or who didn't do their
job, and it's not always a goodway to learn or change what was
wrong.
But I've been through that, soyou know how do we stop these
cultures that don't seem to havea duty to intervene, that
(12:12):
aren't watching their people andaren't watching out for each
other, because the supervisorsaren't always there.
Sometimes it's you and me.
You have to remind the guyworking next to you or the girl
working next to you.
This is how we do this job.
This is the correct way.
This is the professional way.
This is what makes our agencylook good.
This is how we build goodculture for everybody that works
(12:33):
here, and sometimes that'smostly up to the individual.
So anyway, if you get the chance, go to Corrections 1 and take a
look at that article.
I think you might like it.
I'd love to hear from you.
Shoot me an email if you readthat article and got something
from it.
I've already got a couple ofpeople who I've talked to that
have some very strong opinionsabout duty to intervene, and
(12:55):
that's a tough thing to do?
It absolutely is.
So what else?
Well, I guess the big thing Iwant to talk about while we've
got a moment, I want you guys tokeep your eyes out and I'll be
putting out some stuff on socialmedia Facebook, linkedin and
about my new book.
So I've written a couple ofbooks.
You guys have seen those.
(13:15):
I've talked about a couple ofthem on the podcast, but I'm
really excited about the newestone.
It's going to be called PowerSkills Emotional Intelligence
and Soft Skills for CorrectionalOfficers, first Responders and
Beyond, and so why did I name itthat way?
Well, I got to sit through aclass.
I guess it's been almost a yearago.
(13:36):
I sat through a class MilesCook gave that class and he was
talking about emotionalintelligence.
And I'm going to tell you thetruth, I've sat through a bunch
of classes and working for theDOC, working for the BOP, and
most of the time they have, youknow, annual training.
You got to sit through theplethora of mandated classes and
one of them they startedputting in years ago was
(13:59):
emotional intelligence, but itwas always taught by a
psychiatrist or a psychologist.
And so here's this psychologistup in front of a class full of,
you know, penitentiarycorrectional officers talking
about how I should be moreempathetic, how I should get in
touch with my feelings, how Ishould get in touch with the
feelings of the inmates, and anyof you that know, any of you
(14:21):
that have been around for a longtime, that doesn't necessarily
ring well right.
It doesn't sound well good toour ears, um, and we kind of
become resistant to that becausewe're manipulated so much.
When you start talking aboutthe word feelings, right, uh,
correctional officers tend topush away from that.
(14:42):
I don't have feelings at work,you know, and I've I've said
this for years, you know,somebody will say there I don't
want to hurt your feelings, youcan't hurt my feelings.
I've got one feeling left and,uh, it's hidden, you know, and
I've told people that for years.
But so I never took emotionalintelligence very serious, okay,
okay.
(15:02):
So I'm sitting through Miles'sclass and he's talking about
emotional intelligence as a wayto understand feelings.
It's not so much the empathyalthough you have to have
empathy in order to detect andto understand what's going on
with others and what's drivingthem it gives you and this is
(15:25):
what he called it, he saidsuperpowers, and that was where
I got power skills at.
It gives you superpowers tounderstand the motivation of the
people you're dealing with.
And that can be staff, that canbe your boss, that can be
inmates, that can be children.
But if you learn to understandwhat feelings are going on now,
you can understand what emotionsare driving their behaviors.
(15:47):
Okay, and Miles called that asuperpower and I was just like,
wow, I've never heard it putthat way.
I've never, I've never thoughtof it that way.
So that was the first step.
I talked to a warden friend ofmine not too long after that and
she told me that we weretalking about what staff need
these days and she said well,one of the things that's missing
the most is just basic softskills.
(16:10):
And I said soft skills andshe's like yeah, you know, the
ability to go have aconversation, communication,
just basic communication, whichis something I struggled with,
believe it or not.
Productivity, self-care,wellness, teamwork, some of
those skills that you know Igrew up with.
It wasn't unusual for us to beforced by a parent when you went
(16:35):
to church or when you went toschool and they'd kind of give
you that nudge Well, step up andsay hi to Mrs So-and-so.
Or have you my dad, you know,have you shaken Mr So-and-so's
hand?
Yet?
Those were skills that we weretaught, and a lot of what's
happened with the cell phone,the digital age, is that the
younger generation has lost someof the ability.
I know I just had a conversationnot too long ago.
(16:58):
Someone texted me and I saidwell, hey, give me a call
tomorrow, I'll text you.
I don't want to text whenthere's you know, 14 paragraphs
of stuff to say.
I said no, just give me a call.
Well, I don't like, I don'tlike phone calls.
How do you do business, how doyou communicate, if you can't
call somebody and have aconversation?
(17:18):
Not everything can be donethrough text.
So these were some of thethings that I saw.
So I came up on, startedwriting this I think it probably
started as an article and thenI grew it to power skills, you
know, emotional intelligence andsoft skills for correctional
officers, and so I startedtelling my stories.
(17:39):
You know, this is how I learned.
I'll tell you one I never wasvery good at small talk, right?
I just didn't have time for it,I was busy, I had things.
You one I never was very goodat small talk, right, I just
didn't have time for it.
I was busy.
I had things to do, there waswork to do, and when I wasn't
working, I was trying to figureout how to get things ready for
the next day, or I was gettingready to go home and then I had
stuff to do at home.
So I never had time for smalltalk and it wasn't a big
(18:02):
priority to me.
And when I became a lieutenant,one of the things we did was
walk around and make rounds,make sure that your officers are
doing okay, see if they needanything, talk to them for a few
minutes.
And I really was strugglingwith it and, I'll be honest, one
of the things I struggled withI'm an unusual.
I guess I'm an unusual man.
(18:25):
Pro sports doesn't reallyinterest me a whole lot.
I loved playing sports in highschool.
I competed in Highland gamesfor years.
I love being part of sports.
I'll even jump in on a pickupgame if somebody wants to.
I like the activity, I likesports.
I just don't want to keep trackof people's free throw average.
(18:46):
I don't want to keep track ofpeople's you know free throw
average.
I don't want to.
I don't want to keep track oftheir RBI.
I don't want to know what teamswin and what, what their you
know game wins and losses thisyear is, it doesn't interest me,
I'm, it's hard for me to sit.
Still, I've got a friend thatsays I can't fish, I can't sit
there like that.
And I kind of feel the same wayabout sports.
(19:11):
So I don't normally sit down infront of the TV and watch a
sports game.
So that was kind of a weakness,because what did most of the
male officers, what did they usefor small talk?
And it was sports.
They wanted to talk aboutsports, and so I haven't kept up
on this and I'm having troublebeing part of that conversation.
So, becoming a new leader, oneof the things I did I had about
a 20-minute drive to work and Ifound an AM sports channel, and
(19:33):
so one of the things I starteddoing on that 20-minute drive
was, every morning I tuned intothat AM sports channel and
listened to what they weretalking about, and what that
gave me was some small talk,right, some small talk that I
could, you know, as I wentthrough the day and I saw, hey,
you need anything today,everything going, okay, that's
(19:57):
family and so-and-so.
One last night I'm like, yeah,I heard that they were playing
so-and-so, and so I becamebetter at small talk.
So that's kind of some of thestuff you know I learned and
that's what I put in here.
How I overcame a lot of thisstuff, how I learned some of it
I didn't have to overcame, someof it became naturally to me,
but I had never put names to itbefore.
Right, you know emotionalintelligence isn't one thing.
(20:20):
Emotional intelligence is isseveral things put together and
the first one is self-awareness.
Before you can becomeemotionally intelligent about
other people and what they'refeeling and what they're
thinking and why their behaviorsare the way they are, you have
to understand why you do allthat.
You have to stop and take sometime to become aware.
(20:41):
What makes me tick?
Why do I get up in the morning?
Are my actions driving meforward?
You know what desires do I have, what motivations do I have,
and once you understand thatabout yourself, you learn to
understand your own actions.
So you know, that's one part ofemotional intelligence.
(21:01):
Another one is self-managementLearning how to control,
learning, and one thing I talkabout is learning how to respond
instead of react.
You know I talk about theconversational thermostat
understanding the conversationand, as conversations go up in
temperature, right, being ableto change that, being able to
(21:24):
respond and not add more fuel tothe fire.
And you know as well as I do,if you've worked in a prison,
that's what inmates try.
They are there on that door.
They're trying to get you totry to push your button, trying
to get just littlest bit ofreaction out of you, because if
they can get that reaction outof you, they've overcome your
(21:46):
ability to manage yourself right.
So self-management is part ofemotional intelligence.
Social awareness is part ofemotional intelligence.
What's social awareness?
It's about looking inward andlooking outward to understand
and appreciate the feelings ofothers, the motivations of
(22:08):
others and sometimes it's notjust motivations, social
awareness.
You ever drive down the roadand there's the old lady going
to church in front of you andshe's 15 miles an hour under the
speed limit and you're justfuming.
I don't know if everybody doesthis.
I do.
It drives me nuts.
I can't stand driving one milean hour under the speed limit.
But you know social awarenessis understanding that she, that
(22:32):
person's not doing that towardsyou.
That person may have troublehearing, seeing their motor
skills.
You know they're older, thattype of stuff Pregnant lady gets
on a on a bus or a airplane.
Get up and give your seat.
You know that's being sociallyaware to what someone else is
going through.
So that's another thing we talkabout with emotional awareness.
(22:53):
And then the last one is socialmanagement, and I actually talk
about social relationships howdo you like that word?
When you're working in prison,you like the word relationships.
Do you have relationships withinmates?
I'm going to challenge you andsay that you do.
And being aware that there is arelationship there and all
(23:23):
people, all humans, like it ornot, even if you're the biggest,
toughest, oldest, nastiest,crabbiest correctional officer
sitting in the back of the segunit, you have emotions.
You have feelings.
Understanding that everybodyhas those and how to manage them
, how to manage theirs, how tomanage yours, is what makes you
a good leader and, like it ornot, everybody needs to be a
leader.
Every correctional officeryou've heard me talk about it on
here every correctional officeris a leader.
(23:43):
If you don't understand thatthere are feelings out there, if
you don't understand yourfeelings and their feelings,
you're not going to be able toinfluence the people you work
with.
And I'm not talking aboutinfluencing them to get them to
buy you know, you're not sellingAmway here but influencing them
to work together as a team, tocollaborate towards the same
(24:03):
goal.
And sometimes that same goal isnothing more than feeding trays
on a seg unit today and gettingdone by one 30 so that we can
work on another project.
Right, sometimes that's all itis.
But if you don't understandpeople's motivations and be able
to recognize those emotions,you're not going to have any
(24:24):
influence with them.
So that's some of the stuff wetalk about, or I talk about.
I say we, I talk about in thenew book.
I also go into leadershipabsolutely.
You know how we influence upand down the ladder, how we
influence inmates, how weinfluence our peers, how we
influence the public, how we canchange culture.
(24:47):
An individual can changeculture.
I've done it.
I've absolutely done it in theprisons I've worked in.
How you present yourself andhow you work changes culture.
I'm not saying that you can fixeverything, but you can change
culture.
People will follow your lead.
If you're truly leading andyou're influencing people and
(25:09):
they know that you care, peoplewill absolutely follow you and
you can change the culture.
You can make it better on theshift, on the team in the seg
unit, whatever it is you'reworking in booking right.
Another thing we talk about iscommunication, and when I talk
about communication, it's notjust you and I having a
conversation.
There's so many ways tocommunicate these ways these
(25:31):
days.
Sorry, texting Is textingcommunication.
Do we text as part of our jobs?
Some of us do, absolutely.
What about phone calls?
Is that communication?
It is.
What about emails?
Do you guys take the time tosend good emails?
That's a big part of ourcommunication these days and
(25:54):
people take, they throw emailsout there like they're texts and
I don't think we should doeither one that way.
If you're a professional andyou're trying to set the example
and you're trying to setculture at your institution,
your agency, your jail, yourprison, how you communicate
matters, if you're using theletter U to say Y-O-U, that says
(26:17):
something about you and yourprofessionalism when people are
getting those emails.
Learn how to write a good email.
Learn how to use carbon copy,blind copy, correctly, okay.
Learn about what to put in thatemail, how to review it, what
you're looking for, how to walkaway from emails.
(26:39):
Most emails should not be sentthe moment you write them.
You should give it five, 10minutes, maybe a day, maybe two
days, especially if you're upset.
Have somebody else read it,have somebody else review it,
review other people's stuff andlearn what good emails look like
.
It matters how you communicate,it absolutely does.
(27:01):
We talk about productivity.
You know how we do our job, howwe prevent crisis, how we
diffuse stuff.
You know that's what acorrectional officer does, but
are we looking for time to makeour agency and our housing unit
and our shift better?
You know, productivity is not abad thing and I almost feel
like a lot of people have takenwork and made it something to
(27:26):
avoid.
You know that comes from COVID.
When now we work at home, Iwant to work at home.
Well, are you truly putting ineight hours at home?
I think we're finding out thata lot of people aren't.
If you're working from home,you should still be doing the
work.
You should still be productive,and if you're at work,
(27:46):
productivity matters.
You're setting an example, notonly for your peers, not only
for the people working aroundyou, but the inmates.
I have had an inmate who came tome and he told me it was.
It actually meant a lot.
He said I well, what he saidwas don't you ever bang in?
I said no, I rarely do, unlessthere's something bad If I bang
(28:08):
in something's wrong.
He said you're always here.
You're always here early.
He said I've never seen anybodylike that.
I didn't grow up around peoplelike that.
People I grew up around werealways trying to figure out how
not to go to work.
Productivity matters.
It's part of who we are.
It makes us feel good aboutourselves.
It gives us a place foraccomplishment.
There's nothing wrong with it.
(28:29):
We shouldn't avoid it.
And then the final, I guess,thing that I'll touch on today
is teamwork and collaboration.
Are we good at working togetherin teams?
Are we good at leading teams,or when we all get together?
Are we good at leading teams orwhen we all get together?
It's almost a statement on thenature of society right now.
(28:51):
You put five people in a roomand just ask them to communicate
and come to a consensus.
They can't hardly do it thesedays, because every tiny piece
of their feeling, every tinypiece of what they think, is all
that matters to them.
And we've lost the ability towork as a team.
(29:12):
We've lost the ability tocollaborate, and collaborate is
not a bad thing.
You're not giving up your ideas.
You're not giving up yourthoughts.
What you're doing is taking thebest of each person in a group,
taking the best of their ideas,taking the best of their way to
do something, taking the bestof each person and putting it in
(29:34):
a product that makes everybodybetter, that makes the product
better, that makes it easier forus to move forward and get the
job done in an effective way.
So that's another thing I talkabout.
Anyway, I won't tell you thewhole book, I'm not going to sit
here and read you the wholebook, but I really enjoyed
putting this together over thelast year.
(29:55):
It means a lot to me.
It really does.
And when I got done I realizedthat's why I kind of changed the
title to correctional officers,first responders and beyond.
Because what, what correctionsand you've heard, I hear this
all the time with lawenforcement officers If I could,
they'll say if I could, I'llhave.
I would have every policeofficer work six months in the
(30:16):
jail before they went to thestreet.
Why is that?
Well, it's because one thingyou learn in a, in a jail, one
thing you learn in a prison, ishow to communicate and how to
talk.
Right, there's not very muchstuff on my duty belt when I'm
inside a jail or inside a prison.
Right, I can't go to the dutybelt.
(30:37):
I'm not carrying stuff in theback of my patrol car.
Everything I've got, you know,is in my soft skills, in those
power skills of emotionalintelligence and the soft skills
of communication and teamworkinfluence right.
So when I got done with the book, that's when I started thinking
(30:57):
you know, this isn't just forcorrectional officers.
Correctional officers are goodat it and my 30 years has taught
me to be pretty good at it.
So I don't want to just sharethis with corrections.
I want to share it with anybody.
If you're a dispatcher andyou're dealing with crisis and
you're dealing with emotionalpeople on a phone, I think
there's things you can get fromthis book.
(31:18):
If you're a police officer, ifyou're dealing with crisis,
emotional people, you need toinfluence people who are
stressed and in crisis.
I think this book is good foryou.
I think anybody you know.
If you work in ambulance, ifyou're a firefighter, I think if
you're in the military and youwant to be a good leader, I
(31:38):
think you can get things fromPowerSkills.
I truly do so.
I hope you guys will check itout Next couple of weeks.
I just uh, I just finished upgetting it uploaded.
The cover's getting done.
So my goal is to have it out bythe end of May and I will, of
course, put it out on socialmedia and for all of you guys to
see and please take a look atit and let me know what you
(32:00):
think.
So well, that covers quite abit.
I I have been busy.
I'm not lying, it's been a busymonth.
I'm ready to take a week off ortwo and kind of take a break
before I head back out teachingsome more.
So before we go, I'd like tosay thank you to omni.
You know, omni gives you theability to watch everything
(32:22):
everywhere we we have real-timelocating systems that we are
placing in prisons and jails andthey allow you to alert your
staff to heart rates that drop.
They allow you to tell where aninmate is every second that
he's out there.
One of the things that a coupleof jails have been really
interested in and have adoptedis the fact we can do contact
(32:45):
tracing.
I could show you every inmatethat an inmate's been in contact
with in the last 24 hours, inthe last week, in the last month
.
So that's something that's comealong and we're getting a lot
of response for that.
All of this information isclickable.
You know the interface and it'sreally easy to run the reports
(33:07):
and it works with your JMSsystem.
So if you'd like moreinformation on Omni, go to
O-M-N-I-R-T-L-S.
That's OmniRTLScom, and theRTLS stands for Real-Time
Locating System and if you haveany questions, absolutely reach
out to Mike attheprisonofficercom.
(33:28):
If you have questions aboutanything I've talked about today
, whether it's corrections inAelita, whether it's Omni,
pepperball or my new book, feelfree to throw an email out there
, mike at theprisonofficercom.
I try to get to those as quickas I can.
It might be 24 hours, at themost it's 48.
And I will get back with youand let you know.
(33:49):
It depends on what I'm doingthat day.
So for everyone out there, takesome time.
Go find somebody inside thatlooks like they need just to
talk.
Go, spend some time and askthem how they're doing and then
stay there for a minute andlisten.
That's the best thing we can do.
Of all my years of corrections,that was what I found helps
(34:13):
people the most is to ask themhow are you doing and then
listen.
We get so used to just wavingor shaking hands and going down
the hall.
Spend a moment, find out thatthey're okay, are shaking hands
and going down the hall, spend amoment, find out that they're
okay.
Corrections is a tough businessand for some people and at some
times it's tougher than others.
You know you may have thetoughest, meanest, roughest
(34:35):
correctional officer, butsometime during his career
you've got some downtime.
You know where things aren'tgoing your way and you need
somebody to pick you up a littlebit.
So reach out there to thatofficer and see if you can, you
know, brighten their day alittle bit.
Give everybody a smile.
Anyway, I appreciate you guyswatching the prison officercom.
(34:56):
As always, next week I've gotTim Fosnott, or not.
Next week, in two weeks afterthis, there'll be Tim Fosnott on
here.
He's the owner of Arc Tacticaland then we've already recorded
an episode two weeks after thatwith Brian Antonelli, former BOP
officer, with me, and so we'regoing to talk about a lot of
stuff, but that'll be in twoepisodes from now.
(35:17):
But anyway, have a great dayand I will see you later.
Well, hello and welcome back to the Prison
Officer Podcast.
My name is Mike Cantrell.
I'm glad you've come back andjoined us, got a lot of stuff to
cover today.
I've been doing a bunch ofstuff and I want to share it
with you.
A lot of it has to do withthings that are happening in
corrections, big improvements,things I'm excited to be part of
.
So I'm going to go through awhole list of stuff and we will
(00:22):
discuss each one of them.
The first thing I want to startoff with, of course, is
pepperball, and I want to thankpepperball.
I think they've been oursponsor here for more than three
years, so they're what keepsthe lights on and keep the
podcast going and I I appreciatetheir sponsorship.
Uh, if you get the chance, Iknow the pepperball is going to
be out at the mock riot inmoundsville, west virginia, may
(00:43):
5th through 7th.
So if you're out there, you getthe chance to go visit the the
mock riot.
Go say hi to ronnie and sharon.
They're they're the ones thatset up the mock riot for
everyone and keep it going, andwe're very happy to know them.
But pepperball will have abooth set up and uh, so stop by
the booth and talk to carl Ithink will's going out there,
(01:05):
maybe, joe and stop by and talkto them and thank them for
sponsoring the podcast.
I would appreciate that if youwould mention it to them.
So if you get the chance, stopby and thank pepperball.
I'm also teaching somepepperball classes coming up
pretty soon.
I've got one in uh in aprilwilliston, north carolina or
north dakota my fault Williston,north Dakota.
(01:26):
Then I got another one in Taos,new Mexico, coming up, and then
Samarkand Training Academy inNorth Carolina.
So if you're interested in oneof those classes, go to
wwwpepperballcom that's oursponsor and check out the
training schedule and I'd loveto see you in one of the classes
.
Another big thing that happenedthis year for me and, I think,
(01:47):
for corrections I got invited to.
I've been a member of ALITA forquite a while the International
Law Enforcement Educators andTrainers Association so I've
been doing that for quite awhile.
I think I wrote my firstarticle for the journal back in
2014.
So I got invited to come in andbe part of the advisory board
(02:08):
on corrections.
So I'm very thrilled to be partof that and bring a little bit
of my knowledge, my experienceyou know what I learned from you
guys and bring that there forthem to bring corrections into
the fold.
I guess is the way I'll say it.
You know, ilead is a greatorganization.
It's been around for a longtime but their focus has kind of
been law enforcement.
(02:28):
They realize that correctionshas kind of been off here to the
side and they want to bringthem into the fold.
And I guess what I'll say firstis you know the vendors and the
classes that I saw.
A large portion of those affectcorrectional trainers just as
much as law enforcement trainers.
So I lead as a goodorganization as it is.
(02:50):
I'm not going to say I lead asgetting improved by bringing
corrections in.
It's a great organization butwe just want to add some
specific correctional stuff.
But I mean, if a force scienceinstitute that works, whether
you work in corrections orwhether you're working in a law
enforcement, you knowunderstanding use of force, the
(03:12):
science behind use of force, andif you guys never looked them
up, they're great.
I got to sit through one of VonKleim's Graham versus Connor a
new perspective, I think was thename of the class and I got to
sit through and it was wonderful.
I absolutely learned a lotthere.
But classes like that at thatlevel and the instructors that I
got to see while I was there.
(03:32):
You know people I've heardabout for a long time, so it was
great to do that be part ofthat.
Part of what they asked us to dowas to hold a panel on
corrections and invite people into discuss what I lead to
encourage more membership fromcorrections and more
correctional people attendingthe conference.
(03:53):
So myself.
David McRoberts, who's aretired correctional captain
from Wisconsin and he works as acorrectional consultant, now
works with companies that buildhardened fortified facilities
for corrections, so he's got alot of knowledge.
Gary York was on the panel anda lot of you know Gary York.
He's been on a couple of ourepisodes.
I've been on his podcast.
(04:14):
He's an author and he's alsothe host of True Prison Stories,
so Gary was on there.
And then a new friend which Ihadn't met before and I hope I
don't tear up his name too bad,but it's Ron Scheidt,
c-h-e-i-d-t, and he's a longtimeprobation and parole officer
and advocate and correctionaladvocate.
(04:35):
So those were the four peoplethey put on the discussion panel
and then we had two differenttimes, one on Monday and one on
Friday, where corrections wasinvited or everybody was invited
but we ended up with a lot ofcorrectional officers, detention
officers, probation and paroleofficers, you know, instructors
from everywhere acrosscorrections were there, even a
(04:55):
representative from riskmanagement who insures jails and
counties and that was veryinteresting to talk to him.
But so we listened and we tooknotes and we're planning on how
we can improve the correctionsportions of Aelita next year.
Of course, one of the things wecame up with or asked about was
(05:16):
what needs to be developed, andpeople were pretty much in
agreement.
You know there's a lot of stuffout there duty to intervene,
anything that has to do withretention.
There's a lot of stuff outthere duty to intervene,
anything that has to do withretention, recruitment, that
type of stuff, risk andliability management, use of
force, correctional trainingofficer, which I'll talk about a
little bit more about somethingthere here in a minute.
But those were all classes andsubjects that people wanted to
(05:40):
see more of in the correctional.
You know, scope of training wealso talked a lot about.
I feel and you guys maydisagree, you may see something
different than what I do I feellike law enforcement gets a lot
more opportunities at trueleadership training, and I'm
talking good leadership training, not what somebody at your
agency just comes in and puts aPowerPoint together for two
(06:03):
hours, which is what I got for along time.
So leadership training fromoutside sources, from people who
have led and understand and arestudents of it.
So they talked about doing someof that with
correction-specific leadershipclasses.
So it was a good time.
I enjoyed ILETA.
If you've never been there now,ileta is just not the
(06:24):
conference.
There's a whole bunch ofresources.
You can go on Aelitaorg Ibelieve I'll put the link in the
show notes to make sure I getit right but you can go to
Aelita and there's resourcesthere.
You get the journal, the Aelitajournal, four times a year and
that is a great resource.
It's written by some of the toptrainers Todd Fletcher, miles
(06:44):
Cook.
I mean there's just a ton ofpeople that are out there in the
training world who writearticles for the Aelita Journal.
I've written, I think, four orfive myself, so it's a great
resource.
And then once a year they havethe Aelita Conference and that's
held in St Louis at the UnionStation.
(07:05):
I think there were 120 vendorsand I heard from somebody that
there were almost 700participants.
I don't know the number ofclasses.
But what I really liked and Ididn't get to go to everything I
wanted because I was teachingclasses also but one of the
things that I liked was you canjust go to any class you want.
(07:25):
You just pick what you feellike you need and the classrooms
are open, except if they'recertification.
I mean, if you're getting acertification, you have to sign
up for those ahead of time andyou have to meet the
requirements of the class.
But I know there's at least ahundred classes there that are
just open and you can just golearn from some of the best and
(07:46):
if it's not what you want thatday, you can get up and go to
another class.
But it was a really greatformat and I enjoyed it.
I went to several classes, asmany as I could.
I got to see the vendors.
I spent a day helping work thebooth with the guys at Command
Presence, so we had a great time.
I learned a lot, got to see alot of what's out there.
You know some shooting systemslike.
(08:09):
Of course I knew Milo, I'd beenaround Milo, but there were
some others out there virtualreality type stuff that I found
really cool.
There's a what do you call themRadio controlled, like robots
with cameras.
That were really neat.
So there's a bunch of stuff outthere that I had not seen at
SHOT Show or that I hadn't seenat the Mock Riot.
So check it out.
Check out, aelita.
(08:30):
If you're a correctional trainer, you need to be part of it.
You really do.
It's going to give you accessto some of the top trainers
firearms trainers, leadershiptrainers in the country, so I
highly recommend it.
If you have any questions,shoot me an email and I'll help
you with what I can.
Next, I'd like to talk a littlebit about Command Presence.
It's one of the companies Iwork for that I teach classes
(08:51):
for, and earlier this year wesat down and we talked about
developing a correctionaltraining officer program.
Now Command Presence has afield training officer program
for law enforcement and it isgreat.
We're so busy with it.
Sometimes it's hard to keep upand keep the instructors.
They're just going constantlyto teach this.
(09:11):
I got to sit through one fourweeks ago I think it was down in
Louisiana and I truly enjoyedthat getting to see how they set
up that FTO program, the waycommand presence is approaching
it, with a coach, trained andevaluate.
You know, we saw, or we saw,when I was young, when I was
coming up through corrections,it was ran more like basic
(09:34):
training, you know, as opposedto having somebody come up and
talk to you about what theyexpect out of you and then show
you what they expect out of you,give you an opportunity to do
it right and succeed at it andthen evaluate you.
I was used to.
You know here's what you do.
Come back tomorrow, we're goingto put you through this and you
(09:56):
get evaluated right there andif you didn't do it, then you
know you did it again and youdid it again and I really like
this coach train evaluate methodof the FTL program they have.
So that's something we've beenworking on.
I'm happy to announce that Julywe're going to have that out and
I've got a couple of classescoming out.
If you're interested, we'regoing to have a class in August
(10:19):
in Ingham County, michigan.
It's a brand new.
That's going to be the firstcorrectional training officer
program.
It's a three-day class, so comeup there.
I'd love for you to be part ofthat class.
I've also got another one inSeptember at Green Lake,
wisconsin, and love to see youat that one, if you get the
chance.
I mean, if you want to go toone of those, go to
(10:40):
commandpresencenet.
That's my company's that I workfor.
That's their website.
Go, check outcommandpresencenet, and I'd love
to see one of those new CTOprograms.
Let's see what else.
If you haven't been onCorrections 1 in the last week
or so, jump on there.
I just got a new article up.
It's called the Culture ofCompliance Breaking Destructive
(11:06):
Patterns in Correctional Facfacilities, and you know we're
talking about leadershipfailures and, when that happens,
how that culture can turn toxic.
You know we're seeing a lot ofthat in the news the New York
officers who were involved inthat use of force up there I
forget what they're up to.
I think the last I looked therewas 18 that have been indicted
on that.
And that's the way these thingswork when somebody does
something wrong, the tentaclesgo out.
(11:26):
I was involved in one of thoseone time.
I wasn't even at work when theincident happened, but I had
worked at a control center acouple of weeks before and so I
was part of an investigationbecause of what someone else had
done on an escorted trip to thehospital.
That's the bad thing when one ofour people does something wrong
(11:48):
, there's tentacles that go outthrough there and, as part of
the after actions, everybody'slooking for blame, everybody's
looking to find out who made amistake or who didn't do their
job, and it's not always a goodway to learn or change what was
wrong.
But I've been through that, soyou know how do we stop these
cultures that don't seem to havea duty to intervene, that
(12:12):
aren't watching their people andaren't watching out for each
other, because the supervisorsaren't always there.
Sometimes it's you and me.
You have to remind the guyworking next to you or the girl
working next to you.
This is how we do this job.
This is the correct way.
This is the professional way.
This is what makes our agencylook good.
This is how we build goodculture for everybody that works
(12:33):
here, and sometimes that'smostly up to the individual.
So anyway, if you get the chance, go to Corrections 1 and take a
look at that article.
I think you might like it.
I'd love to hear from you.
Shoot me an email if you readthat article and got something
from it.
I've already got a couple ofpeople who I've talked to that
have some very strong opinionsabout duty to intervene, and
(12:55):
that's a tough thing to do?
It absolutely is.
So what else?
Well, I guess the big thing Iwant to talk about while we've
got a moment, I want you guys tokeep your eyes out and I'll be
putting out some stuff on socialmedia Facebook, linkedin and
about my new book.
So I've written a couple ofbooks.
You guys have seen those.
(13:15):
I've talked about a couple ofthem on the podcast, but I'm
really excited about the newestone.
It's going to be called PowerSkills Emotional Intelligence
and Soft Skills for CorrectionalOfficers, first Responders and
Beyond, and so why did I name itthat way?
Well, I got to sit through aclass.
I guess it's been almost a yearago.
(13:36):
I sat through a class MilesCook gave that class and he was
talking about emotionalintelligence.
And I'm going to tell you thetruth, I've sat through a bunch
of classes and working for theDOC, working for the BOP, and
most of the time they have, youknow, annual training.
You got to sit through theplethora of mandated classes and
one of them they startedputting in years ago was
(13:59):
emotional intelligence, but itwas always taught by a
psychiatrist or a psychologist.
And so here's this psychologistup in front of a class full of,
you know, penitentiarycorrectional officers talking
about how I should be moreempathetic, how I should get in
touch with my feelings, how Ishould get in touch with the
feelings of the inmates, and anyof you that know, any of you
(14:21):
that have been around for a longtime, that doesn't necessarily
ring well right.
It doesn't sound well good toour ears, um, and we kind of
become resistant to that becausewe're manipulated so much.
When you start talking aboutthe word feelings, right, uh,
correctional officers tend topush away from that.
(14:42):
I don't have feelings at work,you know, and I've I've said
this for years, you know,somebody will say there I don't
want to hurt your feelings, youcan't hurt my feelings.
I've got one feeling left and,uh, it's hidden, you know, and
I've told people that for years.
But so I never took emotionalintelligence very serious, okay,
okay.
(15:02):
So I'm sitting through Miles'sclass and he's talking about
emotional intelligence as a wayto understand feelings.
It's not so much the empathyalthough you have to have
empathy in order to detect andto understand what's going on
with others and what's drivingthem it gives you and this is
(15:25):
what he called it, he saidsuperpowers, and that was where
I got power skills at.
It gives you superpowers tounderstand the motivation of the
people you're dealing with.
And that can be staff, that canbe your boss, that can be
inmates, that can be children.
But if you learn to understandwhat feelings are going on now,
you can understand what emotionsare driving their behaviors.
(15:47):
Okay, and Miles called that asuperpower and I was just like,
wow, I've never heard it putthat way.
I've never, I've never thoughtof it that way.
So that was the first step.
I talked to a warden friend ofmine not too long after that and
she told me that we weretalking about what staff need
these days and she said well,one of the things that's missing
the most is just basic softskills.
(16:10):
And I said soft skills andshe's like yeah, you know, the
ability to go have aconversation, communication,
just basic communication, whichis something I struggled with,
believe it or not.
Productivity, self-care,wellness, teamwork, some of
those skills that you know Igrew up with.
It wasn't unusual for us to beforced by a parent when you went
(16:35):
to church or when you went toschool and they'd kind of give
you that nudge Well, step up andsay hi to Mrs So-and-so.
Or have you my dad, you know,have you shaken Mr So-and-so's
hand?
Yet?
Those were skills that we weretaught, and a lot of what's
happened with the cell phone,the digital age, is that the
younger generation has lost someof the ability.
I know I just had a conversationnot too long ago.
(16:58):
Someone texted me and I saidwell, hey, give me a call
tomorrow, I'll text you.
I don't want to text whenthere's you know, 14 paragraphs
of stuff to say.
I said no, just give me a call.
Well, I don't like, I don'tlike phone calls.
How do you do business, how doyou communicate, if you can't
call somebody and have aconversation?
(17:18):
Not everything can be donethrough text.
So these were some of thethings that I saw.
So I came up on, startedwriting this I think it probably
started as an article and thenI grew it to power skills, you
know, emotional intelligence andsoft skills for correctional
officers, and so I startedtelling my stories.
(17:39):
You know, this is how I learned.
I'll tell you one I never wasvery good at small talk, right?
I just didn't have time for it,I was busy, I had things.
You one I never was very goodat small talk, right, I just
didn't have time for it.
I was busy.
I had things to do, there waswork to do, and when I wasn't
working, I was trying to figureout how to get things ready for
the next day, or I was gettingready to go home and then I had
stuff to do at home.
So I never had time for smalltalk and it wasn't a big
(18:02):
priority to me.
And when I became a lieutenant,one of the things we did was
walk around and make rounds,make sure that your officers are
doing okay, see if they needanything, talk to them for a few
minutes.
And I really was strugglingwith it and, I'll be honest, one
of the things I struggled withI'm an unusual.
I guess I'm an unusual man.
(18:25):
Pro sports doesn't reallyinterest me a whole lot.
I loved playing sports in highschool.
I competed in Highland gamesfor years.
I love being part of sports.
I'll even jump in on a pickupgame if somebody wants to.
I like the activity, I likesports.
I just don't want to keep trackof people's free throw average.
(18:46):
I don't want to keep track ofpeople's you know free throw
average.
I don't want to.
I don't want to keep track oftheir RBI.
I don't want to know what teamswin and what, what their you
know game wins and losses thisyear is, it doesn't interest me,
I'm, it's hard for me to sit.
Still, I've got a friend thatsays I can't fish, I can't sit
there like that.
And I kind of feel the same wayabout sports.
(19:11):
So I don't normally sit down infront of the TV and watch a
sports game.
So that was kind of a weakness,because what did most of the
male officers, what did they usefor small talk?
And it was sports.
They wanted to talk aboutsports, and so I haven't kept up
on this and I'm having troublebeing part of that conversation.
So, becoming a new leader, oneof the things I did I had about
a 20-minute drive to work and Ifound an AM sports channel, and
(19:33):
so one of the things I starteddoing on that 20-minute drive
was, every morning I tuned intothat AM sports channel and
listened to what they weretalking about, and what that
gave me was some small talk,right, some small talk that I
could, you know, as I wentthrough the day and I saw, hey,
you need anything today,everything going, okay, that's
(19:57):
family and so-and-so.
One last night I'm like, yeah,I heard that they were playing
so-and-so, and so I becamebetter at small talk.
So that's kind of some of thestuff you know I learned and
that's what I put in here.
How I overcame a lot of thisstuff, how I learned some of it
I didn't have to overcame, someof it became naturally to me,
but I had never put names to itbefore.
Right, you know emotionalintelligence isn't one thing.
(20:20):
Emotional intelligence is isseveral things put together and
the first one is self-awareness.
Before you can becomeemotionally intelligent about
other people and what they'refeeling and what they're
thinking and why their behaviorsare the way they are, you have
to understand why you do allthat.
You have to stop and take sometime to become aware.
(20:41):
What makes me tick?
Why do I get up in the morning?
Are my actions driving meforward?
You know what desires do I have, what motivations do I have,
and once you understand thatabout yourself, you learn to
understand your own actions.
So you know, that's one part ofemotional intelligence.
(21:01):
Another one is self-managementLearning how to control,
learning, and one thing I talkabout is learning how to respond
instead of react.
You know I talk about theconversational thermostat
understanding the conversationand, as conversations go up in
temperature, right, being ableto change that, being able to
(21:24):
respond and not add more fuel tothe fire.
And you know as well as I do,if you've worked in a prison,
that's what inmates try.
They are there on that door.
They're trying to get you totry to push your button, trying
to get just littlest bit ofreaction out of you, because if
they can get that reaction outof you, they've overcome your
(21:46):
ability to manage yourself right.
So self-management is part ofemotional intelligence.
Social awareness is part ofemotional intelligence.
What's social awareness?
It's about looking inward andlooking outward to understand
and appreciate the feelings ofothers, the motivations of
(22:08):
others and sometimes it's notjust motivations, social
awareness.
You ever drive down the roadand there's the old lady going
to church in front of you andshe's 15 miles an hour under the
speed limit and you're justfuming.
I don't know if everybody doesthis.
I do.
It drives me nuts.
I can't stand driving one milean hour under the speed limit.
But you know social awarenessis understanding that she, that
(22:32):
person's not doing that towardsyou.
That person may have troublehearing, seeing their motor
skills.
You know they're older, thattype of stuff Pregnant lady gets
on a on a bus or a airplane.
Get up and give your seat.
You know that's being sociallyaware to what someone else is
going through.
So that's another thing we talkabout with emotional awareness.
(22:53):
And then the last one is socialmanagement, and I actually talk
about social relationships howdo you like that word?
When you're working in prison,you like the word relationships.
Do you have relationships withinmates?
I'm going to challenge you andsay that you do.
And being aware that there is arelationship there and all
(23:23):
people, all humans, like it ornot, even if you're the biggest,
toughest, oldest, nastiest,crabbiest correctional officer
sitting in the back of the segunit, you have emotions.
You have feelings.
Understanding that everybodyhas those and how to manage them
, how to manage theirs, how tomanage yours, is what makes you
a good leader and, like it ornot, everybody needs to be a
leader.
Every correctional officeryou've heard me talk about it on
here every correctional officeris a leader.
(23:43):
If you don't understand thatthere are feelings out there, if
you don't understand yourfeelings and their feelings,
you're not going to be able toinfluence the people you work
with.
And I'm not talking aboutinfluencing them to get them to
buy you know, you're not sellingAmway here but influencing them
to work together as a team, tocollaborate towards the same
(24:03):
goal.
And sometimes that same goal isnothing more than feeding trays
on a seg unit today and gettingdone by one 30 so that we can
work on another project.
Right, sometimes that's all itis.
But if you don't understandpeople's motivations and be able
to recognize those emotions,you're not going to have any
(24:24):
influence with them.
So that's some of the stuff wetalk about, or I talk about.
I say we, I talk about in thenew book.
I also go into leadershipabsolutely.
You know how we influence upand down the ladder, how we
influence inmates, how weinfluence our peers, how we
influence the public, how we canchange culture.
(24:47):
An individual can changeculture.
I've done it.
I've absolutely done it in theprisons I've worked in.
How you present yourself andhow you work changes culture.
I'm not saying that you can fixeverything, but you can change
culture.
People will follow your lead.
If you're truly leading andyou're influencing people and
(25:09):
they know that you care, peoplewill absolutely follow you and
you can change the culture.
You can make it better on theshift, on the team in the seg
unit, whatever it is you'reworking in booking right.
Another thing we talk about iscommunication, and when I talk
about communication, it's notjust you and I having a
conversation.
There's so many ways tocommunicate these ways these
(25:31):
days.
Sorry, texting Is textingcommunication.
Do we text as part of our jobs?
Some of us do, absolutely.
What about phone calls?
Is that communication?
It is.
What about emails?
Do you guys take the time tosend good emails?
That's a big part of ourcommunication these days and
(25:54):
people take, they throw emailsout there like they're texts and
I don't think we should doeither one that way.
If you're a professional andyou're trying to set the example
and you're trying to setculture at your institution,
your agency, your jail, yourprison, how you communicate
matters, if you're using theletter U to say Y-O-U, that says
(26:17):
something about you and yourprofessionalism when people are
getting those emails.
Learn how to write a good email.
Learn how to use carbon copy,blind copy, correctly, okay.
Learn about what to put in thatemail, how to review it, what
you're looking for, how to walkaway from emails.
(26:39):
Most emails should not be sentthe moment you write them.
You should give it five, 10minutes, maybe a day, maybe two
days, especially if you're upset.
Have somebody else read it,have somebody else review it,
review other people's stuff andlearn what good emails look like
.
It matters how you communicate,it absolutely does.
(27:01):
We talk about productivity.
You know how we do our job, howwe prevent crisis, how we
diffuse stuff.
You know that's what acorrectional officer does, but
are we looking for time to makeour agency and our housing unit
and our shift better?
You know, productivity is not abad thing and I almost feel
like a lot of people have takenwork and made it something to
(27:26):
avoid.
You know that comes from COVID.
When now we work at home, Iwant to work at home.
Well, are you truly putting ineight hours at home?
I think we're finding out thata lot of people aren't.
If you're working from home,you should still be doing the
work.
You should still be productive,and if you're at work,
(27:46):
productivity matters.
You're setting an example, notonly for your peers, not only
for the people working aroundyou, but the inmates.
I have had an inmate who came tome and he told me it was.
It actually meant a lot.
He said I well, what he saidwas don't you ever bang in?
I said no, I rarely do, unlessthere's something bad If I bang
(28:08):
in something's wrong.
He said you're always here.
You're always here early.
He said I've never seen anybodylike that.
I didn't grow up around peoplelike that.
People I grew up around werealways trying to figure out how
not to go to work.
Productivity matters.
It's part of who we are.
It makes us feel good aboutourselves.
It gives us a place foraccomplishment.
There's nothing wrong with it.
(28:29):
We shouldn't avoid it.
And then the final, I guess,thing that I'll touch on today
is teamwork and collaboration.
Are we good at working togetherin teams?
Are we good at leading teams,or when we all get together?
Are we good at leading teams orwhen we all get together?
It's almost a statement on thenature of society right now.
(28:51):
You put five people in a roomand just ask them to communicate
and come to a consensus.
They can't hardly do it thesedays, because every tiny piece
of their feeling, every tinypiece of what they think, is all
that matters to them.
And we've lost the ability towork as a team.
(29:12):
We've lost the ability tocollaborate, and collaborate is
not a bad thing.
You're not giving up your ideas.
You're not giving up yourthoughts.
What you're doing is taking thebest of each person in a group,
taking the best of their ideas,taking the best of their way to
do something, taking the bestof each person and putting it in
(29:34):
a product that makes everybodybetter, that makes the product
better, that makes it easier forus to move forward and get the
job done in an effective way.
So that's another thing I talkabout.
Anyway, I won't tell you thewhole book, I'm not going to sit
here and read you the wholebook, but I really enjoyed
putting this together over thelast year.
(29:55):
It means a lot to me.
It really does.
And when I got done I realizedthat's why I kind of changed the
title to correctional officers,first responders and beyond.
Because what, what correctionsand you've heard, I hear this
all the time with lawenforcement officers If I could,
they'll say if I could, I'llhave.
I would have every policeofficer work six months in the
(30:16):
jail before they went to thestreet.
Why is that?
Well, it's because one thingyou learn in a, in a jail, one
thing you learn in a prison, ishow to communicate and how to
talk.
Right, there's not very muchstuff on my duty belt when I'm
inside a jail or inside a prison.
Right, I can't go to the dutybelt.
(30:37):
I'm not carrying stuff in theback of my patrol car.
Everything I've got, you know,is in my soft skills, in those
power skills of emotionalintelligence and the soft skills
of communication and teamworkinfluence right.
So when I got done with the book, that's when I started thinking
(30:57):
you know, this isn't just forcorrectional officers.
Correctional officers are goodat it and my 30 years has taught
me to be pretty good at it.
So I don't want to just sharethis with corrections.
I want to share it with anybody.
If you're a dispatcher andyou're dealing with crisis and
you're dealing with emotionalpeople on a phone, I think
there's things you can get fromthis book.
(31:18):
If you're a police officer, ifyou're dealing with crisis,
emotional people, you need toinfluence people who are
stressed and in crisis.
I think this book is good foryou.
I think anybody you know.
If you work in ambulance, ifyou're a firefighter, I think if
you're in the military and youwant to be a good leader, I
(31:38):
think you can get things fromPowerSkills.
I truly do so.
I hope you guys will check itout Next couple of weeks.
I just uh, I just finished upgetting it uploaded.
The cover's getting done.
So my goal is to have it out bythe end of May and I will, of
course, put it out on socialmedia and for all of you guys to
see and please take a look atit and let me know what you
(32:00):
think.
So well, that covers quite abit.
I I have been busy.
I'm not lying, it's been a busymonth.
I'm ready to take a week off ortwo and kind of take a break
before I head back out teachingsome more.
So before we go, I'd like tosay thank you to omni.
You know, omni gives you theability to watch everything
(32:22):
everywhere we we have real-timelocating systems that we are
placing in prisons and jails andthey allow you to alert your
staff to heart rates that drop.
They allow you to tell where aninmate is every second that
he's out there.
One of the things that a coupleof jails have been really
interested in and have adoptedis the fact we can do contact
(32:45):
tracing.
I could show you every inmatethat an inmate's been in contact
with in the last 24 hours, inthe last week, in the last month
.
So that's something that's comealong and we're getting a lot
of response for that.
All of this information isclickable.
You know the interface and it'sreally easy to run the reports
(33:07):
and it works with your JMSsystem.
So if you'd like moreinformation on Omni, go to
O-M-N-I-R-T-L-S.
That's OmniRTLScom, and theRTLS stands for Real-Time
Locating System and if you haveany questions, absolutely reach
out to Mike attheprisonofficercom.
(33:28):
If you have questions aboutanything I've talked about today
, whether it's corrections inAelita, whether it's Omni,
pepperball or my new book, feelfree to throw an email out there
, mike at theprisonofficercom.
I try to get to those as quickas I can.
It might be 24 hours, at themost it's 48.
And I will get back with youand let you know.
(33:49):
It depends on what I'm doingthat day.
So for everyone out there, takesome time.
Go find somebody inside thatlooks like they need just to
talk.
Go, spend some time and askthem how they're doing and then
stay there for a minute andlisten.
That's the best thing we can do.
Of all my years of corrections,that was what I found helps
(34:13):
people the most is to ask themhow are you doing and then
listen.
We get so used to just wavingor shaking hands and going down
the hall.
Spend a moment, find out thatthey're okay, are shaking hands
and going down the hall, spend amoment, find out that they're
okay.
Corrections is a tough businessand for some people and at some
times it's tougher than others.
You know you may have thetoughest, meanest, roughest
(34:35):
correctional officer, butsometime during his career
you've got some downtime.
You know where things aren'tgoing your way and you need
somebody to pick you up a littlebit.
So reach out there to thatofficer and see if you can, you
know, brighten their day alittle bit.
Give everybody a smile.
Anyway, I appreciate you guyswatching the prison officercom.
(34:56):
As always, next week I've gotTim Fosnott, or not.
Next week, in two weeks afterthis, there'll be Tim Fosnott on
here.
He's the owner of Arc Tacticaland then we've already recorded
an episode two weeks after thatwith Brian Antonelli, former BOP
officer, with me, and so we'regoing to talk about a lot of
stuff, but that'll be in twoepisodes from now.
(35:17):
But anyway, have a great dayand I will see you later.
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