August 4, 2025 • 67 mins
What if everything we thought we knew about training correctional officers was based on flawed assumptions? In this eye-opening conversation with Myles Cook, we explore how questioning basic training objectives can transform outcomes across corrections.
Miles brings 15 years of diverse experience spanning corrections, patrol, narcotics, investigations, and academy instruction to tackle one of our profession's most fundamental challenges - training that actually works. With a master's degree, military service, and recognition as one of the International Association of Police Chiefs' 40 Under 40 Award recipients, Myles understands both theory and practical application.
The conversation dives deep into how objective-based training has revolutionized physical fitness programs at his academy, resulting in remarkable 34-38% improvement rates across all fitness metrics. Rather than forcing everyone through identical workouts, their individualized approach ensures every recruit progresses at their optimal pace - creating not just fitter officers, but lifelong healthy habits.
We explore why corrections training often gets stuck in outdated patterns, from focusing on policy over actual ethics to teaching shooting techniques that don't match real-world needs. Myles challenges listeners to look beyond their field for solutions, whether that's learning from athletic coaches for fitness training or competitive shooters for firearms instruction.
Perhaps most valuable is Myles' framework for problem-solving: questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and finding innovative solutions by focusing on the true objective rather than apparent issues. His classic elevator example demonstrates how sometimes the real solution isn't making things faster, but making the experience better.
For any corrections professional who's sat through mandatory training, wondering "what's the point?" - this episode offers a refreshing perspective and practical tools to transform your approach to teaching and learning. Connect with Miles at milescook@ws.edu to continue the conversation about revolutionizing corrections training.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer
Podcast.
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Pepperball is the safer optionfirst.
(01:07):
Well, hello and welcome back tothe Prison Officer Podcast.
This is Mike Cantrell, andtoday I've got a co-worker and a
friend who I've gotten closerwith in the last couple of years
.
We've been doing more worktogether and I'm really excited
to have him on the podcast.
His name is Miles Cook.
He's got 15 years of publicsafety, law enforcement and
instructor experience, eightyears in the military, and we'll
(01:28):
talk about all that.
He served as a patrollieutenant and watch commander
for the Carter County Sheriff'sOffice.
Miles worked at variouspositions, including patrol
corrections, narcotics,investigation, swat.
He was on a federal task forcefor the FBI and the United
States Marshals.
He's an adjunct professor forEast Tennessee State University
and in criminology and criminaljustice and criminology Sorry
(01:51):
about that Received a Master ofArts at East Tennessee State,
also Beginning in 2019,.
He helped develop and served asthe director and lead criminal
justice instructor at theTennessee College of Applied
Technology.
He's developed and taught thefirst college program in the
nation to be partnered with theAmerican Jail Association.
So we'll actually want to diginto that.
And in 2022, this program waschosen by the governor's office
(02:14):
to be implemented across 12TCATs and all community colleges
in Tennessee.
In July 2021, miles wasappointed to serve as a
community prison criminaljustice representative on the
university's InstitutionalReview Board for the Research of
Human Subjects, tennesseeCorrections Institute Board of
(02:35):
Control, as a representative forthe Department of Criminal
Justice at an institution ofhigher education.
And in 2023, miles was selectedas a recipient for the 2023
International Association ofPolice Chiefs 40 Under 40 Award,
which is quite anaccomplishment there.
He's got a list ofaccomplishments here that we
won't have time, but I am soexcited to have him on the
(02:57):
program.
I've listened to him, I wassetting his classes and he's
such a great instructor andthat's why I invited him on.
So welcome to the PrisonOfficer Podcast, miles.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you very much, mike.
I'm honored to be here with youand I thank super, super highly
of you and enjoy listening toyour podcast and you teach as
well and I really I'm honoredand I really appreciate you
having me on.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I appreciate that.
I'm excited to learn a littlebit more about you.
I mean, we've been friends fora while, but one of the things I
start off with in this podcastis you know where'd you grow up
and how did you first get thatspark for law enforcement
corrections?
So tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Absolutely so.
I think it was always there.
I grew up in North Carolinawith my family very, very kind
of normal family situation.
My father took a job he workedfor the railroad, took a job in
Maryville, tennessee, and Imoved out there with my family
and finished up high school Ithink maybe ever since high
(04:02):
school I knew that I wanted tobe in the public safety
corrections, law enforcementrealm.
And after I finished up highschool I had a chance to go to
ETSU East Tennessee StateUniversity and went there for my
undergrad and was lucky enoughor blessed enough to stay there
(04:22):
through grad school and startsome uh, teaching there as an
adjunct after that, and that wasalways.
It was always a passion like Inever.
I never questioned it, I neverhad another route, I never had
another plan either, for thatmatter, but it was just always
something like I knew that wasit, like that's what I was
(04:44):
called to do, that's what Iwanted to do, and I finished up
and it was very unique and, Ithink, in some ways different
for me, because I work and Iforget what they call it when
they're at grad school and youhave a lot of grad classes, but
I did that.
So in some ways, I was teachingeven prior to the law
(05:04):
enforcement and correctionscareer, and so the instruction
and the career has always beenone For me.
That's really where I found mypassion.
But once I graduated, of course, this was a different time.
This was right around 2011, notthat far ago and I started
(05:26):
looking for jobs, and the jobswere much more difficult to get
in those times and maybe in someways even more selective, and
so it actually took me a whileto really land where I wanted to
land, and I'm not sure it seemslike things have changed, maybe
over the years.
I think Some places were maybeeven more nervous to hire
(05:48):
somebody with a degree, afraidthey would leave, and so I
landed at the Carter CountySheriff's Office and that's
where I did the majority of mycareer in active corrections and
law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Cool, you were also in the military, correct, yes,
sir.
So when did that come in?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So that come in another thing was probably very
different than my peers.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Very, very, very different.
So I joined in 2016 and did sixyears in the active reserve and
then two years on the IRR forthe United States Marine Corps.
I was a Excellent.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I appreciate that and it was a real.
It was a great learningexperience for me and very
different.
It was one of those.
I knew I had to do it and Iknew since I was young that I
had to do it or wanted to do it.
But I was like I said, I wasvery blessed.
The education and then mygrades.
I was able to get my graduatedegree in high school and then I
(06:52):
got on and then things weregoing good in the career and
going good in the next evolutionor whatever, and I just kept
putting it off and putting itoff and putting it off and I
watched my brother, mybrother-in-law, graduate from
the Army.
I had military service in myfamily.
My great uncle received theMedal of Honor posthumously in
(07:15):
Korea.
Wow, and I knew I wanted to doit and I was literally running
out of time, very much runningout of time.
And so Courtney, who is my wife, now girlfriend at the time we
got married and then six monthslater I was like I've got an
enlist.
So, I aged out a week intoParris Island, two weeks into
Parris Island, something likethat.
(07:35):
So I was older than my drillinstructors considerably and it
was different I was 29.
I had help lead SWAT teams andstuff like that and I was a
private with a master's degreeand so it was very different and
it taught me some things,especially once I got to my, to
(07:57):
my unit, my company, probably.
Just some things I needed toknow, you know, to check your
ego at the door and I canimagine, yeah, and so it was
quite different and I really, Ireally enjoyed my time.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow, I know, just coming into a new agency as a
rookie when you've already gotexperience how tough that is.
You know, trying to use bothears and not use your mouth.
Number one you know I was.
It was very different.
You know, trying to use bothears and not use your mouth
number one.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It was very different , you know, because rank
structure, you know it's me andthis 17-year-old kid.
You know who's doing.
You know probably still livingwith his parents, right, you
know, mopping in the rain orwhatever, what have you?
And we would both mop it in therain or whatever, what have you
?
But on the reserve side, we'reall probably from the same
(08:49):
general geographic area, and somy first platoon sergeant was a
partner that I workedplainclothes narcotics with
Interesting.
Yeah, and so a very strangedynamic that taught me a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The reason I ask about it is I talked to a lot of
people and some of them gottheir first start in learning
how to train others in themilitary, and did you experience
some of that also?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That was certainly not my first.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, that was.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It was a very, it was a very different experience.
Yeah, Okay, Like I said, I meanI was nearing in on 30.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Interesting.
By the time I got there yeah.
So tell me about Carter County.
You show up there.
You're new to law enforcementand corrections at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, I showed up there and I was new to
corrections, new to lawenforcement.
It was interesting.
They had just, for better orfor worse, they had just sued
the county for a new facility,right, and they were doing a big
hire and push there for a newjail.
So I got to experience at leastan hour what I would call an
old jail, one older facility anda new one right.
(10:00):
So I got very shortly, you know, I got to experience the all
right one.
One officer can feed the entirejail.
You know 200, some people orwhatever you know they can dig a
feed.
And I also got to experiencethe three tier towered system
with control locks and automaticdoors and and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And it's things that I was not used to at that time.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And so I worked corrections just over a year and
a half on that first step Rightand fell in love with just
really just working at asheriff's office.
Of course, in Tennessee youknow our local jails are handled
by the sheriff's office andthat was really my first
experience, my first footthrough the door, and it's an
(10:44):
interesting thing.
You know where we talk.
My first foot through the door,it's an interesting thing.
You know we talk about checkingyour ego at the door.
I know that's things me and youcertainly agree on such as
yourself, no matter how high yourise in an agency or a system.
When I got there I was fit, Ihad a formal education, I was
(11:05):
ready to roll or I thought I wasready to roll and I get into
into working, into correctionsand all right, first thing, I
remember, I remember Vivley.
I remember the guy's name andeverything.
It's all right.
You know we're going to, we'regoing to search, search this guy
out before he goes upstairs.
When he goes upstairs, you knowthe whole squat and cough and
that that whole kind of thatwhole kind of thing.
(11:26):
He was about six foot six,gangly, you know, and you know
been stabbed in the throat, hadsome metal in there and I got
very nervous and I figured outvery quickly the skills that I
was missing and it was a realawakening moment for me in
corrections and then into myinto my patrol and law
(11:46):
enforcement career.
I was not as ready as I thoughtI was and I have always held
the belief especially inTennessee with the sheriff's
offices locally wherecorrections and patrol revisions
are shared that if you want tolearn to get good at those power
skills like the book behind you, there is no better world than
(12:08):
corrections.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, it forces you to.
You have to talk to people.
You don't have a.
There's not a whole lot on thebelt when you're inside.
Yeah, so where'd you go fromthere?
What was the next step for youso?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
the next step after corrections.
It was just a gamut ofdifferent things.
So I went out, promoted topatrol division, went to the
basic academy and then fromthere did various things.
I was still teaching adjunctsoccasionally at ETSU at that
time, but went to patrol orpatrol.
I was promoted to a patrolsergeant.
(12:44):
I worked some warrant servicestuff in between there, had
worked part-time for themarshal's task out on that I was
promoted as a shift lieutenantin the patrol division or as a
watch commander.
Okay, I loved that career, Iloved that agency.
(13:14):
That was my home.
It still is my home.
But teaching and instructionwas always my passion, and so I
had a chance before with a, Ithink, a mutual friend of ours,
wayne South.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We had worked together.
I worked full-time at theTennessee College of Applied
Technology in Elizabethan withthat program that you were
discussing, and Wayne will comein and work some days and he
certainly mentored and helped mekind of understand that process
because he certainly had abackground in that and what we
tried to do was get a criminaljustice corrections program off
(13:51):
the ground in the technicalcollege system for the state and
how'd that go?
because you know those are kindof few and far between well,
they're, they're few, andthey're few and far between, and
it's it's something that'sstill active in the state and
they're trying.
They're few and far between,and it's something that's still
active in the state and they'retrying to figure out how best it
makes sense for both the stateand the money and the students
(14:15):
and things like that.
But it went great.
It taught me a lot.
I think it taught the students.
We had a lot.
It's an amazing concept.
It's an amazing concept and atthe time it was, I think, eight
months in length for a technicalcertificate and the training
and we had developed basicallywhat we call a shared training
(14:37):
model.
You know, five days a weekwe're training.
We've got eight months to traina lot of time to train and those
kind of colleges obviouslyfocus on technical certificates,
Right?
So really no different thanwelding, electrician, Kubota,
diesel, things like that.
(14:59):
So we really just apply thesame model to corrections and
criminal justice.
So we really just applied thesame model to corrections and
criminal justice.
These younger people, some ofthem, some of them not, but
these folks will come out.
You think of the number ofclasses you could take in eight
months.
They would come out with moretraining and more certificates
than in some local places You'regoing to get 15 years.
(15:22):
But it is difficult to and it'sa hard sell to ask somebody hey
, don't go work for eight months, do this.
Yes, it's a long day and that'sthe, especially when the hiring
is constant here in that room,right.
So that's a harder, that's aharder thing to.
I think they're still trying tokind of figure that out, but I
(15:46):
think the idea of it isoutstanding.
You know we had our coursedepartment with the Tennessee
Corrections Institute on thatand had some really good
discussions with the TennesseeDepartment of Corrections and
the American General Association, which TCI was involved with,
(16:07):
to try to help with theeducational component of that.
But I do think it's an amazingidea.
It's there just how it pans out, how exactly it looks on the
back end.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Sure, sure, you brought up TCI there and a lot
of people aren't going to knowwhat that is.
I didn't know what it was untila few years ago and we've been
working with them.
I know you work with themclosely.
Tell me about TCI, because it'sa pretty unique thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
You know, I suppose it is In the corrections world.
It is a pretty unique thingit's.
I've been so blessed, and TCIstands for the Tennessee
Corrections Institute, and forany of your listeners that are
familiar, at least in somestates, with the patrol side, it
is some some easy way to say itwould be the post of the
(16:57):
corrections for the state.
But in truth, as an agency andI'm sure somebody could correct
me on a lot of this it acts alittle bit different.
Right, so it is.
It is not so much a regulatoryagency, as it sets up these
minimums for, you know, to meetcompliance, whether it be
constitutional compliance, localjails or or whatever, and so
(17:21):
TCI serves in that role.
But they also serve, and so TCIserves in that role.
But they also serve in a roleto serve the shareholders.
You know, like if a countysheriff is having an issue with
a jailer, they're trying to getsomething through the county
commission to make suresomething is up to par or legal.
The Tennessee CorrectionsInstitute is there to help.
(17:46):
So not only are they doing jailinspections, and things like
that, but they're really, reallyhelping these local agencies
out to make sure everything,even if it's going and working
with county commissions allthat's needed, or jail site
plans or things like that.
So it's really neat, they'revery, very progressive, or
(18:07):
things like that.
So it's really neat, they'revery, very progressive.
They have done some things thatI haven't seen any other state,
whether on the corrections orlaw enforcement side of the
house do, and I'm just blownaway with some of the ideas and,
outside the box, thinking thatthose folks have, and TCI is
funded by the state.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean, that's a legislative funding that they
put forward.
Now one of the things I noticedand Missouri and Tennessee have
a lot in common in this we haveagencies, you know, as big as
Franklin County, st Louis County, jackson County, big jails, and
then you go to some of thesesmall counties and they might
have six, seven people workingin the jail total, and with TCI,
(18:47):
all of them get invited to thetable to train and get the same
level of training.
The burden doesn't fall on eachagency, so much Is that
accurate.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely accurate and I think
me and you were obviously aroundfor the big push on the
training for TCI and David Alolaand Will Wall, the executive
director, and Dave the trainingdirector.
They're just doing fantastic,fantastic things on the way
they're revolutionizing trainingfor corrections.
(19:21):
But yeah, it's everywhere andso they're there to help.
You know the small agency youknow with a holding that's
holding 20 people and has 20employees.
Or you know the Shelby CountyJail in.
Memphis.
Who knows how big it is, Idon't know and I hate to throw a
number out there, but I knowit's gigantic, and so you know
(19:43):
they do all have a table.
They can, all you know, meetthese minimums and they can go
well beyond that, recognizetraining conferences, there's
just, there's so much that theycan do, grant opportunities, and
yet TCIs is legislated throughthe state as kind of housing.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I was excited.
You know we got to go overthere with command presence and
we've been teaching classesthere for a couple of years on
and off with them and it's beenso exciting to just see the way
that works and get to see guysfrom little bitty agencies
excited to go to training thesame as this big agency that can
(20:24):
usually afford more and yeah,I've just loved it.
It's been a great group ofpeople over there.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
They're wonderful people Always, so yeah, and so I
got to.
It was prior to anything withthe command presence, but when
we partnered with them on theeducational side when that
program was rolling out, I wasvery blessed to get appointed to
(20:51):
their board of control.
And so that's my maininvolvement with them now is
kind of as a steering advisorykind of committee, and we
absolutely treasure those daysto spend with those folks.
It's such an amazing group andso right at the end of that, you
(21:16):
know, as we're trying to figurethat out an opportunity was
presented to really do myabsolute dream career, which was
the police academy, and sothat's how I wound up.
I know every state is different.
The training coordinator forthe Walter State Regional
All-Person Training Academy thenumber two, the XO is probably,
(21:38):
I guess, the best way some folkswould understand that and I got
to come over here and work withfantastic people Travis Stans
is the director and Chuck Evansis our new full-time instructor
and work with those folks abouttrying to change the face of
what we do in law, courts andtribunals.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Right, and that's absolutely.
I sat through your class up atAelita and you were talking a
lot about what you guys weredoing there.
One of the things you keyed onwas, you know, learning
objectives and objective focustraining.
So I want to hear more aboutthat, because I sat through it
but everybody listening hasn't,Are you sure?
Are you sure you want to talkabout that?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I can go on for a while.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I know you're passionate.
I am passionate about it.
Yeah, it makes such adifference and I'm gonna I'm
gonna preview this with you.
Know, in corrections we sitthrough so much training annual
training, whatever you call itwhere you're at, where they come
out and they say, today we'regoing to teach ethics, and there
is no goal in their mind aboutwhat everybody's going to walk
(22:45):
out of there with.
It's just getting through theclass, getting through the
PowerPoint.
So I was so excited to listento you talk about setting those
objectives and ensuring thatthey get met.
Talk to us about that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah.
So I mean, I think, as ageneral overview, what I, what I
talk about in that and you know, whether it's objective
oriented training, whetherwhether you call it disruption
or disruptive discourse, it isis very much in the same in the
in the private world, on whatthey what they call disruptive
innovation.
(23:16):
And it came to me in aninteresting way.
I was teaching instructordevelopment, which I absolutely
love instead of and I've got avery unique some may think it's
strange approach to instructordevelopment, but it is
leadership, nonverbal and verbalcommunication, problem solving.
(23:38):
It's all these things that it'snot how to build a PowerPoint,
right, right, and so there's somany other things.
And what I've noticed is in myfield, training classes and my
instructor development and allthese things a lot of it come
down to trying to solve eitherbroad cultural issues at an
(23:59):
agency.
It would come down to I've gotthis class and I can't quite
figure out how to make it better, what I'm trying to do with it
as an instructor come down toI've got this class and I can't
quite figure out how to make itbetter, what I'm trying to do
with it as an instructor.
We've had people in class.
Okay, what's the problem I'mtrying to work on it.
I'm burnt out and so it wasthese wide-ranging issues and
perhaps the most helpful part ofthe class, the part that was
(24:24):
enjoyed the most or seemed tohave the most value benefit, was
this problem-solving exerciseand, of course, I know we've
talked about people in theprivate world whether it be the
theory of constraints or someother things that have this
really unique idea of problemsolving, whether that be
reframing the problem or thingslike that, and it was helpful.
(24:49):
It was so helpful and I startedwe would go through this list of
what began as a list ofquestions.
And you know the questionsmight be like what is your why?
What are your actual objectives?
What is the actual terminalobjective at the end of the day,
right?
What is you know, know, are yourewarding the behavior or the
pattern that you're looking for?
And so these we startedbuilding the questions through
(25:12):
these classes and kind of kindof tweaking them.
I started kind of saving themand then I started seeing, uh,
things like like kristen cox,you know from theory concerns.
Well, that's, that's kind ofwhat I was thinking, but that's
a much better way to articulate.
You know exactly what I wastrying to get to the point and
and I have found some of myfavorite books in the world are
(25:34):
Adam Grant's books on relearningand rethinking, ok, and that's
that's really what it come downto.
It was kind of relearning andrethinking, but you got to start
first with the right question,right?
Or you got to start first withwith what the problem actually
is, yes, and so we started thatthrough instructor development
(25:58):
and it really just kind ofbecome an animal or a class on
its own accord on how to do that, and what we eventually kind of
landed with was a set ofquestions, and in some ways it's
a big word metacognition, right?
Why am I thinking how I'mthinking?
(26:18):
You know that forces us toreframe or to question the
validity of the problem in thefirst place, or what our
objectives actually are.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Great.
So let me step in here realquick, because I have my own
little theory.
And when I'm at that point andI'm developing the objectives or
what the question is, I noticethat a lot of instructors,
they'll sit down in their office, they'll type, they'll think,
okay, this is what I, this iswhat I.
It's not always about you Walkout, go ask, go ask the people
(26:54):
that you're going to teach,because I had this happen a
couple of times in my careerwhere I came in and I built this
beautiful class, you know, andthen when I got done, they were
just kind of like I'm like,what's wrong?
Well, that doesn't apply to us.
You know what was it that theyneeded?
And so I started, at least.
And you can't do it all basedon what students say.
You still have to be theinstructor, you still have to
(27:17):
focus.
But going out there and talkingto the students and getting
their perception or their whatthey're dealing with, their
challenges at that time, andthen bringing that into your
class, I find helps a lot whenyou're building those objectives
, your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Absolutely.
And so I know for us and insome ways in my instructor
development, that's what it wasYou're going to develop a
problem, then we're going towork on a problem statement.
Right, I don't care.
I don't care if the problem isI want my line of shooters to be
faster at firing a handgun, orI've got a cultural problem, or
how do I get the older people inmy agency to get excited about
(27:55):
training, or I'm burnt out andI'm ready to quit.
How do I fix it?
I don't care what the problemis.
Right, it's not mine, it'syours.
So I just want to kind of helpyou look at it different or see
if we can find an answer.
And we were able to do that,and I do think taking obviously
what they need into account isimportant.
(28:16):
I know for our, for thatinstructor development.
I'm sure you said there were aton of them.
I know I have a lot of times.
You know the end is a fiveminute presentation on whatever
you pick and it's you know howto apply a target, or you know,
maybe something with pepper ballRight.
And so you kind of deliver thatfor us in our instructor
development class.
When you sit through theleadership and you sit through
(28:39):
the problem solving and you sitthrough the verbal and nonverbal
communication we have somereally killer exercises for that
that are just amazing and yousit through all these things,
what you're working toward isactually solving the problem.
Then you go through a day oftrying to solve the problem and
then your exercise at the end isa 15 to 20-minute presentation
on how, based on adult learning,based on all the other things
(29:03):
we went through, how you plan tofix that problem.
And so what you leave with is apackaged 15-minute pitch to your
administration on how toactually fix the problem.
Nice, so it's worked reallywell for us.
But you know, I don't thinkit's just training.
I think there are some goodexamples In the law enforcement
(29:25):
world.
We want to reduce foot pursuits.
That sounds great.
I would ask you, is that theactual terminal objective?
The actual real objective isprobably to reduce the liability
associated with foot pursuits.
That's going to end up in adifferent answer.
(29:45):
Absolutely it will.
This is another common one.
I've got a book of theseexamples, mike, and you know
that, but an interesting onethat I haven't talked about much
or taught much, and it's nuts.
The answers are never right orwrong.
(30:06):
It's your situation, yourproblem.
What could work?
The general idea right.
We want to lower domesticviolence rates.
So almost every state Tennessee, I'm sure, missouri is the same
is a mandatory arrest policy,right, once the primary
aggressor is determined.
What was the effort in that?
(30:29):
The effort, the objective, isto lower domestic violence rates
.
I would question if that hasoccurred and it would probably
not be a super popular thing tosay do these mandatory arrest
policies work and are theymeeting the actual objectives?
Because if you want lessdomestic violence calls, you
(30:52):
just pick the phone up off thehook, right?
There's an easy way to answerthat question.
It's not the right way, but itis a way.
Your objective at the end, Ithink, is to actually help the
victims get out of thatsituation.
I think is to actually help thevictims get out of that
situation.
So, as we know, the mandatoryarrest very rarely works that
way.
And so would it be based on ouractual objectives of helping
(31:16):
the victim.
Would we be better suited tooffer more services to a victim.
You know, when those kinds ofcalls on the patrol side when
you answer domestic violence andlet's just say it's the male,
you know a victim.
You know, when those kind ofcalls on the patrol side when
you answer domestic violence andlet's just say it's the male,
you know a male and a female andyou're going to arrest the male
(31:36):
.
A quarter of the time you'llprobably get attacked by a
female freely.
Those are the way those thingshappen.
So if the objective is to helpand a lot of times they stay we
know that the domestic violencevictims want to stay in that
situation.
Well, let's look at the reasonsfor that no money to get out,
no car and no job prospects, nosafety.
So if you answered everydomestic violence call and could
(31:57):
get them a ride and a safeplace to stay for a month and a
job, you'd probably really loweryour domestic violence rates.
Much better than the mandatoryarrest policy, right?
But it's a hard sell to saymaybe we don't need to arrest
immediately, right?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I get that, does it, but based off the objectives,
that answer might make moresense yeah, no, that makes that,
makes perfect sense, and that'slearning to focus and learning
to study what the true issue is.
And I'm going to step back toethics again.
You know that's one of themthat they just push in
(32:35):
corrections Every time somethingbad happens.
We have more ethics classes,but the ethics classes are about
policy.
Well, people know the policy.
That's not what's causing theethic lapses.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Ethics and policy are two different things Absolutely
yeah.
So you know we've had thisdiscussion in the training world
from the law enforcement side.
You know what do you want whenan officer graduates their basic
training?
I want them to really trustthemselves, have good confidence
, have good command presence, beable to think for themselves,
(33:07):
think on their own two feet.
What do you do to them at theacademy?
Shave their heads, dress themall the same, never allow them
to speak, tell them they'restupid.
Right, that doesn't make sensebased on the actual objective
that you're looking for.
You want them to beself-disciplined, but you never
get them the role ofresponsibility.
Yeah, yeah, and it's aninteresting thought that we you
want them to be self-disciplined, but you never get them the
role of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And it's an interesting thought that we
really miss.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And one I'd never thought about and I've been put
through it for years is physicaltraining, and I think it was
you that talked to me about whenphysical training becomes
punishment, well, that's all itis, and why would anybody want
to do it?
After that, after they've beenthrough there, you guys have
been doing some reallyinteresting stuff with the
(33:52):
individualized physical training.
Is that a good way to put it?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it Tell me
about that?
Yeah, I'd love to, depending onhow much your listeners know.
Depending on how much yourlisteners know, what we have
here is a linearly progressivePT training program for every
individual officer that comes.
So we train about 250 officersa year from across the state.
(34:17):
Well, as we know whether you'regoing through any kind of
corrections academy or whetheryou're going through basic
police academy, it is generallybased off a military model where
PT happens.
First thing in the morningYou're going to go out and do
physical training in a groupformat.
Usually your guy at the frontis kind of leading it.
Your poor guy at the back hasdied because he's overweight and
(34:38):
a smoker right, he's justtrying to survive it and what
you find is that it doesn't helpthe guy in the front and it
doesn't help the guy in the back.
You know it.
Really, it might help somebodyin the middle mate.
Right, we know.
We know that there is a betterway to program physical fitness.
(34:59):
We've been doing it for like 90years, right, we would never
train an athlete that way.
Which brings me to a point whatis the objective of your
physical training in thatenvironment?
Is it something to do?
Is it to punish, or is it tomake them healthier and set them
(35:21):
on a life course in which theyunderstand the nutrition and
programming and proper exerciseprotocol?
For us that was the case.
We do not run a military styleacademy, we run a professional
model academy and so ourphysical training.
I don't want to have done anydifferent than what an athlete
deserves and so what we do.
(35:42):
To kind of answer that question.
We had some very specificthings.
I wrote an article about it andI had a list a few years back.
But I wanted to maintain groupphysical training.
I just had to.
You've got 60 recruits.
You've kind of got to do thatwith differing expectations
because I got slower in thepolice academy, I got weaker at
(36:07):
Parris Island with the MarineCorps.
Now when you drop 60 pounds,that's going to happen.
When you're underfed and thinkyou're going to die, it's a
little bit different.
But they come to orientation.
They lay down baseline numbersbased on what our tests are for
the state of a mile and a halfrun, a 300-meter sprint,
push-ups and sit-ups maxed outfor a minute, and then I take
(36:30):
those numbers and I pop theminto an Excel doc that I made.
And it's very, very simple.
The programming is based off an800-meter sprint training
program with very simple matrixfor push-ups and sit-ups and how
those are trained, and whenthey get here day one, they know
what they're going to do everysingle morning, every single
(36:53):
what we call hack time, orexpected time for a run, for a
sprint, for reps, for push-upsand sit-ups or wherever the
exercises may be Right.
So if Monday morning is atwo-mile run, be so.
If Monday morning is a two milerun, miles Cook's time might be
21 minutes and 38 seconds,yours might be 24 minutes and
(37:15):
two seconds.
We're all going to traintogether.
We're all going to run twomiles.
We're running at 80% of ourmaybe one mile time trial.
And so we're all giving the sameeffort in a smart, progressed,
built way.
And the best way I explain it?
Because we get a lot of folksthat go to the gym.
We don't get a lot of folksthat are runners Sometimes we do
(37:38):
or at least professionallytrained runners.
And for your listeners theymight get this If you bench
press 315, you cannot godownstairs once a day.
Bench 315 once, come backupstairs and you get better at
the bench press, right, you gothree times a week and you do
four sets of six at 225.
(38:01):
Right, so it's very unusual andit's very strange when we get
folks here.
I want to give you 100%.
Well, awesome, I need you torun 80% today, right, right, I
want you to run slower thanyou're used to.
So we're and there's differentways of doing this but we
increase our volume and we lowerour intensity, and so they
(38:23):
generally never run over 70, 80,85 percent of what they can run
, and then we generally stretchit out to about three miles.
That's the most they're goingto run, and we have seen amazing
results almost well, actually,without fail.
The entire class average andI've got all the years of data
(38:45):
and statistics on this 34 to 38%improvement across the test.
Nice, wow, and I can't ifanybody else is keeping up with
their math.
I can't find anybody else thatcan match those improvements.
We have the strictest PTstandards in the state and I
(39:09):
think we have the highest passrate.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Isn't that amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And PT is enjoyable and they generally ask for
continued programming after theygraduate.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And it's really neat, I think, mike, because what is
the objective?
Is this punishment this morning, or are we training athletes?
You know, if you can ask thatsimple question, if you can ask
that simple question off thestart, what is the objective?
I want them to get healthier.
I know one of ours is.
I want everybody to get better.
Well this makes sense becauseif you come in running a 10
(39:43):
minute mile and a half, you'llprobably leave running like an
8.3.
If you come in running a20-minute, I can probably get
you around 16.4, something likethat, and so everybody improves.
And in many ways, Mike, you'reonly competing against yourself
and your own expectations.
(40:03):
So what you see is the folksthat generally despise physical
training let's say, on a run,that are in the very back.
Well, they beat their half timeby 12 minutes Right Now.
Traditionally, the people thathated physical training the most
are the most excited about thephysical training I can see that
(40:23):
.
Everybody improves right, and Idon't have that on this but when
they leave the number ofmessages and emails I get for
hey, can I get this program?
Hey, I'm in my six-foot pursuittoday or whatever the case may
be, or hey, you'd be reallyproud.
(40:44):
I'm 60 pounds down.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I'm the healthiest I've spot in my life.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
It's really, I think, made a difference just because
we viewed it differently.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Absolutely.
You know law enforcement hasdone a better job for years
because they do have academies.
They have academies that areoutside of agencies a lot of
times.
There are some that have theirown academies, but a lot of them
have these academies outside ofagencies who are able to do
things like what you're talkingabout.
Corrections is one of the worst.
(41:16):
They always want to have theiracademy inside their agency with
their trainers.
How do we change that mindset?
How do we get corrections tograb a hold of some of this
outside training?
Because when you just givesomeone the training title,
you're now the training officer,but they normally don't get
(41:37):
skills to go with that.
And I know you study all thetime.
I spent most of my careerstudying from other people but
as a class nobody gave me atraining class to come out and
train in adult learning stylesto learn objective-based skill
development.
How do we get corrections tograb a hold of what I think law
(41:57):
enforcement already has?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
You know, I think.
Well, I'll say I think we'reall a bit behind the curve, you
know, and I think lawenforcement may be ahead of
corrections in some areas.
One of the questions on ourobjective-based training or
disruption is are there modelsoutside that match?
If I want to train them likeathletes, I don't need to find
(42:23):
other police or othercorrectional professionals.
I need to find athletic coaches.
That's exactly what I did.
You know D1 track coaches.
Those guys know right, theyknow how to train somebody.
If I want you to be a better,faster, more accurate pistol
shooter on the line and you knowI fought his way to it's not
cops.
(42:43):
I need USPSA performanceshooters.
Right, and you know, and thenyou'll see.
And we've changed ours, and Icould talk about that all day
too.
But the objective is not slowprep, press front, sight squeeze
, pop, click to an audible reset.
That's Olympic-style shooting.
(43:04):
We do not do that in policework.
That is not it.
So what I needed to learn howto do was see what I had to see
and smash that trigger withoutmoving the gun.
Well, that's what's taught inperformance shooting and for the
last 50 years 60, 80,.
That is not what is taught on alaw enforcement plan Right and
(43:27):
we miss the objective, a verysimple objective, if you'll just
ask yourself.
So I think, if we're talkingabout corrections getting to the
outside, I think if we'retalking about objectives, we've
got to look at what the problemwith that is, and I know for a
lot of places, especially in ourarea, that's going to be
(43:48):
funding you have to invest.
If we're talking about localcorrections in Tennessee or
Missouri, that sheriff is goingto have to invest the same
amount of training dollars inthe corrections division as in
the patrol division.
We're talking about a stateprison system or federal prison
system.
Obviously, you can speak tothat, but that's a different way
(44:08):
.
But that funding needs to bethere and they need to be able
to get outside influence.
I think Alita and I know you'reback at Alita, I think you're
on their-.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Let's talk about Alita.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Their podcast very soon.
I made the joke this year, butit's not a joke, it's very
serious.
Well, it's kind of a joke.
I couldn't spell adult learningthe first time I went there,
you know, and I met this amazinggroup of people who took me
down these amazing rabbit holes.
You know to learn this amazingnetwork, and so you know now if
(44:45):
I, if I've got a question aboutadult learning, I know who to
call.
I'll call everybody who wrotethe book.
If I've got a question aboutcorrections, I'm going to call
Mike and Drew.
Right, it's an amazing networkand I think the ability for our
folks in corrections to be ableto do that is not because they
don't want to do it, it's notbecause they don't want to do it
(45:06):
, it's because they don't evenknow.
It's an option.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
That's a hundred percent.
We had the discussion at a andfor those of you that don't know
, ilita is the International LawEnforcement Educators and
Trainers Association out of StLouis.
They have a conference everyyear.
They have a journal Go checkout their website, ilitaorg but
this year was a big year forbringing correction not bringing
them in because they've beenthere, but kind of making
(45:33):
corrections a bigger part ofAelita.
And so somebody asked me and Isaid you know, I never got
invited.
I was there, I did themembership but nobody ever told
me that you know, it was lawenforcement.
You know, and I was there, Idid the membership but nobody
ever told me that it was lawenforcement and I was
corrections.
Nobody said I was part of that.
So I was kind of hung out onthe edge and learned from the
(45:54):
people but never stood up really.
And so I think that issomething I think corrections
doesn't get invited to the tablesometimes and we don't know
that we can go.
Invited to the table sometimesand we don't know that we can go
.
And I was absolutelyintimidated completely by some
of the people in thisorganization because I was
reading in this magazine andthat magazine and here they were
(46:15):
, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So it was.
Have you ever, have you evermet a nicer group of people who
love to just talk and talk,training and help?
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, and it was this year was the last conference.
Of course I spoke there and youdid also, and we did classes
there.
But it was amazing, jim Glennon, and I did stop him and I told
him he runs Caliber Press, ifyou're, and that was the first
outside training that I everwent to that I paid for on my
own and when I was the onlycorrectional officer there it
(46:46):
was all cops and it was aleadership training and I got to
meet him and shake his hand andthank him.
I said you're the one that putme on this path as a trainer,
because that was the type oftraining I was looking for, you
know.
And yeah, you get to meet thosepeople, you get to see those
people go to their classes.
We'll put a link in the notesand be sure, and go check that
(47:06):
out, because it's an amazingorganization.
If you're, if you're a trainer,you should be part of it, or
what's the other?
Tell me about the other onethat you're a member of which,
which one?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I've got a lot of them I know, sorry, i-lets,
i-delets so.
I-atalyst.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yes, i-atalyst my fault.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
No, that's the International Association of
Directors of Law Enforcement, sothat's very much the post and
the TCIs of the world.
They do a great job, especiallyat a state level.
Obviously they're international, but state-level post directors
or academy folks ortraining-related, as it appears,
(47:53):
to standards and how thetraining works, and they are
wonderful.
They have a wonderfulconference with great outcomes
in learning and networking.
I have just found that I'vebeen to a lot of conferences, or
I've been very lucky these pastfew years and it may just be my
trainer's heart, okay, alita,just stands at the top.
(48:18):
If you want to really meetpeople and network and learn
from folks, I think it's amazing.
I tell you to the point whereyou're talking about corrections
, just not having a seat at thetable, right, and I'll say this
for any corrections folks outthere that have number one,
we're all leaders, right, by thevery nature you're a leader in
(48:42):
your profession and I'm not sureif it's the military structure
that we have in corrections andlaw enforcement, even just the
rank of such Constantly seekpermission.
Right, and I'm not saying, hearme, I'm not saying go outside of
SOPs or go outside of research.
(49:04):
We constantly ask forpermission and in the training
for disruption or death-driventraining.
One of the questions is do Ineed permission or who?
Do I need permission from Rightnow to go to Alita I'm going to
need maybe permission or daysoff or, you know, pay or
(49:25):
whatever.
But for other trainings orother things I'm trying to
understand, I may not need toRight, I may not need to.
Right, it wasn't until I gothere that I discovered I could
teach in services or that Icould write.
Now I know you've been writingfor a long time.
(49:45):
I could write for a journalbecause I didn't know the
journals existed.
Right, you know, or nobody evertold me, and I think a lot of
times we seek that permissionand I know one of the things
that we talk about in my classwhen you're trying to think
outside the box, you're tryingto reframe problems and you're
(50:08):
trying to think of innovativesolutions, it requires a cunning
mind, right, and part of that,you know, I always like the Rich
Devaney quote Right, what arethe rules, what are the
boundaries and what happens if Ibreak them?
Right, I mean, it's as simple asthat.
It is.
It's as simple as that and thatcould be something you know and
that's not a bad thing.
(50:28):
I'm not saying go outside SOPsor regional orders, but that
could be all right.
Hey, general orders, but thatcould be all right.
Hey, on the firing range, thisis probably the easiest example
Prep your trigger, prep yourtrigger, prep your trigger.
What happens if I don't?
What happens if I just have areally good support side grip
and I shoot like the other bestshooters in the world who most
(50:49):
of the time aren't preppingtheir trigger, and what you
discover is that the triggerdoesn't matter.
You know, as long as my supportside grip is good, there's only
two rules to shooting a handgunyour sights are aligned on
target and the gun doesn't moveoutside of an acceptable zone
before you break the trigger.
Other than that, it's justpreference.
(51:11):
So we teach all these rulesthat really are contrary to
performance that we're lookingfor.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Right, but have we not developed over and I was a
firearms instructor almost myentire career did we not develop
all of that to get the worstshooter through the program, as
opposed to teaching people howto shoot?
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I think so.
You know, I think we you know alot of times it is the lowest
common denominator right is whatyou're going for.
You know, obviously, and Ithink we share a shared belief
on learning and exploringconcepts and things like that.
I give a big shout out to BillyBarton from Spectrum In the
firearms world, ranked veryhighly in the world as a shooter
(51:58):
.
But I learned just as much fromhim in instructor development
and he coached me for a while.
I said I'm just not growing,like I think I should be growing
, and he said how much are youexploring?
And he's like wow, all right.
Well, yeah, let me think onthis right.
And I was like well, you know,I do a lot of my shooting at the
academy.
You know you ever miss.
(52:19):
Oh, not in front of a crew.
Why would I ever miss?
He's like well, then, you'regoing to stay the same forever?
And I was like I am notexploring.
We know, we know that adultlearning I love that.
We need somewhere around a 20%failure rate yeah.
Well, if I'm only ever executingand not exploring, then I don't
(52:41):
know those rules or limitations.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
And so, and we say that, hey, I want you to explore
out on the range, but if youmiss a target, every bullet has
a lawyer's name attached Wellthen I'm telling you not to
explore.
Hey, 99% survival rate if youmove while you're firing.
But don't you dare ever move onthis firearm slide.
I know that's what I'm saying.
Our objectives and the thingswe do very, very rarely match
(53:12):
when we look at them.
It just doesn't make sense, I'msorry, I got off on it no, no,
we look at it it just doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I'm sorry, I got off on a tangent there.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
I think getting corrections to the table is
important.
I believe there is nothing morevaluable than getting folks to
outside training, and I knowthat does have a limiting factor
with the money.
And it can with funds, but thereare other ways.
(53:41):
There are other ways to do that.
There's always another way tosolve a problem, and so you can
invite those people in, you cansend them out, you can look at
different types of trainingopportunities.
You can even look.
I know one of our questions inour disruption is are there
outside, out of scope, solutions?
Are there people doing similartraining or styles that we're
(54:05):
doing?
That I could get on.
That might not be exactly in mylane and I think that's possible
for corrections.
Right, and we know that youwrote Power Skills.
Yeah, you're talking aboutpeople in the emotional
intelligence realm.
Yeah, you're talking aboutpeople in the emotional
intelligence realm.
How do I take that and apply ithere?
(54:28):
How do I take and you know me,how do I take this theory of
constraints from production andmanagement and apply it to law
enforcement, training and thechoke points that we, that we
see there, and I think I thinkit works in a lot of ways based
based off our, our objectives.
(54:48):
I think I think corrections, Ithink there are ways to do it.
I hope it gets more and moresupported that that is the case,
I think, for better or forworse, sometimes it's going to
come down to that individualofficer seeing what can I do,
(55:08):
what can I seek out.
I think listening to thesethings and trying to make a
connection and trying to learnand get out is part of that, and
you can do a considerableamount in today's world of
learning without money,absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
And you know I picked up an article here and that
kind of segues into it and I'mnot I'm not throwing this on you
, we haven't talked about itbefore, but I just saw this
today and they starteddiscussing micro learning and
they called it snacking orsnackable learning, which I
thought was interesting and as Ilooked into it and thought
about the way people can consumea lot of stuff these days it's
(55:53):
done in these micro bits.
A lot of stuff these days it'sdone in these micro bits, and
corrections is always, you know,we're short of money, we're
short of time, we're short ofinstructors, all this stuff.
But some of the things theytalk about in there were, you
know, email, little bits andbytes.
I want to focus, you know, thisportion of the training, so I'm
going to send an email out toeverybody and get a response
(56:15):
back from them.
Or, when you've had an incidenthappen, why not attach an email
or a memo or whatever thattalks about the training points
of that incident at that moment,while it's fresh in everybody's
mind?
And I thought those were prettyunique.
What do you think about some ofthat?
I?
Speaker 2 (56:34):
don't have a depth of knowledge in the microlearning.
I do think there's some obviousreasons why I think.
Number one we're shown thatattention spans, especially even
if we're invested.
So I think the microlearninghas a strong suit to that.
(56:55):
So I think the micro learningis a strong suit to that.
From an agency point of view.
A lot of times it is easier toget that what we would call
skill retention or learning youknow from the book Make it stick
(57:22):
that's a wonderful, wonderfulbook and what we know from that
world, especially in relation todesirable difficulties and the
recall that information we cando that with microlearning, both
on the front end.
And let's take the most boring apolicy.
Here's a policy easy read, tookus five minutes to read it and
(57:43):
discuss it and then, a weeklater, we take three more
minutes to bring that back anddiscuss it.
One simple guided discussion onhey, this happened.
What policy does this work?
Very simple and we recall thatto memory until it becomes a
working knowledge like any otherskill development.
And I think we know, we know webuild skills that way, right,
(58:08):
and we know we're better offdoing that intentionally in
those small segments, not totake it back to the firearms
world again.
Intentionally in those smallsegments, not to take it back to
the firearms world again.
But like going and shooting ahandgun for 12 hours at a go is
likely a good chunk of that isprobably a waste of time.
Dry firing for three to fourminutes a day.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
That's a good use of time, right, and we know we can
build skills that way.
Good use of time, right, and weknow we know we can build
skills that way and so it makessense to me that learning you
know in any other environment isprobably going to fit right
along.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
See, I love the way you frame stuff because that dry
firing in front of a mirror fortwo or three minutes a day
that's one of the skills that Ifirst learned years and years
ago to become a good firearmsinstructor and to improve myself
so that I could go teach others, and but I never.
I never connected that withmicro learning, and you were the
ones and you mentioned thepower skills Miles was.
(59:05):
I was sitting in his class andlistening to him talk about
emotional intelligence and thatwas really what put the thoughts
in my head about emotionalintelligence being a superpower
and that's why I wrote that book.
So you have a great way offraming stuff.
You know I love listening toyou.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
I appreciate it.
The feeling's mutual, mike, andI appreciate that.
I really do.
I think some of that.
And for any of your listenersout there that are like man I
wish I could get sent totraining I wish I could do that.
I wish I could improve thisthat are like man I wish I could
get sent to training I wish Icould do that.
I wish I could improve this.
I would just beg them justthink outside the box.
(59:43):
Just think outside the box alittle bit and I hope you don't
get flooded with 10,000 emailsafter this.
But it's like nobody says Ican't email Mike Cantrell.
Nobody says I can't email him.
Nobody says I can't email MikeCantrell, you know.
Nobody says I can't email himon Scoop.
Nobody says I can't do thesethings, and I'm really just
thinking outside the box on howto frame it, just generally.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
And.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I think maybe one of the if we've got, I'll say I'd
love to give an example.
I think your listeners probablythe most classic reframing
example is the elevator and theelevator.
The general story goes that youknow the elevator's slow, you
know with the house or whateverthe hotel, and everybody's
(01:00:28):
complaining and it's veryexpensive to make the elevator
faster.
It's going to cost $20,000 tomake this elevator faster.
Well, what is your problem?
Your problem is I need to makethe elevator faster.
Well, that's not actually yourproblem.
That's a solution disguised asa problem.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
And so, when you look at what the actual problem is,
the weight sucks.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
And so I know a lot of times at conferences, if I'm
talking about this, there'susually a slow elevator around
and there's usually some kind ofdrinking social night attached
to it, and so you'd always makea comment If they had the
whiskey and a taco truck set upnext to the elevator all of a
sudden, the speed of theelevator doesn't matter so much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
And so that's how elevator music came to be is to
make it less boring.
And I think just trying toreframe or look at anything
you're doing through a differentlens and there's some very
unique ways to do that is a realpower.
(01:01:42):
And I think that's what me andyou tried to do with the
emotional intelligence piece.
When we were doing that, thegeneral lack of concern or lack
of care about EQ training wasbecause it was delivered in a
certain way, in a certain stylethat was not framed that was
(01:02:06):
palatable to most of us.
You know, I know you agree withthat, I've heard you wrote
about it.
But when you look at whatemotional intelligence can do
and how important it is,especially in a corrections
career, yeah.
And then you frame it for whatit actually is, which is a
superpower, you know, and it isthe ultimate form of self
(01:02:30):
discipline.
Well now, ok, tell me more Now.
Now, I'm very interested.
Absolutely this is tough guystuff Right, and so I think I'm
very interested, absolutely.
You know, this is tough guystuff, right, and so I think
just framing that correctly isprobably a big piece yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I love it.
I love it.
So what's up next for MilesCook?
What do you got going?
Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
We are just trying to do the best we can here at the
Academy and improve as much aswe can Every time, and we're
constantly trying to questionthe objective in a lot of ways,
whatever objective it is, andconstantly try to improve.
(01:03:13):
I can't remember who saidsuccess is a lousy teacher.
Right, and so we've been veryblessed here.
But you don't want to rest.
You don't want to rest on that,and so we're just trying to
find anything we can to improvethe product and the training we
(01:03:34):
have here and the training wehave here and in some ways
that's reframing or redefiningwhat success could even look
like.
You know what it's going to be,and so here we've changed our
schedule.
You know, the schedule here wasthe same forever and it really
(01:03:54):
shortchanged the amount of sleepthat the recruits get.
We went back to the table andthis is this is a reframing
exercise, but like, what is theactual rule here?
You know what?
What is the rule?
You know who says what time wehave to start?
Oh, we say that.
Does PT even have to be in themorning?
No, we said that.
Right, you know where, where,where are the rules for these
(01:04:17):
things?
And so I think we're constantly.
You've got to have the rightteam for that.
I think that takes some trainingand we're constantly just
questioning what we're doing.
We're always trying to improvethe physical training, deeply
invested in the trying tocontinually improve the firearms
(01:04:38):
training.
It's an area where any trainingthat we've got and so that's
what's been going on in my homefor the most part- that's cool.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would
they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
I am on about any social media, I would say email
is probably the easiest way andI'm sure you can link that, but
it's milescook at wsedu and,yeah, that would probably be the
easiest way.
I'll return any emails ordiscuss anything.
Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Excellent.
Well, I can't thank you enoughfor being on here.
I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Once again, I always enjoy ourconversations and I'm very proud
to have you as a mentor and afriend, and I appreciate you
coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
It was a pleasure, it was all mine.
Mike, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Hey, before we go, I'd like to take a minute to
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(01:07):
Well, hello and welcome back tothe Prison Officer Podcast.
This is Mike Cantrell, andtoday I've got a co-worker and a
friend who I've gotten closerwith in the last couple of years
.
We've been doing more worktogether and I'm really excited
to have him on the podcast.
His name is Miles Cook.
He's got 15 years of publicsafety, law enforcement and
instructor experience, eightyears in the military, and we'll
(01:28):
talk about all that.
He served as a patrollieutenant and watch commander
for the Carter County Sheriff'sOffice.
Miles worked at variouspositions, including patrol
corrections, narcotics,investigation, swat.
He was on a federal task forcefor the FBI and the United
States Marshals.
He's an adjunct professor forEast Tennessee State University
and in criminology and criminaljustice and criminology Sorry
(01:51):
about that Received a Master ofArts at East Tennessee State,
also Beginning in 2019,.
He helped develop and served asthe director and lead criminal
justice instructor at theTennessee College of Applied
Technology.
He's developed and taught thefirst college program in the
nation to be partnered with theAmerican Jail Association.
So we'll actually want to diginto that.
And in 2022, this program waschosen by the governor's office
(02:14):
to be implemented across 12TCATs and all community colleges
in Tennessee.
In July 2021, miles wasappointed to serve as a
community prison criminaljustice representative on the
university's InstitutionalReview Board for the Research of
Human Subjects, tennesseeCorrections Institute Board of
(02:35):
Control, as a representative forthe Department of Criminal
Justice at an institution ofhigher education.
And in 2023, miles was selectedas a recipient for the 2023
International Association ofPolice Chiefs 40 Under 40 Award,
which is quite anaccomplishment there.
He's got a list ofaccomplishments here that we
won't have time, but I am soexcited to have him on the
(02:57):
program.
I've listened to him, I wassetting his classes and he's
such a great instructor andthat's why I invited him on.
So welcome to the PrisonOfficer Podcast, miles.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you very much, mike.
I'm honored to be here with youand I thank super, super highly
of you and enjoy listening toyour podcast and you teach as
well and I really I'm honoredand I really appreciate you
having me on.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I appreciate that.
I'm excited to learn a littlebit more about you.
I mean, we've been friends fora while, but one of the things I
start off with in this podcastis you know where'd you grow up
and how did you first get thatspark for law enforcement
corrections?
So tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Absolutely so.
I think it was always there.
I grew up in North Carolinawith my family very, very kind
of normal family situation.
My father took a job he workedfor the railroad, took a job in
Maryville, tennessee, and Imoved out there with my family
and finished up high school Ithink maybe ever since high
(04:02):
school I knew that I wanted tobe in the public safety
corrections, law enforcementrealm.
And after I finished up highschool I had a chance to go to
ETSU East Tennessee StateUniversity and went there for my
undergrad and was lucky enoughor blessed enough to stay there
(04:22):
through grad school and startsome uh, teaching there as an
adjunct after that, and that wasalways.
It was always a passion like Inever.
I never questioned it, I neverhad another route, I never had
another plan either, for thatmatter, but it was just always
something like I knew that wasit, like that's what I was
(04:44):
called to do, that's what Iwanted to do, and I finished up
and it was very unique and, Ithink, in some ways different
for me, because I work and Iforget what they call it when
they're at grad school and youhave a lot of grad classes, but
I did that.
So in some ways, I was teachingeven prior to the law
(05:04):
enforcement and correctionscareer, and so the instruction
and the career has always beenone For me.
That's really where I found mypassion.
But once I graduated, of course, this was a different time.
This was right around 2011, notthat far ago and I started
(05:26):
looking for jobs, and the jobswere much more difficult to get
in those times and maybe in someways even more selective, and
so it actually took me a whileto really land where I wanted to
land, and I'm not sure it seemslike things have changed, maybe
over the years.
I think Some places were maybeeven more nervous to hire
(05:48):
somebody with a degree, afraidthey would leave, and so I
landed at the Carter CountySheriff's Office and that's
where I did the majority of mycareer in active corrections and
law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Cool, you were also in the military, correct, yes,
sir.
So when did that come in?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So that come in another thing was probably very
different than my peers.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Very, very, very different.
So I joined in 2016 and did sixyears in the active reserve and
then two years on the IRR forthe United States Marine Corps.
I was a Excellent.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I appreciate that and it was a real.
It was a great learningexperience for me and very
different.
It was one of those.
I knew I had to do it and Iknew since I was young that I
had to do it or wanted to do it.
But I was like I said, I wasvery blessed.
The education and then mygrades.
I was able to get my graduatedegree in high school and then I
(06:52):
got on and then things weregoing good in the career and
going good in the next evolutionor whatever, and I just kept
putting it off and putting itoff and putting it off and I
watched my brother, mybrother-in-law, graduate from
the Army.
I had military service in myfamily.
My great uncle received theMedal of Honor posthumously in
(07:15):
Korea.
Wow, and I knew I wanted to doit and I was literally running
out of time, very much runningout of time.
And so Courtney, who is my wife, now girlfriend at the time we
got married and then six monthslater I was like I've got an
enlist.
So, I aged out a week intoParris Island, two weeks into
Parris Island, something likethat.
(07:35):
So I was older than my drillinstructors considerably and it
was different I was 29.
I had help lead SWAT teams andstuff like that and I was a
private with a master's degreeand so it was very different and
it taught me some things,especially once I got to my, to
(07:57):
my unit, my company, probably.
Just some things I needed toknow, you know, to check your
ego at the door and I canimagine, yeah, and so it was
quite different and I really, Ireally enjoyed my time.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow, I know, just coming into a new agency as a
rookie when you've already gotexperience how tough that is.
You know, trying to use bothears and not use your mouth.
Number one you know I was.
It was very different.
You know, trying to use bothears and not use your mouth
number one.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It was very different , you know, because rank
structure, you know it's me andthis 17-year-old kid.
You know who's doing.
You know probably still livingwith his parents, right, you
know, mopping in the rain orwhatever, what have you?
And we would both mop it in therain or whatever, what have you
?
But on the reserve side, we'reall probably from the same
(08:49):
general geographic area, and somy first platoon sergeant was a
partner that I workedplainclothes narcotics with
Interesting.
Yeah, and so a very strangedynamic that taught me a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The reason I ask about it is I talked to a lot of
people and some of them gottheir first start in learning
how to train others in themilitary, and did you experience
some of that also?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That was certainly not my first.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, that was.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It was a very, it was a very different experience.
Yeah, Okay, Like I said, I meanI was nearing in on 30.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Interesting.
By the time I got there yeah.
So tell me about Carter County.
You show up there.
You're new to law enforcementand corrections at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, I showed up there and I was new to
corrections, new to lawenforcement.
It was interesting.
They had just, for better orfor worse, they had just sued
the county for a new facility,right, and they were doing a big
hire and push there for a newjail.
So I got to experience at leastan hour what I would call an
old jail, one older facility anda new one right.
(10:00):
So I got very shortly, you know, I got to experience the all
right one.
One officer can feed the entirejail.
You know 200, some people orwhatever you know they can dig a
feed.
And I also got to experiencethe three tier towered system
with control locks and automaticdoors and and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And it's things that I was not used to at that time.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And so I worked corrections just over a year and
a half on that first step Rightand fell in love with just
really just working at asheriff's office.
Of course, in Tennessee youknow our local jails are handled
by the sheriff's office andthat was really my first
experience, my first footthrough the door, and it's an
(10:44):
interesting thing.
You know where we talk.
My first foot through the door,it's an interesting thing.
You know we talk about checkingyour ego at the door.
I know that's things me and youcertainly agree on such as
yourself, no matter how high yourise in an agency or a system.
When I got there I was fit, Ihad a formal education, I was
(11:05):
ready to roll or I thought I wasready to roll and I get into
into working, into correctionsand all right, first thing, I
remember, I remember Vivley.
I remember the guy's name andeverything.
It's all right.
You know we're going to, we'regoing to search, search this guy
out before he goes upstairs.
When he goes upstairs, you knowthe whole squat and cough and
that that whole kind of thatwhole kind of thing.
(11:26):
He was about six foot six,gangly, you know, and you know
been stabbed in the throat, hadsome metal in there and I got
very nervous and I figured outvery quickly the skills that I
was missing and it was a realawakening moment for me in
corrections and then into myinto my patrol and law
(11:46):
enforcement career.
I was not as ready as I thoughtI was and I have always held
the belief especially inTennessee with the sheriff's
offices locally wherecorrections and patrol revisions
are shared that if you want tolearn to get good at those power
skills like the book behind you, there is no better world than
(12:08):
corrections.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, it forces you to.
You have to talk to people.
You don't have a.
There's not a whole lot on thebelt when you're inside.
Yeah, so where'd you go fromthere?
What was the next step for youso?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
the next step after corrections.
It was just a gamut ofdifferent things.
So I went out, promoted topatrol division, went to the
basic academy and then fromthere did various things.
I was still teaching adjunctsoccasionally at ETSU at that
time, but went to patrol orpatrol.
I was promoted to a patrolsergeant.
(12:44):
I worked some warrant servicestuff in between there, had
worked part-time for themarshal's task out on that I was
promoted as a shift lieutenantin the patrol division or as a
watch commander.
Okay, I loved that career, Iloved that agency.
(13:14):
That was my home.
It still is my home.
But teaching and instructionwas always my passion, and so I
had a chance before with a, Ithink, a mutual friend of ours,
wayne South.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We had worked together.
I worked full-time at theTennessee College of Applied
Technology in Elizabethan withthat program that you were
discussing, and Wayne will comein and work some days and he
certainly mentored and helped mekind of understand that process
because he certainly had abackground in that and what we
tried to do was get a criminaljustice corrections program off
(13:51):
the ground in the technicalcollege system for the state and
how'd that go?
because you know those are kindof few and far between well,
they're, they're few, andthey're few and far between, and
it's it's something that'sstill active in the state and
they're trying.
They're few and far between,and it's something that's still
active in the state and they'retrying to figure out how best it
makes sense for both the stateand the money and the students
(14:15):
and things like that.
But it went great.
It taught me a lot.
I think it taught the students.
We had a lot.
It's an amazing concept.
It's an amazing concept and atthe time it was, I think, eight
months in length for a technicalcertificate and the training
and we had developed basicallywhat we call a shared training
(14:37):
model.
You know, five days a weekwe're training.
We've got eight months to traina lot of time to train and those
kind of colleges obviouslyfocus on technical certificates,
Right?
So really no different thanwelding, electrician, Kubota,
diesel, things like that.
(14:59):
So we really just apply thesame model to corrections and
criminal justice.
So we really just applied thesame model to corrections and
criminal justice.
These younger people, some ofthem, some of them not, but
these folks will come out.
You think of the number ofclasses you could take in eight
months.
They would come out with moretraining and more certificates
than in some local places You'regoing to get 15 years.
(15:22):
But it is difficult to and it'sa hard sell to ask somebody hey
, don't go work for eight months, do this.
Yes, it's a long day and that'sthe, especially when the hiring
is constant here in that room,right.
So that's a harder, that's aharder thing to.
I think they're still trying tokind of figure that out, but I
(15:46):
think the idea of it isoutstanding.
You know we had our coursedepartment with the Tennessee
Corrections Institute on thatand had some really good
discussions with the TennesseeDepartment of Corrections and
the American General Association, which TCI was involved with,
(16:07):
to try to help with theeducational component of that.
But I do think it's an amazingidea.
It's there just how it pans out, how exactly it looks on the
back end.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Sure, sure, you brought up TCI there and a lot
of people aren't going to knowwhat that is.
I didn't know what it was untila few years ago and we've been
working with them.
I know you work with themclosely.
Tell me about TCI, because it'sa pretty unique thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
You know, I suppose it is In the corrections world.
It is a pretty unique thingit's.
I've been so blessed, and TCIstands for the Tennessee
Corrections Institute, and forany of your listeners that are
familiar, at least in somestates, with the patrol side, it
is some some easy way to say itwould be the post of the
(16:57):
corrections for the state.
But in truth, as an agency andI'm sure somebody could correct
me on a lot of this it acts alittle bit different.
Right, so it is.
It is not so much a regulatoryagency, as it sets up these
minimums for, you know, to meetcompliance, whether it be
constitutional compliance, localjails or or whatever, and so
(17:21):
TCI serves in that role.
But they also serve, and so TCIserves in that role.
But they also serve in a roleto serve the shareholders.
You know, like if a countysheriff is having an issue with
a jailer, they're trying to getsomething through the county
commission to make suresomething is up to par or legal.
The Tennessee CorrectionsInstitute is there to help.
(17:46):
So not only are they doing jailinspections, and things like
that, but they're really, reallyhelping these local agencies
out to make sure everything,even if it's going and working
with county commissions allthat's needed, or jail site
plans or things like that.
So it's really neat, they'revery, very progressive, or
(18:07):
things like that.
So it's really neat, they'revery, very progressive.
They have done some things thatI haven't seen any other state,
whether on the corrections orlaw enforcement side of the
house do, and I'm just blownaway with some of the ideas and,
outside the box, thinking thatthose folks have, and TCI is
funded by the state.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean, that's a legislative funding that they
put forward.
Now one of the things I noticedand Missouri and Tennessee have
a lot in common in this we haveagencies, you know, as big as
Franklin County, st Louis County, jackson County, big jails, and
then you go to some of thesesmall counties and they might
have six, seven people workingin the jail total, and with TCI,
(18:47):
all of them get invited to thetable to train and get the same
level of training.
The burden doesn't fall on eachagency, so much Is that
accurate.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely accurate and I think
me and you were obviously aroundfor the big push on the
training for TCI and David Alolaand Will Wall, the executive
director, and Dave the trainingdirector.
They're just doing fantastic,fantastic things on the way
they're revolutionizing trainingfor corrections.
(19:21):
But yeah, it's everywhere andso they're there to help.
You know the small agency youknow with a holding that's
holding 20 people and has 20employees.
Or you know the Shelby CountyJail in.
Memphis.
Who knows how big it is, Idon't know and I hate to throw a
number out there, but I knowit's gigantic, and so you know
(19:43):
they do all have a table.
They can, all you know, meetthese minimums and they can go
well beyond that, recognizetraining conferences, there's
just, there's so much that theycan do, grant opportunities, and
yet TCIs is legislated throughthe state as kind of housing.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I was excited.
You know we got to go overthere with command presence and
we've been teaching classesthere for a couple of years on
and off with them and it's beenso exciting to just see the way
that works and get to see guysfrom little bitty agencies
excited to go to training thesame as this big agency that can
(20:24):
usually afford more and yeah,I've just loved it.
It's been a great group ofpeople over there.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
They're wonderful people Always, so yeah, and so I
got to.
It was prior to anything withthe command presence, but when
we partnered with them on theeducational side when that
program was rolling out, I wasvery blessed to get appointed to
(20:51):
their board of control.
And so that's my maininvolvement with them now is
kind of as a steering advisorykind of committee, and we
absolutely treasure those daysto spend with those folks.
It's such an amazing group andso right at the end of that, you
(21:16):
know, as we're trying to figurethat out an opportunity was
presented to really do myabsolute dream career, which was
the police academy, and sothat's how I wound up.
I know every state is different.
The training coordinator forthe Walter State Regional
All-Person Training Academy thenumber two, the XO is probably,
(21:38):
I guess, the best way some folkswould understand that and I got
to come over here and work withfantastic people Travis Stans
is the director and Chuck Evansis our new full-time instructor
and work with those folks abouttrying to change the face of
what we do in law, courts andtribunals.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Right, and that's absolutely.
I sat through your class up atAelita and you were talking a
lot about what you guys weredoing there.
One of the things you keyed onwas, you know, learning
objectives and objective focustraining.
So I want to hear more aboutthat, because I sat through it
but everybody listening hasn't,Are you sure?
Are you sure you want to talkabout that?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I can go on for a while.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I know you're passionate.
I am passionate about it.
Yeah, it makes such adifference and I'm gonna I'm
gonna preview this with you.
Know, in corrections we sitthrough so much training annual
training, whatever you call itwhere you're at, where they come
out and they say, today we'regoing to teach ethics, and there
is no goal in their mind aboutwhat everybody's going to walk
(22:45):
out of there with.
It's just getting through theclass, getting through the
PowerPoint.
So I was so excited to listento you talk about setting those
objectives and ensuring thatthey get met.
Talk to us about that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah.
So I mean, I think, as ageneral overview, what I, what I
talk about in that and you know, whether it's objective
oriented training, whetherwhether you call it disruption
or disruptive discourse, it isis very much in the same in the
in the private world, on whatthey what they call disruptive
innovation.
(23:16):
And it came to me in aninteresting way.
I was teaching instructordevelopment, which I absolutely
love instead of and I've got avery unique some may think it's
strange approach to instructordevelopment, but it is
leadership, nonverbal and verbalcommunication, problem solving.
(23:38):
It's all these things that it'snot how to build a PowerPoint,
right, right, and so there's somany other things.
And what I've noticed is in myfield, training classes and my
instructor development and allthese things a lot of it come
down to trying to solve eitherbroad cultural issues at an
(23:59):
agency.
It would come down to I've gotthis class and I can't quite
figure out how to make it better, what I'm trying to do with it
as an instructor come down toI've got this class and I can't
quite figure out how to make itbetter, what I'm trying to do
with it as an instructor.
We've had people in class.
Okay, what's the problem I'mtrying to work on it.
I'm burnt out and so it wasthese wide-ranging issues and
perhaps the most helpful part ofthe class, the part that was
(24:24):
enjoyed the most or seemed tohave the most value benefit, was
this problem-solving exerciseand, of course, I know we've
talked about people in theprivate world whether it be the
theory of constraints or someother things that have this
really unique idea of problemsolving, whether that be
reframing the problem or thingslike that, and it was helpful.
(24:49):
It was so helpful and I startedwe would go through this list of
what began as a list ofquestions.
And you know the questionsmight be like what is your why?
What are your actual objectives?
What is the actual terminalobjective at the end of the day,
right?
What is you know, know, are yourewarding the behavior or the
pattern that you're looking for?
And so these we startedbuilding the questions through
(25:12):
these classes and kind of kindof tweaking them.
I started kind of saving themand then I started seeing, uh,
things like like kristen cox,you know from theory concerns.
Well, that's, that's kind ofwhat I was thinking, but that's
a much better way to articulate.
You know exactly what I wastrying to get to the point and
and I have found some of myfavorite books in the world are
(25:34):
Adam Grant's books on relearningand rethinking, ok, and that's
that's really what it come downto.
It was kind of relearning andrethinking, but you got to start
first with the right question,right?
Or you got to start first withwith what the problem actually
is, yes, and so we started thatthrough instructor development
(25:58):
and it really just kind ofbecome an animal or a class on
its own accord on how to do that, and what we eventually kind of
landed with was a set ofquestions, and in some ways it's
a big word metacognition, right?
Why am I thinking how I'mthinking?
(26:18):
You know that forces us toreframe or to question the
validity of the problem in thefirst place, or what our
objectives actually are.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Great.
So let me step in here realquick, because I have my own
little theory.
And when I'm at that point andI'm developing the objectives or
what the question is, I noticethat a lot of instructors,
they'll sit down in their office, they'll type, they'll think,
okay, this is what I, this iswhat I.
It's not always about you Walkout, go ask, go ask the people
(26:54):
that you're going to teach,because I had this happen a
couple of times in my careerwhere I came in and I built this
beautiful class, you know, andthen when I got done, they were
just kind of like I'm like,what's wrong?
Well, that doesn't apply to us.
You know what was it that theyneeded?
And so I started, at least.
And you can't do it all basedon what students say.
You still have to be theinstructor, you still have to
(27:17):
focus.
But going out there and talkingto the students and getting
their perception or their whatthey're dealing with, their
challenges at that time, andthen bringing that into your
class, I find helps a lot whenyou're building those objectives
, your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Absolutely.
And so I know for us and insome ways in my instructor
development, that's what it wasYou're going to develop a
problem, then we're going towork on a problem statement.
Right, I don't care.
I don't care if the problem isI want my line of shooters to be
faster at firing a handgun, orI've got a cultural problem, or
how do I get the older people inmy agency to get excited about
(27:55):
training, or I'm burnt out andI'm ready to quit.
How do I fix it?
I don't care what the problemis.
Right, it's not mine, it'syours.
So I just want to kind of helpyou look at it different or see
if we can find an answer.
And we were able to do that,and I do think taking obviously
what they need into account isimportant.
(28:16):
I know for our, for thatinstructor development.
I'm sure you said there were aton of them.
I know I have a lot of times.
You know the end is a fiveminute presentation on whatever
you pick and it's you know howto apply a target, or you know,
maybe something with pepper ballRight.
And so you kind of deliver thatfor us in our instructor
development class.
When you sit through theleadership and you sit through
(28:39):
the problem solving and you sitthrough the verbal and nonverbal
communication we have somereally killer exercises for that
that are just amazing and yousit through all these things,
what you're working toward isactually solving the problem.
Then you go through a day oftrying to solve the problem and
then your exercise at the end isa 15 to 20-minute presentation
on how, based on adult learning,based on all the other things
(29:03):
we went through, how you plan tofix that problem.
And so what you leave with is apackaged 15-minute pitch to your
administration on how toactually fix the problem.
Nice, so it's worked reallywell for us.
But you know, I don't thinkit's just training.
I think there are some goodexamples In the law enforcement
(29:25):
world.
We want to reduce foot pursuits.
That sounds great.
I would ask you, is that theactual terminal objective?
The actual real objective isprobably to reduce the liability
associated with foot pursuits.
That's going to end up in adifferent answer.
(29:45):
Absolutely it will.
This is another common one.
I've got a book of theseexamples, mike, and you know
that, but an interesting onethat I haven't talked about much
or taught much, and it's nuts.
The answers are never right orwrong.
(30:06):
It's your situation, yourproblem.
What could work?
The general idea right.
We want to lower domesticviolence rates.
So almost every state Tennessee, I'm sure, missouri is the same
is a mandatory arrest policy,right, once the primary
aggressor is determined.
What was the effort in that?
(30:29):
The effort, the objective, isto lower domestic violence rates
.
I would question if that hasoccurred and it would probably
not be a super popular thing tosay do these mandatory arrest
policies work and are theymeeting the actual objectives?
Because if you want lessdomestic violence calls, you
(30:52):
just pick the phone up off thehook, right?
There's an easy way to answerthat question.
It's not the right way, but itis a way.
Your objective at the end, Ithink, is to actually help the
victims get out of thatsituation.
I think is to actually help thevictims get out of that
situation.
So, as we know, the mandatoryarrest very rarely works that
way.
And so would it be based on ouractual objectives of helping
(31:16):
the victim.
Would we be better suited tooffer more services to a victim.
You know, when those kinds ofcalls on the patrol side when
you answer domestic violence andlet's just say it's the male,
you know a victim.
You know, when those kind ofcalls on the patrol side when
you answer domestic violence andlet's just say it's the male,
you know a male and a female andyou're going to arrest the male
(31:36):
.
A quarter of the time you'llprobably get attacked by a
female freely.
Those are the way those thingshappen.
So if the objective is to helpand a lot of times they stay we
know that the domestic violencevictims want to stay in that
situation.
Well, let's look at the reasonsfor that no money to get out,
no car and no job prospects, nosafety.
So if you answered everydomestic violence call and could
(31:57):
get them a ride and a safeplace to stay for a month and a
job, you'd probably really loweryour domestic violence rates.
Much better than the mandatoryarrest policy, right?
But it's a hard sell to saymaybe we don't need to arrest
immediately, right?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I get that, does it, but based off the objectives,
that answer might make moresense yeah, no, that makes that,
makes perfect sense, and that'slearning to focus and learning
to study what the true issue is.
And I'm going to step back toethics again.
You know that's one of themthat they just push in
(32:35):
corrections Every time somethingbad happens.
We have more ethics classes,but the ethics classes are about
policy.
Well, people know the policy.
That's not what's causing theethic lapses.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Ethics and policy are two different things Absolutely
yeah.
So you know we've had thisdiscussion in the training world
from the law enforcement side.
You know what do you want whenan officer graduates their basic
training?
I want them to really trustthemselves, have good confidence
, have good command presence, beable to think for themselves,
(33:07):
think on their own two feet.
What do you do to them at theacademy?
Shave their heads, dress themall the same, never allow them
to speak, tell them they'restupid.
Right, that doesn't make sensebased on the actual objective
that you're looking for.
You want them to beself-disciplined, but you never
get them the role ofresponsibility.
Yeah, yeah, and it's aninteresting thought that we you
want them to be self-disciplined, but you never get them the
role of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And it's an interesting thought that we
really miss.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And one I'd never thought about and I've been put
through it for years is physicaltraining, and I think it was
you that talked to me about whenphysical training becomes
punishment, well, that's all itis, and why would anybody want
to do it?
After that, after they've beenthrough there, you guys have
been doing some reallyinteresting stuff with the
(33:52):
individualized physical training.
Is that a good way to put it?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it Tell me
about that?
Yeah, I'd love to, depending onhow much your listeners know.
Depending on how much yourlisteners know, what we have
here is a linearly progressivePT training program for every
individual officer that comes.
So we train about 250 officersa year from across the state.
(34:17):
Well, as we know whether you'regoing through any kind of
corrections academy or whetheryou're going through basic
police academy, it is generallybased off a military model where
PT happens.
First thing in the morningYou're going to go out and do
physical training in a groupformat.
Usually your guy at the frontis kind of leading it.
Your poor guy at the back hasdied because he's overweight and
(34:38):
a smoker right, he's justtrying to survive it and what
you find is that it doesn't helpthe guy in the front and it
doesn't help the guy in the back.
You know it.
Really, it might help somebodyin the middle mate.
Right, we know.
We know that there is a betterway to program physical fitness.
(34:59):
We've been doing it for like 90years, right, we would never
train an athlete that way.
Which brings me to a point whatis the objective of your
physical training in thatenvironment?
Is it something to do?
Is it to punish, or is it tomake them healthier and set them
(35:21):
on a life course in which theyunderstand the nutrition and
programming and proper exerciseprotocol?
For us that was the case.
We do not run a military styleacademy, we run a professional
model academy and so ourphysical training.
I don't want to have done anydifferent than what an athlete
deserves and so what we do.
(35:42):
To kind of answer that question.
We had some very specificthings.
I wrote an article about it andI had a list a few years back.
But I wanted to maintain groupphysical training.
I just had to.
You've got 60 recruits.
You've kind of got to do thatwith differing expectations
because I got slower in thepolice academy, I got weaker at
(36:07):
Parris Island with the MarineCorps.
Now when you drop 60 pounds,that's going to happen.
When you're underfed and thinkyou're going to die, it's a
little bit different.
But they come to orientation.
They lay down baseline numbersbased on what our tests are for
the state of a mile and a halfrun, a 300-meter sprint,
push-ups and sit-ups maxed outfor a minute, and then I take
(36:30):
those numbers and I pop theminto an Excel doc that I made.
And it's very, very simple.
The programming is based off an800-meter sprint training
program with very simple matrixfor push-ups and sit-ups and how
those are trained, and whenthey get here day one, they know
what they're going to do everysingle morning, every single
(36:53):
what we call hack time, orexpected time for a run, for a
sprint, for reps, for push-upsand sit-ups or wherever the
exercises may be Right.
So if Monday morning is atwo-mile run, be so.
If Monday morning is a two milerun, miles Cook's time might be
21 minutes and 38 seconds,yours might be 24 minutes and
(37:15):
two seconds.
We're all going to traintogether.
We're all going to run twomiles.
We're running at 80% of ourmaybe one mile time trial.
And so we're all giving the sameeffort in a smart, progressed,
built way.
And the best way I explain it?
Because we get a lot of folksthat go to the gym.
We don't get a lot of folksthat are runners Sometimes we do
(37:38):
or at least professionallytrained runners.
And for your listeners theymight get this If you bench
press 315, you cannot godownstairs once a day.
Bench 315 once, come backupstairs and you get better at
the bench press, right, you gothree times a week and you do
four sets of six at 225.
(38:01):
Right, so it's very unusual andit's very strange when we get
folks here.
I want to give you 100%.
Well, awesome, I need you torun 80% today, right, right, I
want you to run slower thanyou're used to.
So we're and there's differentways of doing this but we
increase our volume and we lowerour intensity, and so they
(38:23):
generally never run over 70, 80,85 percent of what they can run
, and then we generally stretchit out to about three miles.
That's the most they're goingto run, and we have seen amazing
results almost well, actually,without fail.
The entire class average andI've got all the years of data
(38:45):
and statistics on this 34 to 38%improvement across the test.
Nice, wow, and I can't ifanybody else is keeping up with
their math.
I can't find anybody else thatcan match those improvements.
We have the strictest PTstandards in the state and I
(39:09):
think we have the highest passrate.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Isn't that amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And PT is enjoyable and they generally ask for
continued programming after theygraduate.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And it's really neat, I think, mike, because what is
the objective?
Is this punishment this morning, or are we training athletes?
You know, if you can ask thatsimple question, if you can ask
that simple question off thestart, what is the objective?
I want them to get healthier.
I know one of ours is.
I want everybody to get better.
Well this makes sense becauseif you come in running a 10
(39:43):
minute mile and a half, you'llprobably leave running like an
8.3.
If you come in running a20-minute, I can probably get
you around 16.4, something likethat, and so everybody improves.
And in many ways, Mike, you'reonly competing against yourself
and your own expectations.
(40:03):
So what you see is the folksthat generally despise physical
training let's say, on a run,that are in the very back.
Well, they beat their half timeby 12 minutes Right Now.
Traditionally, the people thathated physical training the most
are the most excited about thephysical training I can see that
(40:23):
.
Everybody improves right, and Idon't have that on this but when
they leave the number ofmessages and emails I get for
hey, can I get this program?
Hey, I'm in my six-foot pursuittoday or whatever the case may
be, or hey, you'd be reallyproud.
(40:44):
I'm 60 pounds down.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I'm the healthiest I've spot in my life.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
It's really, I think, made a difference just because
we viewed it differently.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Absolutely.
You know law enforcement hasdone a better job for years
because they do have academies.
They have academies that areoutside of agencies a lot of
times.
There are some that have theirown academies, but a lot of them
have these academies outside ofagencies who are able to do
things like what you're talkingabout.
Corrections is one of the worst.
(41:16):
They always want to have theiracademy inside their agency with
their trainers.
How do we change that mindset?
How do we get corrections tograb a hold of some of this
outside training?
Because when you just givesomeone the training title,
you're now the training officer,but they normally don't get
(41:37):
skills to go with that.
And I know you study all thetime.
I spent most of my careerstudying from other people but
as a class nobody gave me atraining class to come out and
train in adult learning stylesto learn objective-based skill
development.
How do we get corrections tograb a hold of what I think law
(41:57):
enforcement already has?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
You know, I think.
Well, I'll say I think we'reall a bit behind the curve, you
know, and I think lawenforcement may be ahead of
corrections in some areas.
One of the questions on ourobjective-based training or
disruption is are there modelsoutside that match?
If I want to train them likeathletes, I don't need to find
(42:23):
other police or othercorrectional professionals.
I need to find athletic coaches.
That's exactly what I did.
You know D1 track coaches.
Those guys know right, theyknow how to train somebody.
If I want you to be a better,faster, more accurate pistol
shooter on the line and you knowI fought his way to it's not
cops.
(42:43):
I need USPSA performanceshooters.
Right, and you know, and thenyou'll see.
And we've changed ours, and Icould talk about that all day
too.
But the objective is not slowprep, press front, sight squeeze
, pop, click to an audible reset.
That's Olympic-style shooting.
(43:04):
We do not do that in policework.
That is not it.
So what I needed to learn howto do was see what I had to see
and smash that trigger withoutmoving the gun.
Well, that's what's taught inperformance shooting and for the
last 50 years 60, 80,.
That is not what is taught on alaw enforcement plan Right and
(43:27):
we miss the objective, a verysimple objective, if you'll just
ask yourself.
So I think, if we're talkingabout corrections getting to the
outside, I think if we'retalking about objectives, we've
got to look at what the problemwith that is, and I know for a
lot of places, especially in ourarea, that's going to be
(43:48):
funding you have to invest.
If we're talking about localcorrections in Tennessee or
Missouri, that sheriff is goingto have to invest the same
amount of training dollars inthe corrections division as in
the patrol division.
We're talking about a stateprison system or federal prison
system.
Obviously, you can speak tothat, but that's a different way
(44:08):
.
But that funding needs to bethere and they need to be able
to get outside influence.
I think Alita and I know you'reback at Alita, I think you're
on their-.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Let's talk about Alita.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Their podcast very soon.
I made the joke this year, butit's not a joke, it's very
serious.
Well, it's kind of a joke.
I couldn't spell adult learningthe first time I went there,
you know, and I met this amazinggroup of people who took me
down these amazing rabbit holes.
You know to learn this amazingnetwork, and so you know now if
(44:45):
I, if I've got a question aboutadult learning, I know who to
call.
I'll call everybody who wrotethe book.
If I've got a question aboutcorrections, I'm going to call
Mike and Drew.
Right, it's an amazing networkand I think the ability for our
folks in corrections to be ableto do that is not because they
don't want to do it, it's notbecause they don't want to do it
(45:06):
, it's because they don't evenknow.
It's an option.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
That's a hundred percent.
We had the discussion at a andfor those of you that don't know
, ilita is the International LawEnforcement Educators and
Trainers Association out of StLouis.
They have a conference everyyear.
They have a journal Go checkout their website, ilitaorg but
this year was a big year forbringing correction not bringing
them in because they've beenthere, but kind of making
(45:33):
corrections a bigger part ofAelita.
And so somebody asked me and Isaid you know, I never got
invited.
I was there, I did themembership but nobody ever told
me that you know, it was lawenforcement.
You know, and I was there, Idid the membership but nobody
ever told me that it was lawenforcement and I was
corrections.
Nobody said I was part of that.
So I was kind of hung out onthe edge and learned from the
(45:54):
people but never stood up really.
And so I think that issomething I think corrections
doesn't get invited to the tablesometimes and we don't know
that we can go.
Invited to the table sometimesand we don't know that we can go
.
And I was absolutelyintimidated completely by some
of the people in thisorganization because I was
reading in this magazine andthat magazine and here they were
(46:15):
, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So it was.
Have you ever, have you evermet a nicer group of people who
love to just talk and talk,training and help?
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, and it was this year was the last conference.
Of course I spoke there and youdid also, and we did classes
there.
But it was amazing, jim Glennon, and I did stop him and I told
him he runs Caliber Press, ifyou're, and that was the first
outside training that I everwent to that I paid for on my
own and when I was the onlycorrectional officer there it
(46:46):
was all cops and it was aleadership training and I got to
meet him and shake his hand andthank him.
I said you're the one that putme on this path as a trainer,
because that was the type oftraining I was looking for, you
know.
And yeah, you get to meet thosepeople, you get to see those
people go to their classes.
We'll put a link in the notesand be sure, and go check that
(47:06):
out, because it's an amazingorganization.
If you're, if you're a trainer,you should be part of it, or
what's the other?
Tell me about the other onethat you're a member of which,
which one?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I've got a lot of them I know, sorry, i-lets,
i-delets so.
I-atalyst.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yes, i-atalyst my fault.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
No, that's the International Association of
Directors of Law Enforcement, sothat's very much the post and
the TCIs of the world.
They do a great job, especiallyat a state level.
Obviously they're international, but state-level post directors
or academy folks ortraining-related, as it appears,
(47:53):
to standards and how thetraining works, and they are
wonderful.
They have a wonderfulconference with great outcomes
in learning and networking.
I have just found that I'vebeen to a lot of conferences, or
I've been very lucky these pastfew years and it may just be my
trainer's heart, okay, alita,just stands at the top.
(48:18):
If you want to really meetpeople and network and learn
from folks, I think it's amazing.
I tell you to the point whereyou're talking about corrections
, just not having a seat at thetable, right, and I'll say this
for any corrections folks outthere that have number one,
we're all leaders, right, by thevery nature you're a leader in
(48:42):
your profession and I'm not sureif it's the military structure
that we have in corrections andlaw enforcement, even just the
rank of such Constantly seekpermission.
Right, and I'm not saying, hearme, I'm not saying go outside of
SOPs or go outside of research.
(49:04):
We constantly ask forpermission and in the training
for disruption or death-driventraining.
One of the questions is do Ineed permission or who?
Do I need permission from Rightnow to go to Alita I'm going to
need maybe permission or daysoff or, you know, pay or
(49:25):
whatever.
But for other trainings orother things I'm trying to
understand, I may not need toRight, I may not need to.
Right, it wasn't until I gothere that I discovered I could
teach in services or that Icould write.
Now I know you've been writingfor a long time.
(49:45):
I could write for a journalbecause I didn't know the
journals existed.
Right, you know, or nobody evertold me, and I think a lot of
times we seek that permissionand I know one of the things
that we talk about in my classwhen you're trying to think
outside the box, you're tryingto reframe problems and you're
(50:08):
trying to think of innovativesolutions, it requires a cunning
mind, right, and part of that,you know, I always like the Rich
Devaney quote Right, what arethe rules, what are the
boundaries and what happens if Ibreak them?
Right, I mean, it's as simple asthat.
It is.
It's as simple as that and thatcould be something you know and
that's not a bad thing.
(50:28):
I'm not saying go outside SOPsor regional orders, but that
could be all right.
Hey, general orders, but thatcould be all right.
Hey, on the firing range, thisis probably the easiest example
Prep your trigger, prep yourtrigger, prep your trigger.
What happens if I don't?
What happens if I just have areally good support side grip
and I shoot like the other bestshooters in the world who most
(50:49):
of the time aren't preppingtheir trigger, and what you
discover is that the triggerdoesn't matter.
You know, as long as my supportside grip is good, there's only
two rules to shooting a handgunyour sights are aligned on
target and the gun doesn't moveoutside of an acceptable zone
before you break the trigger.
Other than that, it's justpreference.
(51:11):
So we teach all these rulesthat really are contrary to
performance that we're lookingfor.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Right, but have we not developed over and I was a
firearms instructor almost myentire career did we not develop
all of that to get the worstshooter through the program, as
opposed to teaching people howto shoot?
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I think so.
You know, I think we you know alot of times it is the lowest
common denominator right is whatyou're going for.
You know, obviously, and Ithink we share a shared belief
on learning and exploringconcepts and things like that.
I give a big shout out to BillyBarton from Spectrum In the
firearms world, ranked veryhighly in the world as a shooter
(51:58):
.
But I learned just as much fromhim in instructor development
and he coached me for a while.
I said I'm just not growing,like I think I should be growing
, and he said how much are youexploring?
And he's like wow, all right.
Well, yeah, let me think onthis right.
And I was like well, you know,I do a lot of my shooting at the
academy.
You know you ever miss.
(52:19):
Oh, not in front of a crew.
Why would I ever miss?
He's like well, then, you'regoing to stay the same forever?
And I was like I am notexploring.
We know, we know that adultlearning I love that.
We need somewhere around a 20%failure rate yeah.
Well, if I'm only ever executingand not exploring, then I don't
(52:41):
know those rules or limitations.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
And so, and we say that, hey, I want you to explore
out on the range, but if youmiss a target, every bullet has
a lawyer's name attached Wellthen I'm telling you not to
explore.
Hey, 99% survival rate if youmove while you're firing.
But don't you dare ever move onthis firearm slide.
I know that's what I'm saying.
Our objectives and the thingswe do very, very rarely match
(53:12):
when we look at them.
It just doesn't make sense, I'msorry, I got off on it no, no,
we look at it it just doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I'm sorry, I got off on a tangent there.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
I think getting corrections to the table is
important.
I believe there is nothing morevaluable than getting folks to
outside training, and I knowthat does have a limiting factor
with the money.
And it can with funds, but thereare other ways.
(53:41):
There are other ways to do that.
There's always another way tosolve a problem, and so you can
invite those people in, you cansend them out, you can look at
different types of trainingopportunities.
You can even look.
I know one of our questions inour disruption is are there
outside, out of scope, solutions?
Are there people doing similartraining or styles that we're
(54:05):
doing?
That I could get on.
That might not be exactly in mylane and I think that's possible
for corrections.
Right, and we know that youwrote Power Skills.
Yeah, you're talking aboutpeople in the emotional
intelligence realm.
Yeah, you're talking aboutpeople in the emotional
intelligence realm.
How do I take that and apply ithere?
(54:28):
How do I take and you know me,how do I take this theory of
constraints from production andmanagement and apply it to law
enforcement, training and thechoke points that we, that we
see there, and I think I thinkit works in a lot of ways based
based off our, our objectives.
(54:48):
I think I think corrections, Ithink there are ways to do it.
I hope it gets more and moresupported that that is the case,
I think, for better or forworse, sometimes it's going to
come down to that individualofficer seeing what can I do,
(55:08):
what can I seek out.
I think listening to thesethings and trying to make a
connection and trying to learnand get out is part of that, and
you can do a considerableamount in today's world of
learning without money,absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
And you know I picked up an article here and that
kind of segues into it and I'mnot I'm not throwing this on you
, we haven't talked about itbefore, but I just saw this
today and they starteddiscussing micro learning and
they called it snacking orsnackable learning, which I
thought was interesting and as Ilooked into it and thought
about the way people can consumea lot of stuff these days it's
(55:53):
done in these micro bits.
A lot of stuff these days it'sdone in these micro bits, and
corrections is always, you know,we're short of money, we're
short of time, we're short ofinstructors, all this stuff.
But some of the things theytalk about in there were, you
know, email, little bits andbytes.
I want to focus, you know, thisportion of the training, so I'm
going to send an email out toeverybody and get a response
(56:15):
back from them.
Or, when you've had an incidenthappen, why not attach an email
or a memo or whatever thattalks about the training points
of that incident at that moment,while it's fresh in everybody's
mind?
And I thought those were prettyunique.
What do you think about some ofthat?
I?
Speaker 2 (56:34):
don't have a depth of knowledge in the microlearning.
I do think there's some obviousreasons why I think.
Number one we're shown thatattention spans, especially even
if we're invested.
So I think the microlearninghas a strong suit to that.
(56:55):
So I think the micro learningis a strong suit to that.
From an agency point of view.
A lot of times it is easier toget that what we would call
skill retention or learning youknow from the book Make it stick
(57:22):
that's a wonderful, wonderfulbook and what we know from that
world, especially in relation todesirable difficulties and the
recall that information we cando that with microlearning, both
on the front end.
And let's take the most boring apolicy.
Here's a policy easy read, tookus five minutes to read it and
(57:43):
discuss it and then, a weeklater, we take three more
minutes to bring that back anddiscuss it.
One simple guided discussion onhey, this happened.
What policy does this work?
Very simple and we recall thatto memory until it becomes a
working knowledge like any otherskill development.
And I think we know, we know webuild skills that way, right,
(58:08):
and we know we're better offdoing that intentionally in
those small segments, not totake it back to the firearms
world again.
Intentionally in those smallsegments, not to take it back to
the firearms world again.
But like going and shooting ahandgun for 12 hours at a go is
likely a good chunk of that isprobably a waste of time.
Dry firing for three to fourminutes a day.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
That's a good use of time, right, and we know we can
build skills that way.
Good use of time, right, and weknow we know we can build
skills that way and so it makessense to me that learning you
know in any other environment isprobably going to fit right
along.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
See, I love the way you frame stuff because that dry
firing in front of a mirror fortwo or three minutes a day
that's one of the skills that Ifirst learned years and years
ago to become a good firearmsinstructor and to improve myself
so that I could go teach others, and but I never.
I never connected that withmicro learning, and you were the
ones and you mentioned thepower skills Miles was.
(59:05):
I was sitting in his class andlistening to him talk about
emotional intelligence and thatwas really what put the thoughts
in my head about emotionalintelligence being a superpower
and that's why I wrote that book.
So you have a great way offraming stuff.
You know I love listening toyou.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
I appreciate it.
The feeling's mutual, mike, andI appreciate that.
I really do.
I think some of that.
And for any of your listenersout there that are like man I
wish I could get sent totraining I wish I could do that.
I wish I could improve thisthat are like man I wish I could
get sent to training I wish Icould do that.
I wish I could improve this.
I would just beg them justthink outside the box.
(59:43):
Just think outside the box alittle bit and I hope you don't
get flooded with 10,000 emailsafter this.
But it's like nobody says Ican't email Mike Cantrell.
Nobody says I can't email him.
Nobody says I can't email MikeCantrell, you know.
Nobody says I can't email himon Scoop.
Nobody says I can't do thesethings, and I'm really just
thinking outside the box on howto frame it, just generally.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
And.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I think maybe one of the if we've got, I'll say I'd
love to give an example.
I think your listeners probablythe most classic reframing
example is the elevator and theelevator.
The general story goes that youknow the elevator's slow, you
know with the house or whateverthe hotel, and everybody's
(01:00:28):
complaining and it's veryexpensive to make the elevator
faster.
It's going to cost $20,000 tomake this elevator faster.
Well, what is your problem?
Your problem is I need to makethe elevator faster.
Well, that's not actually yourproblem.
That's a solution disguised asa problem.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
And so, when you look at what the actual problem is,
the weight sucks.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
And so I know a lot of times at conferences, if I'm
talking about this, there'susually a slow elevator around
and there's usually some kind ofdrinking social night attached
to it, and so you'd always makea comment If they had the
whiskey and a taco truck set upnext to the elevator all of a
sudden, the speed of theelevator doesn't matter so much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
And so that's how elevator music came to be is to
make it less boring.
And I think just trying toreframe or look at anything
you're doing through a differentlens and there's some very
unique ways to do that is a realpower.
(01:01:42):
And I think that's what me andyou tried to do with the
emotional intelligence piece.
When we were doing that, thegeneral lack of concern or lack
of care about EQ training wasbecause it was delivered in a
certain way, in a certain stylethat was not framed that was
(01:02:06):
palatable to most of us.
You know, I know you agree withthat, I've heard you wrote
about it.
But when you look at whatemotional intelligence can do
and how important it is,especially in a corrections
career, yeah.
And then you frame it for whatit actually is, which is a
superpower, you know, and it isthe ultimate form of self
(01:02:30):
discipline.
Well now, ok, tell me more Now.
Now, I'm very interested.
Absolutely this is tough guystuff Right, and so I think I'm
very interested, absolutely.
You know, this is tough guystuff, right, and so I think
just framing that correctly isprobably a big piece yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I love it.
I love it.
So what's up next for MilesCook?
What do you got going?
Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
We are just trying to do the best we can here at the
Academy and improve as much aswe can Every time, and we're
constantly trying to questionthe objective in a lot of ways,
whatever objective it is, andconstantly try to improve.
(01:03:13):
I can't remember who saidsuccess is a lousy teacher.
Right, and so we've been veryblessed here.
But you don't want to rest.
You don't want to rest on that,and so we're just trying to
find anything we can to improvethe product and the training we
(01:03:34):
have here and the training wehave here and in some ways
that's reframing or redefiningwhat success could even look
like.
You know what it's going to be,and so here we've changed our
schedule.
You know, the schedule here wasthe same forever and it really
(01:03:54):
shortchanged the amount of sleepthat the recruits get.
We went back to the table andthis is this is a reframing
exercise, but like, what is theactual rule here?
You know what?
What is the rule?
You know who says what time wehave to start?
Oh, we say that.
Does PT even have to be in themorning?
No, we said that.
Right, you know where, where,where are the rules for these
(01:04:17):
things?
And so I think we're constantly.
You've got to have the rightteam for that.
I think that takes some trainingand we're constantly just
questioning what we're doing.
We're always trying to improvethe physical training, deeply
invested in the trying tocontinually improve the firearms
(01:04:38):
training.
It's an area where any trainingthat we've got and so that's
what's been going on in my homefor the most part- that's cool.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would
they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
I am on about any social media, I would say email
is probably the easiest way andI'm sure you can link that, but
it's milescook at wsedu and,yeah, that would probably be the
easiest way.
I'll return any emails ordiscuss anything.
Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Excellent.
Well, I can't thank you enoughfor being on here.
I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Once again, I always enjoy ourconversations and I'm very proud
to have you as a mentor and afriend, and I appreciate you
coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
It was a pleasure, it was all mine.
Mike, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Hey, before we go, I'd like to take a minute to
thank one of our sponsors.
Omni Real-Time Locating Systemis a company I've been working
closely with for years.
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(01:05:49):
very best way to track andrecord your inmates' locations,
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alert that lets you know when aninmate's heart rate drops below
a set level.
To learn more about Omni, go towwwomnirtlscom.
(01:06:12):
That's omnirtlscom or you canclick on today's show notes to
get in the information guide.
Omni real-time locating systemis a powerful tool specifically
designed for the moderncorrectional professional.
If you haven't done so, pleasetake a moment to like my podcast
or, better yet, hit thesubscribe button so that you'll
be notified when the nextepisode comes out.
(01:06:34):
Thanks for listening and let'sbe safe out there.
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