The Illinois Model

Longtime readers of this blog know I got my start in human learning & development as a police tactical firearms instructor. (They'll also recognize I often use human learning & development as a catch-all for training, education, maturation, decision-making, growth, human factors, & more...but that's another debate!) 
Almost twenty (20) years ago, I received my first firearms trainer certificate after a week of: shooting, reviewing shooting fundamentals, practicing range commands, and...giving a five (5) minute lecture to my classmates on a relevant topic of my choice. It was a terrible class.
I left class without learning much. As I was now going to be responsible for safely running a firearms range, I relied upon what I experienced as a police academy student several years prior. 
So what does a typical 1990's police firearms range look like? 
Well, it looks a lot like 1970's firearms range pictures:

Maybe something less communist army looking....?

Are those dag…

If you are waiting for proof or evidence, maybe this complexity - adaptability thing isn't for you.

The curveball here is that you can't avoid complexity. Adaptation is a necessary part of life. Those who fail to adapt will simply die off - either literally or metaphorically.

What you can do is shield yourself from complexity as much as possible. Maybe get a job on a factory assembly line where others make decisions for you. But then you'll probably be replaced by a robot or computer in a few years...

To limit complexity in your life, start by reducing variability in your job tasks. Get a short-lived job where checklists and flowcharts are appropriate in that procedure-driven environment.

But like I said, maybe this complexity - adaptability thing isn't for you.


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Lou Hayes, Jr.is a criminal investigations & intelligence unit supervisor in a suburban Chicago police department. With a passion for training, he studies human performance & decision-making, creati…

This is part of a new column/series called Adaptive Kids. How can parents, coaches, school teachers, and other mentors help small children grow their own inner adaptability? 


I played gin with my kids this morning. 
They understand the object of the game. The know the rules. But they can use some help with playing strategy. 
While working with them on their strategy, we begin with setting up their original dealt hand of seven (7) cards. They play open-face so I can coach them. I ask questions: Do any cards cluster up? Which ones?Do any cards cluster up in multiple melds?Which of those clusters (or melds) are likely to be made first? Is there an obvious worst (outlier) card - that will likely be your first discard?
This is the easiest phase of the game.
As soon as a player picks up an eighth (8th) card into his/her hand, it becomes a game of competing values. Values hopefully based on numerical probabilities and possibilities & not on subjective emotions. Which cards to hold...and w…

This is part of a new column/series called Adaptive Kids. How can parents, coaches, school teachers, and other mentors help small children grow their own inner adaptability? 

Can boardgames and card games be used to teach or develop adaptability? 
First off, I want to specifically separate games that are based entirely on chance or luck from those requiring judgement, discretion, and strategy. Take a look at these games:
CandylandWarSnakes & Ladders (or as I knew it...Chutes & Ladders!) HiHo Cherry-OAs the wikipedia page for Candyland reads:
Due to the design of the game, there is no strategy involved:players are never required to make choices, just follow directions.What a perfectly-worded description for these sorts of games. There are no choices; only a slavish obedience to the roll of the dice, the draw of the cards, or the spin of the needle. 

These are perfect entry games for small children. They learn process, rules, boundaries, and...how to accept defeat at the hands of La…

When you get readers together into a room, they inevitably talk about the great books that have shaped their thinking.

This seems to be especially true when the setting is more formal, such as workplace or industry training event. (Academics take this to an extreme...and might find this blogpost especially useful! haha)

Imagine you're the presenter or coordinator of such an event:

When the titles and authors of recommended books are mentioned, your audience will be scrambling to jot down that title and author name. Inevitably they're going to misspell the author's name, right? Good luck finding it on Amazon tomorrow...

Instead, maybe they'll turn straight to Google to find it. They pick up their phones and zone out of your workshop long enough so that when they return...they're a bit lost.

Citing on slides themselves can be useful, but can also be distracting. Plus, this only helps when the citation is planned by the presenter. It doesn't allow for surprise sugges…

I'm going to try my hand at a new column/series called Adaptive Kids. How can parents, coaches, school teachers, and other mentors help small children grow their own inner adaptability? 

My ER/trauma nurse wife came home from work. Our young kids overheard us talking about her day's assignment in Triage, and they became curious. 

"Mom...what's triage mean?"

She and I tag-teamed the answer.

"On a summer day, if the ice cream parlor was busy, you might have to stand in line, right? It would be OK if the people who got there before you to got their ice cream before you got yours, right? You'd also expect that the people who got there after you to have to wait until you got your ice cream, right?

"A hospital emergency room doesn't work like that. It doesn't really matter when someone arrives. It depends on how sick or how badly they're hurt. The more sick and more badly injured people get helped before other less sick or less injured patients, …