Harmony: Resisting Standardization & Embracing Diversity
My first half-dozen years as a police trainer were spent standardizing techniques and protocols. The second half-dozen has been spent trying to break up those standards that I had established! It took a few years, but I've learned to not only tolerate diversity, adaptability, and creativity...I've come to appreciate and embrace it. Standards, in and of themselves, are not evil. They bring us comfort. They give us predictability. They provide us a norm. They show us what is expected. They demonstrate repeatability and efficiency. Sounds pretty good, right? This is ideal for a factory assembly line, or a fast food restaurant, or a computer program, or a big box retailer...where the strategy is exacting replication, lightning-fast response, low pricing, and mass production. But in policing, as in many of your industries, standardization can easily be taken a too far. That brings u...