SEVEN HABITS OF
HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SPECIALISTS
Back in 1989 an organizational expert named Steven Covey wrote a book entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey discussed seven principles that executives and other professionals could practice in order to be more effective in their personal and professional lives. Many of the ideas Covey set forth in his book can apply to our roles as Specialists as well, so I’d like to discuss those principles in the next few pages.
These seven habits are designed to move you from a position of dependence, where you wait for other people to provide solutions and instructions, through independence, where you rely on yourself to get things done, and on to interdependence, where you realize that you can’t get the most effective results by trying to do everything yourself -- you need to enlist the help of others in achieving your common goals.
But it all starts with you.
INDEPENDENCE
HABIT #1 says that you must be proactive -- “Act, or be acted upon.” When you’re new to the Team you get accustomed to others telling you what equipment to carry, what techniques to use, or where and when to report ot training. When you decide to become proactive you make the decision to exert some influence on the things around you. If you’re currently in a student capacity on the Team, you can decide that you want to become an instructor. If the Team needs a volunteer for a particular assignment or role, you can step up, instead of waiting to be asked. You are in charge.
Let’s say you’ve written your scratch requesting to be sent to instructor school. The Department says there’s a budget crunch, so your class will have to wait. You can be proactive by paying your own tuition to the class. Covey writes, “Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them.“ People who seize the initiative get ahead of those who don’t.
"Spider" is a good example of one who is proactive. He introduced a shotgun combat sling to the Team that he had seen and purchased a gun show. When he heard of a Beretta Armorer’s course being offered at our Range, he made arrangements to pay for the cost and attend the course on his own. More recently, Phil came across a waterproof jacket made by Old Navy that is in many ways better than the military M-65 field jacket that some of the Team members were issued a few years ago.
HABIT #2 says that you must “begin with the end in mind.” Try to understand why you are doing what you do before you do it. A good exercise to move you toward this understanding is to imagine that you’re attending a dinner for you celebrating your retirement from the Specialist Team. What kind of things would you want the other Team members to say about you in tribute? That you were on time, you had good skills, you were enthusiastic, dependable, you made people laugh, you were a constant source of good ideas for the Team, etc.? People who are proactive have a concept of why they do what they do as they try to have an effect on the organization and the people around them. By performing this imagination exercise you lay out a road map of where you intend to go with your energy and ideas. You can accurately identify your definition of success, and then work to achieve that goal.
HABIT #3 says to “put first things first.” Covey’s book has a good section on how to organize your time and activities better, and on the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is deciding what those “first things” are. Management is putting those “first things” first, and making sure that they are handled. Covey writes, “The way you spend your time is a result of the way you see your time and the way you really see your priorities.”
Most of us have seen a “daily planner” where we can write down an hour-by-hour schedule of what we need to do each day. As we write up a list of things to do and check off each item as it is completed, we feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose. But there is not necessarily a correlation between the items we’ve checked off and your vision of success as you defined in Habit #2.
Here’s the best way to “put first things first.” Write down on a piece of paper all the roles you play in life: Father, husband, boyfriend, officer, supervisor, Specialist, etc. Next, pick one or two results you think you should achieve in each of these roles. Now, start to schedule how you are going to achieve these results over the next week. You may have to adapt this schedule as unanticipated events occur in life and at work, but if you do this type of scheduling consistently you’ll begin to see some real progress.
INTERDEPENDENCE
Now you have to work a little harder to master the following habits.
HABIT #4 says that you should look for a WIN/WIN situation whenever you can. A current example of this habit is the on-going negotiations the Team staff has been engaged in with the Administration regarding an all-rifle Specialist Team. Some in the Administration are reluctant to have only rifles on the street, arguing that we still need shotguns to deliver chemical agents. We countered that we don’t do that very often, and that the many superior capabilities of the rifle outweighed that one attribute of the shotgun. We suggested that we could keep a number of shotguns in our equipment van which would respond to incidents. The Administration wants the shotguns available even more readily than that.
Capt. _____ has suggested that if the Team went to all rifles, that we could deploy on the inner perimeter with a shotgun slung in a scabbard over the back, so that if the need arises, we can deliver either chemical agents or less lethal munitions, while still having the rifle ready for its intended use.
So, instead of remaining stalled on the question of shotgun vs. rifle (an either/or choice) Capt. ____ was able to suggest a solution (a third alternative) in which both the Department and the Team may benefit.
As a Specialist you may have other opportunities to look for WIN/WIN solutions: If your PC balks at letting you go for training somewhere, perhaps you can offer to do some roll call training for your fellow officers on what you learned. You get your training, and help yourself to learn it better by having to teach relevant portions of it to your fellow officers.
HABIT #5 says, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Actually, Habit #5 might precede Habit #4, since it is your understanding of the other parties’ concerns that will help them understand yours. I’m sure we all remember situations where a supervisor or the Administration has mandated some course of action with which we don’t agree. They tell us just to do it, without explaining the reasoning behind it. Or if they do offer the reason behind it, they don’t present it effectively. The constant struggle over training time and staffing, and equipment needs and budget concerns are good examples.
With regard to the Team, the Administration sees the situation through budget-centered lenses. We on the Team see it through a tactical lens. These are obvious differences in perceptions on a very important topic. So how do we work together on this?
One example of how we applied Habit #5 to this problem is the regular “training on the first 3 Tuesdays of every other month” that Sgt. ___ recently put into effect. This enables the Administration to plan for staffing changes at the stations on our training days, and also enables us to conduct training without Team members being denied training time.
HABIT #6 is “Synergy” -- everything working together. This habit is a culmination of the benefits of practicing the previous five habits. Let’s say you had a frame, an engine, some tires and a steering wheel. These five separate parts wouldn’t get you anywhere by themselves, but together you could build a car and really go places. In our Specialist context, you can take all the skills, strengths, experiences and ideas of the many people on our Team to make a better training session, or a safer, more efficient handling of a critical incident. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
HABIT #7 is renewing all of the previous six habits by renewing your self. As I said at the beginning of this article, it all starts with you. You are the one who starts with the idea of being proactive, of “beginning with the end in mind,” putting first things first, etc. You continually renew yourself by taking care of yourself physically (you work out, eat sensibly and try to reduce stress), socially (working cooperatively with others), mentally (reading, planning or visualizing new goals, etc.), and spiritually (tapping into those sources in your life that can motivate or uplift you). As much as possible you want to work on each of these four areas of self-renewal to make the greatest progress.
Covey writes that this self-renewal is the process which enables us to move on an upward spiral of growth, change and continuous improvement. We learn, we commit to applying those new lessons, and we then do what is required of us to reap the benefit of our efforts. Learn. Commit. Do.