6 minute read
Career with The Three Cs
How To Build a Successful Law Enforcement Career with The Three Cs by Amaury Murgado I recently had a great conversation with one of the owners at the armory where I work as operaCompetent Being competent means having the necessary ability, knowledge, tions manager. He is former milior skill to do something successtary, former law enforcement, and a fully. Of the three elements, I feel competitive shooter like me. Since competency is the simplest, though we share similar backgrounds, we not necessarily the easiest to obtain. were able to have a fruitful discusCompetency is born out of the classsion about what characteristics make room: a great deal of training and a good soldier, a good law enforcetons of study. ment officer, and a well-rounded Since the only cure for inexperiemployee. ence is experience, you must create a
At the end of the day, we had group of related abilities, knowledge condensed a laundry list of elements bases, and skills that will enable you into just three. We agreed that these to act with purpose to meet your three were critical components that goals and objectives. In other words, cut through all professions and not just our own. We found that these In order to have a successful law enforcement you must first learn the technical side of your job and how to apply three elements were an active part career, you need to be competent, that knowledge in a wide variety of of any desirable trait, skill, or characteristic, especially in law enforcecapable, and confident. situations. Law enforcement competency ment. Deciding it was worth sharing, I present our combined thoughts in involves a great deal of hands-on training and an equal amount of the form of three elements one would need in order to have a successful scenario-based role play. Your training must identify what you can and career. You need to be competent, capable, and confident. can’t use in the field. Your role play is where you try out your new
knowledge for the first time. If you want to shorten your learning curve, Confidence is the glue that holds competence and levels and we take things for granted. We forget that your path to competency should capability together; you need all three to make it work. what’s old hat for us is also contain a lessons-learned comnew to everyone else. We ponent from other officers and agencies. This will enable you to lessen expect everyone to get it the first time because we consider it so obvious. the number of mistakes you will inevitably make as you try to gain some I remember the first traffic ticket I ever wrote. It was like I was working experience. in a foreign language. I took so long to complete the task that the driver
You will soon learn that competency in and of itself is not enough. I being issued the citation even asked me if it was my first ticket. Fast have known many book-smart officers who handled training well in a forward to when I became a field training officer. I applied my own controlled environment. But place those same officers in the field, in a lessons learned and made my recruits fill out 10 blank copies of tickets real-world situation, and they needed constant supervision because they before they ever wrote a real one. By the time they wrote their first had no street smarts. ticket, it was really their eleventh. I never wanted anyone to have to Capable The next part of being successful falls under the heading of being capable. Sure, you know how to do it in theory, and you may have done well during your roleplay, but can you do it in real life? All the theory in the world won’t help you if you can’t apply it. Can you turn what you learned into action? Can you go to a call for service, mitigate the situation, and bring it to a successful resolution? When necessary, do you know who to call for help or hand it off to when your part is done? In short, can you do the job? repeat my fiasco. I applied that principle as a sergeant and as a lieutenant as well. Getting over the first-time call hump went a long way toward building confidence. Whenever we had a major call, I always put my most inexperienced officer on it. Obviously, someone more experienced would mentor them along but the result was that they were much better prepared for the next one. Don’t ever take confidence for granted. It’s a big deal especially for new people. Never forget what you went through to get where you are now.
Though the best indicator of future performance is past performance, Final Words there is a definite bridge that must be crossed from competency to capaThere you have it, a friendly conversation that turned into some sage bility. Just because you graduated from the academy doesn’t guarantee advice. If you focus on these three elements and think of them as buildanything. I have trained many new officers at the police academy over ing blocks to a successful career, I’d say you are well on your way to the years. One thing that always becomes clear is that not everyone will getting there. I think you will find that if you look at anyone you admire, get hired or let alone pass their field training program. Competency and past or present, they have probably mastered all three and that’s why you capability are not the same thing. look up to them.
The last component we are going to discuss is confidence. Confidence If nothing else, I hope this article has created two well-meaning is the glue that holds competence and capability together; you need all questions. The first, how can you build upon your own competence, three to make it work. capability, and confidence? Second, is there anything you can do to help Confident Normally, we have a certain lack of confidence when we do something build competence, capability, and confidence at your agency? That’s the harder of the two for sure; I wish you well with both. for the first time. Since we all don’t learn the same way, some catch on Copyright Police Magazine/PoliceMag.com Used with permission. sooner than others. As veteran officers, we don’t help matters much. Like so many other professionals, we have built up our experience Amaury Murgado is retired lieutenant from the Osceola County (FL) Sheriff’s Office with over 30 years of experience. He also retired from the Army Reserve as a master sergeant. He holds a Master of Political Science degree from the University of Central Florida.
JOIN OUR TEAM Each path is different and filled with many different career options. What path will you choose?
