I've been a police officer guys wrote some long questions for Echo Charles
Street were in that he's been studying him for four hours I've been a police
officer for about four years I consider myself to be proactive and try to get
after it every day much like many of my brother and sister law enforcement
officers recently I switched to a bigger agency with a with a bit of a different
mission I still try to be as proactive and as thorough as I can in everything
that I do but I've noticed that many of the frontline supervisors in this agency
want officers to be reactive rather than proactive the supervisor in particular
has told me to stop working so hard and get salty suggesting that I lower my
morale the question is how do I build a relationship with these supervisors
while still being proactive and working hard so this is what I did when I got to
SEAL team 1 I was this guy right here I was fired up I was hey oh we're doing
an obstacle course today cool I'm gonna wear my rucksack with a forty pound
sandbag in it and all the guys that were older were you know looking at me like
dude pump the brakes
and you know of course what did I think those cars are part of core those guys
are weak that's what I was thinking and then you know I thought to myself okay
how can i how can I have influence over them how can I have influence over the
platoon element can I have influence over the platoon that I'm in if everyone
that's in my platoon doesn't like me no can you if everyone in my platoon
doesn't like me because I'm super hardcore then are they gonna steer it
all in my direction no the answer's no the answer is no in fact they're gonna
isolate me in fact I'm gonna have no influence over my platoon and that's
that's a horrible thing so what did I do did I just go okay chord it looks like
Donuts is the deal no I didn't do that at all but I conformed but I conformed
and people think oh that's weak you shouldn't conform look you are not the
priority you as an individual are not the priority in a seal platoon
you're not the the priority is the platoon the priority is the mission and
if we're gonna execute a mission we need to be very tight as a team so if I put
my personality above the unity of the team I'm hurting our capability of
accomplishing the mission especially if I realize that guys need to train a
little bit harder and instead of actually doing something that's gonna
move them in that direction they reject me and now I'm outside the the
Brotherhood the circle and now I haven't moved them in any right direction at all
so now there's one guy that's a really good shape me and everyone else is
going in the other direction and I have no influence over them
that's just terrible the mission is the most important thing in order to most
effectively execute the mission we have to have the best possible team in order
to have the best possible team we have to have trust and relationships inside
the team if I violate that I'm taken away from the team I'm taking away from
our mission capability now of course if there's someone that's grossly out of
shape or out of standards yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna try and tighten that person up
but again if someone's completely out of standards and all I do is attack them
what's their reaction it's to step away from me to reject me but if I see if I
say hey man you know I know you got a lot of experience and you know I'm 19
and I just got a bud so I'm in pretty good shape but like can you teach me
some of the tactics that you know and all of a sudden I'm building a
relationship with them and then I say hey do you want to go for a little a
little job with me after work and you know that guy's done eight deployments
and he's tired he is old but he wants to be back in shape because we all want to
be in shape and he goes okay a short one and we're moving in the right direction
so that's what you needed to be you have to you have to back off a little bit you
have to find balance and you have to focus on the team and it's better to
have the whole team it's better to have 20 people that move a little bit in the
right direction then have one person by themself that's going on the right
direction and everyone else is going in the wrong direction so that's what you
need to do take the sandbag out of your rucksack a little bit and you know I ran
with jungle boots on I did all this stuff and it didn't take me very long to
realize I was not doing the right thing not making my team stronger
I was isolating myself and stopped it so this guy he should like what start
acting just a little bit salty or you know or you know lower his morale
appearance a little bit like they're kind of fit in so to speak yeah do you
want to be part of the team yeah if you're not part of the team you don't
have any influence if you don't have any influence you can't move the team in the
right direction if you can't move the team in the right direction
the team is less mission capable that's what you're there for
yeah is to make the team more mission capable every moment that you don't do
that you're doing something wrong so yes you don't have to show up I mean just
imagine I was a new guy at school team one people we show up to run the O
course the O course is the obstacle course is a really hard obstacle course
and I show up with a rock sack on with a forty pound sandbag in it as a new guy
yeah you know of course got people I got that's fired up but people were like
okay oh you're oh you're you're 19 years old and you just got out of buds yeah
whatever mix we don't like you yeah yeah so it's kinda like steering like a big
van right you can't just start making big turns with a big otherwise that
thing's gonna gonna tip over a little bit so you're saying no you gotta like
you can't if there you gotta you gotta go slow is what I'm saying
okay you guys understand