28 Years on the Force: Chief Angela Averiett on What It Really Takes to Change Police Culture

It’s often true that the most challenging conversations are often the ones most worth having. Conversations that bring up strong feelings, different experiences, and questions without easy answers. Policing, and how we can make it better, is one of those conversations. San Leandro Police Chief Angela Averiett has spent nearly three decades in law enforcement, navigating the profession’s challenges while advocating for a healthier path forward. I met Angela through The Curve, my organization focused on helping policing evolve to meet the needs of a modern world. She’s a powerful example of forward-thinking leadership, exploring how culture, mindset, and psychological safety shape the way officers show up for each other and for the communities they serve. In this episode, Angela and I unpack why cynicism is so common among officers, how strong leadership creates healthier team cultures, and why rebuilding trust in policing starts from the inside out. Angela shares stories from her career that reveal a different side of police work: where compassion improves safety, discretion matters more than enforcement, and leadership means creating space for people to be human. Together, we explore the balance between strength and empathy, and why healthier internal cultures lead to stronger relationships with the public. Whether you’re a leader interested in organizational culture or simply curious about how policing can evolve, I hope this conversation offers an honest and hopeful perspective on the work ahead. --------------------------- If you want to learn more about the work The Curve is doing, head to: https://www.thecurve.org ---------------------------

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It wasn't until 2015 that I felt comfortable enough to cry in front of people. So one of my colleagues was killed in the line of duty. And I remember showing up to work that day. And that was the first time I allowed myself to cry in front of my coworkers.

• 0:14Simon Sinek?

  And what was the response?

• 0:16Speaker 00

  Everyone else was crying too. Everyone was a wreck. And I think it created a safe space for them to express that. That's another thing that we don't build into our culture is that it's okay to be vulnerable. Because vulnerability, people mistake it as a sign of weakness. I think it's a superpower.

• 0:33Simon Sinek?

  Law enforcement. The mere utterance of the word gets some people's blood pumping on both sides of the political aisle. But the fact is, we need police in a civilized society. The question we have to grapple with is what's the best way for a modern police organization to operate in today's world? Here's what I've learned. Nearly all of the scandals the police have had almost always boil down to the same issue. A lack of good leadership or a broken corporate culture, which are completely interrelated. That's why I invited Chief of Police Angela Averiett to join me on the podcast. She's been a cop for over 27 years and has seen a thing or two in her time.

• 1:13Simon Sinek?

  She leads a mid-sized police force in California and has embraced many of the leadership and culture building techniques that folks like the military and many modern corporations already use. And the results have been astounding. We touched on a lot of hot button subjects and we shied away from nothing. I can guarantee that we will say at least one thing that will make almost everyone listening a little bit uncomfortable. But if we want to modernize the way police cultures are built today, we have to be open to having a curious and honest conversation about it. I'd like to add that Chief Averiett is also a member of an organization that I founded not long after the murder of George Floyd, The Curve Initiative. The Curve brings together some of the most forward-thinking, modern-minded chiefs and sheriffs,

• 1:58Simon Sinek?

  Republicans and Democrats from across the country to figure out how we can help police learn the newest and best ways to build their leaders and build strong corporate cultures. Chief Averiett knows that the only way we can make a positive and lasting change in the police, for the police and for the community, is if the change comes from the inside out. If you'd like to learn more about the work we're doing at The Curve, please visit us at thecurve.org. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:39Simon Sinek?

  I have many questions. The, the police are, they're a topic these days, more than ever before, I think. They're not just civil servants that operate in the background, you know, at moments we love them, at moments we hate them, depending on, you know, our level of need.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  The flavor of the day.

• 2:56Simon Sinek?

  What flavor, what side you're on. They've always been somewhat political in the sense that, you know, crime is, I guess, the political thing.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:03Simon Sinek?

  And there's different theories about how to fight it. But I would venture to say since the murder of George Floyd and up until today, the police have been front and center of, at the very minimum, the news and more than that, controversy and debate.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  That's fair.

• 3:20Simon Sinek?

  I think that's a fair statement. And I want to get to that with you. Let's start from the beginning. What made you choose this as a profession? What did you, like, where'd you grow up? What did you study? You know, like, how did, how, how are you here now as a chief of police?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  How much time do we have? Because that's a very long story. It is very twisted. So I actually never had any intentions of being a police officer. I wanted to be an airline pilot and I was around 20 years old and had just gotten married to my husband that I'm still married to. He's my first husband, my only husband.

• 3:52Simon Sinek?

  Congratulations.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Thank you. I'm so happy to say.

• 3:55Simon Sinek?

  That's an accomplishment just in his day and age.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Exactly. We had a small child at the time and I was trying to figure out, you know, what I wanted to do. I worked at an airline and I really wanted to be an airline pilot. The problem was we were very poor and couldn't afford flying lessons. And so my brother, who's a firefighter, told me about this job working at the police department. And I was like, oh, great. It's, you know, double what my salary is now, which I think at that time was like $15 an hour, right? Which I thought was a lot of money. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to be able to take my flying lessons. Well, the problem was it still wasn't enough money for me to take flying lessons, but I went on a ride along and that changed, literally changed the trajectory of my life. Like, I'm, I'm even getting like worked up talking about it right now because.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  I remember being so scared, but so energized on that ride along. And we didn't even do anything. I think we went to an alarm call at some commercial building. And I remember the officer like doing the Scooby Doo thing and like creeping around and shh, you know, stay right behind me. And I was just like, oh, my God, this is so exciting. And I remember how people looked at us when we drove by, not always with the nicest look on their face, but I just remember feeling like such a huge part of the community being on that ride along. And that's really what propelled me in this direction. It took me three years to get hired on as an officer back then.

• 5:15Simon Sinek?

  You went to the academy, obviously, you had to. You sworn and you operate in the, you're in the Bay Area.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:21Simon Sinek?

  What was something, because once you get on the job, I mean, you know this, the excitement of driving at high speed and turning on the lights and sirens, at some point, it goes away, the adrenaline.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  No, it doesn't. No.

• 5:36Simon Sinek?

  Always.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Always. Yes.

• 5:38Simon Sinek?

  What, what did you discover on the job that made it even better? And what did you discover that made it even worse?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  I think what made it better was really having the ability to affect someone's life in a positive way. And, you know, I'm meeting people literally on the worst day of their life sometime. And it's tragic and it's hard. It's gritty. It's, it's dark. But taking that moment and having the ability to turn it around, to give this individual some glimmer of hope that I'm going to be there to help them and get them through this dark time.

• 6:19Simon Sinek?

  Give me an example.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Okay, so, so I remember I responded to the hospital one night. This lady had been a victim of domestic violence. She had been with this man for a long time and he had shot her. Well, this was the second time that he shot her. He shot her one time and she didn't die. He shot her this second time in the head, but luckily the angle of the bullet like kind of skirted around her skull and exited. So she was alive. I've never met this one in my life. I walk into the ER and I say, hi, I'm Angela. I'm here to take your report. And I looked at her and I said, you know what? Your mother was right. And she looks at me like, I don't know you. What are you talking about? And I said, girl, you are hard headed.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  And as corny as that joke was, it made her relax. We probably laughed for five minutes. And then she told me the story about what happened. And so I just wanted to build a rapport with her. I wanted to calm her down because she was so afraid in that moment. And I don't know what happened to her. I know she survived that. I don't know if she went back to him.

• 7:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  But in that small moment, Simon, I just felt like I was able to give her some, some hope, some happiness. And it made me feel good to help her in that way. And so that's the positive thing on the job is I meet so many different types of people. And I'm able to, in some small way, help them through a dark time. The flip side, though, is that there are a lot of dark times. And I've seen some horrendous, horrendous things in my time on the job. Things that I think I've packed away in a little box and thrown into the back of my brain because I don't want to remember them. And I'm sure a lot of cops will say the same thing, right?

• 8:03Speaker 00

  We come across some of the, some of the worst in our society, right? Like, I like to be happy. I like to be an optimist. I like to think the best in people, but not everyone is good. We come across true evil. And that's the part, that's the worst part of the job. And seeing, you know, children dying, seeing people being abused, children being abused, horrendous accidents, it's, it's a lot sometimes to process.

• 8:34Simon Sinek?

  Cops are some of the most cynical people I've ever met. For all the reasons you said, they see people at their worst. They know everyone, regardless of their income, regardless of their color, they know everyone has it in them to do something bad, to, even if it's, even if it's something stupid, like you get caught for speeding and you start yelling at the cop.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:55Simon Sinek?

  And I did ride alongs when I was in college with the Massachusetts State Police. And I, I saw it. I saw, and it saw, and, and, and so more than any other civil servant, cops are really cynical. Is that a good thing? Is that a, is that a, is that a bad thing? Is it just go with the job? Does it hurt the profession? Is it something that, can you make cops less cynical? You know?

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Sorry, I'm laughing because I don't think that's possible.

• 9:22Simon Sinek?

  I mean, they're, they're cynical.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:24Simon Sinek?

  And about society, because for everything you just said, they see people. Yes, there's good and they all have the stories of helping the little old ladies across the street. And I feel like my, my job is, has value. And there's a lot of that, that's, let's be honest, it makes it onto the websites.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 9:39Simon Sinek?

  And the chiefs like to say, look at all our cops helping kittens out of trees. But at the end of the day, it's a lot of people at their worst. And it's a lot of bad days, even if it's a car accident where nobody did anything, but it's a bad day.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Correct. I think it's part of the job. It's a coping mechanism.

• 9:57Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  But it all evolves around mindset, right? If you allow the evil and the darkness to stay in your brain 24/7, it's going to turn you dark. It's going to turn you cynical, right? I don't think it's possible to train the cynicism out of who we are as police officers. It's how we cope with things, to be quite honest. However, I think we've made some strides in lessening the cynicism through focusing on officer wellness, which 20 years ago was not a thing. There was no wellness. Like, I remember going to a fire where this eight-year-old boy died. And it was horrible. It was a horrible scene. And I escorted his body to the hospital.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  And I just remember, like, being so devastated in that moment for his family. And there was nothing I could do. And then my sergeant shows up and he's like, hey, are you okay? Well, of course I'm going to say I'm okay, right? And then he goes, okay, well, you have a call holding. I need you to, to clear and go hit the street. So I went from that to, I don't even know what the next call was. It didn't matter what it was, but I wasn't able to process what I was going through in that moment. Now I think what we would do is pull people off the street, let them go back to the station, decompress, maybe even send them home. But I had to just keep going and taking reports from people. That's why I think people sometimes get cops that aren't at their best. Because you don't know what call they just came from to come see you, right?

• 11:24Speaker 00

  We didn't do a great job in thinking about or talking about our mental health. And

• 11:31Speaker 00

  We saw a lot of issues because of it. You know, officer suicide still is a huge problem. Alcoholism, you know, the list goes on and on and the vices that we probably find to deal with the stress and the the pain of this job. But I think just talking about it first is helpful, recognizing that there's a problem. But also, I think we don't talk enough about mindset. Right? So I can tell you that there were many times on the job where I wanted to quit. I wanted to retire. I I just didn't have it in me that day to to carry on because it was just exhausting. Oh, also, we work a lot of weird shifts. We work long hours. Right? And so what I would do to reset myself sometimes is there was a store in town that, well, it was it was a puppy mill.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Okay, so I know that's not the best thing. Right? I know people are gonna like lose their minds over it, but still, they had puppies and the puppies were amazing. And I would go in there and I would play with all the puppies and it would I would almost cry because it was so amazing and it would it would reset my mind. And I would go back on the street and I'd be like, okay, I got this. I can do this another day.

• 12:34Simon Sinek?

  And it was something private, separate, nobody could make fun of you because nobody knew you were doing it.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Well, my my partner at the time, she went with me.

• 12:39Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  But we didn't tell anybody. It was our secret.

• 12:42Simon Sinek?

  I think people don't appreciate that a lot of the scandals, problems, even excessive violence that we see that has come out of some police agencies, police forces, you know, when somebody is in a high-stress job in the private sector, let's let's add in some unhealthy corporate culture where you might get along with everybody, but you don't really trust anybody, which is

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:09Simon Sinek?

  It's pervasive in policing, which we'll talk about in a moment. And so you have a high-stress job, you have excessive amounts of machismo and testosterone. You can't ask for help. You know, you get somebody comes in right after you, you come from an eight-year-old, you know, dead body and now you have to go out and be chipper again. Now, in a in the private sector, if you're in a high-stress job and and not a lot of trust at work, not a lot of psychological safety, nobody is surprised. When you come home, you sit on the couch, you stare at the TV, you're short-tempered with the kids, you kick the dog, you're despondent and you don't, you're just not a fun person to be around. Nobody is surprised by that. That's how stress shows up very often. Right? A lot of short-tempered. If you give somebody authority and a gun and you multiply that stress by a factor

• 13:54Simon Sinek?

  of however many more than just general work stress, it is unsurprising.

• 14:00Simon Sinek?

  When there is excessive violence, where it may be coming from, maybe it be sourced from. And I remember this is how you and I met. You know, full disclosure, I started a charity called The Curve, of which you've been involved with now for a few years, where we believe modernizing policing starts from the inside out. And when we founded the organization, I remember talking to lots of chiefs and sheriffs, the ones who believe the change has to happen. And I went around the room and said, what's the problem? And we got 20, 30 different answers. And the first question we said was, how can we help the profession? How can we make the profession better? If we don't even know what the problem is. But what we found was there's a common factor

• 14:42Simon Sinek?

  in all of these problems that the chiefs and sheriffs articulated, which was poor leadership and broken cultures. And I don't think people recognize and realize we have an entire industry that teaches leadership. I'm a part of it. It's embraced by corporate. Some corporations do better than others, obviously. But it's a thing.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  It's a thing.

• 15:05Simon Sinek?

  In the military, we see leadership training. Every time there's a promotion, whether you're enlisted or officer, they, again, we can debate the efficacy of it, but they understand that it's important to train leaders when they become leaders. Policing, there's very little of that as a profession. You want to make sergeant, you take a test. You decide that I want to be a sergeant, and you take the test. And basically, it's like you promote yourself. I mean, kinda.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:28Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Sort of.

• 15:29Simon Sinek?

  Kinda sort of. It's not like somebody says, you're a great leader, we're going to promote you to sergeant. And there's a process. Am I right, or am I overstating it?

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Well, sort of.

• 15:39Simon Sinek?

  Somewhere in the middle?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Somewhere in the middle. Yes, there is a process that we have to follow. People take a test. But sometimes people are good test takers. But does that mean that they're good leaders? It's a combination of technical skill, right? Because there is a highly technical element to this job, right? And to be a sergeant, you have to know how to do the basic things, right? There should be an element of leadership. Yes, in the questions, in the process. So I actually am putting on a sergeant's test in two weeks. And there is an element to leadership in the testing process. But. I have to tell you, Simon, I think it's not just about the lack of leadership training.

• 16:19Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  I sincerely believe it's about culture.

• 16:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  And changing the culture from the inside out. We treat each other like absolute crap sometimes internally. That's where the the nest is. That's where the problems start is we talk crap about each other all the time. We treat each other terribly. We have some leaders who are just terrible leaders and some leaders that are just terrible individuals, to be quite honest with you, right? I I can say that I've worked for some phenomenal leaders in this job and I've worked for some, some leaders that are trash. And so they have such a huge influence on the organization.

• 16:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  And on the culture.

• 16:56Simon Sinek?

  So goes the leader.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  It drags the culture down.

• 16:58Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Absolutely, absolutely. So I think it's, it goes beyond just leadership. It's about the culture.

• 17:03Simon Sinek?

  Well, they're inextricably linked, right?

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 17:05Simon Sinek?

  Leader sets the culture and the leader can. And what I've learned as I've been studying police forces and policing is the, there's, in general, again, it's not a rule, but, but there's too much lack of psychological safety and trust amongst, amongst, definitely from rank and file to leadership.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 17:26Simon Sinek?

  And again, we're not talking about, you know, when there's a call for help. If this, if somebody's in danger, there's a call for help, everybody rushes in because there's a shared danger.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:34Simon Sinek?

  And that, that, that safety is, is taken care of.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:38Simon Sinek?

  But we're talking about just the daily job.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:40Simon Sinek?

  And the willingness for somebody to say, you said, it's hard to say, I'm struggling or I just saw a dead kid, just can I have 10 minutes, please? You know, you know, that, that, that psychological safety, that psychological protection is, is, we need more of it.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Yes, we don't build psychological safety into our cultures. So.

• 18:02Simon Sinek?

  Of all the places.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  Of all the places where we need to have it, right? So this is my 28th year in this profession, three years as a professional staffer and then 25 years as a sworn officer. It wasn't until 2015 that I felt comfortable enough to cry in front of people. So one of my colleagues was killed in the line of duty and I remember showing up to, to work that day. An absolute wreck. And I was like, there's no way I'm going to get through this briefing today without, without crying. And then I thought, well, why shouldn't I be able to cry? Like a man was killed last night on the streets protecting this community. Why should I be afraid to cry in front of people? And I was a lieutenant at the time, so I was pretty high ranking.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  And that was the first time I allowed myself to cry in front of my coworkers. How sad is that?

• 18:48Simon Sinek?

  What and what was the response?

• 18:50Speaker 00

  Everyone else was crying too. Everyone was a wreck. Everyone was so emotional. And I think it created a safe space for them to express that. And I didn't realize until that moment that it was okay that I could let my wall down a little bit and be more vulnerable. That's another thing that we don't build into our culture is that it's okay to be vulnerable. Because vulnerability, people mistake it as a sign of weakness. I think it's a superpower.

• 19:16Simon Sinek?

  What happened to the culture of that police force after everybody cried?

• 19:21Speaker 00

  I think it changed a lot of relationships. For the better, I think. I think people had a different level of respect for each other. I think it actually humanized us amongst each other. Which, think about how weird that is, right? Like, these are people that I spend 12 hours a day with.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  And I don't, I can't say that we all treat each other like human beings. Right? We were not necessarily professional with each other. Kind of rude, very cynical. And I think it made people pause and go, wait a minute.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Your life is in my hands, right? My life is in your hands when we're out on the street, when we're fighting crime together. So why, behind these four walls, do we treat each other like, like shit?

• 20:07Simon Sinek?

  This raises a very big question, which is, the general public is asking for the police to see us as human beings, regardless of what's happening. How impossible is that if cops can't even see each other as human beings?

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's impossible, right? I mean, I'm not surprised that we have the issues that we have in society. Right? Now, now granted, I don't want this to sound like this is a cop bashing moment because clearly I would never do that. I know you would never do that either. But we have some work to do, right? We need to work on ourselves. But I'm not surprised that we've seen excessive force cases, that we've seen cops in trouble where they're committing crimes and they're doing illegal things because our culture is so broken on the inside. Now, this isn't true of every organization, right?

• 20:53Simon Sinek?

  Of course not.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  I've seen some organizations that have relatively healthy cultures. But overall.

• 20:58Simon Sinek?

  As a profession.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  As a profession, I think we have so much more work to do.

• 21:02Simon Sinek?

  As a profession, the balance is off.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  The balance is so off.

• 21:04Simon Sinek?

  I don't think people realize, I don't think the general public recognizes how difficult and how complex this problem is. You know, the solution, I think, we've already talked about, which is it's about teaching leaders, grooming leaders to be better leaders, to learn those human skills that leaders need, right? Not just the technical skills.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:23Simon Sinek?

  And then creating cultures in which people have a sense of psychological safety to ask for help, admit mistakes, say I'm exhausted, cry.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:31Simon Sinek?

  Feel like they can be a human being, be seen as a human being, all of which has ripple effects that make them much better capable of dealing with the stresses and strains of the job.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 21:42Simon Sinek?

  Like, the solution is simple, not easy. But the solution is, I think, we understand what it is. And if we look at the policing agencies that have had scandals and excessive force, almost always, it's not an anomaly. Almost always, it's the result of quite a broken culture.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 21:59Simon Sinek?

  You know, I mean, I hate to bring it up. Well, I don't, actually. You know, if we go back and look at Derek Chauvin, you know, who killed George Floyd, you know, here is a cop with 10 years of excessive force complaints against him, who was the training officer that day.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:14Simon Sinek?

  How does someone with 10 years of complaints against them get chosen as a training officer is mind blowing. But my point is, it was a powder keg waiting to blow.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:23Simon Sinek?

  You know, it was, it's like.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  The signs were there.

• 22:24Simon Sinek?

  The signs were there. And it's like, it was just a matter of time before Chauvin did something.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:28Simon Sinek?

  Right? So the solution we are aware of, corporate solutions are usually the same thing. I don't think people recognize that there's no head of police in America. Where the head of, you know, in the UK, there's a head of police. They can say, hey, we're doing this program because the police force needs it. And one person makes a decision and it filters across an entire nation. That doesn't exist in the United States.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 22:50Simon Sinek?

  We have 18,000 individual policing agencies.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  With different cultures.

• 22:56Simon Sinek?

  With different cultures.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Different sizes.

• 22:57Simon Sinek?

  Different sizes, of which the vast majority, I can't remember the numbers, like 80% or something, are fewer than 100 cops.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 23:03Simon Sinek?

  And so like when we look at New York and Chicago, you know, New York has 44,000 cops. They're, they have their own challenges, their own issues. Most policing is local, small, and fewer than 25 cops.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:16Simon Sinek?

  Which have very different cultures. And so it raises the fascinating question, which is how do we bring the solution, which we know what it is, which is better training for leaders, stronger corporate cultures, bringing psychological safety, when it's 18,000 unique, different organizations? Like.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, I'm laughing because if I knew the answer to that, Simon, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be on a yacht somewhere.

• 23:43Simon Sinek?

  Fair, fair.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  I mean, I, I can say we have to start somewhere, though.

• 23:47Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  And talking about it, I think, is crucial to figuring out where to go.

• 23:52Simon Sinek?

  And legislation, though helpful, isn't going to fix the problem.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:55Simon Sinek?

  It has to be from the inside out. Police have to raise their hands and say, we choose to go through this because it's important to us.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:02Simon Sinek?

  And we and society will benefit.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Yes. And I think, you know, we, we talked a minute ago about that the culture is set from the top, right? The leader sets the tone for the culture of the organization. That is correct. However, it's up to the people that work with that leader to make sure that culture sticks. Right? So I consider all day, Simon, and say, you know, we need to be more compassionate and vulnerable and, you know, all these things. But if the people underneath me don't believe that.

• 24:32Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Nothing is ever going to change.

• 24:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  That's where the sticking point is. That's why it's hard for us to turn that ship around. We also don't have necessarily standard operating procedures across every organization or every state. And, you know, it's interesting, sitting here talking to you, Simon. I've never really put it in this perspective. And now I'm going to have to dig deeper, like you were saying, because how can we get on the same page? I don't know. I don't know how we get on the same page.

• 24:58Simon Sinek?

  Right. Let's go deeper. I had this sort of realization as I was getting ready to talk to you that crime and police are deeply emotional for a lot of people.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:11Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:12Simon Sinek?

  And statistics mean absolutely nothing. Right? And so, for example, let's just take it Washington DC right now. The narrative is it's crime ridden. The statistics are crime is violent crime is actually way down. And it's not a question of agree or disagree. What I realized is those are two different statements. And they're have nothing to do with each other.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:36Simon Sinek?

  Because if you've been the victim of a crime or there's been a crime adjacent to you, it's crime ridden.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:42Simon Sinek?

  And, you know, it doesn't matter if the statistics come out that burglaries are at an all time low.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Right. If you're a victim of it, you're like, no, crime's out of control.

• 25:52Simon Sinek?

  The police are doing an amazing job that, you know, burglaries are at an all time low.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:55Simon Sinek?

  If there was a burglary, forget you, if there's a burglary on your block, everyone on that block believes that crime is out of control.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 26:06Simon Sinek?

  And if you are the victim, now you absolutely believe that crime is out of control. And you will stop at nothing and you will demand the police do whatever they can. You don't care how aggressive their effort has to be because fear trumps everything.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:21Simon Sinek?

  And protection of me and my family trumps everything. And for people who have been on the wrong side of cops or if it's political, they have the same anger towards that uniform and that badge, regardless of who's wearing it, regardless of the health of your corporate culture, regardless of how good or bad your cops are. It is, the statistics and the explanations be damned, whether it's crime or whether it's the cop, it's a deeply, deeply emotional thing. And usually when things are deeply emotional, we want them resolved immediately.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Immediately.

• 26:56Simon Sinek?

  I want crime stopped now. I don't care what you have to do. Stop it now.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:00Simon Sinek?

  And conversely, I want the police to get their shit together. I don't care what it takes. I don't care much pressure. Do it now.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Do it.

• 27:07Simon Sinek?

  The problem is both of those things take time and both of them are imperfect and messy. And you'll never get to zero or perfect.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Very messy.

• 27:13Simon Sinek?

  So let's take your, your, your agency. How would your cops, because they've worked at other agencies, I believe.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Some of them.

• 27:20Simon Sinek?

  Some have come in and some have come back and some have left.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:24Simon Sinek?

  How would they rate?

• 27:27Simon Sinek?

  The culture at your agency compared to other places they've worked.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Interesting. I had this conversation recently, actually. One of the cops said to me, people who are homegrown and have only worked here and have never worked anywhere else don't realize that the grass isn't always greener. So I think overall, there's a level of satisfaction with the policing culture.

• 27:55Simon Sinek?

  So the ones that come from the outside recognize it's pretty good, the ones that have only have only worked there.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Sometimes they don't see it that way. Not always. Some of them are very happy. Sometimes they don't see it that way, right? I swear to you, it's all about your mindset, right? I mean,

• 28:11Speaker 00

  if you focus strictly on negativity and what's wrong with everything, then you're never going to see what's right with anything, right? You know, I've been to five different police agencies. I've seen and been involved in so many different cultures, two times as a police chief. Each organization is vastly different. But I think people find a level of happiness and satisfaction when they choose to come to work every day and be positive. Now, that's not always easy. I went through a solid 12 years of my career where I was completely miserable. I worked in a very toxic environment, to the point where my safety was impacted, like literally my physical safety was impacted.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  I worked on a team of individuals that would not cover me on traffic stops. They would not come to my calls because they hated me so much. They would not talk to me. It was a miserable existence. And but what the problem with that was, Simon, is that I allowed that to get to me, where I focused on that every single day I would come to work. I was terrified to go to work because I didn't know what was going to happen inside the police department. And then I realized I was allowing those people to have power over me. And so I changed my mindset. And I realized. Those people are gonna be who they are. I can't change them. I don't wanna change them. I'll let them be miserable over in the corner. I'm gonna be over here happy living my life. And coming to work every day and going, I'm gonna be positive and I'm gonna try to make an impact on someone's life today, is what changed my mindset.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  So when we talk about culture, when we talk about whether or not people are happy in the environment they work in, I think it's all in what you make it. This job is really hard. It's hard as a police chief. It's hard as a police officer. It's hard as a sergeant. Everything in between. But what keeps me going is seriously the ability to positively impact our communities and the profession. I don't, this is gonna sound corny. I don't do this job for me. I don't do this job because I like these stars or because I'm looking for some sort of fame or something. I do it because I love serving people. I love serving the people that I work with. I love being an inspiration to them, but I love being that in the community.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  One day, my granddaughter, her name's London, she's four years old. When she was three, she saw me in my uniform for the first time. And I'll never forget, her little face just lit up. And she was like, you're the police? And I almost lost it. I almost started bawling because it made me so proud in that moment to be a police officer. This is why we do what we do, Simon. We do it because we really do wanna make a difference. I know, I know we hear that all the time from our police officers. Like, oh, I just wanna make a difference in the community. But it's legit. Like, think about the impact that we have, negative and positive, in our communities. This is what just keeps me going is because I want us to be the best that we can be.

• 31:01Simon Sinek?

  What was the first change you made when you became a police chief? You'd seen the good, you'd seen the bad, you'd seen the healthy, you've seen the unhealthy. You've seen mental health not treated seriously in other policing agencies. You realize the importance of that, that how it taxes on the human being that wears the uniform.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:19Simon Sinek?

  And if you wanna fix policing in the community, fix the human beings wearing the uniform. We're dealing with the stress first, or help them. What was the, one of the first things you got to do that you're like, if I'm ever a police chief, I'm doing this? And you did it.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  I think showing them a side of leadership that they weren't used to. So being authentic.

• 31:37Simon Sinek?

  What were they used to? What were they used to?

• 31:39Speaker 00

  They were used to basically do as I say, right? Like, here are the rules. This is what you're gonna do. Go do it. There was no emotion. There was no humanity behind it. Twenty eight years ago when I started, it was very much a warrior mindset, right? It was get out there, make arrests, take people to jail, go hit the next call, right? There was no mental health, there was no wellness, there was, there was nothing, there was no guardian mindset. So in this profession, traditionally, we've seen leaders that are kind of hard asses, I guess, and just rule with an iron fist almost. And that's not true of everywhere, so I don't, I don't want it to sound like I'm putting a blanket statement out there.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  But there was no emotion ever shown, there was no realness, there was zero, zero authenticity.

• 32:30Simon Sinek?

  Let me be cynical.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:33Simon Sinek?

  If someone or a community is reacting to the emotion of fear and crime, whether it's statistically accurate or not, is irrelevant, right?

• 32:44Simon Sinek?

  And then I hear that the police chief was worried about, you know, authenticity and vulnerability. And you show me another police chief who's like, follow those, get out there, make arrests. I'm like, I take that guy. You know, it's like, like, like, how do, how do we reconcile the pressures from mayors, from city managers, from community with the need to, the seeming, the seeming, the seeming paradoxical need?

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Yes, and I'm so glad that you asked me that, that's a great question, because there has to be balance. So absolutely, I expect for my cops to go out there and take bad guys off the street. That, that's first and foremost, right? I expect for us to keep our community safe. However, the balance comes where having the space where you can be vulnerable,

• 33:39Speaker 00

  having that confidence to know that I can break down and cry in front of you.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  And that I'm a human and it's okay to deal with that emotion. That translates into I'm out on the street dealing with someone who,

• 33:54Speaker 00

  I don't know, just robbed a convenience store. Well, does that mean that I need to be a hard ass and be rough with that person and use excessive force or treat them like garbage? Absolutely not. I remember I arrested this robbery suspect. He robbed a gas station. And I remember just being so happy. I was like, hell, yeah, we got him in custody. We found his gun. He ditched it right before I pulled him over. And I'll never forget this. He said, I did it because my grandmother needs medicine. It's gonna make me cry.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  It made me, uh, it made me feel so bad.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Because he was so desperate.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Then he had to go rob a gas station to get money to buy his grandmother's medication. So when I talk about humanity and authenticity and being vulnerable, well, if we don't have compassion for our fellow man, if we don't have compassion for each other, then that translates to me to having a negative attitude and having a negative relationship with our communities. But if we start on the inside and build that safe space and encourage our officers to be authentic. And look, I mean, I'm tearing up talking to you right now. I just feel like it makes us more whole as humans and allows us the ability to show compassion when we're dealing with people out on the street fighting crime.

• 35:13Simon Sinek?

  I think you're dealing, you, this is a perfect example. And I think you are the embodiment of what we're doing at The Curve, our, our, our organization, which is one of the things we realized is that, you know, purpose is a thing. And companies have to ask themselves, why do we exist? You know? And we realize as a profession, policing, the question is, why do we need police? Like, what's the purpose of police? And most people say to enforce the law, to catch bad guys, which is true.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 35:43Simon Sinek?

  And it's one of the things police do for sure, but it's not everything police do.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  No, not at all.

• 35:47Simon Sinek?

  It's, and it might be a significant thing that police do. One of the most important things police do, but it's still not everything. And we're defining an entire profession by one of the capabilities. You know? And none of us want to be defined by our work. Like, nobody wants to be told, your identity, like your identity as a human being.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:06Simon Sinek?

  Is, is your, is your a lawyer? Right?

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:09Simon Sinek?

  Well, no, that's something I do.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:11Simon Sinek?

  It's not who I am. And cops had no sense of purpose, other than many of the functions.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Yes, the technical side.

• 36:18Simon Sinek?

  The technical side. They even call themselves, you even call yourselves, law enforcement. That's just one thing that police do.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 36:25Simon Sinek?

  So the whole identity was to one thing. And so, we recognize that police need an identity. And we, and we asked ourselves, why do we need police? And the result we came to, the answer we came to, was to protect the vulnerable from harm. To protect the vulnerable from harm, that's why we need police. And when there is a crime committed, and there are victims of the, of that crime, then we want to protect the victims by getting bad guys off the street.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 36:51Simon Sinek?

  That, uh, gas station burglary, when it's happening, you're hell bent.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 36:57Simon Sinek?

  There's, there's, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of compassion, oh, the, let's be crystal clear. The compassion came after he was in handcuffs.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 37:05Simon Sinek?

  Not before.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 37:06Simon Sinek?

  That's a very important distinction.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Thank you for making that distinction.

• 37:09Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 37:09Simon Sinek?

  It's a very important distinction.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  I had a job to do, and I went out and did it.

• 37:11Simon Sinek?

  Protecting the vulnerable from harm is, victims?

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:14Simon Sinek?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna protect the victims from this, this bad person.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:18Simon Sinek?

  Once the bad person is in handcuffs, they are now the vulnerable.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Yes, that is correct.

• 37:22Simon Sinek?

  Right? Because they are no longer a threat.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:24Simon Sinek?

  To themselves or anyone else.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:25Simon Sinek?

  And I think to understand that, to go into life, or to choose to put on a, on a uniform to protect the vulnerable from harm, which is flexible and relative, can change in a moment.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Yep, yes.

• 37:36Simon Sinek?

  Gives that, and that should be the identity of the person. So though you can enforce the law, and you can enforce it with impunity when necessary.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:43Simon Sinek?

  At the end of the day, that's not who you are. You're somebody who wakes up in the morning to protect the vulnerable from harm. And sometimes those vulnerable are your own officers.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:52Simon Sinek?

  And I go back to the story of you bringing an eight-year-old, you know, after having died in a fire, to the hospital. And your chief couldn't understand that in that moment, you were the vulnerable one. Obviously, we know the family's vulnerable and you're gonna do your best to be there for them. But in that moment that you were the vulnerable one.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:11Simon Sinek?

  And he didn't have the leadership human skills to know how to hold space for you. Don't fault him for it. He wasn't trained.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  No, and it wasn't.

• 38:19Simon Sinek?

  Not a bad guy.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  It wasn't part of policing culture.

• 38:22Simon Sinek?

  Wasn't part of policing culture.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 38:23Simon Sinek?

  And so the best he could do was, well, get back out there, buck up.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  Hit the street.

• 38:28Simon Sinek?

  You know? And I think that's where I think a lot of people get this wrong, which is people think you're either on the side of the the poor guy who is robbing with a gun. Armed burglary because his grandmother needs drugs. Or you can only see the cops and the answer is it's all together. It's a mess. It's society and it's humanity and it's messy and it's all those things.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:57Simon Sinek?

  And you can be pro-police and pro-victim at the same time.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 39:01Simon Sinek?

  And you can be wanting to protect the vulnerable from harm and recognizing that that's a relative scale. And what people, I think, also fail to recognize is this is finite and infinite games. Which is, the finite game is this beginning and middle and end. Get that guy off the street.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:15Simon Sinek?

  Finite. The infinite game is, how do I create a culture of policing? That is healthy for human beings to work in this culture? That it's those healthier human beings who feel psychological safety and understand they can, if they're feeling sad or angry, they can express it in a healthy way.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:34Simon Sinek?

  At work without being vilified or hurting their promotability because of it.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 39:39Simon Sinek?

  That ultimately, over the course of time, makes for a more effective police force.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Yes, and exactly what you just said is, when you asked me the question, I want to close the loop on this. What was the first thing that I did as a police chief? Was creating that kind of environment and that kind of culture. And how that translated was, in the community that I served at that time. People would come up to me all the time, "Oh, I just love your officers. They're so professional. They're so kind. They're so caring. You know, they helped me with this or they helped me with that." That's where the bridge is, right, is when it starts internally and you create that environment, that positive environment, I think that it makes our officers have a more healthy relationship with our community. I'm kind of laughing at your cynical question earlier about, "Well, you know, if I had to pick you,

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Ms. Vulnerable, over this person, you know, go out and arrest people, you'd pick the guy that say, "Let's arrest everyone." Don't get me wrong, Simon. I'm not here today because I'm just, you know, this mushy teddy bear.

• 40:41Simon Sinek?

  Right. You don't make chief, you don't make chief for unicorns and rainbows.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 40:47Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  I realize that we have a job to do and it's a tough job and it's an ugly job sometimes and we have to do it. Police work ain't pretty. At the same time, that doesn't mean that we have to be savages.

• 40:57Simon Sinek?

  And it's human beings doing that job.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 41:00Simon Sinek?

  And human beings on the receiving end of that job.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Absolutely. But human beings-

• 41:04Simon Sinek?

  Human beings serving human beings.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Yes. Human beings that have the same problems that people outside this uniform have as well.

• 41:09Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  I think that's another part that people don't quite understand. I'm not superhuman because I have this uniform on. I have the same issues and problems that everyone else does, right?

• 41:18Simon Sinek?

  Which is why alcoholism and suicide are higher than the national averages in policing because the coping mechanisms aren't there. If you can't feel psychologically safe amongst your own, who understand the stresses and who aren't politicizing you and aren't screaming and yelling at you, if you can't feel safe in that safe place, well, there, where can you feel safe? And the answer is you don't, which is why you turn to alcohol or in the worst cases, suicide is the best solution.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:45Simon Sinek?

  Measuring good corporate culture in policing is very hard, not different to companies. The reason we over-index on measuring money in companies is because it's easy to measure and the mushy mushy stuff that people think is mushy mushy, but the soft skills, the human skills is harder to measure.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:02Simon Sinek?

  But everybody knows, and I've made a career on making a point, which is the companies that focus on human skills, over time, will actually outperform the traditional metrics.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:13Simon Sinek?

  Policing, the reason we overindex on measuring arrests and tickets, it's easy to measure.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 42:20Simon Sinek?

  And so a good cop traditionally in the past is one who writes a lot of tickets and makes a lot of arrests. Not because they actually are better, it's just easier to measure.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  It's easier.

• 42:28Simon Sinek?

  So how do you measure a good cop? And how do you de-emphasize simply tickets and arrests to create a healthier, better culture? That, over time, do support the metrics that we are interested in. Like, this is a safe community to live in, crime is low, et cetera.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  I think there's a reason why police officers have discretion, right? We have the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. So an officer can make a choice, under a lot of circumstances, on whether or not to arrest someone in that moment, depending on what the crime is. To me, what defines a good officer is someone that can find that balance between being a warrior and being a guardian, right? I mean, those are the best terms I can think of to describe that. So let's say an officer is out writing people tickets because people are speeding around a school zone. And we don't want our kids to get hit going to and from school. Well, an officer pulls someone over who has expired registration and just got a new job and he's late to work.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  This literally happened the other day, I was out on patrol, so this is why I'm using this story. He had expired registration, he was late to work, he ran a stop sign, and he was struggling in life. It would have been easy to just give him a ticket for the expired registration and for blowing the stop sign. He literally said to me, "You know, I just got this job, I've only been there for a week. Please don't tow my car. This is my only car, I'm behind in all my bills, I'm two months behind in my rent. Can you give me a break?" And I had a nice, long conversation with this young man. And at the end, we gave him a registration ticket because you have to have your car. Your car has to be registered, but we didn't tow it. And we let him get off to work. That's what makes a balanced police officer.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  Someone that can do their job, because you have to do your job. But they can balance it with what makes sense in this situation, right? Are we going to help this man by towing his car? No, because he's going to lose his job.

• 44:28Simon Sinek?

  Compound the problems.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's going to compound and turn into so many more problems.

• 44:32Simon Sinek?

  And that's what we want. We want a cop who who does have discretion.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:37Simon Sinek?

  Because otherwise, none of us would ever get a break.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And I don't know if that's fair.

• 44:44Simon Sinek?

  They can't have a break, but I want a break.

• 44:48Simon Sinek?

  I think is most people's overwhelming mentality. I think what I'm learning from you, and I think that this is what makes these conversations difficult, is even as people are listening to this, I'm sure people are having visceral responses. They're either angrily agreeing or disagreeing with many of the things you and I have said. They're either for us, against us, not sure what to make of it.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:15Simon Sinek?

  And I think that perfectly captures what this job is, which is it is highly nuanced, highly complex. And it is the most human of jobs, you know, where it is human beings who show up to do a job that is for and about human beings. It's people at their best, at their worst, in good moods, in bad moods, on drugs, you know? And the cops are in good moods and bad moods.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Oh, of course.

• 45:45Simon Sinek?

  And the cops are at their best and the cops are at their worst. And the more that police chiefs can do to create an environment in which more days than not, police will have the right mindset, be having a good day, be prepared for the stresses they're about to face, and the nuances, and the uncertainty, and the difficulties, more often than not, it will go right.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 46:06Simon Sinek?

  And if they aren't, that they come to work and say, I wouldn't trust me today.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:14Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 46:15Speaker 00

  I need help today.

• 46:15Simon Sinek?

  I think I need, I just had a blowout fight with my spouse. I am not in a good mood. I got in trouble yesterday. I got spit on yesterday.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Today's not a good day for me.

• 46:27Simon Sinek?

  Today's not a good day for me. Can I run, can I drive a desk today, you know?

• 46:30Speaker 00

  I had an officer.

• 46:31Simon Sinek?

  Without fear that that will sideline their career.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  Absolutely, because.

• 46:34Simon Sinek?

  Or create stigma inside the.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Let's be real, there's a possibility of that happening, right? I had an officer do that to me when I was a sergeant. I was in the back parking lot of the police department and I was about to drive out and he came up to me and he's like. You know, I'm, I'm really struggling today. And I was like, oh, what, what's going on? And he's like, you know, it's, I'm, I'm missing time with my kids right now. Um, I'm going through a divorce and it was supposed to be my weekend and I just, I really like to be with my kids. I said, okay, well then go home.

• 47:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  Now, that's not an everyday thing, right?

• 47:05Simon Sinek?

  Of course not.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  We have to balance, you know, how many people do we have on the team today? Cause we need everybody, but in that moment, I could tell he really needed to not be at work. And I think we're in a place now, Simon, where it's okay to come to work and say, I don't know, today's not, not gonna be a good day for me.

• 47:21Simon Sinek?

  You, you, you're talking about things that are fairly normal in the corporate world.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Not normal.

• 47:25Simon Sinek?

  You know, like in the corporate world, if somebody comes to work and be like, I'm just like, it's bad. It's a bad day for me today. Either we say, don't worry, like we'll cover for you. We say, take your, take a day off. Like, that's what we do for each other in a good corporate culture.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  We don't do that.

• 47:41Simon Sinek?

  And, and I think, I don't think people appreciate that for some reason, we, we don't want policing cultures to be the same good, strong corporate cultures as any other company that we work for.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  People think that you're soft if you are being vulnerable. Or if you come to work and say, I just can't do it today.

• 48:02Simon Sinek?

  You, you know what I do to avoid the word?

• 48:04Speaker 00

  What?

• 48:04Simon Sinek?

  I talk about the behavior. I, especially in, in environments where the word vulnerability is gonna be more of a trigger than, than, than the stuff.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  I hate that word, trigger.

• 48:13Simon Sinek?

  Uh, fair point.

• 48:16Simon Sinek?

  Fair point.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  That's a different discussion.

• 48:19Simon Sinek?

  You know, where that word alone has the, all the liability and they can't get off that word. I just talk about the stuff that I want them to do. I avoid saying, we need to be in a culture where we can be vulnerable. I avoid that. I say, we need to be in a culture where we can admit mistakes to each other, where we can ask for help for each other. We need to be in a culture where we can take total accountability for our words and our actions. Having an off day means you ask for help. It doesn't mean you.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Doesn't mean you're weak.

• 48:42Simon Sinek?

  Doesn't mean.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Or that you're soft.

• 48:43Simon Sinek?

  Also, I would, if I can offer one more recommendation.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:48Simon Sinek?

  You, when you say, saying you're struggling doesn't mean you're weak. The problem with that language is the human, the human brain cannot comprehend the negative. Okay, I can prove it to you. Ready? Ready? Don't think of the color yellow.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 49:03Simon Sinek?

  Too late. So when we say to somebody, you know, asking for help doesn't make you weak. All people can hear is, it makes me weak. Right?

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Fair point.

• 49:12Simon Sinek?

  And so what we have to say to people is, asking for help is the most courageous thing you can do.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 49:18Simon Sinek?

  And that will de-stigmatize the things we don't want to do. So, good intentions with the wrong communication get the wrong results. So, I avoid the word vulnerability in cultures where I know that that word is a liability. And policing, it's a liability.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  It's like a bad word.

• 49:38Simon Sinek?

  How do you marry the, all the things you're doing and that you're attempting to do in your agency to prove what the future policing could look like with crime statistics? So, if a chief is being judged solely by the finite metric of a crime stat, you know, all this beautiful human policing be damned, I'm going to drive arrests and tickets because damn it, that's what keeps me employed.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  But Simon, if we are driving arrests and tickets and our crime stats are fantastic and crime's down, you know, 30%, but what if the community doesn't trust us? How do we measure that? If the community doesn't trust us, it doesn't matter what the crime stats are saying. Look at Ferguson. Ferguson, they had a system of government where they made their revenue based on tickets, right? And when people couldn't pay their tickets, then their tickets turned into warrants, right? And so, people had to pay all this money, all these fines to get their tickets cleared. And that was what the city government ran off. Do you think the people in Ferguson trusted their police department, right? They were revenue.

• 50:50Simon Sinek?

  And this is not a color income thing.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 50:53Simon Sinek?

  Anybody on the receiving end of a ticket.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Absolutely. You know, we can talk about data, we can talk about stats. I think there is some relevance and some importance in that, right? But at the end of the day, if the people that we serve don't trust us, then nothing else matters.

• 51:06Simon Sinek?

  So, how do we measure trust in a police force? Because I agree with you, it's both. Money matters in a company.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 51:12Simon Sinek?

  But it matters in addition to, not instead of.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 51:16Simon Sinek?

  So.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  In addition to.

• 51:17Simon Sinek?

  So, if we agree that the stats matter also, but if we don't have another measurement for the thing that does matter, then all we're going to do is focus on the one. How do we measure trust, especially when it's so highly emotional?

• 51:31Speaker 00

  It is very emotional. It's very personal.

• 51:35Simon Sinek?

  You know, stats be damned, as we said before.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, we measure that by.

• 51:40Speaker 00

  Several factors. Let's say, does our city have civilian oversight? Yes, we have civilian oversight in San Leandro. Why? Because our community didn't trust us. Right? So, but that's not a negative thing. I actually think civilian oversight is actually good. And I know people are gonna hate me for saying that, but I think there's some value in it. I also think when a police department has a community event, does the community show up? So for instance, we just celebrated National Night Out. That's a nationwide community event where people have block parties and the police department shows up and we we break bread with people. We talk to our community members. We take pictures. It is

• 52:22Speaker 00

  literally my favorite night of the year because I get to meet so many people in the community. And the the feedback that we get from our community members is phenomenal. To me, that shows that they trust us, right? They're not like flipping us off when we're driving by. They're inviting us to come into their homes and eat food with them. How powerful is that? If you don't trust someone, you don't allow them into your house, let alone you're not gonna cook for them. And so I think it's those little things, those community events, those opportunities that we have to really like highlight who we are as human beings. That's how we gain trust and that's how we know that our community trusts us.

• 53:00Simon Sinek?

  The challenge you have from a metrics standpoint is very similar to any corporate, any corporate environment, which is how do you measure the qualitative and the quantitative? The quantitative is easy. Money arrests, like it's it's easy, right? But we all know that there's qualitative components to coming to work as well, which is how do I feel at work? And how do other people feel? How do my, how do my customers feel? I mean, at the end of the day, the people you serve are your customers, right?

• 53:25Speaker 00

  I mean, even even the criminals are our customers, quite honestly. They really are.

• 53:29Simon Sinek?

  I mean, they're on the receiving end of your product.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Whether they want to be or not.

• 53:33Simon Sinek?

  Right, but it's true.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  It is true.

• 53:35Simon Sinek?

  And and customer service means you can be arrested for the crime you've committed. But if somebody's not resisting, there's no reason to use any more force than is required at the time than is necessary.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:45Simon Sinek?

  It's very, you know.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  And the law specifically states that.

• 53:48Simon Sinek?

  Robert Peel, you know, the Pelean principles that go back to the 1800s. You know, are as relevant today as they were back back then, which is you use as much force as necessary for the moment. And I'm not going to say for better or for worse, absolutely for worse on both sides of the political spectrum, whether you're, you know, viscerally for or viscerally against cops. I think both sides are missing the point that it's not black and white, that none of this stuff is easy. This is the messiest job there is.

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:17Simon Sinek?

  Literally the messiest job there is.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm not sitting here saying to to show compassion to people when you're in a fight with someone.

• 54:25Simon Sinek?

  Of course not.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  Right, what I'm saying is, yes, once the handcuffs come on, there's no reason why you can't have a conversation with someone and explain, okay, this is what's happening, this is what we're going to do. That goes so far with people.

• 54:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  And we talk about dealing with people before they're in handcuffs. I want to tell you one more quick quick story. I remember I was the sergeant in the gang unit and I stopped this guy. I knew that this guy was armed. He was always armed. He was a hitman and I'd had conversations with him in the past, so he knew who I was. And I remember I stopped him and his friend one day and it was like, I don't know, it was dark. It was like one in the morning or something. And so I'm standing there talking to him. I'm waiting for my cover to show up and I just asked him, hey, what are you doing? What are you up to? Are you looking for a job? Like, you know, I can give you some websites to for you to go go online and look for a job. And I'm just talking to him for like 10 minutes while while waiting for my backup.

• 55:17Simon Sinek?

  So you're just trying to you're just biding time.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  I'm just being cool.

• 55:19Simon Sinek?

  Because you don't want to engage by yourself, it's too dangerous.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Exactly, there's two of them and one of me.

• 55:23Simon Sinek?

  And you're suspect that there probably are.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  And I knew that I knew that he had a gun on him and I knew that he was a violent dude. And so we just had the best conversation, Simon, and then my cover finally showed up. We put him in handcuffs and sure enough, of course, he had a loaded 45 in his waistband.

• 55:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  His friend also had a gun on him. So if those two guys wanted to murder me that night, they absolutely could have. But because I treated them like human beings and I took the opportunity to build a rapport with them and talk to them, they spared me. Right, and that's more what I'm saying is that you should never compromise your officer's safety. But there are opportunities for us to to just be human beings.

• 56:00Simon Sinek?

  And I cannot help but stress that this is this is coming from somebody who's a 28 year veteran of the police force. You are the chief of a sizable agency. You have seen it all, done it all, tried it all. You've experimented with being rough and officious and you do what I say. I'm the I'm the popo like, you know, it's, you know, do you do as you're told. You know, like you've experimented with all of those things because you were a rookie.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:30Simon Sinek?

  And the rookies try it all.

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 56:32Simon Sinek?

  Right. And you have learned over the course of a career that the safer, more effective thing to do was you have chosen humanity, not not because you're into unicorns and rainbows and, you know, it's all about, you know, crystals.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:45Simon Sinek?

  You know, you've chosen humanity because you have learned you are in uniform.

• 56:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:49Simon Sinek?

  You have learned that it is better, that it works better.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  It works so effectively. I spent 10 years as a hostage negotiator and it was some of the most incredible and rewarding work that I've ever done. You want to talk about talking to people on the literally the worst day of their lives where they have nothing to live for and they want to hurt themselves or someone else. It's very stressful. It's a very demanding and challenging environment to work in. But every time I found that just me being Angela and not being Officer Everett really went a long way and it helped to calm the situation and helped to diffuse the situation.

• 57:26Simon Sinek?

  What I've learned from you today is that the real value of creating that really strong corporate culture inside a policing agency where cops can say, I made a mistake or ask for help or say I'm struggling without any fear of humiliation or retribution, that the real value of that is that their ability to use their discretion goes up.

• 57:49Simon Sinek?

  In the marketplace.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:50Simon Sinek?

  When they're in, when they're in the field.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:52Simon Sinek?

  And if the corporate culture is my way or the highway, if the corporate culture is lack of psychological safety for the rank and file, you know, that nobody trusts the, the leadership. If the corporate culture is statistics, statistics, you do as I say. Then what happens is when they go out in the field, they're going to treat the general public the same way, that it's always going to be officious, that it's always going to be you shut up and sit down because I'm the authority and you do as I say. Their ability to have discretion goes down when they work in that kind of corporate culture, because the ability to treat or see someone or try something different or new, that ability to use your wisdom and your experience.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  Life experience.

• 58:35Simon Sinek?

  Your life experience, like, because a rookie is very different than a veteran. Right?

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:39Simon Sinek?

  You don't want to get pulled over by a rookie. You're getting a ticket, right?

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Well, if they're training, yes, most likely.

• 58:47Simon Sinek?

  But the point is, is in a, in a healthy corporate culture, the wisdom and experience of that police officer is more likely to get used in the field. They know, they know. And I think that to me is what I've learned here. That is one of the great values, which is you know when to turn it on and when to turn it off. You know from experience when it's probably going to work and when it's probably not going to work. And though you will make mistakes on one side or the other, for the most part, you're going to have more success than not. And you've got 28 years to prove it.

• 59:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 59:19Simon Sinek?

  And that's what I've learned here, which is if we want our cops to show discretion and use discretion, if we want our cops to be, make good decisions on how to diffuse a situation or make a situation go better than it could, then if you have a, a healthy corporate culture, that, that result is more likely to happen. And so we have to support the teaching of leadership to police and police leaders. We have to help. Police who believe that change can happen on what a good corporate culture looks like and how to build it, if we want our police to use their, use their discretion wisely in the, in the marketplace. That's what I've learned.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  I agree. Thank you for that. I work or have worked with some of the most courageous, incredible human beings on earth that are police officers. And so I just want to make sure I close with that statement that the majority of, of our police officers are phenomenal human beings. They need support from people like me, the police chiefs, from people like you in our community, from, from organizations like The Curve. They need our support. But I couldn't be more proud to be a police officer and I am so proud to work with the people that I work with. So it was important for me to say that.

• 1:00:39Simon Sinek?

  Thank you. You, you also know that I'm cynical whenever police chiefs come out, you know, after a scandal or after a violent, excessive violence. And the press conference usually goes something like this, which is, most cops are good cops, you know, and I understand that's usually for, for, for the local audience. But the reality is, yes, most cops are good cops. And I want the good cops to stand up and say, we want better for our profession. And the bad cops are ruining it for the rest of us. And I think the good cops, the most cops are good cops, there's an accountability. I, I want most cops who are, that are good cops to demand better leadership training for themselves and their bosses.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:01:19Simon Sinek?

  I want the good cops, the most cops who are good cops, to demand that they get to come to work and feel psychologically safe.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:01:27Simon Sinek?

  And work in an environment where they can say, I made a mistake. I need help. I think I need more training. I am not having a good day. I want those most cops who are good cops to demand all the things that are necessary to raise, to raise the bar.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  And maybe they will now.

• 1:01:42Simon Sinek?

  And maybe they will. I have a couple of extra questions for you.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:45Simon Sinek?

  Law enforcement is very hierarchical. What advice do you have for young people not used to climbing the ladder?

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Build, I would say, build your network. It took me a very long time to realize that. I was very siloed, right? I worked at this one police department. These are the people that I worked with and I didn't care about nobody else. Right? And then one day I was like, who do I call when I'm in trouble? Right? I'm not going to talk to my beat partner because maybe the beat partner is the problem. And so I started sending myself to different training classes. I started meeting people and now I have this amazing, incredible network of people. When I'm struggling or I have a problem, I'm like, hey, I need some help right now. Right? I love that I have that. I want that for everyone. So as someone who wants to climb the ranks, who is maybe new in this profession, build your network. Don't be afraid to send yourself to training. And I think don't be afraid to speak up for yourself. Right?

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Now, don't be an organizational terrorist. So don't be that guy that wants to be negative just to be negative. But when things aren't right, say they're, they're not right. Right? Like, don't engage in that group think. You might be an outlier. You might be a little bit of an outcast at first, but always stand up for yourself. That would be my advice.

• 1:02:54Simon Sinek?

  It's good advice. Any life hacks that you have that have just made work or just life a little easier? Any little life hacks that you can share that I can learn from you?

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  I, I think my life hacks are really boring, honestly.

• 1:03:04Simon Sinek?

  What's one of them?

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  Boring, like, I love taking naps. Naps are incredible.

• 1:03:10Simon Sinek?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  And I can hear my husband in the background laughing. I love taking naps. They recharge me. It helps me to clear my mind.

• 1:03:16Simon Sinek?

  Like a little 20 minute power nap kind of thing?

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  Well, I'd say 30 minutes at least.

• 1:03:19Simon Sinek?

  I mean.

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  I know that there's supposed to be like a window or like night.

• 1:03:22Simon Sinek?

  Like anything more than that, like you.

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  Anything more than that is like you're going to bed.

• 1:03:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 00

  I think having naps is phenomenal. I love watching TV. Um, TV is so mindless for me and it just helps me to escape. Right? I love hiking, going on walks, like, nothing that I'm doing is anything earth shattering. But I will say the one thing that I do love, love is cryotherapy. I know, and I hate being cold, which is hilarious, but cryotherapy, oh, it helps me to sleep great. It gives me mental clarity, and that's not nonsense, and I'm not working for a cryotherapy company, but it's the one indulgence that I think I have that I just, I love.

• 1:04:01Simon Sinek?

  So what I'm hearing is your life hacks are, give yourself some grace, do something mindless, like something that allows you to be present, disconnect, whether it's a nap or a hike or watching TV, and be very, very, very cold.

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  Very cold.

• 1:04:14Simon Sinek?

  How long can you stay in there for?

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  I do like three minutes, which is a long time.

• 1:04:19Simon Sinek?

  Mittens and a hat?

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  Mittens and a hat, but for me, the way that I get through it is I dance, and I know I look like a crazy person.

• 1:04:25Simon Sinek?

  So you're standing in a cryo chamber dancing?

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Yes, dancing my ass off, and I sweat every time.

• 1:04:30Simon Sinek?

  Definitely look like a crazy person.

• 1:04:32Speaker 00

  I'm definitely crazy.

• 1:04:33Simon Sinek?

  Angela, thank you so much for coming in.

• 1:04:35Speaker 00

  Thank you, Simon. This is amazing. Thank you.

• 1:04:39Simon Sinek?

  A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simoncynic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.