Staff one, 1978, p. 47 |
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Police leadership and Acjency Personnel
captain will talk aboul this ot that problem. I think out loud,
"My God, wc solved that one a year ago. DiduT wc say wc
were going lo do so and-so?" I look around at Ihe icsponsiblc
assistant chief and ask, "What about thai?" Usually he will
say, "I don't know why Ihey don't know about that," and
then he will turn lo the deputy chief next to him and ask the
same thing. I can guarantee that communication biokc down.
Communication was just lost.
I have a principle—we call il Davis's Law that says
communication cannot Iravcisc more than Iwo levels in a
hierarchy accurately, in cither direction, up or down. I defy
anyone to show me any kind of an order that (ravels moic
than two levels in Ihe hierarchy accurately and effectively -
which means that il is not questioned and that everyone
understands what it means. Thai just cannot happen. Most
communication is dysfunctional in the light of what it is
supposed to accomplish. A simple memo can be icad by
several different people and interpreted several dilfcicnt ways.
Even legal statutes arc subject to this same problem. I aws aie
written by lawyers; they must be interpreted by lawyers, and
lawyers often have lo decide what the laws say. liven (hen, il
is infrequent indeed that all the lawyers will agice. Organizational communication is much like the law, and lire people
interpreting it are much like society's lawyers.
Thus, the meetings dcsciibcd hcie are extremely effective.
Everyone there, on all four or five levels, is heating the same
thing al Ihe same time. Perhaps the assistant chief has been
reporting that everything is rosy, bu( wc find out that il is all
screwed up. It might involve some policy thai we had woiked
out, or thought wc had worked out, with the district attorney's
office on the filing of felony complaints. But now wc find
that it is not working out the way that everyone had agiced
it was going to work. So wc start over again, hoping thai
this lime we find a real solution.
1 spend a gieat deal of my time doing these infernal
things within the department. My whole day is spent tunning
the police department. 1 try lo make it a point nevei to give a
78
Police I nndersbip nod Acjency Personnel
luncheon spece h. I'll occasionally make personal appearances
at night, but only on laic occasions do I give a speech al
noon, because I want to spend my lime listening lo my
people- not talking to them, but listening to them. If I talk
to litem, I'm not learning a damn thing, and they aie probably learning vciy little themselves because their minds arc
on something they think is realty a piohlcm. When I'm talk
ing aboul some internal difficulty, Ihey couldn't care less
aboul it, because Ihey have a problem Ihey want lo discuss.
So I listen.
So the eflcclivc leader must know the people in the community and he must know his men, and he must know how
they feel today, not how they fell when he was one of thcin,
five, ten, oi twenty years ago. I lungs change so rapidly that the
leader has lo be light on top of them, light now. Is that
generally done in most police departments icgulaily? Arc
sergeants always listening lo theii men? Do all lieutenants
and all captains listen? It's amazing whal a leader can learn.
Thcic is no loss of ego involved when a leader doesn't
know the solution to sonic pioblem. I gel slumped all the
time; I don't know all the answers. Most people probably
believe I am no smaller than Ihey arc. In fact, many may
Ihink I am soil of a dummy. Il doesn't tcully bother me when
I gel stumped on a pioblem and cannot conic up with some
wondeiful magic solution. Sometimes, as people move up the
ladder, Ihey lend to become t al her pompous and Ihink (hat
everyone believes Ihcy'ic brilliant. Well, most high la. king
Ieadcis arc not really any smaller or any dumber than their
suhoidiualcs. They just have a different perspective and a
diffcienl set of responsibilities.
There has been a great deal of information published
on the subject of individual and group perceptions. This is
often referred to as gtoup dynamics.' For example, thcic aie
tincr kinds of people in any group when you conduct a
'S.ll. Seashore, Gump (ohesiveness in the Industrial (lump (Ann
Aiboi, Mich.: Institute of Social Research, 1955).
79
Object Description
| Title | Staff one, 1978 |
| Description | Edward M. Davis. Staff one: a perspective on effective police management. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978. Accompanied by memo indicating the photocopy of the book was provided by the author. PART OF: Commission meetings (6 of 6). PART OF A SERIES: Materials in the series fall into one of several categories related to the Independent Commission's work product: (1) Commission meeting materials, which include meeting agendas, work plans, memoranda, and articles about police misconduct that were circulated and reviewed during the Commission's internal meetings; (2) public correspondence, which includes citizen complaints against the LAPD in the form of written testimony, articles, and an audio cassette tape, as well as letters drafted by citizens in support of the LAPD; (3) summaries of interviews held with LAPD officers regarding Departmental procedures and relations; (4) public meeting materials, which include transcripts, supplementary documents, and witness statements that were reviewed at the Commission's public meetings; (5) press releases related to the formation and work product of the Commission; and (6) miscellaneous materials reviewed by the Commission during its study, including LAPD personnel and training manuals, a memorandum of understanding, and messages from the LAPD's Mobile Digital Terminal (MDT) system. |
| Creator | Davis, Edward M. |
| Publisher (of the original version) | Prentice-Hall, Inc. |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California |
| Date issued | 1978 |
| Type |
texts images |
| Format | 130 p. |
| Format (aat) | books |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991 |
| Series | Independent Commission file list |
| File | Commission meetings |
| Box and folder | box 22, folder 9, item 2 |
| Provenance | The collection was given to the University of Southern California on July 31, 1991. |
| Rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained. |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Repository name | USC Libraries Special Collections |
| Repository address | Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 |
| Repository email | specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | indep-box22-09-02 |
Description
| Title | Staff one, 1978, p. 47 |
| Format (imt) | image/tiff |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | Police leadership and Acjency Personnel captain will talk aboul this ot that problem. I think out loud, "My God, wc solved that one a year ago. DiduT wc say wc were going lo do so and-so?" I look around at Ihe icsponsiblc assistant chief and ask, "What about thai?" Usually he will say, "I don't know why Ihey don't know about that," and then he will turn lo the deputy chief next to him and ask the same thing. I can guarantee that communication biokc down. Communication was just lost. I have a principle—we call il Davis's Law that says communication cannot Iravcisc more than Iwo levels in a hierarchy accurately, in cither direction, up or down. I defy anyone to show me any kind of an order that (ravels moic than two levels in Ihe hierarchy accurately and effectively - which means that il is not questioned and that everyone understands what it means. Thai just cannot happen. Most communication is dysfunctional in the light of what it is supposed to accomplish. A simple memo can be icad by several different people and interpreted several dilfcicnt ways. Even legal statutes arc subject to this same problem. I aws aie written by lawyers; they must be interpreted by lawyers, and lawyers often have lo decide what the laws say. liven (hen, il is infrequent indeed that all the lawyers will agice. Organizational communication is much like the law, and lire people interpreting it are much like society's lawyers. Thus, the meetings dcsciibcd hcie are extremely effective. Everyone there, on all four or five levels, is heating the same thing al Ihe same time. Perhaps the assistant chief has been reporting that everything is rosy, bu( wc find out that il is all screwed up. It might involve some policy thai we had woiked out, or thought wc had worked out, with the district attorney's office on the filing of felony complaints. But now wc find that it is not working out the way that everyone had agiced it was going to work. So wc start over again, hoping thai this lime we find a real solution. 1 spend a gieat deal of my time doing these infernal things within the department. My whole day is spent tunning the police department. 1 try lo make it a point nevei to give a 78 Police I nndersbip nod Acjency Personnel luncheon spece h. I'll occasionally make personal appearances at night, but only on laic occasions do I give a speech al noon, because I want to spend my lime listening lo my people- not talking to them, but listening to them. If I talk to litem, I'm not learning a damn thing, and they aie probably learning vciy little themselves because their minds arc on something they think is realty a piohlcm. When I'm talk ing aboul some internal difficulty, Ihey couldn't care less aboul it, because Ihey have a problem Ihey want lo discuss. So I listen. So the eflcclivc leader must know the people in the community and he must know his men, and he must know how they feel today, not how they fell when he was one of thcin, five, ten, oi twenty years ago. I lungs change so rapidly that the leader has lo be light on top of them, light now. Is that generally done in most police departments icgulaily? Arc sergeants always listening lo theii men? Do all lieutenants and all captains listen? It's amazing whal a leader can learn. Thcic is no loss of ego involved when a leader doesn't know the solution to sonic pioblem. I gel slumped all the time; I don't know all the answers. Most people probably believe I am no smaller than Ihey arc. In fact, many may Ihink I am soil of a dummy. Il doesn't tcully bother me when I gel stumped on a pioblem and cannot conic up with some wondeiful magic solution. Sometimes, as people move up the ladder, Ihey lend to become t al her pompous and Ihink (hat everyone believes Ihcy'ic brilliant. Well, most high la. king Ieadcis arc not really any smaller or any dumber than their suhoidiualcs. They just have a different perspective and a diffcienl set of responsibilities. There has been a great deal of information published on the subject of individual and group perceptions. This is often referred to as gtoup dynamics.' For example, thcic aie tincr kinds of people in any group when you conduct a 'S.ll. Seashore, Gump (ohesiveness in the Industrial (lump (Ann Aiboi, Mich.: Institute of Social Research, 1955). 79 |
| Filename | indep-box22-09-02~047.tif |
| Archival file | Volume71/indep-box22-09-02~047.tif |
