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Topic: Servant Leadership at the Carrollton Police Department (CPD)

Step 1:
Initial Questions: Can police really lead with both head and heart?
Can a para-military organization become leaderful?

Data Collection & Analysis:
Police departments are strictly command-and-control operations. It’s always been that way. Until now. In Carrollton, Texas, a community of 115,000+ citizens in northwest Dallas, police have forged a hard-won model of servant leadership that defies traditional definitions.
When the Servant Leadership Learning Community (SLLC) began in 2000, David James, Chief of the Carrollton Police Department, joined as one of the original members. Now, he has stepped back to allow Assistant Chief Mac Tristan to represent them in the SLLC. Mac has been taking what he learns at the SLLC sessions back to his team for several years now. He wanted to create a new model for policing after years of command-and-control hierarchy. The police/citizen ration is about 1/1000, so typical police work is reactive. Officers can spend all their time on “urgent” matters and routine operations - “Driving for Dollars” - never getting around to the important work of solving chronic problems, developing leadership, or practicing the disciplines of a learning organization.
His enthusiasm for empowering officers has inspired a Community Problem-Oriented Policing (CPOP) unit composed of volunteers within the department. CPOP began in May of ’04 when Mac invited officers to meet and talk about how they could improve their department as well as their service to the community. His idea was to incite the passion of these officers by allowing them to act on what they already wanted to do.
Mac also wanted to provide a forum for honest feedback without repercussion, as well as act on urgent crime trends in Carrollton. As a result of his openness and willingness to share power with this group, the officers began to believe in Mac’s sincerity, his willingness to “walk the talk.”
The team’s first goal was to communicate more effectively between four sets of 22 patrol officers on different shifts, Divisions and Supervisors throughout the CPD. Their second goal was to tackle a tough problem and show the effectiveness of this kind of voluntary servant leadership. The 10 officers on the team ran the meetings, chose the CPOP name and a chairman. They decided to meet twice a month, and Mac makes sure he misses some of these to send a consistent message that they are the decision-makers.
Mac handed out some simple guidelines within which these officers were free to make the decision.
“When considering solutions to any problems, the Team must have a consensus in answering “Yes” to each one of these questions:
? Is it ethical?
? Is it legal?
? Is it the right thing for the community?
? Is it the right thing for the CPD?
? Is it within our policies and values?
? Is it something you can take responsibility for and be proud of?
If the Team’s answer to all of these questions is “Yes,” then plan the implementation and do it!

Solving an “Impossible” Problem
The first crime problem the team decided to take on came in response to an ongoing problem in the community with vehicle break-ins (BMVs).
“What if we could eliminate vehicle break-ins (BMVs) in our community?” Mac asked the team. Some of the officers laughed (not out loud) at this preposterous suggestion. It was an example of a solution that seemed impossible, but that he believed could be accomplished with the collective wisdom of the group and the spirit of servant leadership.
The department was spending 30 hours for each investigation of a BMV, and they wanted to cut that down drastically. So they began by targeting the area where most of the break-ins were taking place. This became a key ingredient in their success. If they had tried to focus on the entire city, they might well have failed.
Then, they began to communicate with neighbors in that part of the community by going door-to-door, leaving flyers when people were not at home. The night shifts began reporting areas where street lights were out to the city. Street signs were put up advertising the “H.E.A.T.” (help end auto theft) effort.
Officers created a “report card” which they would leave on car windshields as they walked or biked the beat. The car would get a passing grade if it was locked and no valuables were visible within. Conversely, a failing grade would be given (and the reason for it) if the car was unlocked or there were valuables visible. Eventually, the local media caught on and came to find out what was happening, so the CPD got a lot of free publicity to help further their efforts.
The results were remarkable. The total number of BMVs reported dropped 94% in the first eight months. The team has now moved into the second and third targeted areas and have received no reports of BMVs in the first three months of 2005.

From “Busting Heads” to Boxing: The CPD Takes on Gangs
A gang intervention that Mac has been instrumental in leading has also had remarkable results in a short time. As in the CPOP effort, Mac has turned the conventional “Bust Heads” approach on its head. Gang leaders have long known that if they clear out or cut back activity when the cops turn up the heat, they can return to “business as usual” as soon as the quick fix has been applied. Mac wanted to assist the community in taking back the neighborhood and assist youth in choosing an alternative to gangs.
As president of the Police Athletic League, Mac helped reinstitute a boxing program to provide an alternative for these youth who find their identity in gangs. He found a volunteer coach, Sonny Sisteda, set up a hotline Since the boxing program was begun in February ’04, there has been a 66% reduction in graffiti, burglary and assaults in the targeted area.
“It would be a crime not to provide an alternative for these youths,” Tristan told Channel 4 in a special report on the boxing program.

Step II:
Reflection and Synthesis, Development of New Knowledge, Theory, Tools from the CPD report
1. In order to become “leaderful,” we have to break from a traditional model of leadership
a. Shared servant leadership concepts. No halfway measures; need full commitment to the premise/philosophy.
b. “Leaderful” organization – everyone leads and follows.
c. Supervisors role changes to support (vs. control): provide manpower, remove roadblocks, open doors.
d. Empowerment of everyone in the organization. Anyone can offer an idea that gets implemented.
e. Not for the glory – reward is the result.
f. Not a quick fix. Long-term commitment.
g. All have decision-making power at the roundtable.
h. Others “see” and are attracted to participate.
i. One idea is a small piece of the whole.
j. Seeking collective ownership
k. Growing an “ownership,” “learn from mistakes” (vs. blame) attitude/process.
l. Paradigm shift from focus on offender to focus on victim. Identify the key variables in the problem and focus on one that hasn’t received attention.
2. How do we accomplish that?
a. Hands-on work by participants.
b. Set simple, clear guidelines that set People free to innovate and serve the Customer.
c. Find outlets for participant enthusiasm.
d. Find ways to share information with all representative groups.
e. Organization leader tells the group “You determine/decide what to do and how.”
f. Make participation open to everyone.
g. Capitalize on the common goal of organizational success.
h. Get the right people in the core group.
i. Articulate a clear sense of purpose.
j. Analyze and narrow the data to get an achievable goal.
k. Choose a discrete period of time for the project.
l. Look for alternatives if one thing doesn’t work.
m. Prototype the experience.
n. Improve the process.
o. Communicate across “silos” within and outside the organization.
p. Hold quarterly meetings for managers, using guest speakers to get new ideas.
q. Create a “tipping point” where momentum is difficult to stop (vs. imposing change from the “top”).
3. Keys for success
a. Set an environment that encourages people to grow.
b. Express faith in line leaders and other organizational leaders.
c. Provide resources and support.
d. Walk the talk.
e. Be willing to change.
f. Involve all stakeholders.
g. Break down silos to get ownership.
h. Work hard, even on the small things.
i. Keep it simple. This is not rocket science.

Step III:
Disseminating and Capacity Building
*The leaders who attended this session will take back the learning to their work places and implement some aspect(s) of this presentation. We will report back on how the learning was disseminated and what capacities were built at the next SLLC session.

New Questions or Hypotheses
1. How might school uniforms help mitigate gang membership?
2. Will this process be strong enough to continue when another Lieutenant takes over the Division?
3. How might servant leadership be introduced to gangs?
4. What differences between corporations and government organizations need clarifying when applying this learning to businesses?
5. How do officers recharge their energy to do all this volunteer work?