What to do When a Policeman loses touch with Humanity?
Today some friends are burying their father who died last week after his health took a sudden downturn. One of them, Penny got the urgent call to get to hospital. Penny is a conservative driver at the best of times and on this occasion was aiming to get through traffic as best as she could to try to be with her father before he died. Her driving (she admits she was speeding but certainly not at ‘hoon’ level or even the upper end of a fine level) attracted the attention of a Policeman who pulled her over. Getting a ticket was the far from the most significant issue on her mind, and Penny admitted she was speeding, explained what was happening and hoped the Policeman in question would allow her to proceed on her way. Time was of the essence. He didn’t – instead he held Penny up for what seemed like an inordinately long period of time (over 12 minutes), in what, I can only assume was some form of ‘lesson’ whilst he wrote out the ticket. Penny didn’t make it to hospital before her father had died arriving about four minutes after he had passed away. One of our group duly described the policeman in question as in pretty unfrienly terms. Maybe, but that would assume…
the actions of the policeman were deliberate. As an ex Policeofficer I suspect that in this instance, he has lost touch with the humanity aspect of policing. After all, here was an opportunity to assist someone in need. Perhaps a guided escort was possible? Perhaps some understanding was possible? Perhaps a chance to give a quick lecture and a suggestion to be careful. But no. Penny was not speeding excessively – even the ticket shows what the Policeman thought given the fine. Given it is the International year of Solutions, I need to offer one:
This person needs to be given a chance to be re-educated in the roles of policing. Where speed cameras have minimal understanding and offer no discretion or acceptance of context, humans do and the Force ought to give this person an opportunity to re-connect.
He ought to be prevented from issuing any tickets for the next three months – instead, any issues worth pursuing should be done so only by summons. The extra workload and paperwork will allow him to take pause to consider the story of the person and if their story is of minimal relevence, issue a summons. Otherwise he’ll have to listen to the person he is talking with;
And Penny should not have to pay the fine – her loss of not being able to make it to hospital on time to be with her father is a penalty of such significance that the speeding ticket is an insult that merely highlights this officer’s disconnect. So I’ll be offering to pay it on her behalf
Or so it may seem. This quarter has seen me interstate facilitating some strategic planning workshops; overseas working with an established Government client, working with CGD, SELLEN, and Hilton Manufacturing among others here in Oz, a couple of weeks holiday down in Tasmania, and also the occasional radio interview looking at the ‘Future of…’. And…
Read More >Some thoughts flowing from my session discussing challenges in Futures Consulting posted by James Balzer: I’d explained to the group that what I do is engage employees in thinking about their own and their organisation’s future potential. My strong view over twenty years of work in this space is that employee engagement is DIRECTLY driven…
Read More >Tomorrow morning (Friday the 12th) I’ll be joining Elizabeth Kulas on Disrupt Radio discussing the Future Of Workplaces. There’ll be a particular focus on why most organisations choose to struggle because they rely on outdated models of employee management. A 7.15am kick-off where, in about 7 minutes or so, I’ll try to distill 20 years…
Read More >It’s extremely rare that I post to a specific article and say ‘go read this’, which is what I’m doing today. This article on goal directed intelligence at a micro level is a challenge to read. And I do recommend you read it because it pushes forward our understanding of how our biology and arguably…
Read More >If you followed my numerous posts over the years you know I like jumping in early on new products or services – not all have been successful, especially on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but you roll the dice sometimes and see what happens. Over the years Looking Up Feeling Good was an early community investor in…
Read More >In the 1760s Josiah Wedgwood changed forever the nature of workplaces. He expanded his pottery business and constructed a new large scale factory that required two critical elements: a) Systemisation of processes to ensure consistent high-quality outcomes b) Skilled workers on site The systemisation required experimentation, observation, trials, failures and recording of data – what…
Read More >We’re delighted to announce that Neuro-Psychologist Dr. Kim Hazendonk of Positive Brain has accepted our offer to join our elite speaker’s group. We’re looking forward to bringing her to more groups across Australasia as she discusses effective workplaces, positive mind management, and managing busy lives. If you have a need for an engaging and passionate…
Read More >I flag my bias towards the need for a vastly improved approach to managing staff in the work environments. V A S T L Y improved. I’m still surprised at how clunky, disorganised or naive some senior managers are when it comes to that part of the business that considers ‘people’. And rather than cover…
Read More >An interesting public workshop in Perth in the first week of October introducing a varied group to the Organisational Evolution model. The Org-Ev is the model I developed for the start up of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute in conjunction with Steven Bowman. Given the diversity of the group, there were a number of surprises…
Read More >A note for those of you in Perth that there are just 4 spaces left for the Introduction to the Organisational Evolution Model workshop at Adina Apartments in Perth. The Org Ev model has been designed to enhance Strategic Planning and decision making and this introductory workshop is aimed at those looking to attend the…
Read More >