Currency v. Proficiency

Are you in a profession where being up-to-date on your certifications isn’t enough to guarantee success in high-stakes situations? This week, we delve into the often-overlooked difference between currency and true proficiency in training. Inspired by a thought-provoking article from an aviation association, we draw fascinating parallels between the rigorous training standards of aviation and the essential skills needed for everyday life. Greg shares compelling personal anecdotes, including his time with the Civil Air Patrol and his family’s aviation background, illustrating how early exposure to these concepts can shape one's career and interests.

We examine how society frequently confuses being current with being truly proficient, especially in critical fields like law enforcement and aviation. Using vivid analogies such as Disney’s entertainment tactics versus pilots' meticulous safety checklists, we underscore the importance of true proficiency for safety and effectiveness. 

Lastly, we discuss how enhanced training through cognitive engagement can better prepare individuals for the unpredictability of real-world scenarios. By shifting focus from rote repetition to varied and complex training situations, we argue that true proficiency comes from being challenged and pushed outside comfort zones. Join us for an enlightening conversation that challenges conventional approaches to training and highlights the necessity of true proficiency in all areas of life.

Thank you so much for tuning in, we hope you enjoy the episode and please check out our Patreon channel where we have a lot more content, as well as subscriber only episodes of the show. If you enjoy the podcast, I would kindly ask that you leave us a review and more importantly, please share it with a friend. Thank you for your time and don’t forget that Training Changes Behavior!

Article Link: https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/active-pilots/safety-and-technique/currency-vs-proficiency

Chapters

• 0:00 Proficiency vs Currency in Training
• 9:16 Proficiency vs Education in Training
• 14:34 Training and Proficiency Paradigm Shift
• 21:22 Effective Training Strategies for Proficiency
• 32:11 Developing Proficiency Over Currency in Training
• 40:41 Examining Contributing Factors in Incidents"
• 43:36 Complexity of Decision-Making and Impact
• 48:11 Reassessing Priorities in Training
• 56:45 Analyzing Training Gaps for Safety

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior Podcast. Are you in a profession where being up-to-date on your certifications isn't enough to guarantee success in high-stakes situations? This week we delve into often overlooked difference between currency and true proficiency in training. Inspired by a thought-provoking article from an aviation association, we draw fascinating parallels between the rigorous training standards of aviation and the essential skills needed for everyday life. Greg shares compelling personal anecdotes, including his time with the Civil Air Patrol and his family's aviation background, illustrating how early exposure to these concepts can shape one's career and interest. We examine how society frequently confuses being current and being truly proficient, especially in critical fields like law enforcement and aviation. Using vivid analogies such as Disney's entertainment tactics versus pilots' meticulous safety checklist, we underscore the importance of true proficiency for safety and effectiveness. Lastly, we discuss how enhanced training through cognitive engagement can better prepare individuals for the unpredictability of real-world scenarios by shifting focus from rote repetition to varied and complex training situations. We argue that true proficiency comes from being challenged and pushed outside comfort zones. Join us for an enlightening conversation that challenges conventional approaches to training and highlights the necessity of true proficiency in all areas of life. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the episode and please check out our Patreon channel, where we have a lot more content as well as subscriber-only episodes of the show. If you enjoyed the podcast, I kindly ask that you leave us a review and, more importantly, please share it with a friend. Thank you for your time and don't forget that training changes behavior.

Speaker 1: 1:30

All right, hello everyone and thanks for tuning in this week. We had a little bit of a break there over the fourth. Hopefully everyone had a good, good holiday and you have all of the same or the same amount of fingers you went into the fourth with hopefully you still have those same amount with uh, uh today, but uh, today's a topic of the day is, um, we're talking about what we would call it's called currency versus sort of proficiency, and this came from an article that uh, our consigliere, sean, shout out to sean sent sent you and we discussed because it's from an aviation kind of like, stuff like that, because we deal with training, obviously.

Speaker 1: 2:31

But we reference it a lot because it has so many other uses outside of even what they're using it for no-transcript so much that you have to learn and have to be so detailed and you have to be. You know, everything is a checklist. You know there's all of these steps you have to take, right, and there's a ton of analogies. We'll get into those today, but also sort of when. What they talk about this article and I'll have it in the episode notes is you know what one of the big things that they're addressing is okay, you're current on your certifications, you're current on the number of hours which they have, your current on whatever licenses and this you have to have, but but are you proficient in them right now? This is like across the board stuff we talked about before and everyone's familiar with this. It's like, you know, when you sign up for a job or whatever and you got to go through all this little online training for whatever, and it's like, okay, you're current in your insider threat awareness, you're current in your sexual harassment awareness. It's like, yeah, you just took through 30 minute, click through a thing that was more of a cover your ass for the company and had to do with legal than actually had to do with making you proficient. And I would argue, almost everything that we do in life when it comes to training, education, is like that. I mean, think about you get a driver's license at 16. Okay, do you ever have to go back? What is it? Every once in a while you have to retake the eye test, right, because to make sure your vision is good, but you don't have to go get recertified for driving a vehicle. Um, so you know, there's things like that. And then even just school in general. I mean, you think about it, it's. Are you current with these? This level of information? For you know math at the sixth grade. Okay, good, you're there, but like, are you actually proficient at it? So we don't, you could be in.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Part of this is you can't be proficient in everything, right. In fact, most people are only proficient in like one thing, the thing that they do right, whether that's a, that's a hobby or skill that they have, or it's their actual job. Whatever it is, it's very, very difficult to put in the time and resources to be highly proficient in a number of skill sets. That's where you get like the whole saying like you know jack of all trades, master of none. You know what I mean. It's like, yeah, I can do all these things. I mean I'm not very good at any of them, but I can do a lot of them, and it's the way to highlight this. So I want to jump into that, greg, but I just want to give that sort of background information. First of all, why does this stuff always pique your interest as well when it comes to the aviation, and why we get into that. And then we can get into specific topics as well.

Speaker 2: 5:28

No, I think that's wonderful and what a great start too. So, as we briefly discussed yesterday, one of the throwbacks that Sean and I have, sean's son is a private pilot at 15, very young, very dedicated, just does so much. Very young, very dedicated, just does so much. Sean and his son are also members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which puts out a journal, and Sean and I sometimes collaborate back and forth on a discussion on that, because my past includes Civil Air Patrol.

Speaker 2: 5:58

During the Civil Air Patrol, I was granted an opportunity to go to the Pennsylvania Ranger Academy, which was specifically for search and rescue, reconstructing accidents, determining causation, and that was my first thing as a young teen Think about it, brian with NTSB and FAA and understanding how they looked at things. What are the probable cause? And that's the first you know. Even long before I was interested in law, they would come out and determine probable cause and I go what a great term. This is the most likely thing. That occurred. Even long before I was interested in law, they would come out and determine probable cause and I go, what a great term. This is the most likely thing that occurred. And so you can see how those things, over time start shaping how I wrote and the things that I got interested in. Now.

Speaker 2: 6:39

My brother, jeff former LEO, also former military was one of five of the youngest pilots in Michigan back during the time and we had no money. So Jeff joined the Civil Air Patrol specifically because they had grant programs where he could get his private pilot's license. So these things came to us as inner city kids from completely out of left field, like you know how much joking I do about the Air Force, you know the Uber of the air. But the idea was, had I not had those experiences back then, I probably wouldn't have had some of the deep discussions that or regulatory responsibilities and follow up and oversight and investigation. I would challenge anybody that thinks differently to go to their computer today and just put in who investigates police shootings in there and then add their city, state or location Right, and the idea is it's different Colorado, us Department of Revenue, some places US Department of Justice, other places FBI or Fed or you know many, many jurisdictions and agencies.

Speaker 1: 7:55

State agencies. It's for a shooting board. Yeah, you know where.

Speaker 2: 7:58

It's a compilation of regional. And you know, the thing I loved the first time I learned about it is that the NTSB was independent. Okay, so Congress sets them up and says you're the people that are on the board, you're the ones that pick and choose which of these investigations. And guess what? You go through all these steps in the investigation and they come out with a suggestion. You say based on our investigation, we think this is most likely what happened and here's what you should do about it so it doesn't happen again in the future. Brian, who else does that? You know you mentioned something that I think is very important. You said you can be current without being proficient.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Yeah, and you also added that if you're proficient, you're most likely current. Okay, but the idea is, what's the difference there?

Speaker 1: 8:51

And the difference there is how big gosh, damn dangerous difference you know, yeah. So so I'll jump sort of right into that and this is from that article again. I'll have the the link in the uh details there's. There's just some great information, regardless of what field you're in, but it and I like the term. The other thing about it too is the terminology that that's used is great because it's sort of scientific, it's plain and it's clear. And so what they said to you know, currency and proficiency have similar definitions and they do complement each other, but neither one is a replacement for the other. Being current under the FAA, federal aviation regulations mean that you have met the requirements to act as a pilot in command of an aircraft within a certain period of time. This is why I love this stuff, because it's so specific.

Speaker 2: 9:29

It's like OK, well, there's not a lot of wiggle room on that one. You don't understand.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Yep, yep, being proficient means, you know, fully competent in any art, science or subject. So you can be current without being proficient pilot. But if you're proficient, most likely you also have met some currency requirements to get to that point. So you've been current at some point and are likely could be now. And, and so my, my biggest you know thing is is when we look at, you know, everyone looks at different types of training or education in different manners, right, and?

Speaker 1: 10:00

And we get we focus on, I think, a lot of the wrong things sometimes in terms of how we look at it. You know, when you like, just, for example, top 10, it's like, well, people have different a trainer, a teacher, a mentor, a coach that you can look at that just had such a profound impact on the way that they did things and the way you learn from them. And everyone has that sort of character in their head, right, and the thing is, the similarities between all those people are incredible, and so it's not so much the recipient of the information, it's who's giving it and how it's done. But, and the reason I'll make a point here in a second but but the idea is we focus on sort of the these, these wrong, uh, ways of of understanding, learning and training and education and we have to look at a big picture, and that's why I brought it up is that there's so much you learn throughout your life you know through education and training, but it's so difficult to become proficient in any number of topics, right, you sort of like have to pick one, in a sense, and do that.

Speaker 1: 11:20

And now there's some people that can get very, very proficient over periods of time, like on several, but they're usually like related or something like that, or they usually have some sort of crossover. So, but but it's difficult to do that. It's like when you meet, you know the person who's well, it's like the one, the one guy, cause there's all these memes about him. He was, he was a SEAL, then he became a doctor, you know, through at harvard medical school and now he's every six months, it's on linkedin it comes up again.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Exactly, you know, and he found the in his backyard. Yeah, it's like okay, okay, danny.

Speaker 1: 11:53

I think his name is danny kim, but I don't know. I know some people know, but anyway, like it's one of the.

Speaker 1: 11:57

It's one of those where it's like you're, you're, you're talking about a statistical anomaly and and and it's not, it's a. That's just so atypical that it's like, all right, throw those things out. But but what I mean, the reason why I'm getting this, is because we've been doing this our whole life. It's like, yeah, I got this, yet no, I got, I passed the test. Yeah, I got this, I passed the test, I made it through, you know, grade school, then high school, then maybe college or whatever. Like I got this and it's.

Speaker 1: 12:24

It's really just, you know, when you look at it, it's like you met the minimum requirements to be here, um, but that's for everything. So, like the military stuff is like that, even even if you're in the most difficult unit to get into a tier one unit, what it really means is you, you made, you met the minimum standard to be a part of that team. Now, that minimum standard may be extraordinarily high, but it's still that's what that means. And so we almost look at it and this gets into that fundamental attribution error. It's like, oh well, they have these bona fides, they have these things that they've done, they have these certifications, they have these degrees, they have this and it's like's like okay, so they met some minimum requirement to get this thing that you can put on your resume and and that's fine, uh, and and, but but how proficient are they is very different, yeah, and what this article does, too, is obviously it's in the uh, the context of, of flying, but, but flying is is one of these great contexts to use for training and education, because one, it's a combination of both Uh, there's a, there's, there's a, there's a a training requirement where you have to override your body's natural instinct because otherwise you'll die, um, so. So there's like this, this level of cognitive performance that is, uh, that is required of an individual. There's attention and awareness is actually where a lot of the situational awareness term came from, was from, from pilots, you know, 100 something years ago. So it it all. It's.

Speaker 1: 13:58

It's just analogous with so much of the stuff that we talk about, and so I want, I obviously highly recommend this article, but that's why we chose this article, and so what is it about currency and proficiency, and how do we determine that? And sort of how has it gotten to where it's at? You know what I mean Great, like big picture too. I mean, you use whatever example you want, but. But my thing is like it's almost like we're, we're sort of we're, we're sort of primed from this for the young age where we think all right, this is good. Maybe I got an A in the class and you got a B, so I'm more proficient. No, it's like I'm a little bit more current is how I would look at it. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 14:34

So I'll pass to you to kind of so let's go at it a different way. Let's not go directly at it, let's go around the bend. Have you ever been?

Speaker 1: 14:40

to.

Speaker 2: 14:40

Disney in California or Florida, any of the Disney places.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Yeah, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, disney, yeah, a couple years ago.

Speaker 2: 14:46

So I'm going to swear you in as an expert witness on going to Disney as a theme park, as both an adult and as a kid, and with kids that are your kids and probably kids that you abducted and they're still looking for you. But the idea is that you can answer some reasonable questions about it. So, number one question going to answer some reasonable questions about it. So, uh, number one question uh, did you go on a ride where you sat in a wooden chair at a desk that went sort of you know, staccato, slowly, you know catching on the uh things, where as you went by you saw a person drawing Mickey mouse laboriously, painfully, one nose, and then a sketch at a time, and then as you went okay, you know why they don't fucking exist.

Speaker 1: 15:23

because what time? And then, as you want to, okay, you know why?

Speaker 2: 15:25

Because they don't fucking exist, because what they want to do is they want to take you in and put you on an exciting ride and spin you around on Dumbo and all that other stuff. Now, why am I bringing that up? Because that's the way training catches you. You're fancy. So so you know that. That, uh, uh, I have a great deal of respect for Ivan and Pablo that are in the security field and have training for people that do security, and I have very little respect for other people in there that are doing the full auto shooting, rolling, jumping, you know, coming through windows, squealing the tires on the car and shit. Because it's shit, because that. But the idea is that sells Brian, so that's what's exciting.

Speaker 2: 16:03

So when people think of their local law enforcement, they think that their local law enforcement is going through this detailed training on all of these other things. They're at the top of their game in fitness. They're at the top of their game in shooting. They're at the top of their game in driving. Where it's not it's currency, it's. You shoot. This time, you know, 80 rounds per year, per person. Part of that has to be on night, part of that has to be against, you know, interactive targets or whatever else, and then that's the standard, and those standards are so different agency to agency. And then there's a minimum standard for that state, like Michigan law enforcement training or the post, the police officer standards and training. And once you're current, brian, you have to do nothing more than that. So, as a matter of fact, you might have to pay out of your pocket to become more proficient.

Speaker 2: 16:50

So what does that mean? Well, the thing that caught me on this and talking to Sean about this article and the reason I sent it to you right away, is the first thing on all the articles that they had in this journal was know your limitations. Holy shit, how long have you and I been yelling about that right? So, if we just think in one term, you're about to engage in a pursuit because the person drove away from you at a traffic stop. Now think of the panacea of things that are going there Don't grab the vehicle. Don't do this. How are you going to communicate? Are you running back to your car or walking back? Are you going to allow the air unit to take the pursuit? But let's talk about now just one skill, and that's your brakes in your car. Did you check them when you went on duty. When was the last time they were checked? Did you check the fluid? Are they pad or are they disc, or are they some version of ABS? And if your fluid heats up because you're low on fluid, what's that going to do to you at the midpoint of your pursuit?

Speaker 2: 17:42

Brian, we're talking one thing this is how NTSB thinks you get it when they're doing an investigation. That's not how law enforcement thinks. This is not how a C-suite executive thinks, and that's why I think there needs to be a paradigm shift in how we look at it. And that's why I use Disney as the analogy. Right, because Disney is not going to waste time trying to catch your attention with all the day-to-day things that they have to do, which is the proficiency, but they are going to catch you with that currency and you're going to be just fine when you walk out. You're going to get your money's worth, but we as a society aren't going to get our money's worth continuing to think that way.

Speaker 1: 18:19

Well, and one of the biggest things I've always talked about too, is with every pilot I don't care what you're flying a single seat Cessna, it's just you, or it's a 787 with 400 people on board you go through a checklist. I mean you literally go through it and you probably that person has memorized that checklist. But they don't go off a memory. They literally open up the flight crew checklist.

Speaker 1: 18:46

They go line by line and check, each with their flashlight, as they're walking around exactly, and because they know in that industry it doesn't matter how proficient you are or how current you are or how many reps you've done or how long you've been doing this. You are a human being who is prone to human error and you will skip something, you will miss something, you will go. Oh, that's probably not a big deal. So they literally have to make it line by line item before you go anywhere. Now, once you get into the actual flying part, yeah, there's a lot of intuition in that and there's all your training and some are better than others, but but everyone has to go through that and we don't do that in other areas, right, we don't do that in our life. I agree, we don't do that. Like you said, who does that? Before they go into the business meeting? No one, it's the. I got this All right. I know about Bill. He's coming over from here and I'm going to butter him up like this. It's like okay, but what left and right lateral limits, what safeguards, what policy procedures did you put in place before going into there? And it's like none, you did none. We wing it in a sense. And even when you're highly proficient, you're going to miss something and so you go back down to those very basic level of looking at it.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Now, you obviously can't create a checklist for everything in your life Right. Now, you obviously can't create a checklist for everything in your life, right, but in a sense you can, at the start of whatever that thing is, start of your day, start of your workday, start of that road trip. You know what I'm saying. It's like, whatever that is, you actually can make one and then you can modify it, adjust it, and then you can stick to that every single time. You know it's I, the, like, the, the, the put the mirror down in your car, the, the visor with the mirror on. It's like, yeah, are you prepared for this or what you're going to see? And it's like those little things are, and that the the reason it's done is because it prevents anything.

Speaker 1: 20:38

For any preventable event it gets rid of. Yep, right. So now there's certain things where it's a, you know, lightning strikes and happens to hit you, that, that that may happen, but it's, it's rare and, yeah, there was nothing you can do about it. Or, you know, maybe you should have been out in that weather. But the idea is most of these things, and this is why the ntsb and fa do this is because they're all completely avoidable.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Most mishaps are avoidable and they want to get rid of it. It's like their whole goal is like how do we get rid of every avoidable mishap? Because, if you can do that, that's, that's, that's most of them, that's. The thing is like. Now you're down to those statistical anomalies that, okay, we can, we can learn from, but but we, we know we did everything we could to ensure that that didn't happen.

Speaker 1: 21:22

And it's something as simple as a freaking checklist and people are listening like, yeah, but it's more complicated than that, and you guys oversimplify this stuff. It's like, okay, we technically sometimes we oversimplify complex subjects, but that's the point. We're doing it deliberately. We're not just saying, oh, it's just this simple, we're saying, no, no, use it. This simply because if you do, it works. And so that's some of the big takeaways I got from this article and just in general, and we have a whole bunch of different flying analogies that we use and airline ones because of all of the reasons we discussed. It's everything right there. It is a very, very can become a complex environment and there's danger there. So it crosses over to different type of like you know law enforcement, first responder, emergency department kind of jobs and roles where you can take away so much. They've done such a great job over the years of documenting how this stuff works and how to mitigate it. It's like here the manual is right, here, this is what you need to read, and we don't do that sometimes.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Yeah, and I think the oversimplification argument. I would challenge anybody. Come on the show, Tell us what you're talking about, Because, when it comes down to it, what we do is we say there's a thing called science and there's a thing called facts and there's a thing called law, and if you're well versed in it or at least know where to go like, for example, I know where my local library is and I can do most of that online now without actually physically driving there and what happens is you the person that makes a comment like that have lost your objectivity, and what that means is that you look and you go, yeah, but police officers are overwhelmed Excuse. Yeah, but police officers are under trained Excuse. You get what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2: 23:08

We can go down the entire list. Like the other day, there was a great little webinar thing on and I caught just a little bit of it and it was a person that was defending the taser and use of less than lethal, and the person came up with some hard facts and said that it's the taser in their studies was only useful 25% of the time. Okay, Well, I'm not a math magician because I'm from the Detroit school system, but 25% is significantly less than half.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Yeah, exactly, but it's significantly less than half, okay, and it's not a hundred percent. So now we go back into what we talk about. Okay, so now you're given a choice between your lethal weapon and the less than lethal that you have looks the same, it's in a holster, it's on your belt, but it's not as effective, and you can't hold them both at the same time because we know where that leads. So what happens is we conduct predictive analysis on where those seams and gaps are going to be, where the cognitive gap analysis are going to occur, and we try to help you understand that through myelinization and some other processes and building rigorous, fidelity-filled scenarios and baselines that you can overcome them. And that's why we still have a hard time today. We still have a hard time today because when we start discussing things like Hoberman and why we do the scenarios we want to do that way with VR and AI, people are like, yeah, but it's got to be specific. No, because if it's specific, it's never going to occur. It has to be general.

Speaker 2: 24:35

And it has to be so general that you can apply it to future operations. And that's another thing we love about NTSB they don't stop with just the investigation and determination of probable cause. They then what, brian? They then make a recommendation, so you understand what not to do next time, and I think that's a key difference.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Well, that's the thing is that they look at everything and go for what are all the contributing factors and especially that what we can control and change. And you brought up a point here, and this has to do with the currency and proficiency and training and how you do. That is you know, and I'll just read from here, because it's what they said, you know here it says the obvious solution to the proficiency problem is to do more flying. But when it comes to proficiency being prepared to handle any situation with what which you might reasonably be presented quality beats quantity. 100 hours of pattern work in the past year, all of it on windless days, might make for smooth, calm, wind landings, but it won't count for much the first time you're faced with a 15 knot crosswind.

Speaker 1: 25:39

And this is this is where, um, you know, people just want to get a number of reps in and it's not how it works.

Speaker 1: 25:49

It's become very good at the fundamental, the basic thing that you're trying to do, and then now go and do it in as many different types of situations all over the place that you possibly can, not just the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 1: 26:02

And you know to to your point um about you know add, adding in the complexity and not having to do this sort of like. You know the, I get the crawl, walk, run. But it's also like no, your brain can learn much faster than we're giving it credit for. And this is where the accelerated learning stuff, which why we remember when we had a lita bello on, because she's a genius at this stuff. But, um, you know the, the way I see it sometimes too, is when you just, oh, let's make sure they have it here before we go on to the next one. It's like no, we're gonna go from a, then we're gonna jump over to r, then we're gonna come back to d and then we're gonna go to l and then go to lawn chair and then they're like well you you can't do this.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Like, no, trust me, your brain is firing on all cylinders at that point because it's going fuck like whoa, where's this coming from next? But if I go A, b, c, d, e, f, g, my brain goes, got it. I know. Okay, like I know what's coming next. There's no surprise, there's no sense making, there's nothing, it's just a linear progression. Well, that's not how a real situation is ever going to unfold. So if I don't have the ability to do that, to go from, you know, I mean that's a.

Speaker 1: 27:07

You know you brought up our scenarios and stuff like that, where we'll teach this intensive course and they'll do these little, small part test things and some, some group exercises and this, and then it's like, all right, we're going to watch this situation and and literally it's nothing happens. And everyone's like, well, everyone's all amped up and we're like, yeah, you need to realize that nothing is going to happen most of the time. So if you're all amped up, coming into this, you're going to jam a square peg into a round hole. But that level of we don't look at training that way sometimes because we think it has to be very linear and it has to be small, little chunks and it has to be laid out for me and, like the, the mama bird just spit in my mouth a little bit here. It's like that that the outline, the overall concepts, need to be that way. Right, you need to go to go from big to small or from small to big or whatever it needs to be. But within that realm you can jump around, you can go all right, hey, try this right now.

Speaker 1: 28:11

People go, oh, I wasn't ready for it, I know, just go do it. And they're like okay, now your brain's going to sit there and it's going to get a little nervous and it's going to get amped and it's going to start to think harder and you're going to create that myelization, you're going to create those file folders much faster because it's now engaged cognitively where it wasn't before because it was going through that. Well, I know it's going to get a little bit more difficult. Then they're going to have some extra tasks for me to do. Then they might throw this in, if I can in that training environment. If I'm figuring it all out like that and I'm not being surprised or I'm not having to to I it, the pattern is that obvious going into it, then I don't really learn from it.

Speaker 1: 28:49

Right, it has to have some sort of um way for me to figure out the situation. I have to engage myself, my critical thinking, in order to develop that and you actually learn even those, those, uh, you learn skills faster that way, I think from what I've seen in my experience, and so this is why you know that's the perfect line in there, and we use the analogy from the, from the flying community. It's like, yeah, just keep doing your takeoff and landings, like over and over again, a nice, calm, sunny day, like you're not getting what they're saying is that that's.

Speaker 1: 29:22

It's like, well, I have X amount of hours. It's like, yeah, but it's the doing the same thing over and over again. Like you, you never pushed outside of your comfort zone. You never did something that that was unexpected. You see what I'm saying with that.

Speaker 2: 29:35

That's the instructor trainer on on uh, thermals and night vision. That's a young e6 that's training the apache pilot in the blackhawk pilot. You get what I'm trying to say? Yeah. And he says, hey, I'm the expert on this. And the guy's like, yeah, but you have zero time in the air using it. You know coming through with uh, you know on a mission, well, but, but see, that's what we don't do.

Speaker 2: 29:58

That's back to the analogy of the disney. I know people are still scratching their head on that one. No, dis Disney understands how to get inside your head and make it a memorable experience, and that's why you buy the currency and that's why you have the food there, and that's why you buy the doll and buy the videos and rent it over and over. Because what they're doing is they're dicking with your brain's chemistry and now, all of a sudden, you've got this gap in your life that you want to fill by going back and fulfilling it through those things. Well, training is the same way, because once you teach your brain the efficacy of how the brain is built and file folders are created and how you can go back to them and get just as excited going through any type of training.

Speaker 2: 30:37

The difference between critical thinking and advanced critical thinking is being able to apply the stuff that you learned yesterday to the situation that you're going to go into tomorrow. And it's got to be seamless and, yes, there's going to be some rough edges around it, but that's what training sands down, that's what training allows to go together and guess what? You fail. And failure is a good thing for your brain because failure goes okay. Now we have to reassess, we have to update our current hypothesis, because this didn't work. So what's going to work? And you know what that does to us, brian. That gives us a knowledge base that's better than anything that you can get from just reading a book or going out and doing the skill. Now what you have is that experiential knowledge that you can draw on and go. This situation is quite different, but there are similarities and the similarities are likely going to help me make a better decision. And we're not doing that. And with pilots, they're doing that all the time. The know your limitations. Holy shit, tell me that you don't want to write that on a yellow pad and hang it over your door before you walk out today. I mean, that alone can center us on what we're likely to face today and help us be better at it.

Speaker 2: 31:43

You know the thing, like Disney again, with speed limits when speed limits come up, they're not arbitrary, brian. There's science behind where a speed limit is and the curve and where the signs go on the roadway. But how many people think that deeply? Well, that's the difference between critical thinking and advanced critical thinking. Now, if we add to that a skipped skid and the brakes and the tires and I haven't checked the tires we're right back into that realm where I'm talking about, where science needs to inform, not people need to inform. And the difference to me between currency and proficiency is currency is developed by people where proficiency is developed by knowledge. And I think there's a big difference there, difference. That's remarkable.

Speaker 1: 32:25

Yeah, no, and that's a great, I would say. To add to that, currency is created by policy, right and lawsuits, and proficiency is through a lot of knowledge and skill acquisition and trial and error, exactly, exactly, over time. Yep, like it tested over time. That's that's sort of the testing over time is is where things get become proficient. But you can make anything, you know. You can just say a policy Okay, got it. Well, from now on we're going to do this.

Speaker 1: 33:01

And you know, the reason why I brought up something like the school stuff too is it's sort of just how we think now, because we think, okay, well, yeah, there's no more requirements, you have to get certain grades in school and you have to get this, and. And then there's different arguments on well, is that system the best way to do it? Because maybe this person just is they're bad at, you know, a written test, but they're really good at speaking about it and and so. So that's a. There's a measurement and assessment thing in there, but but yes, not getting into that, just getting into how we approach these things, and it's like our life becomes a check in the box with everything we have to do with, whether it's the driver's license or you know, registering for this or registering for that or ensuring I have this, like it's all just this sort of currency process. Are you up to date with your shots? Are you up to date with your? You know what I mean. Like, did you get your physical this year? Whatever it is, and it's it. That's what has become of that and why we call the check in the box training, the, the cover your ass, the click through.

Speaker 1: 34:04

You know the thing that we've had plenty of discussions about this before and I know everyone has their own examples. It's like you don't have to do it that way. I mean, you really don't. I think you have a lot more. Most places have a lot more power and a lot more say than they really think they do, and you can be. You can focus on what is the most.

Speaker 1: 34:26

How do we develop proficiency, not how do we develop currency and whatever that is for that particular, you know, company or agency or your family doesn't necessarily matter. It's like what do I want them to be proficient in? How do I get them to play that problem solving game? It was just like it reminds me. I know I talked about on a previous one with uh clark from our advisory board and he was like, yeah, I was teaching my kids what to do during a fire drill at home or if there's a fire. And it's like, okay, yeah, got it, got the basics down here. What if this happens? Now come over here. Hey, do you have to sit there? But hey, son, you know, you realize like you can throw this through your window and go out your window if you absolutely had to. And of course kids like, oh, you've been telling me not to throw stuff at that window my whole life, but now you know what I mean like but there's a time I can right there's a time, okay, got it.

Speaker 1: 35:09

There's a time that I can, so I'd have to think about it in the moment, and that's that's developing the proficiency, and and if I start with those very simple sort of situations and and not make them too complex you can get proficient very, very quickly and understanding all of those little elements within it. And then I go okay, because then my brain will do the work for me right. Then it goes, oh, okay. Well, then I now know, in a completely different situation, that I can throw a rock through a window and get out. You know, maybe it's not a fire, maybe it's the active shooter situation, but I know I gotta leap. You get, I mean, like it will make that those balance for you. And so so we, we kind of come into this in a very um, you know it's it's a very outlined like clinical approach with how it's built, but it doesn't have to be with how the training is delivered. Right.

Speaker 1: 35:59

I like I still need to have enabling learning objectives and terminal learning objectives and I have to show proficiency in some manner, but that can be subjective on how it's done, like I still need to have a plan, but you going through this training, greg, you don't need to know what that is In fact. It might be better if you don't. It might be better if something comes out of left field.

Speaker 2: 36:21

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Like, if you're doing the, where's this going?

Speaker 2: 36:24

I don't need to overthink certain points. I absolutely agree.

Speaker 1: 36:28

You get what I'm saying, but. But we focus on hey, these are the things you're going to learn today, this is what it's going to be, this is what I'm going to take away. It's like all right, man, I'm engaged, I'm paying attention, because my brain's like hey, I'm not sure what's going to happen here. So I should probably pick up on what this person's putting down, because this seems important and I don't know. So I have this sort of expectation. I don't have that expectation of what's coming next.

Speaker 1: 36:58

So I don't misapply those concepts, right, I don't just throw that into a bucket. I don't misapply those, those concepts, right, I don't just throw that into a bucket and say, oh okay, yeah, that goes there. Oh yeah, yeah, I knew that it's like shit, where, where are we going to next? And this is covering sort of a lot of topics which I, but it, it, it all falls under this sort of if I think about it as a comparison is am I current in this or am I proficient in this? Am I current in this or am I proficient in this? It's like, which path does this lead me down and what's the best way to approach that proficiency level?

Speaker 2: 37:44

radius of the intersection of eight mile and Gratiot in Detroit. Uh, knew my dad one way or the other, uh, as a nemesis, or as a friend, or as a confidant, or, and uh, he had three sons and each of us were trained at the parking lot there. Uh, uh, you had a Burger King that was on the corner, uh, uh, a uh, uh uh car wash where the people hand washed and dried the car, and then there was a large parking lot that led to the Kmart and so we had to do our checkout rides with my dad on our motorcycles and then on our cars, and I remember back then it was three on a tree with no power steering or power brake. Then we had to do it with his work van to show that we could deliberately turn and park and move and stop and what the stopping distances were. Then we had to do it in the rain, then we had to go over there and do it in the snow and hey, do that donut. What is that? Well, that's called centripetal force.

Speaker 2: 38:31

Dealing with my father was like living with Mr Wizard that just liked to slap you when you weren't, you know, attending to things fast enough. And the reason I bring that up is that my mom? I'd go back to my mom and go look, I'm going to have a fucking cauliflower ear in high school because I'm learning how to drive, because my dad's beating the shit out of me, and she goes yeah, but he means well and he wants you to know your limitations. Here we go again. So I and you know, around the house my mom spoke primarily German, which was a point of contention anyway, and she said you don't understand. When I came to the United States we landed at Wilkes-Barre, pennsylvania, and to get my driver's license in America because I was already 27 years old, she said the Pennsylvania state police were the ones that took me out and did my driving test for me. She said so here you've got these guys in these uniforms, with the hats, with their vehicles and they're watching every move. But you know what she said. It made me a better driver because I understood and I'm thinking about this and I'm going, brian, you know what people are going to say now.

Speaker 2: 39:28

We don't have the money for that, we don't have the time for that. The gift of time and distance means that you take your training seriously enough that the building proficiency part is where you spend most of your time. The currency part is literally a check in the box that you have to accomplish. But don't think that that creates you as an expert in any skill. It's the proficiency part where you're going to have to invest your own time, your own money. Go out, hire your own SMEs and go to that gosh damn Walmart parking lot after the first snow and go sliding up into those carts. So you know what's going to happen. We don't do that anymore. We don't hold ourselves to a high enough standard, but the NTSB does. The NTSB goes in and says, okay, we're taking over this entire investigation. Go out there and find every piece of that airplane or whatever it is, because they do railway and marine and everything else Build it in this hangar, put everything together, go out, spare no expense, and interviewing everybody that was responsible.

Speaker 2: 40:29

Now go to a meteorologist and I want to know what the weather patterns were like days before to that day, hours after that day, Brian, I want a historian to tell me what the historical perspective of that date at that time. Those are the type of things that we need to do, but what we do is we misread the gift of time and distance. When we come back with an answer, an excuse again, and we go. We just don't have the time to do that for every shooting. We don't have the time to do that forever. Well then you know what you're going to get. You're going to get the knee-jerk reaction You're going to get, all of a sudden.

Speaker 2: 40:57

There was this pinnacle period that coincided with COVID and all those other things, where all cops were shit and every decision they made was wrong. So guess what? The pendulum swings way over here and then the pendulum swings back. Well, that's happened in our education system now too, and now it's happening on our borders. So how many times do we have to see it? How many times do we have to poke? Poke the bear before we go? Hey, that bear is going to drag us out and eat us on the side of the road if we don't do something about it.

Speaker 1: 41:24

And, and you know we about and, and you know we, because we're so focused, um, we're hyper focused on the proximate cause of the situation and not taking a look at all of the contributing factors. Right, and that's what these guys are so good at. When they investigate, like you said, with a plane crash, they will literally get every piece. We'll rebuild it and we'll look at what happened and we'll determine and we go okay, yeah, they had this issue. Okay, that was one of the contributing factors, but what about the pilot? Oh, that was the big, uh, the, the, the Boeing one. A while back with the 737, I think it was like they changed the 737 max and they didn't. It had some auto thing that would come on, but none of the pilots were trained in it. So it's like, wait a minute, why did the pilot do this? They should have been doing this. It's like, well, what they were seeing? They made all of the right decisions and the plane still crashed. Okay, so it was, they weren't trained up on this new system. And I don't know the details of it. Obviously, I'm not not a pilot, not a doctor, I'm a pool man. But the idea is but. But you know, it goes back to. When you get so hyper-focused on the immediate incident, the immediate, proximate cause, that may be important for certain factors. But what were all the contributing factors? They've got one out now. I just started watching a few minutes of it last night it's on Hulu, I think, with with the uh, uh, sorry, the Ethan Crumbly from from the Oxford school shooting and his parents, and because that was a huge case in terms that had never been done before, where they prosecuted the parents for involuntary manslaughter for what their kid did. But when you look at all the details and the prosecutors they interview everyone and they're talking to them all and you look at why the prosecutor did it Like man, that's a really, it's a really good argument because there was so much there going on. And it's like, look at all of these contributing factors and people still think it's like I'm going to see someone snap, or it's this flash in the pan or we don't know. It's like no, it's, it's all laid out for you. And so because we get so hyper-focused on what the actual incident is, those contributing factors never get the attention that they deserve. They never see the light of day. You brought up even the immigration one. It's like, well, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 43:39

I first started doing border work down in probably 10, 12 years ago maybe, with different joint task force along the border, and it's the same exact problems Now. There's a lot more people now the number is greater, but no one's done anything since the 1990s. The policies have not really changed. There's been no change whatsoever, but we go well, it's this person's fault or it's this thing's fault. It's like, look, we've never taken a look at all of the factors.

Speaker 1: 44:05

What's going down in South America? How has Mexico changed and what they have, how they handle things and how are we helping them? What does that relationship look like? There's so many things involved with this. Like you know what you know, americans have a huge appetite for drugs, so that's that's a big part of the problem. Like we, we just look at, you know, the supply, we don't look at the demand. And and when you do that, it oversimplifies all of these situations. And this is a great way to cut through that when you look at a process of looking at everything that goes into it, because it allows you other ways to handle the next situation in the future.

Speaker 1: 44:40

It's not just about oh, okay, I got to get back to the aviation one, it's like, oh, okay, I just have to. You know, we just got to retrain these pilots on this new system. It's like, no, no, no, now we need to change. Anytime there's an aircraft update or change, there has to be an alert. You have to have this amount of time and you have to have that Like it changes not just for that incident. It's almost like a case. It's almost like legal precedent. It's almost like a case. It's almost like legal precedent. It changes it for everything going forward Absolutely. And that's the point is so you learn from that incident and the changes made, not just. You know, well, let's, we got the fix, let's move on to the next one. No, no, how do we apply the lessons learned?

Speaker 2: 45:21

But what do we do with everything? We go okay. So the military comes up with the idea every couple of years, hey, we need a new uniform. And when I say the military, it doesn't matter what the branch of service is. They come up with something that's going forward, going back, going space, going Klingon I don't even shit what it is right and then it's the same thing. Well, you know the sidearm, you know which is the most underutilized piece of weapon in warfare, but you know that pistol man. That's so gosh damn important.

Speaker 1: 45:50

So let's update that and let's change that and let's do that.

Speaker 2: 45:51

Why? Because everybody wants to be able to point to something that they did and say that was what I contributed to. I was part of that study. I went back to it and guess what they go for? They go for low hanging fruit. They're not going to go for the hard issue. They're not going to go like homelessness. Okay, how many times have we changed our tack on homelessness in the last 15 or 20 years? We've gone from saying that there was a constitutional protection against sleeping on my lawn when you don't live in my house, all the way to no, there is no such thing, right. And then we do the thing with SCOTUS recently, with some of the decisions they make, scotus recently, with some of the decisions they make, all scotus does, the supreme court does, is say whether the decisions that were made were in line with the constitutional, whether they were constitutionally legal they're not rendering an opinion.

Speaker 2: 46:37

Okay, the the opinion is on the legality of the situation. So I think that's what we are. I think we're generalists that talk about. Look, you can take a look at this from a number of ways. But if you're not moving the dial, in other words, if you're not making and formulating a recommendation to improve NTSB, traffic or transportation safety, USEOJ, law enforcement, shootings, use of force, do you get what I'm saying? If you're not actually moving the dial, what's your function? Because even NTSB only jumps in when they only jump in when there's a near miss or there's an accident. So the idea of a journal like this, this Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association journal, was coming up with an article going hey, know your limitations, Are you current, but are you proficient? What a great way to. Where is that? In the last time you read it? In a in a journal for law enforcement? Or you know courts or correction Well, you know you.

Speaker 1: 47:33

You're um, you know you. What we're talking about, too, is focusing not just on um, whatever the issue was that needs to be fixed, but but we're, we're, we're focused on outcomes, Like what was the actual outcome of this change that you made? Focus on outcomes, like what was the actual outcome of this change that you made. So what's the outcome that you're going to get out of fielding a new pistol for the military.

Speaker 1: 47:57

It's like well, I mean, you're moving a lot of money around. What are we actually trying to do? I mean, yeah, exactly, and it's like well, but what's the outcome from it? What was the impact that it had? Not just for that okay person, maybe they got a better weapon system. But how does that contribute to what the mission is and what the overall goal is for this organization? Because if I start with the outcome and then work my way back, it'll change how I look at our resources and our processes and our training and everything that we do, because you have to go what, what?

Speaker 1: 48:31

what is the intended outcome? What are you trying to do here? What are you trying to accomplish? And let's work back from there?

Speaker 1: 48:36

Not, hey, we need um, we need new tactics for this or a new thing for that. It's like why, what? What is that? How does that contribute? Because what you find, then, is that you know that that is a much better way to inform your policies and inform your tactics and procedures and everything than it is to just look at the specific problem and look at the specific thing that went wrong. It's like, well, you know, I mean we, we talk about this, all this stuff with different, different tactics too. It's like, well, okay, but why are you doing it this way? Because it didn't seem like that worked in the last time.

Speaker 1: 49:14

It's like, well, if we just get better at this, it's like, well, why don't we just not do it this way and come up with a better solution? What's the outcome that you're trying to get out of the situation? Let's work towards that, and I that's the idea behind everything that that, like the, you know, the FAA and then TSB does is it's about the, the, the better outcome overall. It's not just for that one specific incident or problem, it's for the industry as a whole around the world, and us kind of leads in this, because the standards are the highest and, um, especially for for flying or anything like that we've known that because we've we've flown on in other countries.

Speaker 2: 49:52

You know exactly what I'm talking about. You remember the security in the levant I won't say the specific country where we're going through and it was like who are you? Yeah, come over here and you, you nine people hold up your passport.

Speaker 1: 50:02

Get on the plane, okay holy shit, you know, yeah, yeah, no, you're flying today. I thought I was flying today.

Speaker 2: 50:09

Oh, okay, it's like wait a minute.

Speaker 1: 50:11

What? Who's commanding this air traffic?

Speaker 2: 50:16

We understand that the safety issues and then the outcomes, the safety recommendations, are directed at everyone. They're directed at the regulatory agency to, you know, make adjustments if necessary to manufacturers of products hey, this has got to be simpler to use, or it's? You know, it's breaks on impact or whatever State, local, federal, the jurisdictions, the companies, everybody that's involved from the ground up, has some part of that recommendation that falls in their lap. And we don't do that with cops. You know like, for example, fbi does a great job. You know it's one of the few times I compliment our FBI. They do a great job on compiling data. They really do their best in the world, and one of the things they come out with every year is Leoka law enforcement officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty, and what it isn't. It isn't a recommendation. What it is is it's a blurb, a paragraph on that officer at that time pushing a car out of traffic has a fatal heart attack. This copper didn't know that the suspect had rigged a vehicle with a bomb, so when he opened the trunk it exploded. This copper got clipped on a thing and didn't live because of the shooting. Okay, so that's great.

Speaker 2: 51:27

So what we've done now is we've gone part of the way there, brian, by cataloging it, and we've got it in the Dewey Decimal System. We can go back and we have great detail. We can say how many cops were stabbed and how many cops were assaulted, but what we haven't done is make a recommendation that we can use to move forward, and what we do is we dump money at training and so a person comes up and goes okay, well, now it's jujitsu and guess what it's going to be PR24, or now it's the expandable baton or whatever else, and we glam onto that and we jump onto that and guess what? It puts us further behind. I think the critical thinking aspect, and then advanced critical thinking, is so much more important. Cerebrally, brain economics, training for ambiguity, training for the situation that is novel, is going to help us much more. That's what we want kids to learn in school, right how to solve problems, how to define what a problem looks like and then come up with potential answers. Not that when A happens, we do B.

Speaker 1: 52:32

And we're over-reliant on that in certain industries, and you started with it right there. It starts with clearly defining the problem, and we're not always good at this, and this is what these investigations do with aviation is they clearly define the entire problem?

Speaker 1: 52:47

Okay it's not that a plane crashed. Okay, great, that's what happened. That was the result of what? What was that the result of? Okay, well, this kind of led to that result, and so did this and so did this. So it was a myriad of things, contributing factors, that led to this incident. Okay, now which ones can we address? I mean, you even brought up with the data collection. It's the best, that's where to start with. It's like look at the. You know, everyone has all these numbers of different stuff, and it's like wait for the FBI uniform crime report to come out, and it has every number of everything that happened that was ever cataloged ever in the United.

Speaker 1: 53:21

States and is, you know, and maybe there's some that didn't get in there, but this is the best view you have of the situation. Now, how do you want to address that? Because here's all the factors that went into that, and so it's just another example of how we've done it. We've done entire podcasts about contributing factors versus proximate cause and how those things can get misapplied in some cases. So why?

Speaker 2: 53:48

is it so much, though, brian, like a school shooting? Because a plane crash is something that is rare and when it happens, there's a large loss of life and people go, wow, you had nothing to do, you were just sitting there. It it happened around you, which is so much similar to those school shootings, and the idea is that we feel helpless and we feel hopeless. The first thing we have to understand is how rare they really are, but are we learning from each subsequent you know activity so we can pay that forward? You know what were the recommendations, what did the investigation show, and are we staying on target with that information? What did we learn from Crumbly that we can pay forward?

Speaker 2: 54:33

Right, and I don't think we're doing that, and I think if we take a look at Rob Elementary, it's a perfect example. We're still on the witch hunt to force accountability. We're still putting people in jail. Do you understand what I'm saying? So I think that this is a great way. Looking at this aircraft journal is a great way to reassess your priorities in training, no matter what field you're in.

Speaker 1: 54:54

Well, and that's, that's the thing it's like. Well, why did you just choose these people? Then, if we're going to hold others accountable, ok, well, why? What about the school?

Speaker 1: 55:02

What about you know? What about the community? What about these policies? What about that? I mean, you're you're just going to go after the, these two cause once you and that was the big issue with that case too and trying parents okay, we're open this door. Well, when you're talking about liability, right, they knew or should have known. Well, who else knew or should have known that? Are we going to? Are we going to charge them with involuntary manslaughter too? Are we going to go after that? I mean, what? What? What are we?

Speaker 2: 55:35

what are we doing? Are we going to trace back where this policy came from? And you know, uh, try every.

Speaker 1: 55:37

You know person every elected retroactively, exactly like right, you know. I mean, what are we? What are we really doing here? And and if so, then okay, but I I mean, it's, it's we. We're simple as humans and we want to place blame. We want to have nice neat causal relationships with everything, exactly.

Speaker 2: 55:54

Something to point at.

Speaker 1: 55:57

It's just never that. It's rarely ever that simple. It rarely is, and if it is, then it's so obvious. But these are far more complex. You're exactly right, so obvious, but but these are far, far more complex. So, um, um, like I said, uh, we, we kind of kept it in with the currency versus proficiency and went around to these different, different situations, cause it's important to to look at them all through those same lenses. And then you know I'll, I'll put the link in the details, right?

Speaker 2: 56:23

But, um any any sort of other um my parting shot today very simply this the two agencies in Colorado that got emergency lights, sirens and vehicles were the fire chief and the police chief up in Boulder, and both of them died in the very first motor vehicle accident where those two hit at an intersection going on emergency call.

Speaker 2: 56:45

If we go back to aviation, from Montgolfier to the Orville and Wilbur, the very first pioneers of flight died how Brian? They died in airplane crashes. So the idea for this is it's a necessity. It's a necessity to go back and take a look at the skills that you're applying and the training, the transfer and all those other things and say here's our shortcomings. Do a cognitive gap analysis, do a skills gap analysis and shine that light there. That's where we should be starting, not just knee-jerking every time somebody dies or a situation comes up and saying, hey, this is nuanced, because it's not, because it's probably been around for a good long time and has been contributing to other situations, and I think that's a great way to spend our money and keep our officers and soldiers and teachers and administrators safe.

Speaker 1: 57:37

Yeah, that's a good good parting, parting thought, so I appreciate everyone for tuning in. Don't forget to check out our Patreon site. We've got a lot more, so thanks so much. If you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend and don't forget that training changes behavior.