September 1998 Volume 79  Number 9 "serving the protectors"
Straight to the POINT
By Trevor Haskell PASA Executive Committee Member

A Piece of Police Culture - A Comment

The concept of a workplace culture is not specific to policing - and all cultures have their strengths and weaknesses. “Traditions” and “norms” are constructed, and there becomes a persuasiveness about an “existing culture”. My focus is on that part of police culture which can be destructive to our organisation but, more importantly, to individuals. Make no right/wrong distinctions as you read what follows, but rather reflect on the whole.

The police workplace has grown like most within society from a male culture. That is to say that, the politicians who created the police force were male; the society was male-controlled; and the members of the force itself were male. This was the same for most workplaces. Almost all were male-controlled, even if they were made up of women workers. Many workplaces (including SAPOL) can be described as masculinised (don’t get too twitchy yet).

Police recruiting and training has been traditionally built around police as community problem solvers: we have a problem at 16 Jones Street and the police will come along and fix it up. Police became task-focused problem solvers of quite high order and remain so today. We have been trained (socialised) to seek resolution by action. Thus we seek the facts, consider the options, decide a course of action, implement it and create the resolution.

The question that often arises out of this resolution process is: “Did the process take into account the emotional needs of the individuals involved?” Often, those “needs” were left to others to sort out. FACS, Crisis Care and other “social-worker” types were there to do the “warm and fuzzies”. It’s a process that has worked for police at the street level. There have been attempts to modify the process over many years, and support for victims is much better. However, I suspect that coppers still have a strong task-focused, problem-solving approach to life. I know that many police managers and supervisors do.

These sorts of approaches are most often referred to as autocratic or masculine styles of behaviour. They can be, and are in many situations, useful strategies for quick, practical resolution of issues. They are usually non-consultative, concrete decisions without a need to deal with, or even consider the feelings of parties involved.

When we take these same styles and apply them to the work area back at the station, office or patrol base, or at home, we run into some difficulties. These are areas where we have to establish some sort of relationship with the individuals about us.

First, let’s look at the workplace. Using a task-focused approach, it’s easy to command and control the practical needs of a workplace. However, if we don’t move beyond and focus on the maintenance needs, we’ll fall short of true resolution of the problems that evolve. The potential for conflict is high because often all of the workers (supervisors and managers included) are all task-focused. That’s great if they all agree, but if there are differences, then the power wars begin. Resolution often comes down to exercise of power and control which leaves emotional needs unresolved.

Unresolved emotional needs create disquiet and discomfort which, to truly resolve the issue, need to be dealt with. Here lies the potential distress of workplace relationships: I need my emotional needs met - not just my task needs. Here is the core issue of “morale” debates. Morale is not measured by task efficiency - it is measured by emotional harmony within the workplace. An efficient work team is not necessarily a happy nor a committed work team.

So, what if they are not happy? If my emotional needs are not being met, will my commitment to the organisation be high or low? You know the answer. You might refer here to the NPRU studies on commitment to police organisations.

Now the scary part is that this same thought process applies to our social relationships. Resolving the practicals: the finances, a place to live, a car and television do not make for positive relationships. Nor do the once-a-year big nights out. It is the emotions and feelings on a daily basis that create the relationship. Ignore them at your peril. It is why we relationship counsellors are kept busy.

Meeting emotional needs is crucial for developing and creating on-going relationships whether at work or socially. By using only task-focused problem solving we will be regularly surprised by dust-ups in the relationships and the intensity of feelings held by the other party. At the workplace, if we want to keep the people we’ve trained, we must consider maintenance needs. The same applies to our social relationships.

Maintenance focus is about taking time to listen to the others in our lives - to be less control and task-focused and look at ways other than the usual of measuring efficiency in the workplace. How many, how much and how long can be less important than showing that you care for those involved as individuals. We do this by asking that very dangerous question: “How do you feel about it?” Sadly, some get the question right but don’t listen to the answer. The one thing more hurtful than not asking is ignoring my answer.

What I believe is missing from the police culture is an alternative to the masculinised, problem-solving, task-focused approach that dominates many of our daily interactions. We need to learn to be more comfortable with the maintenance-focused responses such as co-operation, consultation, listening, respect and willingness to hear what others are feeling. It’s not easy to change our style, but the effort can provide great rewards.