The Dry Towel Effect

What good is being busy is you're not being effective?

Photo by Ramiro Pianarosa on Unsplash

The Claim

Twenty-four years ago, I started in law enforcement working for the Adult Probation Department. Contrary to popular belief, we weren’t overly concerned about Y2K issues destroying our world, nor was the agency suffering a shortage of able-bodied people to handle the responsibilities of that work. Time affords a great perspective riddled with unresolved issues, regret, missed conversations and opportunities, and a host of high points as well. Some of the areas I look back upon with a more objective lens about what we were concerned about focused on how we were told from upper command staff that without an intentional focus on [insert widget item here] as documented through [insert new record system, software, or policy here] then probationers would be unsuccessful on their grant and be at a high recidivism risk to the community.

So, the men and women with whom I worked all had a choice each day on how they were going to get behind the undefined mission. Most times, their choices were revealed by the conversations focused on where/when lunch was taking place, how futile the work appeared to be as the effort put in was thrown back in our faces as the judicial system kept reinstating people back on probation even when they would intentionally and violently break the law, and how finding someone smiling about their work was like seeing a unicorn - extremely rare and yet magical all at the same time. And I remember one other thing. The supervisors were nowhere to be seen. From the first line through the entire chain of command. I never met the Chief Probation Officer nor saw that individual in person. Ever. Strange that the productivity was more focused on finding problems than giving solutions, huh? And yet when I would need to call any of the supervisors, I was rebuffed with how busy they were and wouldn’t be available until some other time. Buried in work with no visible measure to the team that the “work” was forwarding the mission. Lots of verbal effort spent with very little solutions seen.

I think about those times from that first year with a new millennium coming about, outfitted only with a Palm Pilot (dating myself), a 2oz can of OC spray, a black pen, and the privilege to use our own personal vehicles for field contacts. I was excited to contribute to helping make my community better. My third year in - after the terrorist attack on 9/11 - I was overjoyed to get a raise to $32K a year with a mandatory four-year college degree to even get hired. I was moved at that point into police work and have been at my same agency for over twenty years now.

In police work, I have been privileged to serve in patrol, investigations, the public information area as an on-call PIO, as a tactics trainer, academy instructor and supervisor in both patrol and investigations. I have seen my agency do a spot-on job of clearly laying out the mission for what we are trying to achieve: Increase safety for our community through our involvement in people’s lives.

However, much like 1999 in probation, I have watched officers and supervisors spend their conversational time wondering when/where lunch was happening, how futile the work appeared to be as the effort put in was thrown back in our faces as the judicial system kept letting people back on the street even when they would intentionally and violently break the law - sometimes before the paperwork at booking was even completed, and how if we just could analyze data and implement solutions differently, the nationwide rash of catalytic converter thefts from vehicles would disappear, for example.

I sometimes feel like I’m in a time loop albeit making better money. It’s led me to consider through my career what I have coined as “the Dry Towel Effect.”

The Reality

The culmination of articles I’ve authored supported by Dr. Travis Yates and his mission for Courageous Leadership, bolstered by the resolute contributions of Roland Clee at the American Peace Officer and Paula Fitzsimmons writing For the Blue all combined could still not cover the plethora of organizational leadership and followership issues I’ve seen at different points through my career.

Nevertheless, over twenty-four years I can clearly see a traceable cause and effect going on. The people who are the most worked up about identifying problem sets tangent to the primary mission are the same people who can hang up a dry towel after working out. The verbal effort may be there, but the sweat needed to get solutions into place simply doesn’t exist. Welcome to the Dry Towel Effect.

Conversely, both in probation and policing I have worked alongside many people who most would never know showed up to work as their selfless humility to serve gave them the accolades they needed. These are the people who need to go back with a roll of paper towels and wipe down every surface they touched when they are done working out. These are people from the line-level to upper command staff who recognize mission-centered effort will result in hard work. And that hard work translates into solutions driving the furthering of the mission.

The Way Forward

I have a teenager who wants to take his mantle and join the battle against entitled criminals by becoming a police officer. And in every conversation we have, I remind him how much hard work it takes to even get hired let alone complete the police academy, field training, and probation. As he narrows his eyes and I watch his eyebrows perch, he tells me the same thing each time,

“Dad, there’s good and there’s evil. I can’t stand by and let evil win.”

Taking the proud parent moment away for a second, this reveals a truth so basic it's almost completely overlooked nowadays. For our society to survive, some people need to carry the weight of protecting others on their shoulders. We cannot allow evil to win. On my watch it will not go one step further. Me and other leaders constantly are engaging people to get to the core issues, inspire a different outlook on how policing is handled, and on how to reignite the nobility so inherent in our job that even my teenager can see it from a distance as he craves to be a part of this life.

My department implemented an innovative approach to this line of reasoning about six months ago. Using models from other high-performing agencies focused on driving their primary mission forward, we went all-in by incorporating every area of our department in collaboration with as many city and external partners as we could to target the highest crime area we had. A full send of resources not dissimilar to chemotherapy against a tumor. The results over six months have been remarkable. We have seen a massive reduction in reportable Part 1 crimes, the officers/staff are reinvigorated to engage in the mission, and the community is shell-shocked they can walk down the street without fear of being mugged.

This is the way forward for now. The locker room of our department is now filled with the scent of men and women who have given their very best to the limits of their capabilities to drench every towel in the place looking for how they can stay on mission and serve people. We have more work to do, but this is the kind of place I had hoped for when I began in law enforcement in probation 1999. Where nonexistent leaders hiding in their command yurt of cowardice are gone, so that courageous police officers can do their jobs. Five different colors of reporting forms don’t help people who have been terrorized in a bank robbery or held at gunpoint. Integrity, compassion, competency, and leadership do. This is catching on - Join me and others around the nation as the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance is forming by clicking the link and signing up. Take a stand, set your feet, and hydrate early and often. There will be no more dry towels in this place from this day forward.

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Sergeant Daukas is committed to the principles of Courageous Leadership and is the lead instructor for the foundational principle of Courageous Nobility. You can listen to Jeff discuss this vital principle on a recent Courageous Leadership Podcast.  He has over 20 years in law-enforcement working through patrol, investigations, and special operations both at the line level and as a supervisor. Through the last 20 years, Jeff has embraced his passion instructing officers and civilians through the nobility of policing. He is a certified FranklinCovey Nobility of Policing instructor, as well as a certified instructor for the Blue Courage curriculum. Jeff holds a master’s degree in criminal justice with a focus on terrorism and homeland security and teaches in that discipline at the college level.  He is a graduate of the FBI-LEEDA Supervisor Leadership Institute program consistently implementing servant-leadership into training the next generation of law-enforcement professionals in both courageous leadership and followership.