The Police Department has acknowledged that the officer who shot Mr. Graham, Richard Haste, had never received the classroom instruction required of [...]]]> Dissertation related: An article in today’s New York Times about a drug bust gone wrong. An officer shot an unarmed suspect without waiting for special forces to come do their job:

The Police Department has acknowledged that the officer who shot Mr. Graham, Richard Haste, had never received the classroom instruction required of officers in the street narcotics unit.

Yikes. So why was he out there?

They also questioned why the unit’s officers used a narrow tactical radio frequency to alert their colleagues in the van that Mr. Graham might be armed, rather than issue a warning on a more heavily trafficked channel that would have drawn other police units to the scene.

I don’t know how much you can blame an officer who hasn’t had training to know the proper actions or interactions required of his position. I wish I could interview the officer who shot the suspect about how he and his team made their decisions that day.

No matter how organized it is, there’s always a little bit of chaos. [...]]]> You might know that I’m currently working on my dissertation on emergency response teams. I’m particularly interested to know how much emphasis is placed on structure vs. flexibility in training. Here’s a good quote from Participant #9, a firefighter in Central Texas:

No matter how organized it is, there’s always a little bit of chaos. But as long as you get the job done safely, and mitigate as much loss as you can, that’s fine. There’s no perfect scene and everyone has a little different ways of handling it. But one of the big deals, we talked about communication lingo, is saying, if you forget a particular code, or, you know, you don’t quite know how to sound quite as professional on the radio as your supposed to—because all of our radio traffic is reported, especially in a big scene, it’s gonna be—if any incidents come out of it, it’s gonna be replayed and everything else—bottom line, if you just tell people what you need, no mater how sophisticated the language is, that’s kind of been the new mantra in the department, because we have so many new people, kind of interchanging in and out of the department.

But the focus has been on: stop worrying about following every rule to the T, just use your common sense. You know, don’t waste time or energies trying to make sure you’re following every protocol. If you see an obvious fix to it, don’t let common sense go out the door.

From 2001 to 2010, I had probably run a total of 150 miles willingly. I like team sports and am not much for athletic activities [...]]]> I ran my first half-marathon this weekend in Austin. My goals were to finish and not get injured; I’m happy to say I accomplished both and finished under 2 hours.

From 2001 to 2010, I had probably run a total of 150 miles willingly. I like team sports and am not much for athletic activities that don’t involve a ball. But I felt like I wasn’t getting enough exercise, and running is an efficient and flexible way to work out. So in December 2010, I started looking at running as a critical part of the rest of my life.

In 2011, I ran about 400 miles. Nothing amazing, but more than I had done over the rest of my life combined. I always thought of running as a boring activity, but it was really my frustration with not being good at it. Once I learned to get over that, getting on the trail became much easier. I lost motivation in September or so (my running partner, Blake, moved out of state and it was a hot summer in Texas), so I signed up for a half-marathon to give me a good proximal goal to keep me going.

My old running partner was in town this weekend. We both ran the half. Not together, but we met up at the finish line. We thought it was interesting how people always look so happy afterwards in their pictures. We thought it would be funny to take a picture that reflected how most people’s bodies probably felt. That’s below.

I know people run marathons and ultramarathons, and ultraultrasupermarathons…but in 2010, if you told me I would run 13.1 miles one day, I would have said you’re crazy. A lot can change in 14 months.

There’s a great article in the New York Times today about simulation training for survival. Navy pilots are placed in controlled situations involving underwater, overturned aircrafts. And apparently they don’t like it so much:

“I hate it with a passion,” (Lt. Farley) said. “But if you are in [...]]]> Navy pilots, that’s who.

There’s a great article in the New York Times today about simulation training for survival. Navy pilots are placed in controlled situations involving underwater, overturned aircrafts. And apparently they don’t like it so much:

“I hate it with a passion,” (Lt. Farley) said. “But if you are in a bad situation and have trained for it, then you revert to your training and what you know. It is why I am alive.”

Ah yes, the ol’ Modular Shallow Water Egress Trainer. I wouldn’t like it either. Go watch the video.

Like any type of preparation, you don’t do it because it’s fun (and I’m sure the pilots recognize that, though that doesn’t make it any less fun). Instead, it’s designed to improve performance in critical situations; in this case, performance involves saving lives.

Because of my research, I’m particularly interested in the quote “you revert to your training.” Does this mean in terms of quality or in terms of process? In my interviews, I have heard police officers say “you don’t rise to the competition, you fall to your level of training.” I have also heard wildland firefighters say “do what you know,” meaning that you’ll enact familiar processes when your critical thinking fails you.

Also, I’d be interested to know if they do this simulation in pairs or teams, or if that’s even necessary.

Commander Folga?

“No one plans for this kind of mishap. People don’t go to work one day expecting that they will have to eject. But it happens. And when it happens, they have to be ready.”

It’s nice to see coverage of emergency response simulations on the front page of a major newspaper, and it’s been a great topic of study for my dissertation so far.

Full list here.

Coming from California, I know I was surprised to see how affordable both undergrad and graduate tuition was at UT.

Eight out of ten women involved in a car crash denied it was their fault and looked for something – or someone – else to blame. This latest research is bound to bring a smile to lips of many a man who has found himself at loggerheads with females drivers. Women [...]]]> From the Daily Mail:

Eight out of ten women involved in a car crash denied it was their fault and looked for something – or someone – else to blame. This latest research is bound to bring a smile to lips of many a man who has found himself at loggerheads with females drivers. Women will rarely take responsibility in the event of a car crash, while men are more prepared to hold their hands up to mistakes and settle disputes without arguing, according to a report.

It found that 78 per cent of women involved in a car crash said they weren’t to blame, and when asked about the cause of the accident came up with more excuses for what went wrong.

Let’s put aside the fact that this study was conducted by an insurance company in England, where they drive on the wrong side of the road. And let’s skip past the debate about male vs. female drivers, which you can read about here and laugh about here. And for the record, I have no opinion about male vs. female drivers, except that I’ve gotten more traffic tickets than my wife has.

I’m more interested in the illusion that we think are better at things than other people are. We talk about this in my Team-based Communication classes at UT Austin, during our unit about team relationships. I ask my students to keep their eyes closed and raise their hands for the following questions:

• Are you a better driver than 50% of the adult population in this country?*
• Are you better at finding information on the Internet than 50% of the adult population in this country?
• Are you smarter than 50% of the adult population in this country?
• Are you better at being in relationships than 50% of the adult population in this country?

*This is great question to ask in your classes. Ask: those who didn’t raise their hands, why do you think you are bad drivers? I’ve heard the craziest stories of poor road skills. Some of my 20-year-old students have caused–not been in but, caused–4 or 5 accidents in their 4 years on the road. Ask this question and you’ll avoid driving or walking in West Campus for days afterwards.

Inevitably, about 70% of my students raise their hands for the first two questions. That number raises to 85 or 90% for the next two.

Let’s take the third question: is it possible that 85% of my students are smarter than 50% of the adult population in the United States? Sure, they’re college students at a strong public institution, soon to be college graduates, and it’s certainly not statistically impossible that I have a bright bunch in the classroom with me. It’s not probable but it’s possible.

But it’s the fourth question that we care about in class. It’s quite unlikely that 85% of my students are better-than-median relators, and we can point to the obvious reasons for this bias: students have high self-esteem, the comparison is too vague (who knows anything about the adult population in this country, especially in college?), and the question is worded in a way to make the answerer focus on his or herself.

I have another theory, one that I have discovered inadvertently through early data analysis for my dissertation: people are judging themselves with the same standards they have used to form their personality. If I am a submissive communicator, it’s likely because I think being submissive is the best way to communicate with others. So now I, the submissive communicator, am judging whether or not communicating submissively is preferable. It’s like letting one of the contestants from Project Runway be a judge on their own challenge, or letting a coach football coach vote for who should play for the National Championship (oops). Or, as a character from Austin Powers says, everyone likes their own brand.  We are biased towards ourselves and our preferences, and we’ll make decisions (and feed back into our preferences) accordingly.

Which brings me back to my dissertation. As you may know, I am conducting my research on emergency response teams, and one of the project’s main factors is team decision making. In short, people have to place values on their training, experience, knowledge, and intuition when making decisions, and while I’m applying that to emergency response, it also applies to how people act in relationships.

But one key difference is that I am interviewing people who work in highly-structured teams and who have gone through formalized organizational training. In addition, their workplace cultures and procedural structure sare such that overcommunication is not an issue; that is, your superiors want you to share as much information as you know at all times. This is not the case in most personal relationships.

Emergency response team members generally feel less superiority to their teammates and superiors because they are constantly reminded of frameworks and reasoning systems that are different than their own–they get this through training, debriefings, and  constant communication. When they share their opinions, they usually do so in a way that is considered neutral and/or provisional, meaning they would be willing to change their mind if necessary. Debriefings are key here. Sometimes, team leaders will ask: what could we have done differently? Who would have done this differently? Debriefings often become a space for education, much like feedback loops. Many interviewees have pointed out the criticality of debriefings.

On the other hand, in personal relationships, we are generally not taught how to communicate differently, and we are rarely told we have to communicate differently. So we might get why we personally would do things a certain way, but have a hard time understanding the ways of others. And we often don’t debrief out loud with other people; instead, we mostly do it in our heads, which can simply reinforce our own systems.

We need to educate ourselves about the ways of others by talking about them. We can learn something from emergency response teams in that way.

I know this video is supposed to be funny, but then I watched it and didn’t laugh. And I could just forget about it, but I teach public speaking, and it’s an instructional video about public speaking with high production value: I think I’m contractually bound to show this in class so my students say [...]]]>

I know this video is supposed to be funny, but then I watched it and didn’t laugh. And I could just forget about it, but I teach public speaking, and it’s an instructional video about public speaking with high production value: I think I’m contractually bound to show this in class so my students say “he’s such a good teacher he shows videos in class one time we watched this one about freedom of speech and it had a panda in it Jim and Pam Reese Witherspoon Ke$ha” (I am old).

The real problem here is that I already do enough things in class that are meant to be funny but aren’t*. And by “class” I mean “life.” So, am I missing something? Is this funny? Would you show this in class?

Addendum for potential future employers: I am downplaying my ability to engage my classes. My students think I am incredible and I once showed a video that inspired everyone in the room to donate $10,000 to whatever cause you support.