Currency v. Proficiency

Alright, 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 holiday, and you all have the same amount of fingers you went into the Fourth with. Hopefully, you still have that same amount today.

But today's topic of the day is what we would call 'Currency versus Proficiency.' This came from an article that our colleague, Sean (shout out to Sean!), sent us, and we discussed it because it was from an aviation — kind of like a pilots' association, one of those things for folks who fly. But we use a lot of analogies when it comes to things like the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), when they do pilot training investigations, records, stuff like that. Because we deal with training, obviously, but we reference it a lot because it has so many other uses outside of even what they're using it for.

And there's the science of instinct, intuition, and training. So much of that has come out of the aviation industry—mostly military, and then civilian as well—meaning how we train, how simulation should work, what you do, what you can't do, what the limits of cognitive performance are. A lot of that came there because you are at the limits. Well, you're past the limits, right? There's so much that you have to learn and have to be so detailed, and you have to be... everything is a checklist. There are all these steps you have to take, right? And there are a ton of analogies we'll get into today.

But also, what they talk about in this article (and I'll have it in the episode notes) is that one of the big things they're addressing is, 'Okay, you're current on your certification, you're current on the number of hours you have, you're current on whatever licenses you have to have, but are you proficient in them?' Now, this is across-the-board stuff we've talked about before, and everyone's familiar with this. It's like, when you sign up for a job or whatever, and you've got to go through all this little online training for whatever, 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 some 30-minute thing that was more of a cover-your-ass for the company and had to do with legal, rather than actually making you proficient.

And I would argue almost everything that we do in life when it comes to training and education is like that. You think about it: you get a driver's license at 16. Do you ever have to go back? What is it? Every once in a while, you have to retake the eye test, right, to make sure your vision is good. But you don't have to go get recertified for driving a vehicle. So, there are things like that. And then even just school in general, I mean, you think about it, 'Are you current with this level of information for math at the sixth grade?' Okay, good, you're there. But are you actually proficient at it?

We don't... you could be... and 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, whether that's a hobby or a 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 the whole saying, 'Jack of all trades, master of none.' I mean, it's like, yeah, I can do all these things, 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.

And I want to throw it to you too: first of all, why does this stuff always pique your interest as well when it comes to aviation? Why do we get into that? And then we can get into specific topics as well.

No, I think that's wonderful. What a great start too. So, as we briefly discussed yesterday, one of the throwbacks that Sean and I have is that Sean's son is a Private Pilot at 15. Very young, very dedicated; he 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. 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 were the probable cause (probable cause of an accident)? That's the first... 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, my brother Jeff, a former LEO (Law Enforcement Officer), also a former military member, 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, 'the U 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 we have now and been interested in these different facets.

You know, the idea is that police work doesn't have the same type of broad operational 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' and then add their city, state, or location, right? And the idea is, it's different. Colorado, U.S. Department of Revenue, some places U.S. Department of Justice, other places FBI or fed, or, you know, many, many jurisdictions and agency shooting boards.

You know, where it's a compilation of regional... and 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 mentioned something that I think is very important. You said, 'You can be current without being proficient.'

Yeah.

Okay. And you also added that if you're proficient, you're most likely current. Okay. But the idea is, what's the difference there? And the difference there is how big a gosh-damn dangerous difference!

Yeah. So, I'll jump right into that, and this is from that article again. I'll have the link in the details. There's just some great information, regardless of what field you're in. But it... and I like the terminology that's used, it's great because it's scientific, it's plain, and it's clear.

And so what they said too, '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) means 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. It's like, okay, well there's not a lot of wiggle room on that one.

Understand.

Yep. 'Being proficient means you're fully competent in any art, science, or subject.' So you can be current without being a 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 so my biggest thing is, when we look at... everyone looks at different types of training or education in different manners, right? And we focus on, I think, a lot of the wrong things sometimes in terms of how we look at it. You know, when it... you like, just for example, 'Pop 10,' it's like, 'Well, people have different learning styles, and they have different...' It's like, yeah, kind of, but not really. Like, everyone... you can say that about everyone, yet everyone has some person in their life, whether it was 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 learned 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. 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 the issue is we focus on these wrong ways of understanding learning and training and education, and we have to look at a big picture. And it'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 have to pick one, in a sense, and do that. And now, there are some people that can get very, very proficient over periods of time, like on several, but they're usually related or something like that, or they usually have some sort of crossover. So, but it's difficult to do that. It's like when you meet the person who's... well, it's like the one guy, because there are all these memes about him. He was a SEAL, then he became a doctor at Harvard Medical School, and now he... every six months it comes up again.

Exactly!

You know, and he found the cure in his backyard. Yeah. It's like, okay, okay, Danny, I think his name was Danny Kim, but I know some people know. But anyway, like, it's one of those where it's like, you're talking about a statistical anomaly, and it's not... that's just so atypical that it's like, throw those things out. But... and what I mean, the reason why I'm getting at this is because we've been doing this our whole life. It's like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got this. Yeah, no, I got... I passed the test. Yeah, I got this. I passed the test. I made it through grade school, then high school, then maybe college or whatever. Like, I got this.' And it's... it's really just, when you look at it, it's like you met the minimum requirements to be here. But that's for everything. So, like the military stuff is like that. Even if you're in the most difficult unit to get into, a Tier One unit, what it really means is 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. That's what that means.

And so we almost look at it, and this gets into that sort of fundamental attribution, it's like, 'Oh, well, they have these bonafides. They have these things that they've done. They have these certifications. They have these degrees. They have this.' And it's like, okay, so they met some minimum requirement to get this thing that you can put on your resume. And that's fine. But how proficient are they is very different.

And what this article does too is, obviously, it's in the context of flying. But flying is one of these great contexts to use for training and education because, one, it's a combination of both. There's a training requirement where you have to override your body's natural instinct because otherwise you'll die. So, there's this level of cognitive performance 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 pilots, you know, a hundred something years ago. So, it just analogous with so much of the stuff that we talk about. And so, I obviously highly recommend everyone to read 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 how has it gotten to where it's at, Greg, like big picture too? I mean, you use whatever example you want, but my thing is, it's almost like we're sort of primed for this from a young age, where we think, 'Alright, 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 a little bit more current, is how I would look at it, you know what I'm saying? So, I'll pass to you to continue.

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 to Disney in California or Florida, any of the Disney places?

Disney, a couple years ago.

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 it. But the idea is that you can answer some reasonable questions about it.

So, number one question: did you go on a ride where you sat in a wooden chair at a desk that went sort of staccato, slowly, catching on the 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? Because they don't [expletive] exist! Because what they want to do is they want to enthrall you 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 your fancy. So, you know that 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, coming through windows, squealing the tires on the car, and [expletive], because it's [expletive]. But the idea is that sells, Brian, so that's what's exciting.

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 many 80 rounds per year per person. Part of that has to be at night. Part of that has to be against 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 POST (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.

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 [expletive], 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? Brian, we're talking one thing. This is how NTSB thinks. You get it? When they're doing investigations, 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?

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... 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.

Well, and you... one of the biggest things I've always, you know, talked about too, is with every pilot, you have it. I don't care what you're flying, 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 memory. They literally open up the flight crew checklist, they go line by line, and check each...

Day 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, 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 everyone has to go through that.

And we don't do that in other areas, right? We don't do that in our life. We don't do that. Like you said, no, who does that before they go into the business meeting? No one. It's the, 'I got this. Alright, I know about Bill. He's coming over from here, and you know, I'm going to butter him up like this.' It's like, okay, but what... 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. You... 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... now, obviously, you 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 and adjust it, and then you can stick to that every single time. You know, it's... I always do the like the, the, the, 'Put the mirror down in your car, the visor with the mirror on it.' It's like, 'Are you prepared for this or what you're going to see?' And it's like those little things are... and the reason it's done is because it prevents anything, any preventable event. It gets rid of, right? So now there are certain things where it's a, you know, lightning strikes and happens to hit you, that may happen, but it's rare. And yeah, there was nothing you can do about it, or, you know, maybe you shouldn't have been out in that weather. But the idea is most of these things, and this is why the NTSB and FAA do this, is because they're all completely avoidable. Most mishaps are avoidable, and they want to get rid... 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 most of them. That's the thing. Like, now you're down to those statistical anomalies that, okay, we can learn from, but we know we did everything we could to ensure that that didn't happen. And it's something as simple as a freaking checklist.

And you know, people are listening like, 'Yeah, but it's more complicated than that, and you guys oversimplify the stuff.' It's like, okay, we technically sometimes oversimplify complex subjects, but that's the point. Like, 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, you know, flying analogies that we use, and airline ones, because of all 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, law enforcement, first responder, emergency department kind of jobs and roles, where it's... you can... there's, 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.

Yeah, 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, the person that makes a comment like that has 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 undertrained.' Excuse. You get what I'm trying to say? 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 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, okay? And it's not 100%. 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 analyses are going to occur, and we try to help you understand that through myelination and some other processes, and building rigorous fidelity field scenarios and baselines that you can overcome them. And that's why we still have a hard time today, because when we start discussing things like Hobman 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, 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 termination 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.

Well, that's the thing, is that they look at everything and go for what, 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 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.'

And this is, this is where, you know, people just want to get a number of reps in, and it's like, it's not how it works. It's like you 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. And, you know, to your point, about, you know, 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 Lita Bellow on, because she's a genius at this stuff. But, you know, 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 going to go from A, then we're going to jump over to R, then we're going to come back to D, and then we're going to go to L, and go to 'lawn chair.' And then they're like, 'Well, you can't do this.' It's like, 'No, trust me, your brain is firing on all cylinders at that point,' because it's going, [expletive], 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. It, there's no surprise. There's no, 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, 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-task things, and some group exercises, and this, and then it's like, 'Alright, we're going to watch this situation.' And literally, it's nothing happens. And everyone's like, 'Well, everyone's all amped up.' And like, yeah, like, you, you have to realize that nothing is going to happen most of the time. So, if you're all amped up coming into this, like, you're going to jam a square peg into a round hole.

But that, that level of, of, of... we, 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 mama bird just spit in my mouth a little bit here. It's like that the outline, the overall concepts need to be that way, right? You need to go from big to small, from, you know, or from small to big or whatever it needs to be. But within that realm, you can jump around. You can go, 'Alright, hey, try this right now.' People like, 'Oh, I wasn't ready for it.' 'I know, just go do it.' And they're like, 'Okay.' Now I had your brain is 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 myelination. 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, like, and I'm not being surprised, or I'm not having to, to, I... the pattern is that obvious going into it, then I don't really learn from it, right? It has to have some sort of 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, you learn skills faster that way, I think, from what I've seen in my experience. And so that's why, you know, that's a 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.

That's it. 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 never pushed outside of your comfort zone. You never did something that was unexpected. You see what I'm saying with that? That's the instructor trainer on thermals and night vision. That's a young E-6 that's training the Apache pilot, and the Blackhawk pilot. You get what I'm trying to say? 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, you know, on a mission.'

Well, but, but see that's what we don't do. That's back to the analogy of the Disney. I know people are still scratching their head on that one. No, 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 [expletive] 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, 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's 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 in 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. Then, 'Know your limitations.' Holy [expletive], 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. 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 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 then 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.

That's a remarkable difference. No, and that's a great, I would say, to add to that, currency is created by policy and lawsuits. And proficiency is through a lot of knowledge and skill acquisition.

Trial and error. Exactly.

Over time. Yep. Like it's 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, say, 'Okay, got it. Well, from now on, we're going to do this.' And you know, I, the reason why I brought up some of the school stuff too is, it's sort of just how we think now because we think, 'Okay, well, yeah, there's normal requirements. You have to get certain grades in school, and you have to get this.' 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, they're bad at, you know, a written test, but they're really good at speaking about it.' And so, so that's a, there's a measurement and assessment thing there, but but 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, 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, I mean, like, did you get your physical this year?' Whatever it is. And it's, it, it, it, that's what has become that, why we call it the check-in-the-box training, the cover your ass, the click through. You know, the thing that we, we've had plenty of discussions about this before, and I know everyone has their, their own examples. It's like, you, 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, you can be, you can focus on what is the most, how do we develop proficiency, not 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 it on a previous one with Clark from our Advisory Board, and he was like, 'Yeah, I'm 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 realize, like, you can throw this through your window and go out your window if you absolutely had to?' And of course, kids like, 'Ah, you've been telling me not to throw stuff at that window my whole life!' But, you know what I mean? Like, 'But there's a time I can, right? There's a time.' 'Okay, got it. 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 if I start with those very simple sort of situations and not make them too complex, you can get proficient very, very quickly in understanding all of those little elements within it. And then I go, 'Oh, 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 an active shooter situation, but I know I got a leap.' You get what I mean? Like, it will make those bounds for you.

And so, so we, we kind of come into this in a very, 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? 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, how it's done. Like, I, 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.

You know what I mean? Like, you, you, you, if you're doing the 'Where's this going next? I don't need to overthink certain points.' I absolutely agree.

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's going to be the takeaway.' It's like, 'Alright, well, got it. My brain's kind of like, "Alright, I already kind of know that stuff, right?"' I, but if I have no idea what's going on or what's coming next, 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 what...' So I have this sort of expect... I don't have that expectation of what's coming next, so I don't, I don't misapply those, those concepts, right? I don't just throw that into a bucket, say, 'Oh, okay, yeah, that goes there. Oh, yeah, yeah, I knew that.' It's like, [expletive], 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, 'Am I current in this, or am I proficient in this? Am I current in this, or am I proficient in this?' Like, it's, it's like, which, which path does this lead me down? And what's the best way to approach that proficient level?

I tell you, you never got to meet my old man. And my old man died younger than he should have, and I'll tell you one thing that anybody that lives within a couple mile radius of the intersection of 8 Mile and Gratiot in Detroit knew my dad one way or the other, as a nemesis, or as a friend, or as a confidant. And he had three sons, and each of us were trained at the parking lot there. You had a Burger King that was on the corner, a 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 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.' 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 [expletive] cauliflower ear in high school because I'm learning how to drive, because my dad's beating his [expletive] 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, you know, around the house, my mom spoke primary 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? '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 (Subject Matter Experts), and go to that gosh-damn Walmart parking lot after the first snow and, you know, 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... put, put everything together. Go out, spare no expense in interviewing everybody that was responsible. 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 and 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 for every...' 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, there was this pinnacle period that coincided with COVID and all those other things, where all cops were [expletive], 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 happening 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 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'?

And you know, because we're so focused... we're hyper-focused on the approximate cause of the situation and not taking a look at all of the contributing factors. 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, the, the, the Boeing one a while back with the 737, I think it was. Like they changed the 737 Max, and 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 a pilot, I'm not a doctor, I'm a pool man. But the idea is, you know, it goes back to when you get so hyper-focused on those, those, the immediate incident, the immediate proximate cause. Like 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 on the, the, um, it's on Hulu, I think. With the, the, sorry, the Ethan Crumbley from, from the Oxford school shooting and his parents. And because that was a huge case 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 prosecutor, 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, what the actual incident is, those contributing factors never get the, the, they never get the attention that they deserve. They never see the light of day. Like you brought up, even the immigration one. It's like, 'Well, I don't know.' I first started doing border work down in, like, probably 10, 10, 12 years ago, maybe with different Joint Task Forces along the border. And it's, it's, it's the same exact problems. Now, there's a lot more people, now the number is greater. But, like, no one's done anything since the 1990s. Like, 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 the factors. What's going down in South America? How has Mexico changed and 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, the supply, we don't look at the demand. 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, of, of looking at everything that goes into it, because it allows you other ways to handle the next situation in the future. It's not just about, 'Okay, I got to get...' It's back, back to the aviation one. It's like, 'Oh, okay, I just, 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...' Like, it changes not just for that incident. It's almost like, it's almost like a case, it's almost like legal precedent. It, it changes it for everything going forward.

And that's the point. It's so you learn from that incident and the change is made, not just, you know, 'Well, let's, we, we got the fix, let's move on to the next one.' No, no. How do we apply the lessons learned? Every... But what do we do with everything? We go, 'Okay, so the military comes up with the idea every couple 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 give a [expletive] 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, so let's update that, and let's change that, and let's do that.' 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 low-hanging fruit. They're not going to go for the hard issue. They're not going to go like homelessness. Okay, how many, 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 at my house, all the way to, 'No, there is no such thing.' Right? And then we do the, the thing with 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 Constitution, whether they were constitutionally legal. They're not rendering an opinion. Okay? 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, or USJ (U.S. Department of Justice) law enforcement shootings, or 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... 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 journal for law enforcement or, you know, courts or corrections? Come on.

You, you know, you, you're, um, you know, 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 focusing 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? It's like, well, I, I mean, what? You're moving a lot of money around.

We actually trying to do?

I mean, yeah, exactly. And it's like, but 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, it'll change how I look at our resources and our processes and our training, everything. Because you, you have to go, 'What, what, 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, not, 'Hey, we need, um, we need new tactics for this,' or 'a new thing for that.' It's like, 'Why? What is that? How does that contribute?' Because what you find then is that, you know, that in 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 the stuff with different, different tactics too. It's like, 'Well, okay, but but you, you, why are you doing it this way? Because it didn't seem like, you know, that worked in the last time.' It's, 'Well, yeah, 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 think that's the idea behind everything that, that, like the, you know, the FAA and NTSB 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 the US kind of leads in this because the standards are the highest. And yes, um, especially for, for flying or anything like that, we, we've known that because we've, we've flown on in other countries, you know.

Exactly what I'm talking about. Remember the security in the Levant? I won't say the specific country where we were going through and it was like, 'Who are you?' 'Yeah, come over here and you, nine people, hold up your passport, get on the plane!' Holy [expletive], you know, yeah, yeah, no, you're flying today. I thought I was flying today. Oh, okay. It's like, 'Wait a minute.'

We don't want... 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, 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, 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, like, for example, FBI does a great job. They, you know, it's one of the few times I compliment our FBI, they do a great job on compiling data. They, 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, 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, you know, the suspect had rigged a vehicle with a bomb, so when he opened a trunk, it exploded. This copper got clipped on a thing and didn't live because of the shooting. Okay, so that's great. So what we've done now is we've gone part of the way there, Brian, by cataloging it, and we've got it into the Dewey Decimal System. We can go back, and with 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 jiu-jitsu,' and guess what, 'it's going to be PR-24,' or 'now it's expandable baton,' or whatever else. And we clam 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. Cerebral, 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. Now, that when A happens, we do B, and we're over-reliant on that.

Certain industries, and you, you started with it right there, is 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, they clearly define the entire problem. Okay, it's not that a plane crashed. Okay, great, that's what happened. That was, that was the result of, what, what was that the result of? Okay, well, this contributed to that result, and so did this, and so did this. So, so it was a, it was a, a, you know, a myriad of things, contributing factors that led to this incident. Okay, now which ones can we address? I mean, even brought up with the data collection, it's best to start with it. 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 in the United States. And it's, you know, 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, of how we do it. We, we've done entire podcasts about, you know, contributing factors versus, versus, you know, approximate cause, and, and, and how those things can get misapplied in some cases. So that was why 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 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, what were the recommendations? What did the investigation show? And are we staying on target with that information? What, what did we learn from Crumbley that we can pay forward, right? And I don't think we're doing that. And I think if we take a look at Robb Elementary, it's a perfect example. We're still on the witch hunt to 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.

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?' Okay, well, why? What about the school? 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 these two because once you... and that was the big issue with that case too, trying to parent... it's like, 'Okay, we're going to open this door.'

Well, and you're talking about liability, right? 'They knew or should have known.' Well, who else knew or should have known then? Are we going to, are we going to charge them with involuntary manslaughter too? Are we going to go after the... I mean, what, what are we, what are we doing? Are we going to trace back where this policy came from and, you know, try every, you know, person, every elected official? Like, you know, I mean, what, what are we really doing here? And and if so, then, okay. But I, I mean, it's, it's, we're, we're simple as humans, and we want to place blame. We want to, we want to have nice, neat causal relationships with everything.

Exactly. Something to point out. It's just, it's just never that, it's rarely ever that that simple.

It rarely is. And if it is, then it's so obvious.

But but these are far, far more complex. So, I'm like I said, we, we kind of kept it in with the currency versus proficiency and went around to these different, different situations because it's important to to look at them all through those same lenses. And then, you know, I, I'll put the link in the details, right? But, um, any, any sort of other, um...

My parting shot today, very, very simply. 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 an emergency call. 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, 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.

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.