A Highly Effective Training Technique Few Are Utilizing
By: Andrew A. DeMuth Jr.
An hour before an uneventful Sunday day shift is set to end, the radio comes alive:
“Sector four and a unit to back, start heading over to 36 Jackson Street for a report of a missing three-year-old. He was last seen watching television in their family room 30 minutes ago.”
No doubt, one of the worst calls ever for a road supervisor.
Will it resolve itself before arrival, with the child found sleeping behind a couch? An hour from now, will the scene be flooded with helicopters, tracking dogs, and volunteers? Will this be the latest national tragedy filling cable news for the next week or so?
The first seconds and minutes are crucial. What will be your first move, Sergeant?
Law Enforcement leadership conducting table top training
Fortunately, there is no missing child. This scene is playing out around a conference table. The hypothetical call was pulled from a carefully curated loose-leaf binder by a trio of seasoned road supervisors and a lieutenant. It is part of a comprehensive onboarding program for a soon-to-be-promoted patrol sergeant. It’s actually 8:11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and this officer has just begun the first of ten hours slotted for tabletop training with senior personnel.
Regrettably, the paragraph you just read about the training might as well also be hypothetical. Why? Because very few agencies have a comprehensive onboarding program for new sergeants. In most organizations, it is trial by fire until they can send you to the first class at the regional police academy. For the agencies that do have something in place, most would not be considered comprehensive.
Even worse than our abysmal supervisor development is the fact that, for some reason, law enforcement has failed to embrace one of the most effective forms of professional development: tabletop training, a highly effective training technique few are using.
What is Tabletop Training?
Tabletop training can be traced back to military strategy exercises and is frequently utilized in emergency management and fire services. However, it remains underutilized in law enforcement despite its potential benefits. If your agency already uses tabletop training, I’d love to hear from you: strategies, obstacles, how it is received by agency personnel, etc. (Andrew@LeadingBlue.com) If not, we hope to make you a believer, especially for preparing new supervisors.
At its core, frontline supervision revolves around thought processes. Supervisors must take a set of facts and formulate a response. Unlike repetitive tasks, no two calls or situations are identical. Responses are not selected from a menu; they are crafted based on:
- Protocols and Procedures
- Resources Available
- Training
- Personal Values
When I was still a road supervisor, we had an expression: “the most we can do, the least we can do.” The extent to which we pursue a resolution to a call often reflects who we are. For instance, in a stolen bike case, some officers might surprise the child with a new bike they bought themselves, while others may only file a theft report. Again, “the most we can do, the least we can do.”
In the missing child scenario, clearing the scene with a report is not an option. A missing three-year-old prompts an all-hands-on-deck response involving an army of personnel and resources.
The goal of tabletop training is to prepare our leaders for the challenges they will face during their careers. This training ensures they:
- Understand procedures and protocols.
- Are aware of the resources available to them.
- Are fully trained in response techniques and strategies.
- Align their personal values with the organization’s values.
Why Tabletop Training Matters
In most agencies, new hires undergo a comprehensive Field Training Officer (FTO) program that lasts several months. This allows officers to experience a variety of situations, many of which multiple times. However, for new supervisors, the training period is much shorter. Without structured preparation, they’re unlikely to encounter serious incidents unless we simulate them.
Here lies the value of tabletop training. By creating realistic scenarios, our personnel can practice handling crises in a controlled environment. We can include calls of domestic violence, shootings, serious crashes, and everything else that your agency might encounter.
Tabletop training is an outstanding training method for seasoned leaders as well. We can use it for more serious calls or situations that don’t occur that often? How about the off-duty lieutenant involved in a DUI accident, the train derailment, or the serious crash of a tractor-trailer leaking an unknown substance.
If cases like Canton v. Harris have taught us anything, it is the critical importance of training.
Building Tailored Training Programs
Frontline supervisors are widely considered the most critical positions in any agency. If this is the case, why would we outsource their training entirely? Do we even know what is covered in those external training sessions?
Why not create a program tailored to meet the specific needs of your agency? With lesson plans and course objectives designed in-house, you can ensure the training aligns with your agency’s values and priorities. Tabletop training offers the flexibility to:
- Address scenarios unique to your community.
- Reinforce organizational culture and expectations.
- Provide immediate feedback and mentorship.
Getting Started
Yes, there are classes you can attend to learn how to create extravagant tabletop scenarios. They are probably a good idea, too. However, if you need something for next week, put three or four road supervisors at a conference table and give them the task of creating five realistic scenarios and a list of bullet point responses for each. This can eventually be drafted into a reusable master-scenario with a worksheet containing checkboxes corresponding to each of the desired responses.
One of the benefits of scenario training is that it benefits the new supervisor and the facilitators. Each of the training meetings reinforces protocols for all participating, and, often, someone – sometimes even the new supervisor – will offer a suggestion not included in the training materials which, of course, can be added.
In Closing
Unfortunately, tabletop training is a highly effective training technique few are using. It is an invaluable tool for preparing new supervisors and enhancing the skills of seasoned leaders. By incorporating this training, you can ensure your supervisors are equipped to handle the complexities of modern law enforcement. The alternative – trial by fire – leaves too much to chance and risks costly mistakes.
In the end, it’s not just about responding to crises; it’s about building leaders who can think critically, act decisively, and uphold the values that define your organization. The question isn’t whether you can afford to implement tabletop training. It’s whether you can afford not to. LB
(This article previously appeared in the ILEETA Journal.)
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Andrew A. DeMuth Jr. is the founder of Leading Blue, a firm that provides leadership training for law enforcement and the private sector. He served more than three decades in law enforcement with four different agencies in a variety of leadership roles. During his career, he served as an investigations commander, range master, agency training officer, press information officer, and director of the youth police academy program. He spent the last nine years of his law enforcement career managing CODIS, the New Jersey DNA program overseeing the processing, compliance, and training of more than 500 participating law enforcement agencies and correctional facilities. Today he serves as an adjunct professor for two institutions and speaks on leadership and training topics throughout the country and is the author of A Highly Effective Training Technique Few Are Utilizing.