Note: Thanks to all of you who responded to this post. I have several classes scheduled, including an experimental class that will allow participants to practice assessing. That ought to be interesting!
Keep in touch if your organization would like to host this or any other training.
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This is an unusual post for me, and those who are not involved in law enforcement will have to forgive me for it! You have noticed, I hope, that I do not advertise in this online journal. I want it to be a learning resource, not just a business opportunity for me. However, this information is about a learning resource, so I will beg your indulgence!
Police and Fire Department Assessment Center Training: I am considering presenting my Assessment Center preparation class (Professional Development Through Assessment Center Preparation) sometime in the next few months (July-September, 2008) but am not certain whether I should offer it in the Denver Metro area, or go outside the area to some other part of the state. Or, in some other state.
Let me know what you think: If you are seeking training and were not able to attend the last few seminars, or know someone who needs the class, contact me through Comments, the Contact Me section, or directly by email to let me know your interest and when your process is scheduled.
Who should attend and when: Anyone who thinks they will have a promotional process in the next three years should be preparing now. I’m serious! I find it so disheartening to have people want training when their process is only a few weeks or even a few days away. An Assessment Center measures your knowledge, skills and attitudes related to the job you seek. You cannot cram the experiences, opportunities, training, assignments and activities you need, into a few weeks or months.
You can ask almost anyone who takes a promotional process and they will say they wish they had started preparing sooner! You are not just preparing for the process, you are improving your skills for your daily work, then you will apply that to the process. If you know someone who should start now, or you know you should, do it and tell them about it. .
Could your department host a class? I am always happy to work with officers who have a training room and refreshments available, plus someone to assist me during the busy day. Perhaps that would be a way for you to get free training?
If you do not have time for the day of training, at least purchase my book from the publisher, Charles C. Thomas, or from Amazon, and send me an email to let me know how you are doing. If I can help, I will!
If you are new to the Assessment Center concept, you can read a bit more in a post from a few weeks ago by clicking here.
Best wishes to you, whatever you decide to do. But, if you would like some focused training on Assessement Centers, contact me about dates that might work. Maybe I will do a class in your area soon!
June 22nd, 2008
Posted by
TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews |
14 comments
Whether you have a complex Assessment Center or just one or two components of an Assessment Center, the concept works for you. It allows you to demonstrate what you can do, and forces others to do so as well. That gives you the same chance as someone who is glib but not skillful, or slick but not knowledgeable.
How a Police Assessment Center Works
Exercises: The concept of an Assessment Center is to provide multiple techniques (exercises) in which you participate while being observed or having your work examined by several trained assessors–usually from outside your organization.
The panel: You may wish you had your friends or those who know you, on the panel–but think about the increase in fairness for all, when what is rated is what the candidate can actually do, rather than what people think he or she can do or wish he or she would do. Most of us have enough issues to live down that it is preferable to be able to show what we know, rather than fighting an uphill battle against a negative feeling going in.
Assessors are trained before the process to understand the differences between your behavior and their opinion. They are usually scrupulously honest about keeping those separate. That also works for you.
Notes about your behaviors: The assessors will take notes about all of your behaviors (what you say and do and how you say and do it, and the thought processes you express about it). Then, they will link those behaviors to the competencies that have been identified for the job. Those should be no surprise, even if you are not told specifically what they are.
Competencies: If you wonder what compentencies you should demonstrate, check the job description, or just think about it: Communcations skills, problem solving and decision making, job knowledge, role readiness, interpersonal skills, planning and organizing and professional development are among the most obvious. Everything else will probably fit within those, whatever they are called in your process. For example, leadership, flexibility, conflict resolution, community knowledge or team building, all can fit within those basics.
Linking notes to competencies: The assessors hear you, see you or read what you have written. They take notes, based on what they know to be significant, because of their knowledge and experiences in the rank you have and the rank above you (what they probably are right now). They link those notes to the competencies and decide what supports those competencies and what would detract from them.
Your rating in each competency and for the whole exercise: Then, they give you a rating, usually from 1-10, to reflect their judgment about how well you demonstrated the competencies from the viewpoint of the role you seek. 0-4 is usually low, 5-7 is usually acceptable, 8-9 is usually excellent, 10 is usually considered outstanding.
You are not assessed about the role you have. Rather, about the role you seek. You must demonstrate that you can do the work of the rank you seek, not that you are doing well at your current work. In addition, assessors don’t rate you based on whether they like you, just on how you demonstrate competencies. Ironically, we used to complain about in-house interviews for promotions, and now I hear officers say they don’t like Assessment Centers and want to go back to in-house interviews! Those are usually officers who think they deserve a higher rating. But we all think we deserve a higher rating!
The book I think you should read over and over until you can apply it in your sleep: My book on preparing for police Assessment Centers, A Preparation Guide To The Assessment Center Method, has been helpful for thousands of officers, based on the sales and the wonderful emails I receive. Check it out at Amazon. If you have read it and found it useful, please write a review. Or, link to me in your own website or blog, so others can have the information. (I’m finding that to very helpful.)
The process works. However you prepare for your Assessment Center, remember this: The process, as it was developed, works. How your organization implements it might be problematic, but if a professional company produces it, you can feel very confident about its fairness and effectiveness.
Of course, I remind people of what Paul Whisenand, an AC developer and police author, said: “We identify people who have the basic skills to be effective in the role. It’s up to the organization to make sure they live up to their capabilities.” Very true!
Keep in touch about your promotional process plans!
May 5th, 2008
Posted by
TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews |
no comments
The value of personal anecdotes in your work:
Personal anecdotes can help you:
- Reinforce a learning moment.
- Share a human situation in your work or life history.
- Add humor, inspiration or energy to a meeting or presentation.
However, as you have likely discovered, effectively telling an anecdote of any kind is not easy, and telling a personal anecdote is even more challenging. If you have ever sat in a meeting or in an audience and mentally grimaced with embarrassment, frustration, boredom or irritation while someone told a story, you know you don’t want to get the same reaction!
Some of the negative reactions to personal anecdotes:
- If you talk about your experiences or accomplishments excessively–even for the purpose of encouraging others or sharing what you have in common with them–you can seem to be bragging or living in the past.
- If you frequently talk about your past mistakes, listeners may laugh with you but start viewing you as an incompetent who has no right to critique their work or offer advice. (Even worse, the story gets repeated, each time with a twist, until one day you are asked, incredulously, “Is it true that you……….?”)
- If you nearly always follow-up something someone else has said with, “That reminds me of the time when……” it can seem as though you have a “war story” for every situation or that you are trying to top that person’s story.
- If your anecdotes are lengthy, very detailed or not particularly entertaining, you may be considered boring–especially if you have told the same story repeatedly.
- If you tell stories that clearly are very exaggerated or not true, even for a good purpose, you will lose credibility and people won’t believe the true stories you share.
In spite of those potential problems, using personal anecdotes can be very effective. The key to success is to use anecdotes purposefully and carefully.
- Practice the story. Practice before you tell it the first time, and occasionally after that, so you don’t misspeak, or cast about mentally for the times, dates or details, and so you can tell it concisely and clearly.
- Have a purpose for the anecdote. Do you want to reinforce a point, connect with people on a personal level, redirect thinking, or share a smile? Choose a story that is right for your purpose, rather than tossing in a story just to say you told one.
- Tell the truth. The truth may not seem as colorful, funny or dramatic as the new way you tell it, but if you tell it as though it really happened, it should have really happened. Otherwise, it isn’t a personal story, it’s a lie. You can change some details or put a funny or dramatic spin on it, but keep the essence true. Especially keep your role in it accurate.
- Keep it brief. You may enjoy replaying every tiny detail in your mind, but others may wish you would hurry up and get to the point.
- Keep the emotions you display and the tone of voice you use, appropriate for the story you are telling. If you laugh about details that a reasonable person would not find amusing, or tell an otherwise amusing story in a somber way, listeners may misunderstand your purpose, or think you are not very discerning about the situation.
- Put energy into it. Tell an interesting story, don’t just ploddingly recount an event. You should nearly always speak a bit faster when telling an anecdote. Be appropriately and comfortably animated. However, do not make it a speech class dramatic reading!
- Finish and move on. Finish your anecdote with a few words to remind listeners once again of what the story was designed to illustrate, then segue back to the original conversation or presentation.
Monitor the reactions to your anecdotes.
*If people do not seem to be responding as expected–if they laugh at serious parts and nod solemnly at what you think is funny–you may need to tell it in a different way.
*If someone tries to move you along by saying, ”Yeah, I get the point,” or if they nod vigorously to indicate they understand, you may need to reduce the number of details or speak with more energy and a slightly increased speed.
*If you finish and your listeners are staring at you as though waiting for the punchline, develop an ending that wraps up the story in a more direct manner.
*If people are nervously smiling, but shaking their heads back and forth in a negative way, they may be sending a subconscious message that the story was not appropriate or that it was offensive or embarrassing.
*If listeners stop making eye contact, they are probably no longer mentally engaged by your story.
In all those cases, it may not be the story that is the problem, but the way you are telling it–work on that before you eliminate the anecdote, if you think the story serves a useful purpose.
A story notebook: Consider keeping a notebook or computer file to remind you of situations that have illustrative potential, and review your file occasionally or when you are preparing a presentation, so you don’t forget.
The python story: One of my brothers, Manley Lewis, once reminded me of a situation I had told him about, and said, ”That python story was the funniest story you ever told me.” I had completely forgotten that incident–but now I use it in presentations quite often to illustrate several key points. The python story is one of the stories of my life. Look for ways to effectively share yours.
February 28th, 2008
Posted by
TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews, Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development |
6 comments
It seems obvious that we must open our mouths to speak, but many people forget that number one rule. They have good thoughts, creative ideas, sharp wit, and something worthwhile to say, but they lose 90 percent of their impact because they don’t open their mouths enough to get the words out. It is almost impossible to be viewed as dynamic, strong, confident and capable if your words are muffled, mumbled or muttered.
This rule about opening your mouth, is crucial for people who are being interviewed, taking Assessment Centers, leading meetings, speaking on behalf of a project, or just conversing every day.
Opening your mouth and using your lung-power to project your words allows you to project your thoughts, which is why you were talking in the first place. We used to call that verbal projection, and it was the focus of speech and drama classes and part of the study of elocution. It should be part of the personal and professional development of anyone who wants to be effective and successful.
- Opening your mouth to project your words is easier to do when you are looking up and forward, with your posture comfortably erect, rather than having your head down and your shoulders and body slumped–a much more effective look as well as sound.
- Opening your mouth and projecting your words increases the amount of facial expression you have and the level of energy you convey.
- Speaking up and out gains the attention of listeners.
- Projecting your words reduces just one more distraction for listeners–and most listeners need as few distractions as possible.
- When you open your mouth and speak clearly and distinctly, you are less likely to use irritating fillers in your conversation–umm, ahhh, errr–and you will reduce subvocal sounds that are distracting: Coughs, hacks, chokes, nervous laughing, sniffs and throat clearing.
I’m not talking about a tongue, teeth and tonsil display. Nor do you need to be like Demosthenes, the Greek orator, who was reputed to practice speaking with pebbles in his mouth until he could speak clearly around them. You just need to hold your chin up a bit more, open your mouth a bit more, look more directly at your listeners, put more air into your lungs and project your voice a bit more–nothing dramatic or over-done, just clear speech.
Perhaps the best way to ensure clear speech is this: Have something worthwhile to say and have the desire and commitment to say it effectively. If you can’t or don’t speak up and speak out, you may never be fully valued, and never get to achieve all of which you are capable. If you make effective articulation a habit, your next big goal is to make sure your words are effective as well. There is no point in opening your mouth to speak more clearly, if you only make it easier put your foot into it!
February 12th, 2008
Posted by
TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews, Personal and Professional Development |
2 comments
In a previous post I said the time to prepare for career development is now. I’ve been very proud and happy that my book on preparing for police Assessment Centers has become a resource for many hundreds of people who are committed to professional development. It is available from Charles C. Thomas Publishers, and from Amazon.
The book has also been useful for those who need a resource for developing an assessment process–either for career development, for an evaluation of individual and group training needs, or for hiring or promotion. The concepts are applicable in any setting–including criminal justice, government and the private sector.
There are several other books on Assessment Centers available, but mine is unique in that it is well-researched, written in a personal style, and provides a mini-reference section that gives you an overview of many key topics you need to know about. I’ve received dozens of emails from people who tell me they used it in their promotional process and continue to use it at work every day. That makes sense, because as I say in the book, “Every day is an Assessment Center!”
If you have a police or fire department Assessment Center coming up, buy the book. Even if you do not buy the book, consider contacting me and letting me know what you are doing to prepare. If I can help, I will!
January 6th, 2008
Posted by
TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews, Personal and Professional Development |
3 comments
