Missing All The Warning Signs

It has clearly been seen that in the Parkland shooting tragedy, almost all the warning signs were missed leading to action.  In most cases of tragedy, this always seems to occur!

After the fact, there are a lot of WHY questions and then seeking a target to blame.  The Parkland shooting proves to follow this formula exactly.  Missed warning signs are a clear extension leading directly to breaks in the system.  This is why blame always follows.  There has to be a "fall guy" and if we stop there, nothing will ever change.  The "fall guy" is not the main issue for change, unpacking why the warning signs were missed is!

There are benchmarks to measure in every organization.  Here are a few...

The first reason is FLOW
Every organization is in flow and within this flow there is always stress.  Stress can be good and normal.  In a school, there are so many moving parts.  Students and teachers are consumed with their own lives.  They have high levels of stress to contend with.  When we are under stress, we have little energy to see the stress in others.  This is like the "blind leading the blind"--we simply cannot see beneath surface in the life of others when our life is day-to-day.

Solution: Meditation; some form of renewal in the process of flow.  A continued tool to measure wrapped in a positive message.  A benchmark for healthy.

The second reason is DENIAL
Denial is a part of every organization and family.  We have all heard that, "a prophet is not honored in their own home" to get the idea of denial or being numb to the very thing right in front of us.  Denial is complex, but one message it tells someone else is, "you are not important enough."  Every person has a proverbial STOP sign they react to.  When we do not STOP, we either did not see the sign or ignored it because it was not important enough.

Solution: Outside feedback.  Inviting someone from the outside for evaluation to give their honest impression.  Leadership needs a way to process this data.  It must go somewhere.

The third reason is asking WHY
Asking WHY makes us reflect.  When we refuse to ask WHY, we are not interesting in slowing down.  This ties into not caring or making something a low priority.  It also can reflect guilt.  If I don't ask WHY I can hope it will go away.  If I don't ask WHY I don't have to get involved.  If I don't ask WHY I don't need to look at myself.

Solution: An open circle where people can "check-in" with how they are doing in order to maintain proper management before things drift and get out of control.

The fourth reason is COMMUNICATION
In today's world, there really is no excuse for not having a checklist of troubled behaviors.  This reason sums up the previous three.  Communication and leadership go hand-in-hand.  There has to be a time when someone stops the train and says, "We need maintenance."  All of the warning signs can be present, but if there is no leadership to make any changes, people become numb and ignore.

Solution: Someone on staff who is skilled to observe and pull people together.

If we work with people, there needs to be a format to clear the air!  There needs to be a circle to unpack emotions before they build.  There needs to be leadership that allows for a very skill facilitator to guide these circles.  There needs to be a level of vulnerability and safety for people to be honest.  In every situation that has lost control, there is always a lack of communication, but this is very focused communication.  It does not happen naturally.  It has to be led.

What to do with those "red flags?"
The Broward County Sheriff's department is asking this very question!  Why wasn't it addressed earlier?  Why wait until breakdown before rebuilding?  This is very typical.  We usually do not see a family counselor until a serious problem.  We usually take the car for repair after something breaks.

The focus here is benchmarks to be proactive over reactive, and most are reactive which is a breakdown in leadership.  However, much of this is emotional intelligence and until we are convinced we need a balance of the masculine and feminine, we will always be out of balance!  This is why little change takes place, especially in male dominated professions.  They do not see the need for feminine balance.

Most people think this means hiring more females.  Not necessarily.  Many of the females involved in law enforcement have high masculine energy.  A male can have strong feminine energy and visa-versa.  This isn't about a man being effeminate which is what most think.  This is about having a balanced leadership dynamic similar to a band--if we just have a band with four drummers, that band will not be balanced.

In the end, a new leadership paradigm needs to take place.  One that has a masculine-feminine balance and we have models for this, it just needs to be implemented.  We need to do away with the "king" style of leadership.  We need a plurality of leaders, each balancing the other out.  There is strong metric testing to place the right person in the right seat on the right bus today.

Time to make these changes!

All of the above is how to clean house within.  Without, what Sheriff Israel argued is law and policy.  However, his message is lost because of the internal problems and he has lost respect for others to hear him at this stage.

Once an organization has better management within, we cannot lose focus that the external, "red flags and the law" needs to be examined closely.  There must be a team of people that get in a room and present very specific data (in this recent case, there is plenty of data to contend with, it is presented on the news networks each night under "red flags missed").  Fine.  Now what?

People need to have clear heads and first be very aware of what the laws dictate right now!  Unless we know what is, we cannot make changes.  I am shocked how people will gather for change and they do not have a firm grasp on what the law is.  If we are in the "interpretation of the law" stage, nothing will change.  We need to know what "i's" are dotted and "t's" crossed!  So get your lawyers in that room!

Next, we need to work through specific real time scenarios;
a. got call at 10:45pm about a man walking outside with gun
b. sent patrol car over and spoke to man
c. did not arrest because he owned fire arm

Now what?

a. got call man posted threats of shooting school on Instagram
b. patrol car visited to speak to man

Now what?

They need to go over each call from the timeline presented and determine what the law allows.  If there is not clear ability to arrest or involuntarily take this person, the laws must be presented to representatives.

Now what?

There has to be accountability followed up after a report from the County agency is presented as an ongoing concern.  This has to rise as far up the ladder as possible.

When we have a President that seems SO clueless about how things work (we wanted someone that wasn't a politician, but in this case, also means someone VERY ignorant of how things work) this is what happens.  However, President Trump seems CLUELESS to how his constant attacking our governmental systems (FBI, military, leadership) causes a trickle-down effect leading to dysfunction.

If, after this procedure takes place, it lands on some desk and goes nowhere, then by all means, we need to go after those at the top!  We have serious system failure!  This might lead to just that, a system failure which takes us to the Town Hall meeting between Sheriff Israel and Dana Loesch.

See my analysis of this event.  It all boils down to this road block between red flags and what the current law allows.  The exact same conversation came days later between Jake Tapper and Sheriff Israel.  Once we get to that road block, we have a clear path to travel for change.  We just need leaders in the room and politicians can be just the opposite!  However, we can go public with the results of this collaboration.