How many times have you, as either an instructor or student, accepted the word of the person you were learning from as the unvarnished truth of the way something is done?  I have seen some nutty tactics and unsupported beliefs over the years.  We tend to do this as cops.  We grab some bit of information from a trusted source and then incorporate it into our mental models of the world, but we may not question the source as to how they drew that conclusion in the first place.  We don’t ask why.  Why is this tactic superior to another?  Why does this work or not work?  The industry is flush with so-called experts.  Not to take anything away from many of them, their resumes might be impressive, but remember that they are trying to sell you something.  It might not be bad; it might be better than what you had before.  In the end, they are selling you on something, though, and it can be awesomeness or snake oil.  How can you use what they offer if you cannot tell the difference?

Understanding conformity

First, let’s look at the concept of conformity.  Imagine yourself in a class where you and all the other students are learning some new tactic or technique.  The instructor has the creds to suggest that he has some knowledge on the subject.  It seems all the other students are eating it up, but a little seed of doubt remains in the back of your mind.  How likely are you to question the instructor or push back on the curriculum?  Probably not as likely as you think.  I’m not saying you should be an obnoxious, disruptive jerk in the class. What I am saying is that it is really easy for groupthink to set in.

In the video, you see the strength of wanting to not be the only person not in the group.  This video plays off the Asch line experiment, which has been duplicated many times.  It demonstrates that someone will knowingly give a wrong answer to a question when others are also giving the wrong answer just to prevent being different.  If you want to see some social conformity in action, search out the Candid Camera elevator prank.  It is also good instructor fodder for identifying nervous behavior.  In policing, we also accept doctrine when it is laid out by someone we consider to be an expert, whether that be some trainer in our own organization or some well known instructor out in the tactiverse.  Not to stir up all the firearms instructors here, but how would you feel if I said that neither front sight focus nor smooth trigger press were the most important fundamentals of shooting?  These are the things we learned as uber-important in shooting, no?  I would argue that grip and sight alignment (regardless of your focal point) are the most important.  But when I am talking about this as an instructor, I would include the most important part, the why.  And here in lies the magic.

Single loop and double loop learning

If an instructor was tasked with going to a class and learning some tidbit and bringing it back to their organization, there is a chance that only single loop learning has occurred.  Single loop learning is using the knowledge at hand to apply to a situation without questioning the underlying logic.  The returning instructor teaches the material as it was learned, no more, no less.  And more tragically, no questioning of the material.  When I see instructors do this, I chalk it up to the most destructive force in learning, EGO.  Here is the single loop.  

In double loop learning, the instructor would receive the knowledge and can apply it, but also goes through the effort of asking why.  Instead of just accepting the doctrine as presented, the wise instructor looks at this as a journey of discovery.  Gaining the knowledge is just the first step.  From there, it is about questioning the assumptions that led to the knowledge.  It’s about truly understanding.

Any tactic or technique you bring back to your agency might be good as-is, but it might not be.  As a SWAT team leader, I learned new “advanced” entry tactics with the intent of bringing that knowledge to my team.  What I learned was not bad, but it worked in the environment we were learning in, namely a school.  Wide hallways, plenty of space.  My team was not running operations in schools; we were mostly in residential structures.  Small dope houses, mobile homes, and the like.  We could not reasonably use the new hotness.  We had to deconstruct it and take only the things we could use.  We accomplished this by inserting it into training and critically examining it before we put it into practice.  We discovered our own way by questioning the concepts and their underlying assumptions.

Be a collector

Importantly, we did not discard what we chose not to use.  We shelved it.  It went into storage for later.  As a team, we may pull that stuff off the shelf and use it when the situation was right.  Also, as an instructor, you hopefully will be asked questions by your students about said tactics and you should have that knowledge to speak intelligently on the subject. 

By engaging in double loop learning, you will have a better understanding of the subject matter and be able to confidently address questions and concerns of your students.  As my friend Bronco Lane says, there are a hundred ways to load a truck.  Don’t fall into the single loop trap of not questioning the dogma just because that’s the way it was presented to you.  Test in training and apply critical thinking until you discover the appropriate use for that information.  Don’t be a lemming. Don’t stand up just because the buzzer went off. Ask why it is the way it is and then consider the underlying logic.  That’s where the magic happens.