Tactical Tangents

Offices come in a variety of shapes and guises, from a room with desks and whiteboards to the front seat of a squad car. In this solo episode, Jim sounds off on his favorite topic: Management is not a dirty word, to be shunned in favor of "leadership". Rather, management is part of leadership. It's the art & science of allocating and coordinating resources to meet a goal. Jim wants to share with you several of the lessons on management he's learned the hard way, such as when it's time to lead less. If you've managed your team well, you can take some time you'd otherwise have to spend motivating them and instead spend it removing obstacles preventing your highly-motivated people from solving problems efficiently. After all, getting the right people in the right places with the right equipment and a realistic timeline is essential to leadership. Links: Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

Sometimes bad training passes down information that might once have been good, but garbles it. Take "Shooting to Stop the Threat"…please. This episode sees Mike and Jim discuss the nuances of using lethal force to reasonably end the capacity of an assailant to harm you. What exactly is incapacitation? What's the difference between "shoot to kill" and to "stop"? Is intent magical? Listen to find out. Incapacitating a threat by means of lethal force requires certain factors to be met in order to be considered reasonable, and it's not a blank check. In the laws of war, there's a difference between sailors boarding a small boat from a sinking ship because they're out of the fight and marines climbing into small landing craft to get into the fight. In civilian self defense, each shot needs to be defensible, and that means reasonably explainable. Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

For a person in a first responder line of work, being caught with an inadequate skill toolset in a critical incident can lead to the sort of feelings of helplessness that are a greased rail to PTSD-land. In this short episode, Mike talks through some ways to preemptively head off those bad feelings with good preparation. Unlike the fixed mindset in which you're dropped onto the planet as either Someone Who Can or Someone Who Can't based on some immutable set of skills, a growth mindset is one in which you see yourself as an active participant, learning from each experience to better deal with the next one. Mike explains why one of these is not only better for dealing with the incident, but also dealing with the aftermath. Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

In a short episode inspired by a listener question, Mike dives into the art of noticing abnormalities. An EMT instructs his trainees to put every patient on the EKG, whether the complaint is cardiac related or not. Why? So that the trainee will develop a baseline of what normal cardiac activity looks like and will be able to spot the abnormal more easily in the future. Humans are excellent at pattern recognition…if they've gathered enough data to establish a baseline. Whether it's noticing an abnormal heart rhythm, an unusual response to a squad car parked at an interdiction checkpoint, or the activity leading up to an ambush in some far-off deployment, being aware of what's normal and what's not can be a crucial skill. Link: Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

What is a professional? The dictionary says, at its simplest, that it's someone paid to perform a task, as opposed to an amateur. But there's more to it than a paycheck. In this episode, Jim and Mike examine the characteristics of what we know as professionalism, and how they apply in the world of the tactical…well, professions. Professionals don't choke when the chips are down. There's a high expectation of professionalism in the military and law enforcement worlds, but what does that mean? It's easy to mistake the basics of bearing and rule-following as learned in early training for professionalism, but Mike and Jim point out that the professional is trusted to understand the situation well enough to take ownership of it, and the competence and expertise to make the hard decisions. Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

Can you weaponize a positive mental outlook? In this short episode, Jim talks about positivity and optimism and how they can be cultivated and employed by leaders. When your job is basically to foresee and plan for worst-case scenarios, this can be a factor that is easy to overlook. Optimism can go beyond simplistic hooah moto slogans! Positivity isn't magic. You can't optimism your way through a situation you aren't ready for any more than you can mindset your way through a fight. Productive positivity, however, is never allowing yourself to say "this sucks" without adding "…and this is how I'm going to fix it." Listen in as Jim offers his thoughts on a practical positive attitude. Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

In this short episode, Jim talks about the benefits he finds in taking the time to get outdoors. If you're listening to these podcasts, you're probably a pretty outdoorsy person, but take the time to think of the benefits of outdoor recreation: Exercise, a chance to unwind the mind from the job, and yes, even just getting into the sunshine and absorbing some of that Vitamin D love from above. While "self care" is a term with a bit of a woo-woo feel to it, it's necessary for people in high stress jobs to take time to depressurize, and getting out in nature is a great way to do it. Jim takes the time on deployments to plan his hikes for when he gets home; what's your outdoor stress release? Links: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

While gear is expensive and important, humans are even more so. When you've found the people with the right aptitudes and trained them with the right skills, how do you keep them achieving up to their capabilities? Mike and Jim discuss thishugely important part of the leadership role. Talent management is more than just a buzzword, it's a skill!P Picking the human talent for your team and carefully developing them once they're selected is a core element of leadership, and "management" is not a dirty word. Knowing the traits you need and attracting people with those traits is a foundational skill for any team leader. Keeping those people there and motivated is where the management comes in. Links: Moneyball by Michael Lewis The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

For the first episode of the New Year, Mike and Jim tap one of the podcast's most important resources: You, the listeners! We asked the members of the Tactical Tangents Facebook Discussion Group for a list of questions, with the promise of podcast swag for the best one. (If you're not in the group, get in there and join!) What's the best training for unsworn personnel to seek out to best enhance their safety on the job? How do you deal, as a leader, with that difficult team member who's hard to motivate? These topics and many more get bandied about by Jim and Mike, using their experiences in the world outside the PowerPoint presentation. Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

The A-Team couldn't have pulled off a caper with four B.A. Baracuses , U2 never would have been a hit with four Bonos, and nine Legolases couldn't have gotten the One Ring to Mordor. Putting together a good team is about more than just a mix of skills, though, and in this episode Jim and Mike talk about balancing personality types to build a team of winners. Some people are daring and some are risk-averse. There are process people and results people. For every rebel, there's an i-dotting, t-crossing rules follower. All these personality types can bring something to a team; this kind of diversity really is strength! Selecting opposites that compliment each other is a valuable leadership skill. Most important is the self-awareness of what you bring to your team, and who can back you up in your blind spot. Links: Warnings Unheeded by Andy Brown Like what we're doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com