Tactical Tangents

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

In this episode, Mike sits down for a discussion with Ross Hick. In addition to his career supervising violent felons as a Probation Surveillance Officer, Ross works as a trainer with Citizens Defense Research. One of his specialties is the psychology of critical incidents. There's a lot of material out there on preparing for the fight, but Ross and Mike go on a deep dive about preparing for the aftermath. Tactical skills and physical fitness can help survive the fight, but what about emotional fitness after the fight is over? In addition to common symptoms like sleep disruption and reliving the incident, high responders may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of feeling isolated and out of control afterward. In this episode Ross & Mike talk about therapy resources, the importance of finding meaning outside the job, and preventative care ahead of time for mental resilience in the wake of a critical incident. Links: Citizen Defense Research Sources of Power By Gary Klein The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey 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

Nobody wants to put on a show that's all war stories. It sounds like you're trying to fluff your resume and can bore others who've also been there and done that. Plus you don't want to talk out of school. At the same time, there's a lot of hard-won institutional knowledge that can come from those stories, especially the ones where Jim almost died. In this episode, Mike and Jim relax and let Jim share some of the lessons he's learned from scaring himself half to death. Hard landings, cockpit equipment malfunctions, fires, and near-miss almost midair collisions while in an inverted spin, these situations that were terrifying at the time can be humorous in retrospect as long as everyone lived. More importantly, they all offer the sort of lessons that can't be learned from a PowerPoint presentation, only by things going badly wrong in real time. Jim's here to pass his hard won lessons on to you. And watch out for pterodactyls! 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 all its chaos, the stereotypical active shooter situation is fairly straightforward: There's a bad guy killing people, and the good guys need to close with him and stop him as quickly as possible. The events of November 2008 in the Indian city of Mumbai, however, showed us another, complex, kind of active shooter event and Mike takes a look at the takeaways from those fateful days. The Mumbai incident, perpetrated by a squad of ten terrorists who had been through a rigorous selection and training process, introduced multiple novel problems worth considering. What happens when there are multiple shooters at different scenes simultaneously? When they have access to serious arms, including grenades, possibly provided by a foreign actor? When they use structure fires as a weapon? When they have outside command-and-control monitoring the news and communicating with the shooters via cell phone? These and other complications inherent in an attack like this are examined in this episode. 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