Zeitschrift Polizei & Wissenschaft

Criticizing is Never Fun - But Necessary: The Role of Error Management and Gender in After-action Reviews of Police Teams

Natalie Reinhardt, Josephin Wandt, Clara Sofie Hemshorn de Sanchez & Nils Sauer

1. Introduction

The world of work is undergoing dramatic changes that are fundamentally transforming the workforce and the way people collaborate. This applies to all economic and public sectors, including the police. At the forefront of the work transformation is the demographic change, mostly driven by an aging workforce (England & Azzopardi-Muscat, 2017; United Nations, 2019). Accordingly, police departments are adapting their recruitment strategies to actively address a more diverse population and attract new employees including more women (Carrier et al., 2021; Fuchs, 2021; Russo, 2019; Ward et al., 2020). Along with this wave of young police officers comes the diversification of police culture (Behr, 2016; Constantinou & Lambrou-Louca, 2020; Wistuba et al., 2017). For instance, in the early 2010s, in Germany there were no signs of a fully integrated police force with 50% women. Current recruitment campaigns are bringing about rapid change (e.g., van Ewijk, 2012). The growing number of women faces a police culture that has been characterized by a 'cult of masculinity' since policing has long been a male domain (Donohue Jr., 2021; Silvestri, 2017). Thus, the current work transformation not only changes the composition of teams, work shifts, and departments, but may also induce a cultural change. It also sheds light on team contexts in which these changes transpire.

Zusammenfassung

Bei der täglichen Arbeit von Polizeibeamt*innen stehen Menschenleben auf dem Spiel. Um sichere und effiziente Arbeitsroutinen zu gewährleisten, sind gemeinsame Reflexion vergangener Einsätze sowie eine wirksame Fehlerkultur von zentraler Bedeutung. Regelmäßige Einsatznachbesprechungen bieten einen idealen Rahmen für diese Prozesse. Unklar ist jedoch, inwiefern diese Nachbesprechungen die Fehlerkultur der Polizeiteams prägen. Eine zusätzliche Herausforderung in diesem Kontext ist die derzeitige Diversifizierung des Personals und ein damit einhergehender Kulturwandel der traditionell männlich dominierten Polizeidienststellen. Während die Forschung zeigt, dass sich Gender durchaus auf die Prozesse innerhalb von Besprechungen im Allgemeinen auswirkt, bleibt seine konkrete Rolle in Nachbesprechungen und in der Gestaltung einer Fehlerkultur unklar, z. B. bei den Bewertungsmaßstäben), die mit ihrer Teilnahme an den Nachbesprechungen in Zusammenhang stehen könnten.

Einsatznachbesprechungen, Fehlerkultur, Gender, Polizeiteams, semistrukturierte Interviews.

Abstract

In the daily work of police officers, human lives are at stake. To ensure that the routines that guide police officers in their work are safe and efficient, reflection of past operations and an effective culture of error management are central. Regular debriefings or after-action reviews (AARs) represent prime arenas for these processes to unfold. Yet, it remains unclear how debriefs shape a culture of error management. To go further, the current diversification of traditionally male dominated police departments may create a shift that requires appropriate management. While research shows that gender impacts meetings in general, its role in debriefs and especially error management remains unclear. In this study we seek to explore these questions qualitatively analyzing interviews with police officers (N = 17) via summarizing content analysis (Mayring, 2015). Interviewees demonstrated great interest in addressing errors appropriately and viewed AARs as opportunities for mutual learning in the team.

Error management, gender, after-action reviews, debriefs, police teams, semi-structured interviews.

Meetings represent such team contexts. Literature on meeting culture in the police is sparse (e.g., Åkerström et al., 2020; Skogan, 2016). For the police, meetings typically represent occasions for information sharing (e.g., shift changes, informing team members), executive decision-making, problem-solving, and debriefing operations. However, meetings are not just a coordination tool, but affect a series of outcomes, including broader workplace attitudes and experiences, such as engagement and job satisfaction, team-level processes, such as trust and conflict, as well as team and organizational success (e.g., Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018; Rogelberg et al., 2010). In the meeting landscape of police work, debriefs, or after-action reviews (AARs), take a central role. They are guided conversations among team members to discuss, interpret, and learn from a recent incident during their team work (Kolbe et al., in press; Scott et al., 2013). The focus is on exploring and understanding how team members' thoughts and feelings relate to current issues and specific actions, as well as uncovering errors and promote team learning (Allen et al., 2018; Bell et al., 2016).

Devoting attention to these processes as they unfold in police team contexts has two important implications. First, they contribute to effective and often live-saving team collaboration and leader-member relationships (Allen et al., 2018; Tannenbaum & Cerasoli, 2013). Second, they are crucial to the successful management of institutional change (Klonek et al., 2015; Redlbacher, 2020). Given the generational shift and the associated diversification of the police workforce, change management is of particular relevance. The newcomers bring in new ideas, approaches, and methods that change the organizational culture from within. Besides the benefits that come with this change, we may also observe more conflicts arising from dysfunctional teamwork and faultlines that could hamper team effectiveness and performance. Meetings, including debriefs, are one of the first instances where such negative effects may surface (Kauffeld & Sauer, 2021; Sauer et al., 2015). In short, debriefs are crucial platforms for police team development and performance enhancement (Piza et al., 2018; Rossy & Ribeaux, 2020). They represent promising opportunities to manage organizational change and minimize conflicts to ensure effective policing with a diversifying workforce. These patterns call for a closer examination of this context.

Based on semi-structured interviews with police officers, we examined their experiences with AARs to analyze how officers were dealing with (1) current issues, such as error management, and (2) the increasing proportion and influence of women on police teams. Our study contributes to the literature in three meaningful ways. First, we identified interactions between police officers as key motivating factor in encouraging active participation. Second, we found that interviewees placed special value on learning, both individual and team learning. Third, we uncovered a lack of sensitivity to gender differences and their impact on officers' work. These insights provide guidance to managing debriefs of police operations successfully.

2. AARs as Leverage for Adapting Organizational Culture

As first-responders, the police depend on error reflection. While errors can have catastrophic consequences, their reflection also enables knowledge transfer in challenging cases and sheds light on required improvements (Ellis & Davidi, 2005; Heimbeck et al., 2003; Keith & Frese, 2010). Since errors will always occur, a focus on error prevention is insufficient and counterproductive, as valuable learning opportunities are missed (Keith & Frese, 2010). Organizations with successful error management are characterized by a climate in which mistakes are accepted and individuals who report errors are supported rather than sanctioned. Organizations that emphasize on learning rather than blaming benefit in terms of performance and innovation (Fischer et al., 2018; Gronewold et al., 2013; Van Dyck et al., 2005). Due to the fact that the police hold the state's monopoly on the use of force, they are subject to high scrutiny. Errors are viewed with particular criticism and regularly become the subject of political debates. Despite calls for a more efficient error culture, the construct of positive error culture has been sparsely explored by police research thus far (Seidensticker, 2019).

Regular debriefings represent a crucial instrument to address this challenge. They are important opportunities for knowledge sharing (Stein, 2002; Zigmont et al., 2011), problem-solving (Morrison & Meliza, 1999), sense-making (Scott et al., 2015), gaining expertise for effective decision-making strategies (Qudrat-Ullah, 2004), and adaptation for future practices (Reyes et al., 2018). They promote team learning that improves collaboration and avoids or mitigates severe mistakes in the future (e.g., Allen et al., 2010; Ellis et al., 2006). As demonstrated by a meta-analysis, successful AARs can improve team performance by 20% (Tannenbaum & Cerasoli, 2003). Furthermore, they can be valuable to manage organizational change which makes them particularly attractive in view of a diversifying workforce (Klonek et al., 2015; Redlbacher, 2020).

As with meetings in general, however, their success depends on how well AARs are managed. Work on AARs has confirmed several factors that had been previously...