Driving Change in Law Enforcement through Research and Advocacy with Dr. Obed Magny

Season 6 - Episode 112 - The CopDoc Podcast
What if you could unlock the secrets behind effective leadership and innovation in policing? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Obed Magny, a LEADS Scholar alum and former Sacramento police officer, as we discuss his journey from the front lines to his current work with Magny Leadership. Learn how reform and other issues have impacted police officers' job satisfaction, and how Dr. Magny was instrumental in creating the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing and a participant in the LEADS Scholars Program to advocate for research and ensure public safety.

As we delve deeper into Dr. Magny's insights, we explore the importance of purpose in opening up new opportunities for those nearing the end of their careers. Uncover how having a purpose beyond the job can help individuals plan for the future, while also revealing the dangers of tying one's identity solely to the job. In addition, we discuss the role of purpose in helping professionals find new paths and continue to thrive in their chosen fields.

Finally, we tackle the complex topic of race and policing, examining whether all police officers and agencies are inherently racist, how we can address implicit bias, and the unique experience of being a person of color and a police officer. Listen in as we consider the importance of trust and legitimacy in building relationships between police and communities, and the 54th Mile project – a 54-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that three police practitioners undertook. Don't miss this vital discussion on improving policing and promoting unity.

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Transcript

Intro : 0:02

Welcome to The Cop Doc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The cop doc shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on The Cop Doc Podcast.

Steve Morreale: 0:32

Well, hello again everybody. Steve Morreale, coming to you from Boston, smoky Boston. I was just saying because the smoke is coming down from Canada and the wildfires. But I have someone on the other side of the country, on the Pacific time zone, D r. Obed Magny, and he is in Las Vegas today. Obed, how are you? I'm good man. How are you doing, sir? I'm fine. Thank you so much for finally connecting. We've been on the phone off and on. I see some of the things that you've been doing. I think one way that we track others, unfortunately in this world now is with LinkedIn. So I see some of the work you've been doing. I want to tell the listeners about you. I want you to tell us about yourself also, but I know that you've been at this. You're a former police officer for many years in Sacramento. You went back for a graduate and a doctoral credential and you are now running Magni leadership and doing some work in the policing field, right?

Obed Magny: 1:22

Yes, sir, that's pretty good Child's of heart, Child's of heart right.

Steve Morreale: 1:26

Yes. So I think what's important and I've talked to a number of your colleagues many years ago and actually not so many years ago I was speaking to a colleague the other day and I said, wow, when I first broke in I wished the LEADS program was in place because I would have applied in a heartbeat, but it was not. It came after I started back from policing and into academia. But you are a LEADS scholar alum And one of the things that I know that you were involved in was the development or the establishment of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing. So talk about your trajectory, how you ended up leaving the police department, the kind of work you did there, and then what you're doing now.

Obed Magny: 2:03

Yeah, let's see if I can make a five week story and truncate it for you. So when I was a police officer around 2007, i decided to go and get my master's degree. Now, being a fellow Bostonian for those of you in the audience I went to UMass Boston, grew up in Dorchester, went to Dorchester High So shout out to all my Boston peeps that are listening to the show But after I got my bachelor's degree from UMass Boston, i swore that I would never go back home. I had no interest in going to graduate school. You couldn't pay me to go back to graduate school.

Obed Magny: 2:32

Something happened a police officer and there were some things going on in the police and professions that I loved And I saw that there were room for improvement in other areas. So I decided to go back and get my master's degree and got my doctor's degree. Now, as you were just talking about the trajectory, this was kind of somewhat of an unorthodox trajectory because I didn't even see this coming even as I was going through this journey. My dissertation topic was on job satisfaction in police officers. There were a couple of things that I saw in policing related to, obviously, with the economic collapse of 08.

Obed Magny: 3:02

We saw that pension reform came down the pike and all these things that were just brand new to policing in general, and in that space there were officers saying you know what, i don't think I want to do this job anymore. I think I'm going to get out. There was this level of dissatisfaction that was going on And I remember specifically a particular unit where everything was harmonious, everything was great. The leaders left that unit and another leadership crew came in and there was like a 90, 95% math exodus within a year And I was like how does that happen? That's how I got interested in the whole job satisfaction, morale and so on and so forth.

Steve Morreale: 3:36

What's causing the runaway, correct?

Obed Magny: 3:39

Correct, so I was seeing this firsthand and I was seeing some of this in the research. One of my colleagues, Dr. Renee Mitchell, shout out to Renee Mitchell, yeah, I know She was on the show a while back.

Obed Magny: 3:47

Yes, Yeah, and so you know, Renee and I worked together when we were at SacPD and we would have many conversations about the opportunity for policing to improve in many respects related to research and so on. And we all know that policing is one of those aircraft carriers that when we talk about change, it's going to take a while for it to turn around. It's not going to happen right away. And one of the things about Dr Renee Mitchell, myself and of the like-minded folks is that we were solutions-oriented. So if we couldn't find the solution or if we couldn't get the solving of the problem done within our own respective agencies because there were other people who are like-minded folks who worked for other departments, we decided, you know what? let's go ahead and create the American Society of Evidence-Based Police. Let's create an institution that's gonna advocate and push for research being a foundation, because number one rule of research is do you know, harm, and obviously, we don't want to do any harm to the public, for those of us who work in public safety. So that's kind of how it started. So fast forward. From there. The LEED Scholars Program was birthed, the National Institute of Justice, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the 10 people who are selected each year to be a LEED scholar, and then it led into me being a police official with the National Police Institute and so on and so forth.

Obed Magny: 4:52

And now fast forward. Here we are in 2023, the White House has officially recognized the American Society of Evidence-Based Police as an institution. When you talk about police reforms, that should be looked to as a leader to be in the part of that solution. And I just want to share this piece real quick. It was a whole bunch of cops, a whole bunch of cops from around the country saying, hey, we can do this better, what can we do to solve the problem? And we came together and again we helped create the American Society of Evidence-Based Police thing. And here we are, not even 10 years out. The office at the highest level recognizes us as being very influential and being part of the solution and solving the long-term issues that we have in police.

Steve Morreale: 5:25

As it should be. I'm very happy to say that I've been a member for a few years. I kicked myself in the behind for not showing up in Vegas this particular year, because I think it's a wonderful organization And I've been dealing with the Canadian Society, the Australian Society, the Australian New Zealand Society, and so it is something that many people resist. But it is extremely important that, much like evidence-based medicine, that we do evidence-based policing, that we have some proof. And as a professor and I know you're an adjunct when you're talking to students and people are uttering sometimes some crazy thoughts, you say well, how can you prove that? Tell me whether or not it's anecdotal or it is actually grounded in research and some empirical study. It's ironic too your job satisfaction work that you did. That's what I did. I was doing transformational leadership and whether transformational leadership styles invoke better work ethic and job satisfaction in mind many, many years ago. So there's some overlap there, which is terrific. And so you're an author, you're a writer, you're a researcher, you're a facilitator and you're going around the country doing all kinds of things. Please don't take this wrong. I don't think you will, but for those of us who are academics, that's what I would constitute both of us right People who have done the work and earn an academic credential. So not quite academic, but a practical academic, if you will. So if that's the case, the last person I talked to was Jim O'Keefe, and again is one of those guys, like you said.

Steve Morreale: 6:51

That said, I never saw myself as earning a doctorate. When school was over I was done. I remember getting my master's degree and being on the police department and realizing I don't wanna shake doors for the rest of my life. That's really what the turning point was. And then I must tell you, i hate to say, that I got bored, but I was looking to the future, like you were, i'm sure, and I remember trying so hard to find a program And some people saying to me, as they might've said to you we're putting a cohort together, we've already got a cop. I was a federal agent But I know in the back of my mind it was always like I don't know if I'm smart enough for this.

Steve Morreale: 7:26

And I don't know if you had that same feeling at first, but self-doubt. It's not that we're not smart, by any means, but you think me, the cop is gonna be going for a doctorate. And then you sit in the classroom and you realize I could do this, is that?

Obed Magny: 7:37

I see you had shake your head, but talk about that. I can tell you. I remember this like it was 15 minutes ago, my very first day. Matt Powers was the professor, cal State, long Beach. Shout out to my Cal State, long Beach folks.

Obed Magny: 7:50

I remember the first day I was sitting in this class and everybody was doing the introduction across the room and he starts talking and I'm like I do not belong here. I am in way over my head. This is I was a C average student in high school. I graduated undergrad with a 2.01 GPA.

Obed Magny: 8:06

The joke that I like to tell is that I majored in football and track and field when I was at UMass, boston right, because I had zero direction as far as like where I wanted to go in life. But here I am, first day, and I just remember within those first 15 minutes I was like I'm a fish out of water. I definitely don't belong here. And, to your point, as I continue those 50 classes and everything, i was like you know, this is so bad and that's what it's like, right, whenever you try something new, it's just awkward, it's clunky, it's like I really believe should I be here? Like you said, there's self doubt and sometimes we think about their self efficacy. Right, if you have police officer, you're just. That's the equivalent of a jock. But you're just an officer. That's smart stuff. It's for other people, it's not for you.

Obed Magny: 8:45

And you know that's what I'm getting over Here. I am 4.0 later with my masters and then, when I was getting my doctorate So I did it five years in a row between the masters and the doctorate Finished my dissertation before the coursework was over. Now, if you had told me at UMass Boston I was gonna be doing that, i would have been like there's no, not in this lifetime or the next lifetime. But you know what? anything put your mind to it And I know it sounds corny, but this is one of the things that I know we'll get into it today. But purpose is everything, man. If you have purpose in life, if you have purpose in what you're doing, you're gonna be off to the barriers, but you're just gonna crash right through those barriers, making those things happen.

Steve Morreale: 9:18

Yeah, that's a message.

Obed Magny: 9:19

And.

Steve Morreale: 9:20

I love what you're saying. It's interesting. there's two things that come to mind I just jotted down. Number one is that I remember calling a teacher who had kinda got me through a couple of high school classes, in some cases with a D minus, and I'm ashamed to tell you so I should not be sitting in a chair teaching others. But it took me a little while to find myself and I remember calling her, probably five years ago, and I said to her Jean, remember me? Did I remember you? Steve? I just have to tell you thank you for believing in me, for letting me get out of your class.

Steve Morreale: 9:49

I just finished my doctorate and I wanted to thank you and let you know that whatever promise you saw in me I didn't see, but ultimately it paid off And so that's important, but that whole idea of purpose that you just said and there's a reason that I think we're talking about this and for the listeners I don't want them to shut down. It's for people who are interested in continuing to learn, to be lifelong learners, which I think you and I are. I remember talking to an old boss probably two months ago, and he was one of my favorite bosses and it's a story I tell in many trainings, and that is that he believed in me and he basically pointed me in the direction and let me go and let me flourish and let me make things happen. He allowed me to use my creative juices. But I walked away from him. He's 90 years old right now and we were in his company with his wife.

Steve Morreale: 10:35

He drove from Charles to from Up near Myrtle Beach to Charleston to meet us with his wife and I went away and I came back and they were talking and my wife and he had sort of a shit eating grin on their face and I said what are you talking about? And he said I just told Kathy, don't let Steve retire. He has to have a purpose. He has to have something to do or he'll shrink or die on the vine, and so that's exactly where I'm at. I'm at the twilight of my career, but I still have so many things I wanna do writing a book, doing training and doing the podcast and your head is shaking. You look like one of those dogs in the back of an old car.

Steve Morreale: 11:09

But react to that Ovid.

Obed Magny: 11:11

It purposes everything, and you said something about you being in the twilight of your career. We both know that infleasing. unfortunately and I say that with a capital U unfortunately, too many people in policing tie their purpose, their life, into the job and the job is everything to them. So when you retire, when your career is over in policing, a lot of people tend to put their you know what my life is over too, and this is why suicide rates and alcoholism and other vices are so high, especially in retirement, because there's a loss of purpose. And I want people to understand that purpose is not fucking infleasing in a specific role, it's not the end on be all, And when I say purpose I'm talking about the bigger picture.

Obed Magny: 11:47

I didn't know that when I became a police officer I was gonna leave policing early to start my own consulting company, but there's purpose behind that. I do want to help the profession and I'm so worried in this position where I'm right now to make the greatest impact possible, whether it's presenting, whether it's teaching, consulting, all of those things. So it's not a bad thing or a good thing, it's just a directional thing. So when you talk about the twilight of your career, that's just one chapter ending and chapter two beginning, and then there's the chapter three and the chapter four and the chapter five.

Obed Magny: 12:16

One of the things, one of the growth disservices that we do in this profession, is that we don't teach that and we don't impart that in a lot of people who are in the profession whether you're police officer, federation, doesn't matter. We don't do that. We tie everything into the job and you are nothing without the job. And then if you happen to, let's say, you get fired or you need medical, retire. there's just some people who are sitting around like, oh my God, what am I gonna do for the rest of my life? The majority of the truth be told, one of the reasons why I got my doctorate degree was because that hit me.

Obed Magny: 12:43

I said to myself you know, this isn't one of these nine to five. I'm a banker, I'm just gonna go in and I know that at five I'm getting off on time. I get the weekends. That's not how this works. You and I both know there's been many people who've been hurt, unfortunately many who've been killed. But I said to myself if I ever got hurt, what would my transition be Like?

Steve Morreale: 12:59

to fall back, yeah.

Obed Magny: 13:00

Right, and you know what truth be told, i would like the word fall back.

Steve Morreale: 13:03

This is the first thing to me, This is not a fall back. yeah, you understand.

Obed Magny: 13:06

You're right And I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is like hey, if I'm no longer a police officer today, what am I doing? What's next? Well, i know that I, but for me, i know, i love to teach, i love to mentor, i love to help others, i love to help organizations thrive, and so on. So I just started making it a point in the event that that day ever does come And I knew the day was gonna come I mean, everybody's looking forward to retirement, but if that retirement day ends up being the one sooner than expected, i'm in a better place to put myself to succeed. And again, everybody's got a different path. There is no one right way to do this. There are many, many, many avenues that I'm not even, by any structure of the imagination, saying to exactly what I did and you'll get there. I'm really got the impact.

Steve Morreale: 13:45

Well, you know, that's interesting too, because it seems to me that when we went back to school at a late age, it was more meaningful to us because we had experience that we could tie and apply to the lessons being given. And again, i have a series of students that I work with, some of whom go know these four plus one programs. And here you are today. you're a senior, you're still a senior, you're going to start your master's degree, but you have no life experience, and so it's much different. It makes it a little easier, and I know that those students learn from people who have experience, not just from me. I think that's important. So non-traditional students and being in class as a non-traditional student is important.

Steve Morreale: 14:23

But I want to ask this so many people will reach out to me and say you know, steve, i'm thinking of working on my doctorate, and so I'll actually call them and I'll say okay, why? What do you want to do with it? If you are thinking that the doctorate itself is going to earn you a teaching position, you're woefully wrong because there's not as many positions available. You can certainly become an adjunct. You could do that with a master's degree, but just understand the time and energy it takes and the money it takes to get a doctorate, and make sure that you understand why you're doing it. You're shaking your head. your thoughts on that.

Obed Magny: 14:55

Absolutely. I mean for those who are in the research world. it is nothing to hear about students with their PhDs fighting for five, six, seven years just to get on a tenor track at a particular college or university. So, whether it's postdoc work or they're just trying to find a university with an opening, there's definitely no shortage of adjunct positions. But we all know that the pay for adjunct is disrespectful.

Obed Magny: 15:16

I was just going to just say that out loud. And nobody goes to school for three, four, five years right to dissertation, to make minimum wage money. And I'm just saying I got to put that out there. If you're somebody who wants to get into academia and I think you just said it brilliantly you are absolutely fooling yourself. If you think, oh, i got a PhD, i can just apply to any school I want, it's like no, you've got 500 people applying to this one open position. What sets you apart from the next person? And so that's somebody who people just going into that phase. That's just something to be mindful of. But again, when we talk about that purpose, i've stopped on many dissertation committees and the very first question I asked is that right there, somebody?

Intro : 15:51

says hey.

Obed Magny: 15:51

I wanted to research in whatever Personally. I asked them okay, well, why? And then they'll say they'll give their why And they're like well, how does this affect me if I'm somebody who works in public work? So if I'm a garbage person?

Steve Morreale: 16:02

why should I care?

Obed Magny: 16:03

about this particular subject? Who's?

Steve Morreale: 16:04

going to care? Exactly Who's going to care? My question too.

Obed Magny: 16:08

Exactly So you get and then that's where you get them to think more globally about. Well, you know what This affects, this which could affect you this way, and you know. So we're talking to.

Steve Morreale: 16:17

Dr Obed Meghney. He's in Las Vegas today. Obed is a Bostonian who is now out in Vegas and doing a number of facilitating and consulting work with police agencies and other agencies, and we came upon each other because of his work with American Society of Evidence-Based Policing. Let's talk about the issue of race in policing. Is it really as bad as it seemed? Are all police officers racist? Are all agencies racist? How do we deal with implicit bias and all of the things that are going on that are tearing our society apart? What's your take? And what people may not know is that you are a man of color, and a handsome man of color, i might say.

Obed Magny: 16:59

That is the most important part, the handsome part, but talk about that from your perspective.

Steve Morreale: 17:05

And being a police officer, a man of color, that had to change the view of some people about you inappropriately, but you've lived it. You have a lived experience that this guy doesn't have, so talk about that.

Obed Magny: 17:16

So you just literally gave me like 200 dissertation topics alone There's so many levels, so many peers to that question Is every single police officer racist and every single agency racer is? obviously not. Is there racism in policing? Absolutely. Anybody who says that there isn't is lying to you, or they put in their head in the sand and they're like I don't want to know what's going on in real life. So let's make sure we put that out in the open first. The second part of this and this is one of the reasons why I got involved with research and issues of race and so on, when we talk about trust and legitimacy, let me ask you a question. Let's say you call Verizon because your phone's not working and you call customer service and say, hey, you know what I'm having this issue.

Obed Magny: 17:54

Or let's just say you go to the store, your local store or whatever. They take care of your phone. Everything's cool. What's the first thing that happens when you walk out the store, or before you walk out the store, when somebody talks to you, they ask you Hey, would you be willing to do a survey real quick to find out what it looks like So they'll be treating you right, etc. Etc. It doesn't matter if Angie's live or any other service that you take a part of where you're looking for service. They're always saying, hey, what did we do? Well, if you didn't fulfill our requirement, hey, what could we have done better? When we have issues related to race in the country and policing, far too often leaders and policing ignore those disenfranchised groups or at least give the optics that they're not paying attention to them. And then it gets to the point where, when something blows up, oh hey, we need to connect with the community. Well, that's not how you publish trust. You don't wait for a crisis.

Steve Morreale: 18:42

The relationship should be initiated before, not after the after a problem Correct.

Obed Magny: 18:47

Correct And I know we're going to get into this when we talk about the 54th malpolition project, because that's directly tied to what you just asked. You put in the sweat equity on the front end so that when something does inevitably happen, that trust is there to help you manage through the crisis. It's no different than if you're in a relationship with a spouse or with a loved one. When something goes awry, you don't just say screw you, i'm just going to pretend like I don't know you anymore and just go about your life. That's not how that works. If you're with your spouse and you guys have a fight about whatever or a blow up about whatever, you work through that for a better outcome so that you can avoid that situation on the back end.

Obed Magny: 19:21

And far too often in policing we don't pay enough attention to disenfranchised groups, black folks in particular, black communities in particular in this country, and we tend to over-police. We're not working in partnership with them And that's what leads to a lot of distrust. And we all know about the war on drugs where we tried that public safety approach.

Steve Morreale: 19:38

I'm an ODA agent so I know and I know the crack issue. I do very well.

Obed Magny: 19:42

Right And we know what that led to.

Steve Morreale: 19:43

It led to the break up of the black family.

Obed Magny: 19:46

We know that And people are like we don't trust the police And somebody who's worked in investigations like yourself. how do you get calm solved? You got to have cooperation. You could be community. So if a community doesn't trust you, you don't have a partnership there. That's going to be a hindrance. That's how I want to address that, answer the question that way. And so when we talk about custom legitimacy, it has to be done on the front end, and I'm going to use the words of a wise friend of mine. He said building trust is like building a sand castle one grain at a time And it takes forever. Anybody who thinks you just do a couple of cops with coffee events and that's going to establish some trust, you are sadly mistaken. It is a process, a process that can take years And it's not going to be done with a couple, but you're not going to do it with just a special event or something I understand?

Obed Magny: 20:27

Yeah, it's done when the cameras are not there. It's done when nobody's watching. It's done behind the scene. If you being at a local event that's not advertised and you're with a group of people who you normally would not hang out during the walk from someone in Montgomery, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. okay, let's slow down. Let's slow down because that nobody knows about that.

Steve Morreale: 20:44

Let's set the table. You and a few colleagues decided to walk the same walk that others had before you from Selma to Montgomery, alabama 54 miles, is that correct? And you did that with how many people? There's two of my colleagues, okay, dr.

Obed Magny: 20:59

Shaw, i know, i know, I know Madison Dr was a Dr DD. Yes, yes, wisconsin Chief, and my other colleague, Assistant Chief Tark McGuire and Arlene Konsek Okay, how did you get to know each other? So we were all lead scholars, shaw and Tark. For those who listen, the lead scholars program is a three-year commitment, so you go across the country, you participate in research panel presentations, all those things obviously advancing research, data science and research and policing.

Obed Magny: 21:24

And so we were all lead scholars at the same time, And so I was the young guy coming in when Sean and Tark were done with their third year, And during our talk we talked a lot about how can we help improve policing, especially when we talk about issues of race, trust and legitimacy, And Tark came up with the idea. He said Hey, you know what? as a metaphor, we've got to build bridges. This is what we have to do. So when you think about a bridge, you're connecting two opposite ends of a roadway over us, right right right, just a path to meet in the middle, and we've got to help establish that.

Obed Magny: 21:55

We decided to take it upon ourselves, since we all had a platform, individually and collectively, to retrace the steps of the civil rights movement in 1960. And so this wasn't like a protest march or anything. It was just we wanted to bring to life as a beginning to creating a solution to a problem that was, i mean, it's hurting America, right? So what happened in 2020, we've seen what happened in Ferguson, i mean in so long, and we wanted to do the best that we could to prevent another Ferguson or another Minneapolis and so on.

Obed Magny: 22:24

Tark came up with the idea of bridges and Sean and I were like, yeah, you know what, i kind of liked that idea. That's, that's especially what we're doing, and what better way to start this project than to go down to Selma, alabama, and walk 54 miles just to raise the awareness? And we did this with a documentary filmmaker, so he's done the whole walk and part of a documentary. That's part of a curriculum that we're building right now belief executives and help solving that problem of how do we establish and sustain trust in the community. Right, this is not a. There's no destination when it comes to trust, it's always going to be a work in progress. I think people forget that. They think that there's some magic number you hit and then, oh, we're done.

Steve Morreale: 23:01

We're done? Far from it I know, It's never one and done is it.

Obed Magny: 23:06

No, that's the thing You think about working out, right? So I'm going to go off on a small change. That's okay If you're, if you have the perfect and weak. If there's somebody who works out and you got the perfect disease, do you stop working out because you have the perfect disease? Absolutely not. You maintain it. It would just be irresponsible to say, oh, we've reached a certain point, now we're going to have to talk to you or deal with you anymore. That's not how that works.

Obed Magny: 23:26

Again, we wanted to create something that would outlive the three of us And for generations and generations to follow. There'd be a template in place that people can follow, people in leadership and policing to follow, to help maintain and sustain that trust and legitimacy team. So we did this walk. It took us about two and a half days. It's the beginning. It's not the end Cause we can go back to the 54th mile. There was technically an end for the physical walk, but it's the beginning and we're going to use different parts of the walk in the curriculum to talk about different issues. So we're talking about race and policing. We're talking about emotional intelligence and other historical concepts of America. I guess you could say the negative history between the police and the black communities, and we already know about bloody Sunday. What do all of these things mean And how do we use all of these examples here today, moving forward and solving a lot of these, a lot of these issues?

Steve Morreale: 24:15

Well, we're talking a little bit Magni and he is in Las Vegas and we're just beginning to talk about the 54 miles and a documentary Is it available?

Obed Magny: 24:25

Not yet. It's not up for public consumption as of yet. Again, the thing is is that for us, if this is going back to what we talked about with the purpose, right? We didn't want to create a film and then put it on Hulu or Netflix And everybody watches it. Oh, this is a great film, that's great, and then everybody forgets about it. Yeah, no, no, no.

Steve Morreale: 24:41

In other words, you want that to be the starting point to curriculum and to thinking and all that.

Steve Morreale: 24:45

Well, you know, it's interesting because I've talked to so many people on the podcast and one of them indicated was Bill Bratton, who said police have to understand the history of their agency because police were misused in the past and grandparents or grand great grandparents were harassed and sometimes beaten by police And they hold that historical perspective and that seeps through a family Right. It really does, and so we have to understand what our predecessors did to others oppressed, and then help build the bridges that you're talking about to say I'm not that way, i don't want to be that way. I want to understand your lived experience, i want to listen to you, i want you to listen to me, i want us to better understand each other. But that's a really difficult thing.

Obed Magny: 25:29

You have to start somewhere, but that's tough to do It is, and one of the things that we do not just three of us, but you look at the great leaders in this world Love is one of the things that comes up, because they've got love for their people. Dr Cornel West said you can't leave the people unless you love the people. And so if you're going to establish a relationship one especially that parade with the community, yes, you're going to have to come out and say you know what? we were not perfect. We get to really trouble things. We're not going to shy away from that. Here we are falling on the sword, moving forward. Let's do the best that we can to right the wrongs, moving forward, and let's solve this problem together. You're absolutely right, that's very, very difficult, but that's part of the process. People think this is easy.

Obed Magny: 26:10

Oh you need to just show up one day and talk to a couple of community members clergy and everything will be fine. It's like no, a lot of this work is going to be very, very uncomfortable. It has to be uncomfortable, i can tell you right now, even with personal experiences. I've got a couple of friends that I had fallen short into things with them And I have to call and say yes, that was 100% on me, i screwed up, this is my fault, i don't make any bones about it. It's very uncomfortable. But the feeling you have on the back end is like OK, now that we've acknowledged the skeletons in the closet or the elephant in the room, what do we have to do to move forward? It's like we can mend these senses Like hey, we're all going to have that car with some surgery, it's going to always be there. Let's cover it up, let me know and move forward, because you can't move forward unless there's feeling, and you can't have feeling until you have that uncomfortable, crucial conversation.

Steve Morreale: 26:56

Yeah, that's extremely important to understand And I think I came from a pretty white neighborhood and school. I was raised in the 60s and 70s and my time in the military is when I realized that it really didn't matter color someone's skin or what their religion was, because our mission was to protect each other. We're in uniform no different than policing but we're in uniform. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. But I like Covey's piece and one of the principles Seek first to understand and then be understood. To me that's an extremely basic way to understand.

Steve Morreale: 27:26

But I have to tell you in school, so many people who work as faculty don't want to touch the third rail, don't want to start any trouble, don't want to open things up, and I have to tell you that's exactly where I feel the most comfortable to say oh bed, tell us how you feel about policing, tell us the experience that you have. Help us understand you or your family and what your perspective is. It's the only way we're going to understand. And some would say you know, don't, don't call me out just because I'm a black man. I'm not doing that. I'm trying to help everybody understand what we've all gone through so that we can take our frigging blinders off and understand each other. And you're shaking your head. I don't. Again, this is touchy stuff, but I think it's so important to talk about.

Obed Magny: 28:05

So the reason I'm shaking my head is I get that it's touching stuff. I'm very comfortable. It's really comfortable in the state for several reasons, because there's a research component in this, there's a real life component in this And it's nuanced. But it doesn't have to be accusatory, it doesn't have to have a negative connotation. So here's what I'm going to do. I always make it a point to model the hate. I don't want to just be the guy that says, hey, do this, because I said so. You're going to see it happen And then you're going to say, well, he's about that life, he does it. So the uncomfortable people it's the stages that were like hey, it's comfortable, where everybody can speak their truth without judgment. When it's established from the front and people can feel comfortable, you're going to be much better off than hey, we're going to get together And then we're just going to put zero context. We'll just start.

Steve Morreale: 28:48

What happens is you have to set the ground rules and you have to build a report and you have to talk about talking with a group And we have to say here's what we're trying to accomplish We're trying to understand each other better.

Obed Magny: 28:58

Correct. And so, with emotional intelligence, it's managing your emotions as they happen to you, recognizing and managing the emotions of others. So I've had calls for service where somebody would MS me up and down for like 15 minutes and everything.

Obed Magny: 29:11

In the back of my mind. I'm like this person's hurting and they just venting. They just want to be hurt And I don't see that threatening. I just let them speak their peace, acknowledge their hurt and then move forward from there, whereas somebody else may not be aware of that business. Like hey, this person's trying to be threatening and then it becomes a use of force or it becomes a hands on situation, a less than ideal situation, and so let's just put it out there.

Obed Magny: 29:32

We don't teach this stuff in policing enough. We only do 3.21% worth of interpersonal skills in an average six month account. So out of 650 hours, we're only spending 20. Now we all know that 99% of the work in policing, especially if you're an officer, is you're in the people business. You're dealing with people who are probably having a bad day, and you should be equipped, just like with handcuffs, a tongue pepper spray. You should be equipped with emotional intelligence skills to deal with people who might otherwise might poke a threat to you, and really they're just venting and they're just talking out loud.

Obed Magny: 30:01

There are some cultures where people use their hands That's not meant to be threatening. There are some cultures where not making eye contact is a sign of respect and not being deceiving. So there's layers to this and knowing, learning and understanding these things are important. We don't do it enough in policing And that's why you see a lot of issues. Or you do see a lot of videos where some people, hey, why did he take it Well, why did she take it to the next level when they didn't even warrant that? But now you're gambling no pun intended, because I'm invaded With the hope that the person, the officer, the individual officer or even the citizen or whoever You know, you're hoping that they understand, versus the you know have the skills to understand those dynamics. So when you're in that room and it's established on the front end like, hey, we're going to have some uncomfortable conversations, we know it's going to happen.

Obed Magny: 30:46

Not meant to be personal, this is part of the process. This is the crucible that we have to go through in order to be better on the back end. It's why the Marines do it, that's why there's hell weakening, maybe field training and so on and so forth. There has to be the crucible to understand collectively, together, without judgment, and address the issues that got us to this here, got us to this point in the first place, and move forward. No one is sitting here saying Hey see, this is your fault specifically. We have these issues here going on tomorrow. We know that wearing the uniform is a low hanging fruit, because when you're wearing uniform you're wrapping something government easy, easy, easy kicking. So you have to understand. You're just showing up breathing in a uniform, whether you're white, black, whoever, some people are going to feel a certain type of way. As only you understand that and you're not taking that personal, you're already in a much better spot to deal with whatever situation that you're dealing with.

Obed Magny: 31:33

So, we don't do it enough in policing. There are many opportunities for this. that, unfortunately, might take place because there are some people who are uncomfortable with the fact that, hey, this is going to be messy. I've never had to deal with this. I would rather not deal with it, and this is one of the reasons why the 54th Mount Policing Project is going to address this issue. That's great.

Steve Morreale: 31:52

So we've been talking with Obed Magni Dr Obedna Magni and is in Las Vegas. He is an adjunct instructor, a former Sacramento police officer, very active as a lead scholar for NIJ and active and actually was one of founders of the American society of evidence-based policing, and we've been talking about things that relate to race and minority and difference in cultures and all of those kinds of things, and I don't mean to focus only on the African American populace, but there's so many others, especially out where you are, so many other minority populations that we don't always understand. Concern that I have is that, with policing, the answer in a lot of ways is let's get them training. Let's let them know about mental health. Let's let them know about autism. Let's let them know about the Asian culture. Let's let them know It becomes overwhelming to police to constantly be told you need to know this better.

Steve Morreale: 32:44

It's beneficial for them. You understand, but there is a resistance and a reluctance because people I know I mean you were a cop, i was a cop. Don't tell me I'm racist. I'm not saying that you're racist. I'm just wanting you to understand other people's perspectives, whatever the word might be. But what's your thought about the receptivity that you get from police departments when you are conducting trainings such as emotional intelligence or the knowledge of other people. What's out there? What are you doing? What are you seeing? How is it being?

Obed Magny: 33:14

received Number one. When we talk about, let's just say, diversity, equity and inclusion, dei, everyone automatically defaults to What are we talking about? Black and white? And no, we're not talking about black and white. I let them know right out the gate. It goes beyond that. So, yes, there's black, white, different races and so on, but there's the diversity of thought, which means religion. Are you conservative, liberal, libertarian? no-part affiliation, are you LGBTQ Or are you not? There are so many levels And this is one of the reasons why you're seeing the issues with recruiting and retention and policing. The generation of yesterday that put in their 30 years maybe got treated like trash, but they knew they were going to get their attention moved to Montana shot off to.

Obed Magny: 33:53

Montana I've never been there.

Obed Magny: 33:55

I've been here, it's beautiful, i'll get there someday, and they're happy ever after. Today's generation is not interested in that. Today's generation wants to be respected. They want to be given opportunities to succeed, they want to be given autonomy, they want to be challenged in a way that makes them better at their job in their certain field field. They want to be respected and seen as an individual and not as a bad member, because we've never had that kind of culture in policing, nor have we had the training to change the culture like that institution-wide.

Obed Magny: 34:24

You have this gap where I might say, oh bad, mad me, i want to be a police officer. So let me go talk to this guy, steve Morelle, because I heard he was working over here at Acme Police Department, and I go over and I talk to Steve Steve, hey, now I want to be a police officer. Is Acme a good place to work in? If you say, man, don't come here. Man, this place is It sucks, you have If you talk on Yeah, and so don't even come here. So if I, as a recruit, going to go work for Acme, the answer is no. Second part to that And I'm glad you asked that question because again, all this is related to the retention issues that we have going on in policing right now. I'm going to give you a specific story about two people.

Obed Magny: 34:59

I'm not going to mention what their agencies are, but they're both on the East Coast. I know two individuals with doctorate degrees who are now finalists for chief jobs across the country Again not going to say where because of the value that they bring, their respective organizations have ignored them, have not given them the opportunity to succeed. So those of the audience who are in a position to hire and recruit I want you guys to listen to me very, very carefully. Those two stories are not unique. I know people who have been in other agencies. Smaller agencies who have value in their organizations, ignored them And now they're at another agency with a billion dollar budget and they're absolutely thriving In many respects.

Obed Magny: 35:35

There's a lot of pockets around the country where people say hey, you know what The thing about the progressive? you have to be an officer, you have your sergeant, you have to be a lieutenant, you have to work in these units. People are starting to say we don't even see the value in that. If somebody at an officer level or somebody at a sergeant level just use those two land fed examples, if they can come in here in a leadership position and provide value to the organization, can we get you here yesterday? This is starting to happen right now in this retention recruiting war, if you want to call it that, maybe in a big band of college sports. This is where we're at. And so when you have today's generation saying, hey, i have value that I can bring to your organization and the organization says, yes, school year values, we don't care about that. What you need to do is hit the streets because these calls are pending.

Obed Magny: 36:19

When that happens, that employee today's generation, the millennials, the Gen X, the Y, the Alpha they're like oh, i'll tell you what. Check this out. Here's my resignation paper. I'm out of here five. And so that's the risk. You got the generational riff of the old guard wrestling with the new guard, where the new guard is saying we don't care, not to say that they don't care about money. Money's obviously important. If you're being paid your market worth, you're good Cause. We all know in the Bay Area, people are like astonished when they hear what they're paying $170,000 a year. I'm like, if you're in the San Francisco area, $170,000 a year is like not even a job for the bucket. Now, if you're in Wyoming or something, but that's the picture.

Obed Magny: 36:59

So, going back to your original question with the DEI part, or what I'm saying in these trainings is there's literally a lack of recognition of the talent that people have in their own organization And you just have other agencies who are savvy enough, just over here, coaching, just coaching. And so if you're a leader of an organization, you're a police chief, even if you're a lieutenant, doesn't even matter. If you're mid-level manager, if you've got somebody who's got talent and you're not overtly want to make sure you guys listen to the cards that are coming out of my mouth Or partly trying to cultivate and make sure that person is in the best position to succeed, not just from their own right but for the organization standpoint. You are literally the problem in this retention issue. So if you've got somebody in your department who's got a lot of greed and they pass the bar and there's no work of patrol and there's no in-house counsel, or you haven't created that position, even if it's an auxiliary position, you're going to be going to fall behind.

Steve Morreale: 37:50

Yeah, you're underutilizing a person's talent And I think it's identifying. That's a really important thing. Identifying leadership potential is extremely important And I think that for so many leaders and I do, so much training at your job one of my favorite sayings now is leadership, it's all on you, but it's not about you, it's about your people. It's about developing others. It's about developing and sustaining the organization by creating opportunities to tap into the intellectual curiosity people have And let them come up with ideas on how to improve the organization, how to improve service delivery, how to improve relationships. That's extremely important. What say you? And the research is?

Obed Magny: 38:30

overwhelming. I'm telling you anecdotally there's a frontline supervisor and an officer who are finalists for chief jobs across the country because their organization is like ah, whatever, you're not going to go anywhere. Again, this is the old garden mentality of oh, you should just be happy to have a job, meanwhile you're hand-wrenching on the back end. So to your point. The research is overwhelmingly supportive of this. And if you recognize your employees, if you give them the ability to achieve, if you recognize the work that they do, you put them in a position where they're able to do the job itself and not mess with it, and you're there as a mentor to help guide. At the end of the day, it's all about relationships. Nobody's going to say man, you know what I love about Steve Morelle? I love Steve Morelle because that man knew policy procedure better than anybody else. No one is going to trip over the phone to get to work early because they know that you're going to talk about policies and procedures. That's the expectation. The expectation is you're going to know that stuff at a baseline level. You're going to expect that your supervisor treats you with respect and dignity If you're in an organization or if the culture of the organization does not see you and does not recognize you. You're already failed And the research is.

Obed Magny: 39:35

And again, these are not my words, i mean, i'm just putting my own spin on it, but the research on this is, again, overwhelming, it's voluminous. And so you got to say to yourself at the end of the day, it's all about relationships, so you could put someone in a position who can connect with others And this is going back to the emotional intelligence piece right, and you're connecting with others and you understand people. That's how trust is created and sustained. The IQ part that can come late. Learning the technical aspects of the job that can come later. That's not the most important part. Relationships are always, at the end of the day, the most important.

Steve Morreale: 40:04

Well, you know I'm thinking about this. I think there are some people who would listen to this podcast and listen to you, and I know you and I, or the people that we have a tendency to gravitate to And those are the people who have promised. Those are the people who have new ideas, who challenge the system, who question them, and some people get aggravated when we ask questions Well, why do we do it this way? And what about that? Have you thought about this? They see those people like me, or like you at times, as a threat, as opposed to saying these are people with promise, let's listen. That's that protectionism of many people who are in positions of power and policing, who want to keep it very close to the vest because they want to retain their job and they don't want to let anybody else in. I'm seeing you shake your head, but I think that day has come and has to go where you realize and utilize the people for the benefit of the organization.

Obed Magny: 40:57

This is why I'm such a proponent of coaching and policing, that what you just shared is always at the forefront. If you were a potential client and you said, hey, listen, i'm running this organization and we're following short agency through XYZ, and so I'm saying to you okay, before I take you on as a client, i want to know a little bit about you and what you're looking forward, what you want to accomplish, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm going to ask let's just make up a scenario right now. So let's say that your protectionism is there's some people in the organization that have a skill set related to law, and we'll just say psychology. So I'm asking you it's Chief Morelle. You have a recruiting or retention problem and we've identified that some of it has to do with you not recognizing your employees. What would it look like if you were fully staffed? You would say, oh man, it'd be great. How would that help you be great? Well, i wouldn't spend as much time working on this budget, i wouldn't be spending as much time on scheduling, et cetera. Okay, but all that free time, what would that help you accomplish? Oh well, maybe I can spend more time with community members and attend more meetings. So when we literally write this out, it becomes a hey, wait a minute, me helping them. It's going to make them look like a superstar. And it makes me look like a superstar because now my city council is like, hey, wait a minute, now we can do ABCXYZ. Bellevue, nebraska. Chief Clary shout out to.

Obed Magny: 42:09

Chief Clary does not have a recruiting or retention problem. He's fully staffed. In fact, he's looking to add more FTE positions. He's a big lead and he's a lead scholar, because of the same things that we're talking about here on this podcast. He's just one of those guys who just goes out there and just does it. He literally says, okay, who are my best people in what? And who's got skills? Who in my department has a skill set that is unorthodox, and how can we utilize that to help you?

Obed Magny: 42:32

So what happens is when people say, hey, you know what? Tell me about that organization. If your average frontline employee is like man, this was the best place on earth to carry on. If you got a skill set, they're going to want you to do ABCXYZ. The military does this. Yes, they do. The military already does this. You got a skill set and something Oh, invasive training. That's the lead. We're going to put you in that position, whether it's line drones or IT, whatever that is. We're going to put you in that position of all, and that's something that we've got to move towards in policing, and if you don't, we're going to fall behind.

Obed Magny: 42:57

This is why, again, i will O'Bertley say that you cannot be a leader in policing and not have a coach. Yes, you have to pay money to pull a coach, but to return on investment Again, these are not my words, we're looking up on your own The return on investment is somewhere like a hundred, whatever it is that you spend on the fun if you get quadrupled on the back end. So that is from a fiscal standpoint, from an operational standpoint, whether it's from a leadership vacuum standpoint succession planning, recruiting, retention, all of these things. This is a normal thing in the private sector. It is normal, yes, it is Normal. Mid-level managers, all the rest of the CEOs, everybody's got a coach. And if you want to trust the advisor, coaching is the proactive side. The trusted advisor is on the reactive side. So again, you said it earlier in the podcast in policing we're talking about public safety, we're talking about why, being in the balance, officer safety and public safety, and so on and so forth.

Obed Magny: 43:49

If there's a crisis that takes place or something that's up for it, do you have someone who's objective, somebody who's got no agenda, who can give you some sound advice, but somebody who knows enough about the game I'm talking about policing right To give you some sound advice and say, hey, let's look at this holistically. Here's some of the pros, here's some of the cons. You know, if you go in this route, these things can happen. If you go in this route, these things can happen. I think, based on my experience, training, you know me working in not just operations but age and professional standards, working in policies, and I worked on our union for three years, so I've seen what Lathan looked like inside and out and all the work that I'm doing with the federal level. You know, just, do you have somebody who can give you that advice? And it's almost criminal and I don't think that word might be, but it's almost criminal that the overwhelming majority of leaders don't even have a trusted advisor. So that's something that I'm also pushing for and advocating.

Steve Morreale: 44:36

I think that's important And part of what your role is, and when I've been called into coach police chiefs, i find that one of the things that you're doing. Let me say this in a lot of ways and this is gonna ruffle some feathers at perhaps it is like going to a psychiatrist or a psychologist who is never going to give you the answer but is always gonna ask the questions. And it's when you ask those pointed questions that people reflect and sometimes get caught. Sure, well, i've never really thought of it. Okay, well, why don't you think about that? Why don't we reconvene the next time? Tell me what you're thinking about. So sometimes what you're doing is leading through questions, leading the thoughts through questions, And I think that's really important.

Steve Morreale: 45:14

It's not something that police chiefs, police deputy chiefs, should be afraid of but should be looking for, so that they are not looking for sage advice from within the organization but from outside the organization Go ahead.

Obed Magny: 45:26

The first pillar of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. The first thing we talked about with the 54th mile policing project is that journey of self-discovery. Giving you the answer, yeah, that'd be one thing, but have you thought it through? Have you looked at the pros and cons? Maybe there's some biases that you may not be aware of. And how does that come out? It comes out through a coaching process or through the trust and advisor process. It's gonna vary from agency to agency. You might have one agency where the issues might have to do with the mid-level management. You might have another issue, another agency, where the issues really would have to do more with equipment or with a game mode. I'm sorry, i mean one agency that I know of. This is why it's so important to have stay interviews, and I don't know if the audience are familiar with stay interviews, but everybody does an exit interview right. And this exit interview, inherently it might just be bad.

Steve Morreale: 46:08

It's too late. It's kinda too late.

Obed Magny: 46:10

Right, you wait until it's too late to ask a question. Why would you not look into it before it becomes an issue? This is the reason why you go every year to the doctor for your physical to get a checkup. You don't wait until you're on your deathbed. It doesn't make any sense. So this is why, again, yeah, when you're doing surveys within your organization, find out what those issues are. Take care of the first two, three, four, five. we'll hang in fruit, because it shows that you're interested in solving the problem. Versus oh, we just do a survey with the city every year and then we gather this data and then we take this sheet and we hold up the table that's wobbly at the bottom and we use that sheet to take care of that. You can't do that. That's why we have again the issue that we have right now with concluding retention. People are not even seeing the institution of policing as legitimate as a career option, and a lot of that has to do with what we're talking about right here.

Steve Morreale: 46:51

A lot of work to be done is what you're saying, and I think the whole work that you're doing with evidence-based policing and pushing that agenda and that idea, the idea of needing coaching, doing consulting, is really important. One thing I'm gonna do, obed, is I'm gonna teach you how to pronounce my name. It is Steve Morielli. Morielli, moria, moriale is the Italian way. It doesn't matter to me what you call me.

Intro : 47:16

As long as you call me Steve, i'm okay.

Steve Morreale: 47:19

But I don't want you to be saying my name wrong all across the country and everywhere you go. But listen as I wind down because we're coming up just at the end of our session. I wanna say that when I asked you to come on, you never know what's gonna happen in a conversation, but you are an innovative guy, you are a knowledgeable guy And you are one who has taken your experiences and are willing to share them with others, and you should be very proud of that. I mean that It is an absolute pleasure to talk with you, and what I want you to do at the end here is that you have the last word.

Steve Morreale: 47:53

The people who are listening are from all over the world. In many cases, there's so many people who are listening from New Zealand and from Australia and from Ireland and from the UK and, obviously, canada and the United States, but as people who are looking to improve police agencies, what is your starting advice? How do you begin to look at your agency, not day to day, but longer term? Tell the audience some of the things that they should begin to think about.

Obed Magny: 48:21

The number one. Before you even go anywhere, the number one thing you have to remember is what is the purpose of the accomplishment that you're looking for. Know what your why is. Know what it is that you wanna do. Know for a fact that I wanna improve policing through this avenue. Once you've got that figured out and I'm not saying it's gonna be a cakewalk, but it becomes much easier to reach that accomplishment, even as the American Society of Evidence and Police and God Off the Ground I mean, when I saw you there were more valleys than peaks. This is the norm of life. Nothing's ever gonna be easy. You're always gonna have barriers, but understand that you don't have to do it by yourself.

Obed Magny: 48:58

There are other people who will probably do the same thing that you're doing and you need to connect with them. That's why it's important to connect with organizations like the American Society of Evidence and Police. Get connected with the 54th Mount Policing Project, because we're gonna have stuff coming out with that too The National Policing Institute. There are other people in this space. It doesn't matter if you're a researcher, a community member, clergy, police officer, police chief, somebody who works in public safety, campus security, private security. There is literally a space for everybody to be a part of the solution. There is no over-saceration in one respect or another respect. We know that researchers are very good at punching numbers and doing all that kind of stuff, but there's some nuances in the actual application in policing that they may not be aware of and they need to partner with a practitioner who can talk to them. Show them, for example, those no-gifts and movies where they jump in sideways and shoot people in the pinky. That's not real life. That doesn't happen, that's a movie.

Obed Magny: 49:51

And then there's the other aspect. There's some things that can inform policing and better ways of policing, increasing public safety and officer safety. That's backed by research. So that's why partnerships are very, very important. Whatever it is that you want to do, whatever avenue you wanna get into, you don't have to deal by yourself. Find the why first, and then partner with others who are like-minded. So, and when you start connecting and networking, going to these conferences, you'll start realizing oh, there are better ways I can approach this perspective or that perspective. Hire a coach, somebody who might be able to help you individually navigate these waters. That's what a lot of people do, especially in business who wanna be successful. They hire somebody who knows what it is that needs to be done and what that normal equation looks like, and you want somebody to help guide you through that process.

Steve Morreale: 50:34

Part of what we're talking about is that you really have to take a step back and then take the first step.

Steve Morreale: 50:39

It requires a lot of self-reflection and that's really very, very important. Sometimes I've walked into so many organizations and started talking to people. You'd ask a question and you'd get this blank look like I've never been asked that question. I've never thought of it that way. So it's very valuable for somebody who's been around to be able to come in and pose some questions and to get you thinking in a different dimension, which can be very valuable both to you and to the organization. And I think we all have to realize we can't do it And there is the line That's where a coach comes in or that's where a consultant comes in, that's where training comes in, that's where a facilitation or a focus group comes in can be very valuable. So, obed, thank you for hanging in there with me today.

Obed Magny: 51:14

Well, thank you, dr Morelli. I apologize for butchering your name. You know what it is. I just fell in the door, i just screwed your name and butchered your name, and for somebody who's got a weird first name, you think I'd know better. So now I'm never gonna forget Morelli, i'm gonna show the Italian part. Morelli, i just screwed that up again. That's what I'm working on the next day.

Steve Morreale: 51:35

Oh, no, no, no, you can say it, it's closer than it was before. I've got Morelli in on it. Don't worry, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. You know who I am and you know how to reach me and I know how to reach you. But thank you for your time, for your energy. I wish you the best of luck. How can people reach you?

Obed Magny: 51:49

So on social media Twitter, instagram, tiktok at Dr Obed Magni that E-R-O-B-E-D-M-A-G-N-Y. You can also email me at info at magnileadershipcom or Obed at magnileadershipcom. I'm on LinkedIn, so I'm very active on LinkedIn. So, yeah, you can reach out to me that way too.

Steve Morreale: 52:11

There's all kinds of ways, And when you just put it Obed, there has to be only a few that come up right.

Obed Magny: 52:17

There's a heavyweight boxer named Obed Sullivan, i know that much, and there's somebody who has the same last name as the UFC fighter. So there's only one of me, right? So many of me, like you said, very few handsome brothers like myself. Yes, make sure we prepare. Thanks for the great conversation And I wish you the best of luck.

Steve Morreale: 52:36

So, that's another episode of the Cop Doc podcast. I'm Steve Morielli coming to you from Boston. We just finished with Obed Magni And he's in Las Vegas, so thank you so much for listening. Appreciate you passing the podcast on to friends if you get anything out of it And let me know if there's anything that you wanna hear about or talk about, or if you've got some suggestions of people I should talk to or making changes and innovations in policing. Thanks so much. See you on the next episode.

Intro : 53:00

Thanks for listening to the Cop Doc podcast with Dr Steve Morielli. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Western State University. Please tune into the Cop Doc podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.