From Chief Constable to Academic Visionary - Peter Neyroud - Cambridge University - Session 2

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 7 - Episode 148

This is the second of a two-part interview with Dr. Peter Neyroud
 
What if modern policing could achieve a global impact through strategic leadership and trust? Join us on the Cop Talk Podcast as we welcome Dr. Peter Neyroud, a former chief constable turned esteemed academic at Cambridge University, to share his journey and insights. With Dr. Neyroud, we explore how evidence-based policing is transforming forces worldwide and the pivotal role leadership plays in this evolution. Discover how his innovative strategy of using smaller command posts aims to groom future leaders, reflecting practices from the Royal Navy. Through engaging anecdotes and practical wisdom, Dr. Nehru paints a vivid picture of what effective leadership entails in today's complex policing landscape.

Gain invaluable insights into how to lead large, dispersed teams effectively, where personal connections with each team member might not be feasible. 

Peter highlights the critical importance of communication and trust, essential elements when managing thousands of staff members. Delve into his experiences of impacting policing practices in India and his ongoing collaboration with the Indian School of Business. As we conclude, we reflect on the importance of documenting these experiences, inspired by Sir Robert Mark, aiming to link historical developments with contemporary evidence for effective community policing globally. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on leadership, trust, and the enduring legacy of policing practices.

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

Chapters

• 0:00 Leadership Development in Modern Policing
• 7:47 Leadership and Trust in Policing
• 17:03 Impact and Legacy in Policing

Transcript

Steve Morreale: 0:00

Hey again Steve Morreale here on the Cop Talk Podcast and we're about to listen to segment two, the second session that I had with Peter Nehru. Dr Peter Nehru from Cambridge University in the UK, previously a high-ranking leader, chief constable in a police service organization within the UK.

Steve Morreale: 0:17

During this conversation, we looked at the complexities of modern policing, Leadership and Organizational Development. Peter shared his insights from being in the police field to now his role as an academic at Cambridge University advocating for evidence-based policing. Peter tells us that he has been spending a great deal of time with Indian police and a country with one and a half billion people. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say. And a half billion people. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say and, frankly, I'm hoping to be able to talk to a few police leaders from.

Steve Morreale: 0:48

India to help us understand, be curious about what they do that we don't, what we do that they don't. So stay tuned for another session on strategic leadership and global impact on the CopDoc podcast with Dr Peter Nehru, former chief constable. With Dr Peter Nehru, former chief constable, welcome to the CopDoc podcast.

Steve Morreale: 1:08

This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The CopDoc 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 CopDoc Podcast.

Steve Morreale: 1:53

What I want to understand is how did the Police Improvement Organization become the police college? And then I want to bring it forward to Cambridge, where you are now, and basically what you're getting out of that. Is that okay?

Steve Morreale: 2:00

Does that help frame it? How do you feel we're going?

Steve Morreale: 2:03

So we're lucky to talk to Peter Nehru. Say that again. So we're lucky to talk to Peter Nehru. I'll say it again so we're lucky to be talking to Peter Nehru at Cambridge University in the UK, developing leaders and developing leadership traits and helping people understand the role and responsibility of in policing. So let's talk about that and how you began to think about that.

Peter Neyroud : 2:33

help frame it with your colleagues so, as a I mean you you do a lot of this as a, as a chief. In fact, if I, if I, would have any piece of advice, single piece of advice for a chief, in whatever size of force. We always have this debate, so you know the portfolio that a deputy or an assistant chief has got. They have a specific brief, they're chief of patrol or whatever it is. And there's always this interesting question so what's the chief's brief? Well, if it isn't leadership, you aren't a great chief. It absolutely has to be, and a level of detail and curiosity and focus on leadership at every single level and also, frankly, on what in God's name are you training your first, you know your new recruits in? It starts there. If you've not got a really tight focus on that, you're not starting out on the journey, you're not getting people into the organisation understanding the mission, you're not giving them a sense of the potential opportunities in the organisation.

Peter Neyroud : 3:39

I certainly, as a chief, I never missed a single recruit entry group. I saw every single one of them and I spent half an afternoon or whatever it is, and I did two things. Firstly, I gave my pitch about what was I expecting, and I think every chief does that. But I also let them give me their pitch about what their expectations and their thoughts and the questions about the organisation are. And I spent a lot of time as I went around the force.

Peter Neyroud : 4:06

We had a system where once a month we went to each of the local areas and we always had an open question session because, again, you want to give people the opportunity to question and, of course, doing that, you start to see some of the people who were asking interesting questions and there were a few people who, right at the start they were kind of testing me, trying to see what sort of chief was I going to be. And I never forgot the ones who raised the really good questions. I don't know whether they were ever surprised, but they said over the time I left they were in quite significant positions. I wanted the people that asked the right questions. Then I was interested in what were we doing with first line supervisors left, they were in quite significant positions. I wanted the people that asked the right questions. Then I was interested in what were we doing with first line supervisors? How are we training them? What sort of investment? What were we doing?

Peter Neyroud : 4:55

about the inspectors.

Peter Neyroud : 4:55

How were we training them? What were we doing to try to encourage them? And then I realized we had absolutely no succession process for training the commanders who were going to take in American terms it'd be precincts know big sections of the of the organization. So one of many motivations I had for changing the structure of the force was to create posts that were going to be real commands, that would but smaller commands. So I wanted you know it was a phrase I remember reading in a very good history of the royal navy which is that one of the ways the royal navy, um, you know, generated leadership was by having little ships and big ships and by training people to take command in a context where they were relatively safe.

Peter Neyroud : 5:31

I mean, you've got, you've got command of a small corvette and then and then a destroyer maybe, and it was only then that you've got a battleship, as it were, you've got a really big command right and this idea that you actually have to prepare people for command by little steps and then you have to see that they succeed and encourage them. You have to visit them, you have to talk to them, you have to listen to them and you then have to think about where they go next. So we've put a lot of effort into thinking about how you know how you would mix and match. You get teams that worked appropriately, um and and that you got people who could you know who could, who felt comfortable working with each other as well, because that's another part of helping people succeed is try not to mix the unmixable, if you possibly can you know.

Steve Morreale: 6:20

It's interesting what you're talking about, because you're talking. That's a very so. You just answered a question that I had a while ago. Where do you look in other disciplines to find ideas? And I always say, especially in American policing, that we hold ourselves to be in the likeness of the military. But the military has changed dramatically since the 40s and yet I don't think police has evolved as much. And so I like what you're saying, because I just talked to a major general who was saying exactly that he was major general of the military police corps here and and he was saying look, each command, when I was a lieutenant, I did this when I had 15 people, I had 20 people, I had 100 people. It's the same thing, same thing. And I'd also.

Steve Morreale: 7:07

I also want to stop you in this way and we have to wind down in the next 10 minutes or so. But, peter, you know, one of the reasons that I wrote the book choosing to lead, which will be out in January, is because in my estimation, in my experience here stateside, when you get promoted, the first thing your boss wants is not for you to lead but to manage, manage that organization, manage those people, keep us out of trouble, make sure they're productive. And leading is a choice. In other words, you can get by with simply managing. Well, leadership takes a choice and takes risks because you're trying to move the needle forward. I see a little bit of a smile or a smirk, so react to that, if you would.

Peter Neyroud : 7:51

of the more significant leadership positions, trying to point out to them that you know, just managing wasn't going to be enough, particularly when you move into a situation where it's no longer possible to manage by personal knowledge. So as soon as you get above 100 staff, particularly with the level of rotation in policing, you can't manage in the personal way. You, as an inspector within British policing, you might have 20 or 30 people working for you. Generally it might be a bit bigger, but you can actually manage them by knowing them and you can manage. You know it's a, it's a more intimate what a personal relationship than it would be. As soon as you get into 200 or 300 people, particularly if they happen to be scattered across multiple posts I mean, I was a director of intelligence I had 350 400 staff scattered across about 30, 10 or 12 different locations. Well, you can't manage in that way. So you then have to start. It has to be leadership, and that leadership has to be about communicating. You know clearly the mission spending enough time with people. So you're then into the what do I do in five minutes? How do I get across that message in five minutes? It's not quite the elevator test, but it's not far off it, because that's what you get when you get to be a chief. And you've got about 9 000 staff in tennis valley, you know, and of course they, you know they're rotating as well. So I try to work out how many staff I'd ever supervised across, you know, and it's a, it's a lot, it's far too. You can't possibly know them all. So you have to think about how do I, how do I lead by getting a message across in the most effective way, a most inspiring way, and some of that is.

Peter Neyroud : 9:36

And I did a thing called the um. It was, it was a day, it was a weekly uh, chief's view um session on on. It was the early days of, you know, that kind of internet blog type thing, and I did. I did this, this blog, once a week. I tried to make it no more than a page. It was read by just about everybody in the force and I realized quite quickly that people were communicating back to me things that were in that. So that became one part of it. I think these days that would almost be happening, but it's still important.

Peter Neyroud : 10:08

I think, and I was trying to think about ways. How do I get what I'm trying to achieve? How do I explain what I'm trying to achieve to such a wide group of people that they understand it? They've got the context, because all the time as a leader, you have to bet up to, you have to get to bring people along by explaining the context, treating them as adults and treating them as adults who've got all sorts of other concerns and worries, but you want them to focus on you know enough focus on that particular bit of the, whether it be a change program or understanding, a particular pressure on the organization. So training and developing people to do that is, I think, the only yes, of course, you can turn on a course and you can. They can talk to other colleagues.

Peter Neyroud : 10:53

But I do also think a lot of it is about mentoring. It's about you, as a chief, communicating how, how to do that to people, picking out the people who were really good at it and trying to help the ones who it's for whom it is not natural, and bring them along as well, because you're right, you know you aren't going to succeed. You're going to be a very dull and boring and not particularly effective organization if all you've got is managers. You have to have some people, you know, have to have a group of people who are capable of taking people with them. I'm not a fan of transformational leadership, but it was a bit, you know, we got given it like cough syrup over the last 20 years and it always seems to be a completely inadequate explanation for this, because you know, for a start, policing you're never, it's not constant. You, you, you vary between the you know, the emergency type scenario and the day to day, and transformational issue never really properly fits that kind of. So something more adaptive is, it's all adaptive.

Steve Morreale: 11:54

It could be situational leadership. Well, and I think this too, when you're talking about theories and this is what confuses a lot of people I think you and I have been studying it for a long time and experiencing it for a long time that you know. What I try to convey is look, there's a lot of theories out there. Is that really practice? And really, in a lot of ways, you are a part of your good bosses and your bad bosses. You know what to avoid and what to emulate, but you customize it for yourself. I don't really care what the theory is, as long as, in practice, it is about paying attention to people, paying attention to mission, you know, relating to the organization, relating to the citizenry, so that we are effective and responsive. Right.

Peter Neyroud : 12:36

Yeah, but there is just one golden thread that runs through that and that was for me. You know, it was the big lesson of working with my great mentor in hampshire, john hodnot, and that was the absolutely golden thread. You could be sort of good at some of this stuff and bad at other things, but if you don't understand the importance of trust, then you're never going to be an effective leader, because if you really want people to do the difficult things, you, they have to trust that. If you know, if they do a difficult thing and they make a mistake and it's an honest mistake that they will be supported, right, um, I just, you know there was several examples, but john john was brilliant at this. Um, it just, it was natural. He's all part of it, was part of his DNA in that sense.

Peter Neyroud : 13:21

And there was a particularly difficult detective superintendent who he took off being a senior investigator, which was the job he really wanted to do, and he took him off it because he really wasn't that good at it. And but he said you know, okay, I'm taking you off at point, I will return you to that post. And the rest of the force all knew that they'd had this conversation. You know it was not, it was semi-public, but everyone knew that and they were all waiting to see whether would John follow through, even though it wasn't perhaps the best decision. Of course he did. He followed through and he said to me when he did it, and I ended up with this individual working for me For the second time. For the second time, yeah.

Peter Neyroud : 13:59

If I give a promise, I follow through. Yeah, and as a chief, every one of those promises is magnified by the organization because it goes through, it becomes. Trust is the way that you get people to do difficult things, difficult things. As soon as the senior leadership in the organization is not trusted uh, particularly, of course, if they do things either if they they behave with misconduct or they or they are or they're bullying or they're doing all sorts of inappropriate as soon as you do that, the whole organization's trust framework falls down and you are in. It is really difficult to build that back um. And you know it's what? In a sense, one of the big themes of research that we've been doing at cambridge over the last uh, decade has been about trust. It's been about procedural justice.

Peter Neyroud : 14:45

so tom tyler's work in particular, it's been about understanding that that trust works both inside the organization and out in the leaders.

Steve Morreale: 14:53

So it is the application of procedural justice inside and outside. But as, as you discuss the the application of procedural justice inside and outside, but as you discuss the importance of trust in an organization, we need to develop trust outside the organization or we don't have procedural justice, we don't have fairness and such. So, understanding that I do, we need to move to something you just said, and that is about Cambridge and what's going on.

Steve Morreale: 15:31

Let's talk about your role at Cambridge and what you're doing in terms of research and how you are finding value in helping others to see a different approach to policing from across the world, because Cambridge draws people in there in your master's program from across the world. Talk about that and and how invigorating it is to you, for you, and how, uh, how beneficial you see and the hope you have for the future as people begin to think, oh, this might be a way to approach things yeah, well, I've been teaching, uh, the master's program and two senior leaders in policing for a decade or so and it is no, it's a great way to put back into the organization and it is about challenging people.

Peter Neyroud : 16:20

So it is about it's, you know, talking, walking them through an evidence-based approach to, uh, their profession. And, and you know, the first thing I always do when I've got a group, the new group in the room, is ask us have any of you actually read an experiment in policing? To which the answer is almost universally no, and then just walking, you know, explaining to them. You know, what do you know? We just know such a staggering amount about policing now that we didn't know in 1980 when I joined. And, and you know, working and walking and through what we do know, some of which is, you know, may challenge their practical conceptions of what can and can't be done, and then, of course, encouraging them to do their own piece of applied research.

Peter Neyroud : 17:03

I mean, most of this morning was spent talking to my own master's students about research that is coming together in the form of a thesis which has got to be handed in the early part of next year, and they're doing some amazing things, the one in particular that I was discussing this morning is a just been promoted superintendent in the met. He's doing a big procedural justice trial about what, does you know? Can we change the perceptions and behavior, and of officers with a with a specific focus, procedural justice training program, and will that produce less use of force, etc. It's partially replicating but going a bit further than some of the stuff that david weisberg and others have done. And this is a. You know he's a superintendent, he was a chief inspector when he started this. He's done a full field randomized control trial of a significant level of complexity, um, for which you'll get his masters without any doubt at all. All, but also it's the basis of helping the Metropolitan Police to do something that has proved particularly controversial. Better Now for me to be able to not just influence him as an individual and see him being promoted whilst he's going through this programme, but also seeing that legacy going through is is professionally very satisfying, but it's also scientifically very satisfying because I know that you know we'll publish that research.

Peter Neyroud : 18:25

That research will be another part of the corpus of knowledge and it's coming from the ground. It's applied learning, developed within the profession with support, and it'll go out to help others to understand it and I, 10 days ago I was a period of time in india. I've been with indian police, the ips union police service, for 15 years now, teaching evidence-based policing, and that is now starting to resonate back. Indian policing has caught the bug, to the extent actually that just before the covid I I got invited to go and present that to narendra modi personally, which is presenting to a prime minister of a country of 1.4 billion is quite a thing. I had 90 minutes on evidence-based policing with Narendra Modi and actually that gives me enormous credibility with Indian police officers to say you know your prime minister asked me to do this and now he's talking about.

Peter Neyroud : 19:13

Modi, is talking about less dander, which is theon. Less dander, more data, which is basically the message that I was giving. He's constantly reiterating this point. I love it and you know that is impact on a big scale and hopefully I've got to. I'm working with the Indian School of Business to do that school of business to do that. I would love to leave a legacy in the world's largest, most populous country of a police service that believed in evidence to make change as well as, obviously, within my own country.

Intro -Outro : 19:49

Well, I mean, think about that. Who'd have thunk that you would have that sort of impact, that sort of opportunity and ability to do that? I think about talking to Lorraine Mazerolle and certainly Lawrence Sherman and her database that some of your material will go into, which I think is important. So, you know, I see this movement with the Society of Evidence-Based Policing, the American Society, ,,New New NZealand nZealand N Nnew Zealand. I mean it is moving forward. We're a little in many cases reluctant, but I also see in the United States, the National Institute of Justice creating this LEADS program, which is absolutely amazing, I think, scholars and practitioners working together. I wish in my day that it was available to me, but now I find myself, like yourself, at the end of a career and still having impact on the new breed, on the new group. We need to wind down. You have so much knowledge and so much information. I have a few questions and then I want to talk about the national police college.

Peter Neyroud : 20:43

As we end, as you're getting ready to write, tell me what you think your first working title for a book would be yeah, I've struggled with this actually because you want a kind of snappy title, but I mean I I I mean reforming the police with science was was my first working time.

Peter Neyroud : 21:10

Yeah, that's cocky that's too dense, yeah yeah, yeah, exactly so I and I, you know, I got, you know evidence, cops, and all the trouble is cops isn't quite the right title because we're not really cops, it's an American title. So I'm still working on it and I've got pages of scribbled notes of trying to get to a title which is both pithy and informative. And also, the other thing is I went back and had a look at my all-time favourite book, personal book about policing, which is sir robert mark's biography, and there were a few lessons from robert mark and one. Rob mark was the commissioner of the metropolitan police and the one who made the big attack on corruption. Uh, he was a very, very thoughtful man and he started off with something which I thought was really, really clever, which was the.

Peter Neyroud : 22:01

His first chapter is called the Police Service I Joined. So what he did was, he kind of, laid down. So this is where I come in, this is what it looked like. And then he has a chapter at the end which is a kind of reflection on where it had got to and where it was going. And I mean, if I can write anything half as readable as Robert Mark, that would be great.

Peter Neyroud : 22:23

But what I wanted to do is to take key bits you know the devising a community policing scheme in 1982 and relate that to how the evidence has developed since 1982. And I'm now the UN's Office of Drugs and Crimes expert on community policing and I've written a checklist and a manual for them, et cetera, to help them put it on the ground, and I've tried to put it on the ground in Bangladesh with UNODC. So it's come full circle in terms of wanting to get that best evidence and best advice out onto the ground. So I'm going to try and write what I'm going to try and write, I think, if I can pull it off by effectively constantly moving to and fro.

Intro -Outro : 23:10

So somehow or other I need to find a title that reflects well when I let me tell you, when I wrote I, I actually utilized a little lAI AI A and back and forth saying this is what I'm thinking, this what happens, and they gave me a derivative and I didn't like it, but it started to move me in a different direction. But the point is that three-word think a three word title can be very valuable for you and I think you've got so much history and knowledge and experience that others will take heed in what you write. I appreciate that. At the end, I want to ask do you think and we don't have a lot of time to explore this we're talking about a National Police College in the United States? There is no such thing, and whether or not it ever happens I don't know Do you think that now that it exists, that it has helped to move the needle?

Peter Neyroud : 24:02

Well, in a sense. So I was responsible for the National College of Policing. It was my recommendation out of my review of police leadership and training, and for me it was about an organization that could set the agenda, not solve all the problems, but set the agenda, set the framework, set the type of core standards that had to be in leadership development and deal with the most senior. So you know, there has to be a place where the most senior and the people are going to take over the really big jobs, come, come together and have an opportunity to talk to each other at a key point, preferably before they spring off into those really big jobs, not the least which is you want a group of people, a cadre of people, who can pick the phone up to each other and help each other to solve problems, and National Colleges of Policing are a great means of achieving that. I mean, after all, that is what the military do. They build a cadre of people who know each other and they can pick up the phone. They would know, you know, they can trust each other. Well, not, of course, they don't always dislike each other. That's always a possibility. But actually, if you look at, I appreciate.

Peter Neyroud : 25:04

I said at the beginning, I'm a historian and, reading through the history of the Second World War and how people cooperated and worked successfully together, clark, who was the general who took the army up through Italy in 1944, had been at various key stages in his career, had worked alongside Eisenhower and a range of the other key players. They knew each other on a personal level, which meant that they could say hard things to each other at key moments, and I don't think that culture has become embedded enough in policing where enough of the. I saw a bit of that. I was a member of the Police Executive Research Forum for quite a number of years and I was part the harvard sessions, um in uh, when I was a with frank yeah, with frank yeah and exactly, and, and you know, I got to know a range of a range of the senior leaders together, but they came together for that, so that was a, that was a happenstance, it wasn't a regular part of their development.

Peter Neyroud : 26:00

I don't't think an FBI course is anything like us. That's quite different. I mean, the FBI is a different organisation. Policing actually needs a place where it can learn and if it's linked with the bringing together the research evidence, it doesn't have to bring everything together in one place, but it has to be a network capable of bringing people together and I think if we're able to do that and certainly the British one, I think, has been moderately successful in doing that is a place which is trusted, which brings together the best professional practice with the best leaders. Think that's quite important in developing a profession that is capable of having proper debates with itself about what's good and capable of finding out, you know, amongst itself the best leaders that it's got available and making best use of them. I think that's a, you know, incredibly important part of a successful profession, because the alternative is people who don't know each other and can't pick the phone up and don't have access to the best practice and don't use it, in which case you're doomed.

Intro -Outro : 27:05

Yes, well, we've been talking to Peter Neyroud and he is at Cambridge University and this has been an important conversation that we've had that has gone from one place to the other with the basis being improving policing through evidence, and I certainly appreciate you taking the time, especially during the holidays, peter, and I wish you luck as you proceed with writing and sharing all of the knowledge that you have inside you. Thank you, it's been a pleasure. I appreciate it. So that's another episode of the CopDoc podcast in the can. Thanks for listening, thanks for all who have listened from across the globe and again, continue trying to focus on police leadership and innovation. Have a great day, stay safe.

Steve Morreale: 27:53

Thanks for listening to the CopDoc podcast with Dr Steve Morreale. 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.