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Chief’s Corner
Title Excerpt Author Link
Verbal De-escalation Techniques: How They Actually Work

Our verbal de-escalation courses help public safety professionals deal with difficult and argumentative verbal interactions with citizens without risking their careers. At the heart of this is the Rhetorical Continuum—in other words, just like there are ranges of force, there are also various levels of rhetoric that you can use to overcome citizen resistance. Like […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan (ret.) Read More
“Why?” Is Not Always a Form of Disrespect

“Why?” This is a one-word question that requests clarification, reasoning, or purpose of some thing or some request. Asking ‘why’ is a universally human concept. Aristotle pointed this out over 2,300 years ago when he said, “All human beings, by nature, desire to know.”1 It is also a truly American word. In the United States, […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan (ret.) Read More
Are You Exercising Your Social Media Rights? Dolan Consulting Group Read More
Don’t Lose the Agreeable People!

Psychological research has suggested that about 80% of the U.S. population is made up of agreeable people.1 Agreeable people are generally honest, seek to get along with others, are open to suggestions, and are compliant to most rules and authority. They can be young or old, rich or poor, male or female, and of any […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan Read More
The ‘Language of the Street’ Fallacy

In our Surviving Verbal Conflict® and Winning Back Your Community courses we caution law enforcement officers to avoid using what is called the ‘language of the street.’ The language of the street refers to profanity and other abrasive language often used by the criminal element in some neighborhoods. While most officers agree that using this […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan (Ret.) & Richard R. Johnson, Ph. D. Read More
Verbal Contact and Cover Protecting Your Colleagues and Your Profession

Far too often today, I believe, police officers are being ‘rope-a-doped’ by manipulative people out on the street. Taken from the tactic famously employed by boxing legend Muhammad Ali, the ‘rope-a-dope’ is when a challenging or manipulative person says things that are intentionally crafted to get under your skin, make you angry, and get you […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan Read More
The 24-Hour Rule

Information delivered in the midst of a crisis is often inaccurate. It has been my experience that the first wave of information, gathered in a hurried or excited manner, always contains some inaccuracies. Sometimes, as public safety leaders, we have no choice but to make quick decisions based on incomplete information when dealing with emergency […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan (ret.) Read More
Don’t Get “Rope-A-Doped”!

Boxing champion Muhammad Ali recently passed away and as I was growing up I admired him as a boxer. Besides being a talented athlete, Ali was a master at using psychology against his opponents. One of his most successful psychological tricks was what he called the “rope-a-dope.” The rope-a-dope technique was primarily focused on getting […]

Chief Harry P. Dolan (Ret.) Read More
Developing Organizational Performance Leadership