Paul Tripp | MCC: 0:06

Welcome to Courageous Conversations where we dive deep into transformational journeys and powerful moments of change. Today I wanna ask you, what assumptions do you make when you think of a police officer? Do you picture someone hardened by years of service, distant or unapproachable? Well, our guest today is going to change that narrative. We're joined by Chief Ezio, a chief of police who defies the conventional image of what you might think it means to be in law enforcement. Chief CIO's journey is one of service, dedication, and a commitment to honest feedback. In this episode, we'll explore how he balances the weight of authority with compassion, how he approaches the mental health of his officers, and how he navigates the assumptions people often make about the police force. His leadership style isn't about rigid control. It's about collaboration, resilience, and creating a culture of care within his police force. So as you listen, consider your own role. How do assumptions about your work or leadership hold you back? What can you learn from Chief Ezio about the importance of staying true to your organization's mission, while adapting to change? Whether you're managing a team or just trying to be a more effective leader in your own life, this episode will challenge how you think about service, feedback, and personal growth. According to my watch, it's time for a courageous conversation. Chief Venio, welcome to Courageous Conversations. Thank you for having me. You bet. As you know, every leader's journey has roots, and understanding these roots really gives us insight into the person and leader you've become. So to start, I'd like to ask you, what are you a product of?

Jordan: 1:52

Oh boy, that's a tough first question. I think I'm a product of I'm, I'm just a small town kid from Montana, and that has really allowed me to relate to people that go through some of the struggles that I. I have to deal with in my career and my profession, and it has allowed me to understand where some people are coming from and the challenges that they go through and build some trust as I've worked through my career in law enforcement.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 2:23

How do you think the small town has contributed to the fact that you've been able to elevate up through leadership ranks?

Jordan: 2:31

I think you learn more of challenges outside your home because it's such a small town. So I've been able to be exposed to a lot of the different difficulties that a typical person will face throughout my life, and it has really allowed me to just understand those people a little more. And when you understand the people that you deal with in your job, I think you find more success in navigating those challenges with them.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 2:57

So you gave us an example there of how you've been able to relate to people, but I wonder how has the small town experience allowed you to understand this is who I am and this is what I want for my life?

Jordan: 3:13

I didn't really understand what I wanted for my life until I was a little bit older. And growing up in a small town, I don't know that I really had clear direction of, of where I was headed at a young age. But the second that I got into this profession of law enforcement and I, I describe it as discovering purpose for the first time in my life, it really allowed me to see, clearly the path that I wanted to go down. And it, it was a little backwards for me because I really found it after I joined the profession. And I never felt that before, but. Things in my past became clear to me as I saw that purpose and as I move forward in my profession.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 3:51

I can imagine there are people listening who may be younger and who might think, gosh, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life. I'm not sure where I'm gonna go. Nothing's really making sense right now. What would you say to that?

Jordan: 4:04

I think that if you put yourself out there and you try for different things, you know. When it's meant for you, you feel when what you're doing is right and that it's something that you want to continue doing for the rest of your life. I think the challenge is just getting exposure, putting yourself out there, surrounding yourself with people who want to do good things, who want to better themselves. And as your life takes you different directions, I think that you will discover whatever that

Paul Tripp | MCC: 4:31

purpose is for you. So what clicked for you? How did you know? For me, it was that feeling of helping someone, the feeling that I got when

Jordan: 4:45

as a police officer, you go to work and you really don't know what the day holds, but you have these encounters where you can feel that you made the difference in connecting with that person that day. Our job is challenging the sense of not everybody we deal with believes we're helping them. A significant amount. Do not believe that. But it allows us, if we really stick to this mindset of being helpers and being servants in this profession, you should have no doubt at the end of a career of all the positive things you did and all the impacts you made on people.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 5:17

I wasn't gonna go here, but now that you brought this up, I am gonna go here. Sure. I know you to be a kind man, and I'm curious, you've been in the police department for many years and there's a perception that as police officers, sometimes police officers can become jaded and angry. And you just said that sometimes people don't see you as a helper to them or as wanting to help. How have you been able to maintain a mindset of, oh, right. I don't wanna be an asshole. Right. I'm not gonna let the job jade me and I'm going to keep a mindset of helping.

Jordan: 5:56

I think it's who I've surrounded myself with in my life, and I've really focused on family, friends, not only in the law enforcement profession. Because that perception and what you see happen in law enforcement over the years, it's a real challenge. It's trauma on police officers is what happens to them. And they, the exposure day after day after day, that's not dealt with internally with police officers. They develop a very jaded sense of the world, and it's up to us in leadership. As we move forward in this profession to implement ways to make sure that doesn't happen. So for me personally, I saw it early. I saw personalities of people. I'm close with changing, and I knew it was because of the job, but I also got into the profession at a time where. Officer wellness and taking care of ourselves was starting to be pushed. So early on, I was told by my bosses that you need to watch for these things. Some of the generations before me, which I think we've really seen some of the impacts in this last decade or two. Not only were they not exposed to taking care of themselves, they were told to suppress it and to not talk about these things that they're seeing. I think you'll see a drastic change in direction. For the wellness of police officers as we move forward as a country.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 7:16

So how are you addressing mental health within the police force?

Jordan: 7:19

I've assigned an officer, wellness coordinator. This is an officer that helps build policy and implement protocols for ensuring that our police officers are taken care of and they report to me. There is confidentiality built within it, but they report to me on the direction of the program, the success of the program so that I can ensure it's being utilized and adjust if I need to. For example, if I hear that. This specific policy is not being used because there's language in it that officers fear. It's not going to be confidential. I can look at that. I can see where they're coming from, and then I can look at is it a law that required me to have the policy that way, or can I change verbiage? Can I make sure there's trust in the program to ensure success?

Paul Tripp | MCC: 8:09

Hmm. You raised a point about officers being engaged and feeling safe and their mental health being taken care of, and I know a lot of corporations out there are struggling with retention. How does the organization meet the remit of what they need to do operationally and ensure that the person is taken care of and, and they feel seen and heard and nurtured on the job? How do you do it in the police force? I

Jordan: 8:36

think it's staying clear with the messaging of what our purpose is, what our mission is right up front. When someone becomes a police officer, we need to make clear that the first thing that we prioritize at our police department is the mission of serving the community. And that has to come first. It has to always come first, but in that same message, we need to make clear that the employee and those actually doing the work are going to be taken care of. Consistency in how we move forward as a police department, I think is very important and trust to ensure the decisions that are gonna be made. They know they're coming from a good place and they know they're consistent and not all over the place and how we make decisions, and they always go back to the mission of what is best for the community that we serve.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 9:21

So you have clear communication. You have consistent communication. You have both of those tied to the mission and the vision of what you're doing. And what else do you offer employees or how do you partner with employees to ensure that they feel like, ah, I am a part of the mission?

Jordan: 9:39

So small things that I do is I really try to engage, I work within a collective bargaining agreement, right? My employees are part of a union that I have to engage with consistently, although I. Sometimes we have different viewpoints of the direction we need to go. I make sure I pull them into decisions that even if I didn't specifically need their buy-in for it, if I identify this as a big change, that I need that support. I'm going to slow down that decision for a few months. I'm gonna engage with them to really make them feel that. For one, we have this problem that we can both agree on, we need a solution for, and then we work together on finding out what that is. An example of that right now is I'm working with our union on mandatory overtime rotations. So one thing you're seeing in law enforcement is as we have pushed officer wellness and take care of yourself and spend time with your family, that has resulted in, yeah, I'll pass on that overtime shift, which is Right. That makes sense. If we put the mission first and we say, I understand you like your time off, and that's important. However, if the mission is not being met because we have these overtime needs. We need to address that. And so what is the best way that we can do that together to make sure that it's fair, it's equitable, and it's not always just the brand new officer that has lowest seniority that we are ordering to work these overtime shifts.'cause they will get burned out and then we will have retention issues. And everything will start to compound. So that's something I'm going through right now and something I really believe in is buy-in and support within our employee unions as well to make sure we both know the direction we're heading and how we're gonna get there.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 11:26

So you raised an interesting point about how you have taken a tact of engaging people, slowing down the process and inviting conversation, and often leaders think that means I'm submissive and I'm not making a decision, therefore I'm giving up some of my authority. How have you. Play that out in your mind, what's the risk benefit analysis there for you of, I'm still keeping my authority, but I'm inviting them in?

Jordan: 11:51

Well, I learned early on that I was not the smartest guy in the room quite often, but I got pretty effective at finding those people and making sure that I surrounded myself with people that had good ideas that would be successful. And I think leaders who take that approach of, I always have to know the answer, I think you rapidly lose credibility. When you take that stance, because common sense says you are not always the guy that knows the answer, but when your employees know that you are the guy who's gonna take time and find the best answer available, they automatically, there's some built in trust and credibility with how you approach things. But to be fair, in the end, I am the decision maker and I am accountable for those decisions. So. In those discussions and in that approach that I take, it's obvious to me that we are not even close on the same page with what needs to be met and accomplished. I do have to make those harder decisions.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 12:50

Hmm. So there are times when you're collaborative and times where you know, Hey, I need to make this final decision.

Jordan: 12:57

Yeah. Sometimes we don't have time to work together on it. A decision has to be made and I'm going to make it. But when time allows and when the situation allows, I don't think there's ever any harm of collaboration.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 13:09

So we started off by you referencing, you grew up in a small town and where you're the chief of police. It is changing dramatically because lots of people are moving into the state and it's becoming more complex. And you also stated that you've learned to surround yourself with people that you trust. And the question I have is you've been in this de Police department for several years and you've moved up from the junior rank to now the chief. You've had to probably navigate close personal relationships, and when you've been promoted over time and now you're the chief, how have you been able to hold the standard of, oh gee, I'm the chief now, and even though I had a relationship with you in this role, I'm now the boss and now we need to do things differently?

Jordan: 13:54

Well, for me personally, I have only become close with people who, it goes back to that mission first, so at work. I have surrounded myself with people that I care deeply about that have the understanding and the mindset that as law enforcement officers, the mission has to come before anything else. And that has been clear throughout my career, whether it's a brand new police officer or as the police chief. So when I have encountered times where I've had to redirect or discipline people that I care deeply about, it has gone so much smoother because the expectation from them, they know. Well, that's going to be because they know who I am and they know what's out of good intentions and necessity of when you work in public service and you work in a job that is supposed to be for the people. That has to come before my friendship with you, and I've always taken the approach of if I do that and that conflict results in someone not wanting to be on a personal level with me, there's nothing I can do about it.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 15:01

Have you always led with a mission first mindset?

Jordan: 15:06

I wouldn't say always. I will say that a few years into my career, somebody actually bought me a book and it was called The Mission to Men and Me, and it really correlated mostly to military background, but it was someone's approach to leadership of the mission always has to come first. After that, you have to consider the men and women actually doing the job, right? But never at the expense of us accomplishing our mission. And then lastly, if I don't take care of myself and if I'm not right and well to lead, then we won't be successful. And that book was really the first intriguing literature that I started looking at leadership in a, in an educational way. Like there almost like there's a science to this. There's way you can approach leadership. It's not. I think some of it's natural, but a lot of it is learned. Leadership can be learned, and I think that's important.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 16:00

You have officers or people on your team where the friendship comes first. Often in corporate America wanting to be someone's friend or wanting to be knowing about their personal life and their professional life. There's this mindset of, then it makes us a stronger team. Mm-hmm. What would you say to that?

Jordan: 16:20

We're a little bit unique because I have no requirement of building a profit. It's very internal, the motivation for law enforcement, but even if you're in private business and you have a profit outcome, whatever your mission is, whatever you're building, if that is not at the top of every decision you make, at some point it's gonna rear its head and it's gonna cause issues.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 16:41

Hmm, interesting. What was the most pivotal moment that required you to rethink your approach to leadership?

Jordan: 16:50

Early on, I had identified people in my profession that I knew to be extremely technically competent. They knew all the laws, they understood how to manage crime scenes rapidly. They were quick thinking and I looked at them as, you know, someone to focus on of, okay, look. Look at this person, how successful they are with that. Then I watched them take on some leadership roles, and their technical competence was not met with trustworthiness or credibility, and they floundered they could not find success. Even though by the book, they were probably the most competent people in our job. It led me to view leadership as if I have to have a foundation of leadership, it's going to be trustworthiness and credibility. And even if I am not the person that knows every answer, they know that I'm gonna find that person and they know that they're gonna believe in my intentions. And from there, if you start with that foundation of credibility and trustworthiness and you are technically competent, you will find wild success in leadership. However, if you're technically competent, but that's on top of a foundation of untrustworthiness self-serving, it will crumble. At some point, I think you can get away with, I. Not being perfect when you have that because you will not be perfect in leadership. But if you're not perfect and people believe in you, you're gonna get through it a lot easier.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 18:20

So let me challenge that for a minute. Trustworthiness and credibility. There are, I'm sure times in your career where there are gray areas where you are required to do something that is not going to be perceived as popular, or the troops aren't gonna buy in, right? The police force isn't gonna buy in to what it is you have to do or say. How do you navigate those situations? Well, when I say trustworthiness, I don't mean

Jordan: 18:50

that people will always agree with my decision. I say when I say trustworthy, I mean people know that my decision is not self-serving. People know that I'm not only looking out for myself when I make these decisions because that's what I always do, right? And they believe that. So no matter if I make the best decision in the world. They're kind of side eye it because this guy always does this. So when I say trustworthiness, I don't mean that they always agree with it. I mean, they know where it's coming from and they know the intention behind it. And me as a person they believe is not going to intentionally try to harm them at my own benefit.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 19:28

Let me ask you about, after you took over this role as chief of Police, you had to implement changes. You had a critical assessment of your organization, right? You brought in an outside agency who did an assessment of your organization. How did you navigate the internal resistance and help your team understand, oh, this is what we need to do because you're just the new guy.

Jordan: 19:48

The first thing we had to make clear is if we're going to have an outside assessment. We're going to have somebody third party come in and look at the ins and outs of our police department. We need to be prepared to answer questions and be responsive to some of those. So that means we can't cherry pick the things that we think are beneficial for us, and then ignore the things that shine bad light on us. We have to look at both. So when we get somebody from the outside saying, Hey, you do these things really well, but these other 10 things are a big concern. We have to be able to embrace both of those and face it head on. And we worked with our employees as we went through these assessments to make sure that they also understood that this was a kind of an all in approach to having this company come in and look at it. We're not just having an assessment that says you need to increase your police department by 20%, and we're gonna just put that in the newspaper every day that we're short staffed and we're gonna ignore fact that. We're failing with technology and we have some protocols that are not best practices that we've been implementing. We don't have good tracking for officer standards or use of force or complaints. We're failing in those areas. We had to really embrace that and look at the community and say, here it is. Here's everything we want to better. We want to address these things, and here's our path that we think we can do it with.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 21:16

How do you navigate the fact that you are a public figure? You're gonna be in the newspaper if you do one wrong thing, right? And you also have to make tough decisions because you have a very public role.

Jordan: 21:28

I try to really remove emotion out of all my decisions, and I guess I'd refer to as leading through truth and whatever that is. I guess multiple people have different truths sometimes, but lead through my truth, something that I can stand on. And say, here's the reasons why I make these decisions. But it is a challenge for me. I'm not wildly comfortable with media and being out there in the public a lot. I don't enjoy it. It's not my favorite part of the job, but I know it's necessary for me, so I fake it the best I can.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 21:59

Are you faking it here? Are you enjoying this little media opportunity? You know, I am enjoying this. I am. It's a good conversation. You say lead with truth and. Often, leaders are scared to lead with truth because they feel it will alienate or offend. How do you deal with speaking your truth and not offending people?

Jordan: 22:22

I don't really worry about offending people. I think if you put too much effort in not offending people, you become ineffective. But I also understand there's certain things that there's no place for a police chief to talk about or consider politics. I'm not a political elected official. I'm a police chief. I'm a police chief for every citizen in my city. So of course I'm going to avoid political hot buttons. I'm smart enough to do that, but also I don't, if the facts and the data support certain actions, I'm not gonna put a whole lot of stress on that. Someone might be offended by. Sometimes people are offended by anything.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 23:03

Okay. So you lead with your truth, what you think is your truth. I do. Okay. Has that ever gotten you into trouble? Not yet. I try to be pretty rational.

Jordan: 23:16

I try to always see multiple sides of things. Even if I land on one or the other, I always understand where other people are coming from, if we can have conversations about it. I, I think as a police chief, there's certain things that there's just no place in having conversations and approach My job as being everyone's chief of police, we serve everyone in our community, and that's really the only way to approach it from a police chief perspective.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 23:41

So it seems like you have a lot of personal growth and personal growth, as you know, plays a critical role in leadership development. Can you describe a moment when a personal challenge significantly impacted how you lead and how that informed your professional growth?

Jordan: 23:58

Over my last 15 years in law enforcement, I had. A significant amount of my time was on patrol and also on the SWAT team, and it led to multiple critical incidents that are challenging to navigate in law enforcement. And as I had those incidents occur, you look at how your bosses handle that, and I can see what their approach was to some of these incidents. And I will say that mine did a pretty good job. I never felt that I wasn't supported, but I felt the weight. Of what they said, and I felt the impact and the magnitude of the words that leadership can say in those moments, and you only get one shot at it. There's no redos. If something tragic has occurred, something hard has occurred, and you have that interaction, you cannot hit rewind. How you handle that in the moment. Quickly is going to be forever ingrained on these people that you care about and that are your employees and that you need to continue to be well and continue to serve. And so as, as I looked at that and I really in the moment, you have to put your own concerns aside because as a police chief, when there's a critical incident, of course I care about the employee and that it should be always the first thought. I also have a lot of other thoughts that I have to consider. What will the political fallout be of this? I, I don't have a lot of information right now. I hope everything was good. I hope this was legitimate, and you cannot let those worries be your first approach. You can't. There's time for that. Learn what happened. Get information that has to be secondary saving. My job has to come second to that because. Of the time. Everything is gonna be okay. Everything is gonna be all right. Slow down, take care of your people, look at all the information you have, and then respond to the other stuff if you have to.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 26:01

So in a crisis situation, your first concern is your people.

Jordan: 26:07

First concern is the mission, making sure the mission was accomplished, but I know the impact of some of these critical incidents on our employees and their career ending. If they're handled poorly, they end their careers and it is vital for leadership to understand that. And of course, we have to do what's right. Sometimes things that our employees do is not the right thing, and we'll have to address that. But I think in the moments you need to show that you understand the challenge, you understand the difficulties and the things that they're going through. And identify the clear path of what's next, how we're gonna process this and move forward for them so that they understand it. And so we provide training to our supervisors in this area and make sure that it's handled the right way. And fortunately, these incidents aren't every day, but they're more frequent than ever and we have to get it right.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 27:02

Just as I listen to you talk, you sound like a very rational, self evolved leader, and yet when I open up the news, there's all kinds of stories about police and shootings and all kinds of shenanigans that have happened, and I'm wondering from your perspective, what do you think is a misperception that the public doesn't know about what it is you do

Jordan: 27:25

and represent? I think that the public understand law enforcement's a challenging job. I think most the public. We'll say that I don't think that they fully grasp the moments that these police officers have to go through. I don't think they grasp the tragedy that they see every day. That's shaping their thoughts. That's shaping their decisions. I don't think they fully grasp that, and that's the way it should be. That's why we have police officers. We have police officers that are supposed to take this on. For the community and for our citizens. I think there's obviously politics, media, all these things that come into play, but also sometimes we do just make mistakes and we do hire the wrong people or we do things wrong. I think the scale of how often that happens, even though one is too much, the scale of how often it happens is skewed, right? There are billions of police interactions with citizens in the United States every year. Billions. Everything we do is recorded, and you will find a handful of awful videos out there, out of billions, and people are looking for'em every day. They're looking for these videos. They're looking for us to make a mistake. But I know part of finding that purpose for me was I was surrounded by people that I could see had the same purpose. They're selfless. They put themselves in harm's way. They sacrifice their family time, their own wellbeing. And when I, when you know that and when you grow up in that, you, you really see the power in this profession and the selflessness and you hold those people in such a high regard because of what you've gone through with them. I know you an experience in military and it's probably very to. The things that you do with these people, no one else will relate to you, no one else understands, and so you start to really lean into that.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 29:24

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Shared commonality. Yeah. Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking about resilience and I'm wondering how do you cultivate resilience, both personally, for yourself and professionally to help the focus and drive continue?

Jordan: 29:41

Resilience, I think is one of the most critical things that we are growing in law enforcement. Understanding the challenges that you're going to face, having systems of support and growth set up in our profession to come out of those. Okay. But then at the same time, having systems set up to understand when you're not going to be okay. And as much as we try some things our officers go through. They may not ever find themselves in a position that they're okay to be a police officer again, and that's okay. And that's not weakness at all. That's kind of understanding yourselves and knowing that if I don't leave this profession, we're not putting the mission first, right? I'm gonna leave it for people that are able to continue doing the job in the right way.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 30:30

So resilience is both about accepting the circumstance, but also where people are in their journey. Some people might not be a fit forever.

Jordan: 30:39

Absolutely. I'm really seeing that right now as we hire people, more than ever I'm seeing people with a, what I'd say is a servant's heart. It is so clear in the process that they want to serve and they want to help people, and they have this idea of law enforcement is where I want to be, but also at an increasing rate. I will say that the skillset needed to be a successful police officer. That mindset does not always match. So when we really focus on hiring for character, morality, good people that wanna serve more and more often, we are through the process and our training program, we are letting them go because that is not matching with your ability to respond to awful situations. People screaming and yelling, and you have to make decisions in five seconds and you're just not capable. So you have the intent and you have the heart and the desire, but you're not capable of doing the job. And that's okay too. And I feel strongly as my role as a police chief when I have those people come in and they want to do good. I owe it to their families and I owe it to them to reach that decision and say, Hey, this isn't for you. I'm so grateful you'd want to do this job. There's other ways to help. But your family deserves for you to come home every night, and it's not looking like that would happen.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 32:06

I was curious then why don't I ever get a smile when they pull me over for speeding? It's always such serious, sir. Roll down your window, right? I don't know. They should be smiling, right? I need a smile. Okay. If I'm gonna get pulled over, I need a smile. I. Right. You know, I wonder, you go to a situation, people are screaming and yelling. Sometimes it's domestic violence. I can't even imagine the scenarios that you all face. Mm-hmm. In your profession, how do you encourage officers to balance servant heart, right? Show up and be a leader that wants to help with, holy shit, I've got a real situation on my hands where people are getting hurt or have been hurt.

Jordan: 32:47

How does that work? We really train the need to stabilize situations before anything. So before you can be nice and before you can serve and help and be officer, nice guy, everything's gotta be safe. So your first approach to anything is safety, right? So the officer not smiling on a traffic stop. That actually made me think, we talked about misperceptions, right? When someone gets pulled over by a police officer and they're in a bad mood. I would challenge people to say, and sometimes they're just grumpy and they're not nice people and that's fine. But also wonder what was the rest of this officer's

Paul Tripp | MCC: 33:24

day like? Maybe he's got nothing to smile about, right?

Jordan: 33:30

Maybe there's nothing that he can put a smile on his face for because of what he just left five minutes ago, and he is not able to fake it. But that is a challenge for us in law enforcement to make every contact feel like this is the only thing that's going on. While speeding may not be a big deal, the call that they just left is a big deal and they are finding a way through it in their head as they have this happen, and they also took the time to stop and address that. Just focusing on making sure everyone's safe is first, and then after everyone is safe, we problem solve. We find out what's going on. We can show compassion, we can find resources, but that can never come before safety.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 34:11

Do you think that being a police officer, the career that has longevity, or do you feel like because of the TR trauma and the PTSD that builds up over time? It's not a career people should stay in for 10 or 20 years? You know, I've been asked this before. Do we see law enforcement moving to more

Jordan: 34:32

of a profession like the military, where generally you have someone going for four or five years and then they're out and more people come in? I think you have two very different missions there in the military capabilities versus law enforcement. Law enforcement. We rely so heavily on training and experience and what people learn long into this career. I do think that the days of 35, 40 year police officers are gone. If we truly prioritize wellness and resilience in these things, that's just not healthy. For that to continue for so long. But I don't think that we should, nor will we see the approach of, we just want a few years of law enforcement because it takes five years to even really be effective in law enforcement. And from that difference, be the skill sets you get at five years. Now you're a detective, now you're looking at the most important crime scenes in these cases, and you need to rely on skillset and experience to be effective for that. I think it would be a tragedy for. Our country and our communities, if we saw that little of experience continually in the law enforcement profession.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 35:44

So when I think about cities, I once did a ride along with a police officer in San Diego and saw two dead people in one day, and I was like, holy shit, I could never do this job. When you think about being a police officer in a city versus. Being a police officer. You say small town and there's five different communities surrounding in this mountain valley. What do you think the dynamics are or the complexities are between what you see and deal with? Because there's shoot offs that happen here. There's standoffs versus a city.

Jordan: 36:17

Yeah. Well, we do know that rural areas are the highest likelihood of officer critical incidents. So rural areas, smaller towns are the most likely spot for police officers to be involved in critical incidents and shootings, not big cities. And the reason that is, is the amount of law enforcement. So when you work in a big city, there's so many law enforcement officers around, we know that reduces the likelihood of somebody attacking a police officer or any type of critical incident. We know that there's different challenges. Because we are smaller police departments for Montana. My agency is one of the larger police departments in Montana. But if you look at on a national scale, it's a midsize police department. I wanna say 90% of law enforcement agencies in the country are smaller than 20 officers, 90%. So the vast majority are small departments. We have different obligations and responsibilities due to not having as many officers. So here you'll see police officers process crime scenes. You'll see them follow up on calls, maybe do more just community engagement, getting outta their car, talking to people in cities who will have specialized teams that will respond, make a scene safe, write people's names down, submit it to another team for follow up specialized evidence. Teams that come in. Way more secular in how they approach it. I think what I love about a. Is, it's very kind of a holistic approach to law enforcement. We get to do it all, see it all, and we become very competent in a lot of areas.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 38:00

So what do you think was a major shift for you and your career? I know you went to the FBI National Academy and that was a probably a perspective shift, but I'm wondering for you specifically, just as you maybe personally or something you experienced professionally, what was a major pivot for you? I don't know that I had a specific incident that

Jordan: 38:24

caused a pivot for me. I was able to get experience in a several different areas of our department, so I was able to work a little bit as a school resource officer with the community, and I really developed that sense of community engagement and the importance that has in law enforcement. I got to work on a drug task force for a while and got to see the darker side of. I'll call the underworld of drug addiction in that area. Patrol. I had a lot of experience on patrol. I got to ride a motorcycle unit, a traffic enforcement unit, the SWAT team. I've got to do a lot of stuff in law enforcement and

Paul Tripp | MCC: 38:59

really, I just developed such a sense of seeing the value of our profession. And

Jordan: 39:09

even though not everybody sees it, I believed in it so much. That I wanted to make sure that I progressed and worked myself into positions that I felt I could help police officers be more successful. And that in turn, when we have successful police officers, healthy police officers, our community is gonna feel that impact. That is how you have a community that engages with law enforcement is because our law enforcement officers are well and they have the tools they need to do their job. They're healthy and. That approach first, I think, gets you the community support you need to be successful, and obviously at the top level of law enforcement as a police chief that impact is greater. Not that I do the work for the success, but I get to support the people that make it successful, and I want him to be that person.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 40:04

You know, what you just described was really a leaning in through different roles and different scenarios, and I'm wondering for you now as the chief, what are you leaning into to grow? What's next in terms of your professional development?

Jordan: 40:20

I think where I'm at in my professional development is I have a lot of change ahead for my police department. We're hiring 10 new officers, about a 25% increase of our staffing. We're building a new evidence facility. We're remodeling our police department. We're integrating an entirely new software system for our police officers, for body cameras, fleet less lethal devices, just massive amounts of change. I'm looking at hiring a crime analyst position. Which will be a data or intel driven approach for our police officers. So we're gonna have somebody full-time that is mining information, getting us as educated on what is happening in our community as we can, and we're using that information on how we deliver our service, how we enforce laws, where we enforce laws, what is gonna be most impactful. And what I'm really learning with this change is a couple things. Not all change is good. If you do change wrong, it's really bad. That is a big challenge for you. So I'm really, I'm not getting so focused on just the change. I'm focusing on making sure it's right and making sure it's at the right pace, making sure it's at a pace that our team can handle the change. Not putting too much at once. So what does that look like? Building out timelines, making sure the right positions come first, because sometimes you hire positions, but until this other thing is done, it's not gonna be successful. So we need to slow down. And I'm blessed to be in a position in a city that supports its police department and we just at one of the hardest times ever in probably the country, to ask people for more. That's exactly what we did. And we had a community that overwhelmingly said, we believe in our police department and they need more, and we're gonna pay for that and we're gonna pass this safety levy. Which really I will say was a generational impact for public safety in Kalis boat. Massive impact. And I owe it to the community to make sure we do it right. And sometimes that means slowing down, taking a step back, looking at everything that's happening, and make sure that our officers can be successful in implementing it. They understand the change, why we're doing it, and how exactly we're gonna get there when we make these changes. So it's really exciting.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 42:49

Hmm. So when you think about you as a leader, leaders often have this, a situation, a blind spot, uh, leadership quality that keeps coming up over and over that they have to learn and relearn, or they're like, oh God, there it is again. What's yours?

Jordan: 43:06

Well, that was mine. Pushing too far ahead, too fast. Always looking for next, always looking for change. And a, as I moved up that blind spot and that weakness for me started to get magnified. And sometimes you ignore it because you're just trying to do good things, right? You're just, I'm moving ahead. If we're not changing, we're dying. Well, sometimes change is catastrophic and it kills you'cause you did it the wrong way. I, I've really been aware of it the last several years. The programs like the FBI National Academy, you're surrounding yourself with the smartest people in the room. I always have people to lean on and contact

Paul Tripp | MCC: 43:49

and

Jordan: 43:50

ask questions and make sure that I am doing it the right way. And I also have a boss, a city manager who supports that approach rather than we pass a public safety levy and we tell the community that, Hey, we're getting two detectives and a crime analyst. And it's like, Hey, let's get that done. We promised the community, I want the community to see the success in it. So if it's gonna take six more months. It'll take six more months, but then we're gonna do it right and we're gonna see impact, and I think the community will support that.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 44:20

So you raise an interesting conundrum because if you're a leader who likes to push change, and if, if you're not changing, you're dying in the slowdown, how have you still felt like, ah, I have control, it's going according to what I need or want as a leader?

Jordan: 44:36

Yeah, I, I think it, it's just controlled change. You're still seeing the progress. You're still looking at these timelines and events of how we're gonna be doing these things. One thing I say that naturally helps slowing down change is government. It is so slow with everything. So while a business could move forward quickly in weeks, the things you have to do in government for budgetary changes and this stuff that I'm just now learning that I wasn't exposed to has caused me to naturally have been forced to slow down because I didn't have the ability, because government's slow. But then I saw the benefit that came where I would've moved faster. Then because I'm forced to slow down because I have these extra steps I have to go through, maybe the situation changed a little bit or maybe information was brought to my attention that I wouldn't have caught if we moved ahead too fast. And I'm not talking about dragging your feet like you're still moving forward, but do it when you have all the information you need. Do it when your people are prepared for the change, when the infrastructure's capable of the change and. The last thing you want is your people to see you moving forward with change and have it just falling on its face because we weren't prepared for it. And so it was really a mindset switch for me of don't be so focused on change, focus on changing the things that actually

Paul Tripp | MCC: 46:01

need to be changed and do it the right way. Interesting. And so what do you think your leadership superpower is? What have you realized? Ah, that's my superpower. Relatability. Why relatability?

Jordan: 46:17

I try to really show people that I care about them. I care about employees. I, and I think that I see it in the tough conversations I have when I bring employees in for disciplinary hearings or really hard conversations, and they go, well, they understand what has to happen. They may not like it, but they trust it. They trust that. Anybody that did what they did or was in a specific situation would have the same impact, the same result would happen. I think sometimes people in my position try to really separate themselves completely from everyone else, and that does reduce some stress in certain areas. If I don't know you, I don't care about you. You're just a number, you're a badge number. That fills a seat for me. I'm not gonna lose sleep. On the hard things because I don't even know you, but I can tell you I do lose sleep and it doesn't change my decision. I still care about you, and I do challenge myself in these decisions to make sure it's the right decision. I want to make sure that they know that they're not just a number, they're not just a badge, and that there's trust and relatability with me.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 47:36

I just wanna ask you two other questions, really. You just brought up relatability and having tough conversations, and I know that having difficult conversations is difficult for a lot of people because they think they need to go in and they're nervous, they're scared. How do you navigate having difficult conversations? What's the story in your head as you go in to do it? I separate humanity

Jordan: 48:02

and compassion and caring about people with. I sound like a broken record with the mission, with things that have to happen for our department to maintain relationships with its community and for us to be successful. These things have to happen, but I can in the same breath tell someone that they're terminated and they can't be a police officer, and I could give them a hug and care about them and hope their family's okay. My boss one. He used to say a lot was he would talk about mistakes of the heart versus mistakes of the mind, and being able to separate the two things. And so when I bring people into the police department and we hire'em, we have that conversation of this is a hard job and you're gonna make a lot of mistakes. And there's mistakes of the mind, which are errors. You tried to do something, you did it wrong. We need to address that. Mistakes of the heart are just gonna be morality, ethical decisions. You will not work here anymore when you do that. And we do that on day one. So the first meeting I have with them, I welcome'em to the department, talk about expectations, standards, and have that conversation. And I've had people that have had to either resign, they would've been terminated, but they have resigned and they have come to talk to me and say, I don't deserve to work with the police department because I did these things. They know it. They know that's the culture. They know that's the standard and they know what to expect with it. It doesn't make it easier. It doesn't mean I don't lose some sleep, right? But I can separate someone as a human

Paul Tripp | MCC: 49:45

and someone at work and what has to be done there. What question didn't I ask you today that you'd like to answer?

Jordan: 49:55

You asked a lot of questions. You know, I always enjoy talking with you and it's a good conversation that I always challenge myself when you ask these questions because I don't give it a lot of thought as I sit at my desk and work. This allows me to really, I. I think on some of these things and what my approach is, and I always grow from it. So I appreciate having these conversations with you.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 50:15

Yeah. Listen, I appreciate your dedication to the community. I am really happy and proud of you that you're the chief of police for where we all live, and I want to thank you for your time.

Jordan: 50:27

Thank you, Paul.

Paul Tripp | MCC: 50:31

Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Courageous Conversations. I hope you found today's discussion as inspiring and thought provoking as I did a special thank you to my guest, chief Jordan Venicio, for sharing his journey and insights. If you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with somebody who could benefit from this conversation. We've got some exciting guests lined up for our next episode, so make sure to tune in. You don't wanna miss it. Until then, stay curious, stay courageous, and keep the conversations in your life flowing.