Writing about the feud between Milwaukee’s Chief Flynn and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bruce Murphy writes that
Experts on police departments will tell you that criticism from outside inevitably results in everyone on the force circling the wagons.
That’s very true. So true and predictable, that it’s more predictable and regular than Old Faithful has ever been. It’s why I’ve mentioned previously that bad organizations often don’t get better, they get worse.
One might think that failed leaders would see this, and would correct past mistakes through a routine of openness and new ideas. They don’t; typically they huddle more closely together. Mostly, this is because weak leaders would prefer the easy path of a small, sycophantic cadre to the better, but harder, scene of a dynamic organization. (It’s also because they isolate and delude themselves from growing criticism.)
In drawing ever closer and inward, the members of a weak organization only compound their mistakes and deficiencies.
The best option for a community is, of course, organizational reform. The second best, though, is exactly the organizational wagon-circling of which Murphy writes. Huddling together only exacerbates existing problems, speeds decline, and makes the case for reform stronger.
One would prefer the first option; as a reformer, one would still readily accept the second, knowing the eventual result is reform.
Via Inside Milwaukee.