Wednesday 5 December 2012

COME TO THE EDGE


So, I’m going to blog.

I’ve persuaded colleagues that it will be a good way to explore issues, listen and share ideas. It’s also an opportunity to communicate directly within the service and more importantly, hopefully, with the wider public.

So having got the ‘why do it’ sorted, I’ve become slightly / considerably (delete as appropriate) self absorbed on what to say!

There’s so much going on and I’ve got an opinion on most, if not all of it, so choosing a subject is already a challenge.

Close on the heels of what to say is the sudden ego shattering realisation that maybe / probably no one will be interested in what I think and I may simply be talking to myself.

However, I want to add my voice to a conversation about policing.

While expressing my view let’s be clear it is shaped by the people I have the privilege of working with, those who I know across the service and those I meet every day.

They all have a view about policing and the world around them and I am clear I have a responsibility to shape and influence the future of the service going forward. So, to coin a phrase, ‘we are all in this together’ and I am just one view, not the view, about where we are going.

However, to paraphrase Marianne Williamson, I don’t believe that playing small serves the world; I do believe that we are individually and collectively powerful and discussing issues of policing, justice and society are not insignificant.

Alongside Peel’s “Principles of Policing” I have the following quotation in my office, courtesy of Guillaume Apollinaire.

I have carried a version of it with me since my first promotion board. It continues to shape my approach to leadership:

‘Come to the edge’, He said.
They said, ‘We are afraid’.
‘Come to the edge’, He said.
They came.
He pushed them…and they flew.

Not bad for a surrealist and writer of risqué short stories (Guillaume not me!).

So, time for me to come to the edge and start a conversation.

1 comment:

  1. Good idea, although with what is happening to less senior police officers who use Twitter or blog on the future of policing I do wonder what 'shape and influence' will mean.

    ReplyDelete