Goal 1 - Leadership & Empowerment

Leadership can mean participating in meetings in the community, as Officer Robert Cervantes is doing photo by Bonnie Bucquerous, policing.com

The Grand Rapids Police Department shall encourage all members to be leaders. Leadership is the most important goal and the hardest to define. It means that each person in the department, from the captain to rookie, from the dispatcher to the Crime Scene Technician, must use his or her personal and positional power to help the Grand Rapids Police Department fulfill its mission of solving problems in neighborhoods. Through inspiration and perspiration, employees and volunteers of the department demonstrate that nothing can outperform dedicated people working together.

Objective 1 - Management must be willing to take risks and trust others.

• Strategy 1- Continually modify policies, practices and procedures to support decision-making at the line level.
• Milestones 1: The Manual of Procedures will be revised and operational by November 1998.
• Milestone 2: The Senior Management Team will name the Policy Development Committee by January 1999.
• Milestone 3: The Policy Development Committee will conduct a biannual review and revision (March & October) of policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that they conform with the goal of empowering line-level personnel.

• Strategy 2 - Change performance evaluations to reflect the commitment to encouraging efforts to solve problems in the community.
• Milestone 1: The Deputy Chief will develop a timetable for the development and implementation of new performance evaluation standards for the entire department as part of the overall plan for the City of Grand Rapids performance evaluation review.
• Milestone 2: The Chief and Senior Management will select consultants to advise the Deputy Chief.
• Milestone 3: The Deputy Chief will be responsible for conducting the job analysis, the development of job descriptions, and the creation of outcome-based evaluations for supervisors and line-level personnel that reflect community policing’s commitment to neighborhood-based problem solving, within the timetable established in consultation with the City of Grand Rapids.

• Strategy 3 - Develop formal and informal rewards to reflect the organizational mission.
• Milestone 1: The Awards Committee Chair (currently the Deputy Chief) will review and revise the process to explore changing the criteria and expanding the categories and frequency of formal awards to reflect community policing by June 1999.
• Milestone 2: Train leaders at all levels of the department on how to celebrate examples of service excellence through informal means, such as praise, media attention, department newsletters, beginning October 1998.

Objective 2 - Managers must model behavior that others should follow and take responsibility for their own decisions.

• Strategy 1 - Managers must demonstrate commitment to the principles of community policing and the organizational mission.

• Strategy 2 - Managers will work as a team to develop and achieve organizational goals, objectives, strategies, and action plans. Results of their weekly strategic planning update sessions will be disseminated throughout the department.

• Strategy 3 - The Senior Management Team shall identify its own members to gather input, advise, and make decisions on department infrastructures.

• Milestone 1: Senior Management will hold each other accountable for leading the process of change. Assignments for the six infrastructures are:

1. Philosophical infrastructure: Chief Dolan

2. Operational infrastructure: Deputy Chief Ostapowicz, Captain Belk

3. Technological/informational infrastructure: Captain VanderKooi, Captain Jager, Lt. Lennon

4. Physical infrastructure: Captain Snyder, Captain Gillis, Captain Farris, Captain Carrier

5. Collaborational infrastructure: Captain Carrier, Lieutenant Winters, Lieutenant Price, Karen Larson (Neighborhood Associations)

6. Financial infrastructure: Chief Dolan and Deputy Chief Ostapowicz

Objective 3 - Develop comprehensive training to support the organi- zational mission.

• Strategy 1 - Conduct a department-wide assessment on training needs for all personnel, sworn and civilian.
  • Milestone 1: Senior Management, in collaboration with the Training Bureau, will develop, complete, and conduct the needs assessment by June 1999, and it will be conducted annually by this date each succeeding year.

• Strategy 2 - Expand training to include new skills.
  • Milestone 1: Train all personnel in the basic philosophy and practice of community policing (completed by August 1998).
  • Milestone 2: All Community Officers and their immediate supervisors will be trained in advanced community policing and problem solving, with emphasis on collaboration, diversity, and communication skills, by June 1999.
  • Milestone 3: Train all supervisors and command officers in advanced community policing and problem solving by November 1999 and all personnel, sworn and civilian, by 2001.

Objective 4 - Encourage leadership and accountability at the line level and in the community.

• Strategy 1 - Challenge officers and the community to identify, prioritize, and resolve problems in their neighborhoods.
  • Milestone 1: First-line supervisors will promote team building and provide support and encouragement to grassroots problem solving.

• Strategy 2 - Officers must meet regularly with citizens in their neighborhoods, to assess progress toward problem resolution.

• Milestone 1: All Community Officers, starting with the pilot South Community Policing Team, will be trained in problem solving, project planning and conducting community meetings.
• Milestone 2: The pilot team will develop its initial plan for Community Officers and other officers to meet regularly with the community by January 1999.
• Milestone 3: Other teams will develop their plans by June 1999.

• Strategy 3 - Decentralize the investigative responsibility for some formal and all informal Internal Affairs complaints to unit commanders and/or first-line supervisors.
  • Milestone 1: Develop and implement by December 1998.