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O R I G I N A L P A P E R

Building capability throughout a change effort: leading the transformation of a police agency to community policing

J. Kevin Ford

Published online: 10 April 2007

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract This case describes a change effort to move a

police agency to become a community policing organiza-

tion. The community policing effort was seen as a means to

make a transformational change to become a learning

organization with the goal of improving the delivery of

police services. The case describes the steps taken to meet

the new vision of community policing as well as the steps

taken to deal with the challenges or realities of trying to

make change happen. The lens for this case is the leader-

ship role across the stages of change (exploration, plan-

ning, implementation, monitoring and institutionalization)

in building capacity within the organization to sustain the

change effort. The capacity building focused on incorpo-

rating systems thinking into the mindset of the members of

the organization, breaking down the command and control

mindset by building a new norm around high involvement

of committed teams, and developing skill sets to support

continuous learning and improvement in order to align

organizational systems. A key lesson learned is that

effective leaders do not just prepare an organization prior

to a change effort. They must have the patience to con-

stantly build the capacity for change among organizational

members throughout the various stages of the change

effort.

Keywords Building capability � Transformational change � Case study � Community policing

Leading-edge organizations are deriving ever increasing

value by tapping into employee and stakeholder insights,

expertise and capability (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

Knowledge driven work systems are helping to transform

workplaces to become more effective and to better meet

customer needs (Kermally, 2002). This transformation to

knowledge driven work systems has begun to move beyond

the private sector to the public sector (Tan & Heracleous,

2001).

Police organizations are often described as having a para-

military organizational hierarchy that is status quo oriented

(Goldstein, 1990; Greene & Mastrofski, 1988). Community

policing is an organizational strategy that emerged in the

1980s and 90s for dramatically improving the delivery of

police services (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1990). The

strategy requires greater emphasis on knowledge manage-

ment, teamwork, and partnerships with the community in

order for the police agency to become more proactive and

adaptable in dealing with crime as well becoming more

focused on enhancing the quality of life for the community

(Mastrofski, 1999; Morash & Ford, 2002; Wycoff, 1994).

Although much has been written about the overall phi-

losophy of community policing, fewer efforts have been

directed towards understanding the strategies needed to

build capabilities for change. This case describes a seven

year effort by one police department to become a com-

munity policing organization. In this case, the Chief of the

Jackson Police Department (JPD) in Michigan had a vision

of transforming the whole organization rather than just

adding specialized patrols units whose job responsibilities

would involve more interaction with the community. In

essence, everyone’s job was to become community polic-

ing oriented.

Systems change involves the consideration of the

interdependency, interconnectedness, and interrelatedness

J. K. Ford (&) Department of Psychology, Psychology Building, Michigan

State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1116, USA

e-mail: fordjk@msu.edu

123

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

DOI 10.1007/s10464-007-9115-2

of the parts within the organization that constitutes the

whole. In this police context, we viewed the systems

change effort as frame breaking or transformational as

everything about how the agency is structured, managed,

and how it interacts with the external world is ‘‘on the

table’’ to improve organizational effectiveness. Systems

change recognizes that transforming an organization takes

years to accomplish. The alignment of parts must lead to

changes in mindsets and skillsets so that the new ways of

organizing can lead to changes in how people behave.

These changes take a commitment by leadership to be

patient and methodical in building capability while

exploring, committing, planning, implementing, and

revising plans with the goal of institutionalizing the

principles of community policing.

Systems change must deal simultaneously with two

aspects of the organizational culture––the ‘‘apparent’’

organization and the ‘‘below the surface’’ organization

(Scholtes, 1998). The apparent organization refers to the

visible or more formal version of the organization such as the

hierarchical structure and chain of command, the official

roles, functions, and job descriptions; the facilities and

equipment used and the policies, goals, and standards. The

below the surface organization refers to the informal com-

ponents of the department that are shaped by the styles and

values of its leaders and by its history. This less visible (and

often not discussed) aspect of the organization includes the

values, beliefs and assumptions that drive organizational

decision making and work behavior (e.g., Argyris, 1999;

Schein, 1992). It is this below the surface organization that

most often frames how individuals feel about their work-

place. Therefore, our efforts were focused on an integrative

approach that linked what was being done at the apparent

level with changes desired at the below the surface level.

In this case, the leadership team felt that a major

structural change needed to drive this transformational ef-

fort was the move to a team based policing strategy based

on the distribution of officers to geographically defined

sectors in the city (Alley, Bonello, & Schafer, 2002). The

efforts also focused on the leader’s efforts to incorporate

process issues such as systems thinking, high involvement,

and a focus on learning in order to change the underlying

assumptions and beliefs about police work (e.g., police can

play a role in improving quality of life issues), how deci-

sions can be made (i.e., quality decisions can be made by

those closest to the issues rather than always through the

command and control structure) and how police can

interact with the community (e.g., there can be more trust

and mutual respect developed between police and various

community groups that lead to more permanent solutions to

on-going problems).

An action research model was employed in which we

facilitated the change effort while at the same time docu-

menting it. We facilitated committee meetings, worked

with the leadership team on identifying key challenges,

became a sounding board for ideas for moving the change

process forward, provided just in time training (e.g., how to

run team meetings effectively), helped identify training

needs, trained the trainer (e.g., problem solving training),

as well as gathered, analyzed, and fed back data on the

process of change.

What makes this case distinct from other community

policing case studies is the emphasis on what the leadership

did to build the capacity for challenging the underlying

assumptions and beliefs of the below the surface organi-

zation throughout the change process. Most case studies

take place after the change process has emerged and the

department has already been labeled a ‘‘success.’’ We

began this journey in 1998 without any foreknowledge of

whether this ‘‘case’’ would be a success or a failure. Case

studies on community policing have focused on changes in

the apparent organization rather than dealing with capacity

building to change the below the surface organization. The

cases also tend not to discuss the continual struggles to

make change happen as the change process continues to

unfold over time.

Background

The Jackson Police Department is comprised of about 70

sworn officers and 24 civilians that serve a citizen popu-

lation of 37,000. Each year, they handle approximately

38,000 social order and/or criminal incidents, 96,000 walk-

in or telephone citizen contacts, and at least 10,000 records,

licensing, evidence management and other citizen requests

for information. Moreover, they stop approximately 18,000

traffic violators per year.

In our initial meetings with the Chief, we emphasized

our orientation as action researchers and that we would be

documenting the reality of change—the good and the bad.

We explained our focus would take into account both the

apparent and below the surface issues. We took a learning

perspective to change with the focus on the development of

a cyclical model of data gathering, shared knowledge, ac-

tion and feedback around the bold vision for the change

(e.g., see French & Bell, 1999). The goal is for the police

agency to learn how to work more effectively together and

to learn how to make change happen (Argyris, 1983)

through creating positive cycles of learning about and

working on improving systems (e.g., see Alarid, 2000;

Geller, 1997). As noted by Senge (1990), through learning,

organizations can do things they were never able to do and

thus expand the organization’s capacity to create its future.

We saw the community policing strategy as a means to an

end not an end in and of itself. The key question throughout

322 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

123

the change effort was whether the police agency was cre-

ating greater capacity to create its future by becoming more

of a learning organization.

In addition, our working assumption was that change

requires looking at and simultaneously working on how to

create systems to support the vision for change and at the

same time to identify and deal with the realities, which

poses challenges for the change effort. Pushing on a vision

is often overvalued by leaders who would like to assume

almost a ‘‘clean slate’’ in their organization. From our

perspective, one must enhance the value of knowing where

the current system is and how it got there through creating

the space and time for dialog on how one can move from

that current reality to the vision. This takes a sincere effort

to set up ways to learn from and act with full knowledge of

the reality of the where the organization is currently (both

apparent and below the surface) and where it has been

(e.g., see Bridges, 1991).

In essence, we took a dialectic approach to

change—putting issues ‘‘on the table’’ about the apparent

and below the surface and the link between current realities

and the vision. The vision was the thesis and the current

reality the antithesis. Reality is often fraught with discon-

nects where the aims of a change effort are not meeting the

reality. They point to underlying differences and deep se-

ated dilemmas that the organization needs to address. The

synthesis is simultaneously working towards the vision

while being rooted in reality. This framework is dialectical

as it forces the identification of issues that people need to

grapple with in order to develop shared understanding to

drive effective action for change.

Organizational change stages

While the process of change is never ending and is clearly

not linear (e.g., see Crossan, Cunha, Vera, & Cunha, 2005;

Gersick, 1991; Wheatley, 1992), it can be examined in

terms of distinct phases or stages (Berger, Sikora, & Ber-

ger, 1993; French & Bell, 1999; Rothwell, McLean, &

Sullivan, 1995; Serverance & Passino, 2002). By dividing

up ‘‘time’’ by stages, one can distribute the flow of the

change process into meaningful segments. Our model

consists of five stages: Exploration, Commitment, Plan-

ning, Implementation, and Monitoring/Revising with the

ultimate goal being the institutionalization of the change

effort. For the current paper, the emphasis is on the dialog

around the vision and reality that was the focus at each

stage as well as the strategy employed by the leadership to

build the capacity for change.

Exploration involves the investigation of alternative

approaches to the current system. In the commitment stage,

the leader makes the decision to move forward and

challenge the status quo by creating a new vision. Strategic

Planning is an effort to take a new vision and develop a

strategy for achieving it. The Implementation stage is

perhaps the most visible component of the change process

as it involves the implementation of action plans and the

transition from the ‘‘old’’ ways of doing things to the

‘‘new’’ way of doing things. Monitoring and Revising is a

system to evaluate the change effort and quantify progress,

identify gaps, and develop new action plans. Institution-

alization occurs when new procedures, policies and sys-

tems formally replace the old methods. From an action

research perspective, there were important drivers and

restraining forces that emerged at each stage. How the

leaders addressed these issues to build capacity for change

spoke volumes about the success of this effort.

Exploration

Starting in 1990, the JPD began performing basic com-

munity policing activities such as assigning officers to live

in city-owned houses in troubled neighborhoods. However,

activities such as these were independent of the traditional

police services and this effort did not have a far reaching

impact on the police agency. As noted by one member of

the command staff ‘‘I did not think we were very customer-

oriented...we were still like the 60s and 70s as a paramil-

itary organization ... we were not too concerned about what

the community wanted.’’

In 1996, a new city manager was hired and immediately

was faced with a problem. The police department was

plagued with disciplinary problems and citizen complaints.

The city manager wanted a police chief who was not afraid

to make tough decisions and who would build a police

force that could reconnect with citizens. There was also

pressure from external stakeholders like city council and

church groups to ‘‘do something different’’ within the JPD.

In 1996, the city manager chose Chief Portis as the new

police chief at the JPD.

As described by the new Chief ‘‘from the moment a new

police chief is announced, folks want to know what the

chief is going to change...everyone expects the new guy to

do something different than his/her predecessor.’’ While

there was pressure for change, a key restraining force was

apathy. Many experienced police personnel felt that the

department had been unfairly fingered by external stake-

holders as a problem and thus an ‘‘us’’ versus ‘‘them’’

perspective reigned. Another key restraining force was that

past change efforts within the department were viewed as

failures. In interviews with the top four command staff

members early in the change process, no member could

provide us with a success story. As one member succinctly

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334 323

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concluded ‘‘Here we go again...I don’t have time to screw

with this. I do not have the interest.’’

The dilemma, then, was how to generate enthusiasm for

a major transformational change effort when the perception

was that change efforts are doomed to fail. The Chief was

convinced that one key barrier was the prevalent command

and control mindset. The command staff felt it was their

job to make decisions. Change was seen as decided by and

dictated from above with sergeants and officers determin-

ing how to comply or get around those decisions. In the

face of external pressure, the internal apathy to stay status

quo, and the strong command and control mindset, the

Chief rightly chose not to immediately begin the move to

community policing. In fact, he waited two years to better

understand the organization and community perceptions of

the department, deal with current hot issues (such as

disciplinary issues) and to build capacity for change by

beginning to break down the command and control mindset

by increasing confidence that change was possible with the

concerted effort of people closest to the ‘‘problem’’ or

issue.

To impact this mindset, he realized that the department

needed a process for getting employees involved and for

giving them not only a voice but also decision making

power. He chose as the first key project the 192 general

orders—orders that had been developed by various top

leaders over the years. These orders provide the ‘‘rules’’

for officer conduct. The various multi-page general orders

had not been reviewed for many years, and there were a

number of inconsistencies in the orders. The Chief formed

a committee of people from various levels of the organi-

zation (mostly sergeants and officers) to review the docu-

ments. This high involvement strategy was met with

resistance from the members of his own top level command

staff. The committee was charged with reducing the

excessive number of general orders to a more value-based

set of policies. The committee’s recommendations to

reduce the number of general orders were agreed to and

fully implemented without any changes by top manage-

ment—this was an important step to say that there was a

new way of doing things—teams of empowered individuals

could succeed in changing the department without top

management micromanaging the process—an important

precursor to the larger community policing change that was

coming.

Commitment

The next step was to develop a new vision for the

department. It was important to the Chief that the new

vision be developed by multiple members from throughout

the department to broaden commitment. Prior to working

on a new vision, we suggested the need to complete a

facilitated assessment process to discuss what measurable

outcomes police personnel could see by moving to com-

munity policing as well as the challenges that would need

to be addressed. Perhaps more importantly, the process

would begin the push to expand the time horizons of police

personnel. Police personnel are very focused on the current

day to day realities. A capacity needed to be built where

police personnel would expand their time horizons to better

prepare them for full scale planning that would be needed

later in the change effort.

The facilitated assessment was a 4 hours meeting with

14 department members (the Chief, Deputy Chief, two

lieutenants, four sergeants, five officers and one non-sworn

employee). These individuals had attended a basic course

on community policing principles. Participants were asked

to identify future indicators that would demonstrate that a

move to community policing was successful. Then, each

individual was asked to provide an image of what ‘‘vic-

tory’’ would look like in two to three years. For example,

one officer stated a desire for ‘‘a majority of the citizens

will know the names of the officers assigned to their area’’.

The participants were also asked to record what they

thought were organizational drivers and barriers for the

change. This information was used to identify the impor-

tant things that needed to be done to achieve the victory.

They were asked ‘‘Considering the assets and obstacles,

what does your department need to do to achieve the

victory?’’ An informal brainstorming discussion ensued,

followed by attempts to categorize the information into

manageable pieces to drive action such as the need to

establish a planning process that identified the change

goals.

The facilitated assessment helped the organization begin

to visualize a new future. There was dialog not only of

what a future could be but also the challenges of trying to

make change happen. Some individuals were also begin-

ning to appreciate the longer term nature of this proposed

change effort––it was not just about visioning and it was

not something that the command and control structure was

going to decide quickly and dictate to them. The organi-

zation was in a better position, now, to work together on a

new vision for the department.

The leadership team (the Chief and his command staff)

put together a visioning team of 19 individuals from all

ranks and functions. Almost all of the 19 had volunteered

from the team that had changed the general orders and/or

from those who attended the facilitated assessment. Others

were hand picked to ensure that all ranks and functions

were incorporated into the vision process. The team used

the data from the facilitated assessment to discuss the

future goals of the department. A number of three-hour

sessions eventually led to the identification of eight core

324 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

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values and a vision and mission statement that was focused

on community policing. The vision statement read ‘‘The

JPD collaborates in a team effort, with community stake-

holders to prevent crime and solve community problems

for a safe, secure, and healthy environment.’’

Many participants reported enjoying the process and

appreciating having the opportunity to take part in deter-

mining the direction of the department. Some asked to be

part of any subsequent committee work. Other individuals

commented on being frustrated at times with how long the

process took. As one officer noted ‘‘I thought it was very

democratic...which added to the length of time it took.’’

Rather than seeing this frustration as a ‘‘bad sign,’’ the

leadership team saw this as a sign that mindsets about the

command and control structure and how decisions can be

made as well as the time horizons of police personnel

regarding what it takes to make transformational change

happen was changing.

Planning

By the beginning of 2000, there was sufficient energy and

commitment among a core group of police personnel to the

new vision to move to a planning phase. The key task was

to broaden that enthusiasm and guide the process of

developing a realistic plan. A major restraining force was

the attitude of many within the department. An officer

stated that community policing ‘‘is just kissing babies and

shaking hands and not really enforcing the law.’’ This

viewpoint has consequences. As noted by one sergeant ‘‘I

see first hand a lot of sergeants’ joke about community

policing. If they are joking about it you are not going to get

buy-in.’’ Thus, some police personnel were seeing this

effort as an attempt to change where officers spend their

time rather than seeing this as a transformational change

effort throughout the organization.

The experiences with the general orders and the

visioning process convinced the top leadership and many

of the participants that the best way to plan for change was

to do it with high involvement of many police personnel.

The leadership team asked for volunteers and hand picked

some individuals to ensure that there was divergence on the

team with regard to those who were enthusiastic about

community policing and those who were not convinced in

order to begin to address that restraining force. Twenty-

four people (approximately 25% of the department) ended

up being included on the planning team.

The planning team met for about one year. The team

was divided into three groups to examine: (a) the move to a

team based concept of policing where officers would be

assigned to geographic areas, (b) the development of a plan

for increasing partnerships, and (c) the creation of a more

proactive, problem solving approach. Each group chose

one person to lead the group—with the boundary being that

no lieutenant or above could be a group leader (to reinforce

the desire to make this more of a ground up process). The

group investigating team based policing benchmarked

other police agencies. The problem solving group attended

training on problem solving approaches. The partnership

group identified current partnerships, interviewed com-

munity members about the quality of those partnerships,

and discussed how to increase partnerships. Many officers

commented that the process allowed them to determine

what community policing was about and how it could lead

to improvement in the delivery of police services. As one

sergeant said ‘‘we were in a process where we were

actually defining how the things were going to be ... these

things were actually going to go into effect.’’

Prior to starting the planning process, the capacity for

change was being enhanced through efforts to introduce

systems thinking into the organization. Police personnel

needed to see the change as part of a large scale effort to

transform the agency and not as a narrow focus on officer

behavior. Top leaders in the department attended two dif-

ferent multi-day workshops on organizational transforma-

tion that emphasized the concepts of systems thinking and

the issues of the apparent and below the surface organi-

zation. The Chief was quite interested in his command staff

having a long-range view of change and the systems that

needed to be aligned to be consistent with the philosophy

behind the community policing approach. As noted by

Senge (1990) systems thinking is a discipline for seeing the

wholes and therefore seeing interrelationships and patterns

rather than viewing the world through static snapshots.

This notion of interconnectedness was continually rein-

forced by the Chief. As he noted ‘‘what one system does

affects all other systems, particularly internally to the

organization.’’

The second effort was to engage the planning team in a

discussion of systems thinking prior to beginning the

planning process. Rather than jumping into the charge gi-

ven to them by the Chief, at the initial meeting of this

group, the elements of systems thinking were presented in

relation to a ‘‘roadmap for change.’’ The roadmap was

developed by our action research team based on examining

successful change efforts in community policing. It in-

cluded five basic areas that must change for community

policing to be effective: (a) enhancing partnerships; (b)

re-engineering the internal operating systems; (c) restruc-

turing the organizational hierarchy; (d) better managing

human resources, and (e) adopting a problem-solving

approach. Across the five areas, the roadmap identified 22

organizational systems that needed to be aligned to be

consistent with the vision for community policing at the

JPD. The roadmap compared the traditional approach to

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334 325

123

policing for each of these systems with the new approach

needed to be consistent with community policing. For

example, as seen in Table 1, traditional policing focuses on

individual officers as specialists within a tightly controlled

organizational hierarchy. A community policing perspec-

tive requires the officer to be a generalist, with realignment

of resources for geographical areas of responsibility and a

team work emphasis.

This roadmap was used to stimulate dialog around what

needed to be changed and what priority to give to the

various systems that needed to be aligned. It helped the

planning team to see that all systems are intrinsically

linked such that the change process had to be viewed as a

long term strategy for realignment. In addition, the facili-

tators emphasized the need to link across the three groups

(team based policing, partnerships, problem solving) dur-

ing the planning process. The group leaders began to meet

to discuss issues that cut across the three teams. Police

personnel begin to seen the planning as not just about an

‘‘event’’ or program that had a specific ‘‘clock-time’’

(Crossan et al., 2005) but as a planning process on trans-

formational change. As one administrative staff member

said ‘‘you actually had to train your mind to think differ-

ently.’’ A command staff member stated that ‘‘it is

becoming clearer that there are a lot of ‘parts’ that go into

the ‘whole’...Each part has an impact on other parts so

change is a living concept constantly morphing requiring a

workforce that is flexible and adaptable as changes occur.’’

Bringing so many people into the planning team cer-

tainly posed some logistical and resource problems (e.g., it

depleted funds for overtime pay). Taking the time to focus

on systems thinking concepts and the roadmap for change

was done in face of the pressure to start working imme-

diately on the planning tasks. The three groups struggled at

the beginning—not knowing exactly what to do (in fact we

incorporated a just in time training on how to run group

meetings). Yet, the time investment and the high involve-

ment were seem by the Chief as worth it for its potential

dividends in the efforts to break down the command and

control mindset, expand time horizons, and develop more

systems thinking capability. As noted by one sergeant

‘‘This was kind of a new focus...partnering with everyone,

bringing in different people (patrol, detectives, and

administrative staff). Getting everyone’s input instead of

just saying this is what we are going to do.’’ Another

sergeant stressed that ‘‘they (the command staff) were a

part of the group; they were not the group ... there was no

rank in these meetings.’’

Table 1 A roadmap for systems change

Organizational structure

Explore Commit/plan Implement Monitor

Roles and

responsibilities

Blend specialist into overall patrol units.

Define those task areas requiring

specialization department wide and train

accordingly. Develop teams utilizing a

combination of specialists whenever

possible.

Redo job descriptions Identify key ‘‘generalist’’ roles and evaluate

the number of personnel who participate in

this role

Review other best practices. Redefine relationships

across functions and

work groups

Track the efficiency of services/systems likely

to be affected by a more generalist role and

evaluate whether improvements are made as

a result of new roles

Reduce reporting lines Evaluate the amount of extra work that is

avoided through generalist approach (fewer

call backs, fewer referrals, etc.)

Divisional

alignment

Geographic subdivisions developed, with

internal and external input for assignment

of personnel. Reporting lines tailored to

activity and geographic area of

accountability, rather than function.

Assign areas of geographic

responsibility for all

personnel

Evaluate departmental effectiveness in key

roles/geographical areas and note

improvements as well as areas of weakness

Review other best practices. Study feasibility of

organization for better

accountability

Identify key problems unique to each area and

track improvements over time (e.g. less

crime, fewer complaints, quality of life

issues)

Decentralize organization

into geographic areas as

appropriate

Assign cross functional

teams to areas

326 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

123

Implementation

Once the plan was developed, the key leadership challenge

was how to develop an implement strategy that did not

cause too much disruption to day to day operations. The

planning teams had given the leadership team a blueprint

for the change. As an officer stated ‘‘the work of the

planning team is somewhat of the nucleus or hub of how

this whole organizational change was to be implemented.’’

The leadership team could have taken this information and

mapped out the tasks to be completed, the timeframe for

implementing the change, and dictated the responsibilities

for making the change happen. It was now about four years

since the Chief had taken office. By having his leadership

team take over, this would have sped up the process of

making the change happen and thus become visible to

internal and external stakeholders.

Instead, the leadership team continued its focus on

building more capability in the organization around change

by having police personnel create the implementation

process. The Chief described it this way ‘‘I could lay this

out for everyone and hand it down but if I want it to stick

long-term, others needed to be involved’’. There was value

placed on empowering police to make it more likely that

the change would have staying power. Importantly, the city

manager backed the Chief on this point of not rushing into

the implementation of community policing.

An implementation team was formed to translate the

recommendations from the planning team into action.

Many of the 12 members of the implementation team

(across rank and function) had already participated on one

or more of the past committees; however, there were also

three new members. Anyone who wanted to participate was

given a chance to volunteer. A sergeant stated that ‘‘it is no

hidden secret––if you want to get anywhere you have to

know what is going on in the department. If you are not

volunteering for committees and putting in your time in

and an attempt to understand what is going on––it is pretty

hard to move along.’’

By now, police personnel were in the words of one

sergeant ‘‘becoming more comfortable providing their in-

put.’’ The effort placed into high involvement of people for

four years of exploring, planning, and implementing the

change was beginning to pay off. More people were

becoming used to this new way of working together as a

team––a critical component in the philosophy of commu-

nity policing. To build implementation team readiness to

take on this responsibility, the team’s first meeting was a

day-long retreat. During the retreat, team members

reviewed the recommendations from the various planning

teams, participated in exercises to sharpen their systems

thinking, and clarified the implementation team charge:

1. Finalize plans for a geographical team based policing

system.

2. Develop a staffing/scheduling plan for geographical,

team based policing.

3. Develop a system for communicating progress.

4. Create a three-year training plan to support the

implementation plan.

5. Align departmental systems (e.g., reporting system,

dispatch) to support the change.

6. Develop monitoring and evaluation criteria.

The implementation team prioritized the tasks that

needed to be completed. They divided themselves into

subteams to work on one of the key tasks. For example, a

restraining force that could affect the transition was the

lack of understanding by officers and sergeants of what to

do when the move to geographic based teams was imple-

mented. A goal of the transition was to build high perfor-

mance police teams (officers and sergeants) divided across

four geographic areas in the city. A key issue for the

implementation team was role clarification (e.g., what does

it mean to be on a team?). As one officer stated ‘‘Quite

frankly, I do not have a concept of how the individual

patrol officer is going to find the time to put the effort into

problem solving and building community partnerships and

still handle the calls for service.’’

The implementation team put energy into dialoging

about what the roles and responsibilities should be for

lieutenants, sergeants and officers. For example, one new

role expectation was the need to hold monthly team

meetings (with all members present across shifts) to discuss

issues in their geographic area and encourage officers to

increase their partnership activities. This was seen as

necessary to eliminate possible disconnects of officers

across shifts not knowing where to prioritize their time to

support each other’s actions. The implementation team

created action plans for preparing people for the move to

community policing. Training was developed on commu-

nity policing and problem solving. Teams were created and

placed on the street without any major disruption. Internal

and external stakeholders were kept informed about the

changes in the department. Attempts were being made to

align internal systems such as improving the dispatch ser-

vice. These efforts were all driven by police personnel

across the various functions and rank within the organi-

zation rather than through the command and control

structure. The change was now becoming a reality.

Monitoring and revising

The visible manifestations of community policing were

seen by all employees and the community starting in

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334 327

123

February 2002 with the move to geographically-based

teams. Police personnel had a choice of what sector of the

city they wanted to be assigned. Approximately one year

after this move to teams, the department began to gather

data to understand the extent of the changes and to deter-

mine what more needed to be done to support the com-

munity policing initiative. Police personnel often see the

gathering of data as leading to a focus on individual per-

formance. A key change in mindset would be to begin the

process of seeing that data could be generated to monitor

and assess systems and how well they are working relevant

to the goals of the change effort and to learn from those

experiences to improve or better align those systems.

One of the hallmarks of the efforts of various planning

and implementation teams was the need to gather the

appropriate data in order to come up with viable and

credible strategies or options. This focus on learning before

action was a conscious effort to ingrain a more systems

rather than the prevalent individual oriented perspective to

data gathering and analysis. This building of capacity for

learning could now pay dividends during the monitoring

and revision phase. More individuals were comfortable

with the need to be more disciplined in terms of data col-

lection and analysis so as to draw out reasonable solutions

to problems. Everyone in the department had been trained

in problem solving approaches. From a systems perspec-

tive, mindsets were changing that data could be produc-

tively gathered to assess system issues rather than being

gathered solely to assign blame to individuals (a below the

surface assumption).

For example, after one year it became clear that certain

geographical areas were receiving a disproportional num-

ber of calls for service. Calls for service were analyzed by a

team of police personnel rather than the command and

control system and an adjustment to the number of indi-

viduals in each team was made as well as redrawing the

geographical lines to make the work load more equitable.

This showed that the department was responsive to the

challenges that had arisen with this transition and that the

police personnel who were closest to the problem were the

ones to gather the right data about system alignment in

order to drive action.

The leadership was also concerned about the level of

problem solving going on in the field. This led to efforts to

improve the accessibility and accuracy of crime data so

that information could be in the hands of the police per-

sonnel in a timelier manner. To keep the momentum going,

a training committee and a technology committee were

formed to develop a three year training plan and to deter-

mine what was needed to improve departmental data

mining and crime mapping. It became apparent, though,

that there was a lack of documentation of efforts since the

implementation. As noted by the Chief ‘‘partnerships—we

are not doing a very good job tracking what we are doing

externally.’’ This made it difficult to learn from past efforts

or to pinpoint where efforts needed to be focused to keep

the momentum of change going.

The leadership focused much attention during the

monitoring and revising phase to addressing the issue of

documenting what was happening in the community. The

focus was not on individual performance but on how the

various ‘‘systems’’ were performing. In addition, it was

hoped that showing that the department was interested in

learning about itself would have a positive impact on

individuals not completely sold on the change effort.

A ‘‘learning team’’ was created (see Roth & Kleiner,

2000 for an example of a learning history approach to

documenting and facilitating organizational change) that

was made up of six members of the department—the chief,

deputy chief, lieutenant, sergeant, an officer, and a non-

sworn administrative staff person. The purpose of the

learning team was to collect data on the change effort and

to review past committee recommendations to determine

whether or not the recommendations had been acted upon.

This meant going back to the recommendations from all of

the committees. A worksheet was used to document the

tasks outlined in each of the committee charges, the spe-

cific recommendations offered to address each task, the

decisions made within the department relevant to those

recommendations, the current progress on implementing

the recommendation, evidence that the recommendation

was followed, and next steps for the recommendation (e.g.,

how high a priority to making sure a recommendation is

enacted). Table 2 presents one of the completed work-

sheets.

The process took over 9 months and many two- to three-

hour meetings to examine the over 120 recommendations

that had been made by the various committees and sub-

groups. The results indicated a large majority (over 80%)

of the recommendations had been enacted in some form

(the learning team had to produce evidence that recom-

mendation had actually been enacted to be placed into that

category). As one member of the team concluded from this

exercise ‘‘successes tend to get lost in the change process

as we continue to press forward making it difficult to cel-

ebrate wins and to recognize how far the department has

actually come.’’ A few recommendations were not enacted

and the learning team came to a consensus that the rec-

ommendation was no longer feasible or was no longer

needed to be done. Most of the recommendations that

needed further work fit into three major categories: incor-

porating new technology, the evaluation of performance of

police personnel, and the need to expand police-community

partnerships. Given the technology team was already in

progress, the learning team concluded that two new teams

were needed to address gaps in the change process. One

328 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

123

officer echoed this concern and said ‘‘there is still confu-

sion about the evaluation process...and what you need to do

so you don’t get into trouble for bad performance’’ The

learning team also shared with the members of the

department their findings of what had been done and what

still needed to be done to ensure that police personnel could

recognize progress.

A key restraining force identified through interviews

with police personnel was variance in teams relevant to

enacting community policing. Some teams were seen as

moving quite quickly into working with community

groups and identifying community problems. Officers

were using email to communicate with other officers and

community members, some sergeants were proactively

asking for crime data, and some sergeants were not

assigning officers to calls for service if they had neigh-

borhood issues to address. As one officer stated ‘‘without

a doubt, more of my hopes about community policing has

been realized. It has been successful change to this point.

Officers’ styles of policing have changed and I think that

is for the better.’’ Other teams were not taking as much

responsibility for engaging the community. As noted by

one member of the command staff ‘‘some sergeants are

not modeling good community policing or are performing

typical community policing duties with no good reason

such as forming neighborhood watches because that is

what you are supposed to do rather than being committed

to the process.’’ Concerns were raised that some officers

were not talking to citizen about non-crime issues, some

sergeants were not following through on problem solving

plans, some officers were not requesting time to work on

neighborhood issues, and some teams were not meeting

regularly to review progress and identify next steps. As

one sergeant said ‘‘getting everyone on board to the

desired level that is acceptable hasn’t been spelled out

yet. The majority of people in our department are not

even near that level.’’

Rather than ignoring this divergence or having the

command structure push harder on sergeants to comply, the

leadership team asked us to conduct in-depth interviews

with each sergeant to learn more about this divergence. The

data from the interviews were compiled by our action re-

search team and given to the sergeants for review. All

sergeants then met for a series of two-hour meetings to

discuss the ‘‘data,’’ come to a consensus of what the data

was telling them about themselves (as a group of sergeants)

and to then move to actions that would reduce the diver-

gence across sergeants. The group decided to focus atten-

tion to the problem solving process as there was much

divergence across sergeants on how this process was being

enacted. After this series of meetings, a subgroup of ser-

geants was assigned to examine the current system around

problem solving and to come back with a more simplified

system that all sergeants could use in a more consistent

fashion. The group met and came back with recommen-

dations for changes to the procedures to follow and the

complete team of sergeants agreed to the recommenda-

tions.

Table 2 Example of monitoring/revising worksheet for implementation team recommendations

Tasks Recommendations Decisions Current progress

0 = none;

1 = some;

2 = much;

3 = completed

Documentation/

evidence that work

on recommendation

has occurred

Next steps

0 = not relevant

1 = low priority

2 = moderate

3 = high priority

Develop monitoring

and evaluation

criteria and

strategies

Identify what

information is

needed from the

community as

baseline

information

Current collected

information is

sufficient for baseline

data to drive

problem-solving

efforts.

3 Technology

Committee charge

and

recommendations

1 = lots of baseline data

is currently present;

see Technology

Committee

recommendations

Finalize plans for

geographical team

based policing

system

Identify referral

agencies and how

to partner with

these agencies

Use list compiled for

Field Training Officer

(FTO) training. Add

to list as needed.

2 = List exists in

FTO manual,

currently being

turned into a book

for officers to use

FTO manual 2 = New book needs to

be distributed soon

Develop and

implement a

system for

communicating

progress toward

goal of

geographically

based system

Educate public/

officers/

government

agencies through

communication

Through press releases

and public

presentations as well

as at beginning of

shifts to patrol

officers.

1 = press releases

posted on website;

presentations

given

Website 3 = need to do a better

job of tracking

presentations (who,

what, where); this

needs to be

communicated and

stressed

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334 329

123

The movement toward institutionalization

Institutionalization is a dynamic process that signals that a

change effort has taken root. (French & Bell, 1999). The

tangible aspects that people might ‘‘see’’ are the changes in

procedures, policies and various organizational systems

that were changed. Changes in the below the surface

organization in terms of beliefs and attitudes are such that

it becomes more and more difficult for people within the

organization to recall ‘‘how things used to work around

here.’’

Community policing entails an expansion of the roles

and responsibilities of police. Police officers are not only

‘‘crime fighters’’ but also problem solvers, community

organizers, planners, and mediators (Mastrofski, Willis, &

Snipes, 2002; Rosenbaum, 1994). It has now been seven

years since the decision was made to become a community

policing department. It took four years to move from the

exploration phase to where police and citizens could see a

visible change in the department with the move to geo-

graphically based police teams. The next sections discuss

the level of success at institutionalizing the change effort,

next steps that are being taken to further move the change

effort forward and the lessons learned from this case.

Level of success

Has the change been successful? As with any complex

organizational change, success is not clear cut. Those who

champion the change point to objective data to support

their claim of success. Before the community policing

initiative, the department was experiencing 20 employee

grievances per year and in 2004 experienced two griev-

ances. There has also been a 70% decrease in formal citi-

zen complaints against officers from the pre 1998 levels.

Clearly, while the results are encouraging, this is not just a

function of the move to community policing as the Chief

put restoring discipline as a key component during the

exploration phases. Yet, from the perspective of building

capacity, this emphasis of getting control over the

grievance rates and citizen complaints was important for

providing more ‘‘breathing’’ room by showing key stake-

holders that progress was being made. Part I crime is at the

lowest in 30 years with a 30% decrease in the last three

years. Yet, this decrease in crime is consistent with trends

throughout the country therefore making it difficult to draw

clear conclusions about the impact of the change program

in Jackson.

While the objective data is not adequate to show the

impact of the change effort, an examination of police

records and the interviews with key stakeholder groups

indicate that change has occurred. For example, there are

clearly more partnerships among officers and schools,

governmental agencies, and community groups than before

the change initiative. As noted by a pastor ‘‘I see the

neighborhood thing as a good thing—trying to bridge the

many differences that there can be among people in

neighborhoods. They have increased their participation

with our neighborhood association...it seems to be an ever

increasing participation.’’ A community member described

the change this way—‘‘it is more hands on—they are

actually out there. They’re involved with us—not just an

entity...they are actually becoming part of the commu-

nity.’’ In addition, partnerships developed between police

and stakeholder groups such as landlords and local busi-

nesses that have led to successful interventions such as

ridding housing units of drugs, crime, and disorderly con-

duct. There is much more of an emphasis on using data

such as calls for service to direct police efforts to repeat

offenders or problem issues. There is now a ‘‘top 10’’

monthly sergeant meetings in which key areas of concern

are identified and strategies discussed. Citizen letters and

emails to the department have extolled the efforts of

individual officers and teams of officers that have helped

address a community issue. As noted by one sergeant

‘‘comments from the community continue to pour in

thanking officers for their efforts in solving crime, giving

presentations, and working towards an all around suc-

cessful relationship. These comments show change is

occurring.’’ The increased enthusiasm for police efforts in

some sections of the city has had an impact. Success stories

have led to firm support from the city manager and the city

council for the move to community policing. While budget

cuts have been made in other departments in the city, the

police budget has remained untouched.

Perceptual data from an organizational survey given in

1999 and again in 2003 point to some success in changing

attitudes among police personnel (Plamondon & Ford,

1999; Ford & Davis, 2003). For 10 of the 18 dimensions on

the survey (see Table 3), police personnel (officer and

sergeants) ratings have become more favorable with in-

creased ratings on dimensions relevant to the strategic

change initiative itself (top management support, align-

ment of systems, management of the change process) and

key process issues (rewards, support, partnerships, problem

solving, empowerment, community ownership, and com-

munity orientation of police personnel) For example, 2003

ratings by police personnel regarding top management

support (‘‘Top management displays a commitment to

community policing ideals), problem solving (‘‘Officers

are taking preventative actions by focus on root causes of

crime’’), and partnerships (‘‘Officers regularly form part-

nerships with non police agencies’’) were significantly

higher than the responses in 1999. Outcome variables such

as perceptions of the effectiveness of the department,

330 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

123

individual job satisfaction, and commitment to the orga-

nization remained relatively high and did not change.

Interestingly, there were no significant changes for police

personnel on the dimension of commitment to community

policing (e.g., ‘‘I am committed to the idea of community

oriented policing’’), perceptions of first line supervision

support for community policing, or for the dimension of

police viewpoint of whether community members are

willing to work hard to improve their neighborhoods.

The survey results show some reasons for celebration as

well as cause for concerns. Clearly, the move to institu-

tionalization does not mean that everyone within the

organization is at the same level of understanding of

community policing or acts in accordance to its principles.

As one member of the command staff reflecting on the

change process stated: ‘‘we are close but have not yet

achieved what the vision of the end product will be. My

perception of the process has changesd since the start. I no

longer see this as a final product that we achieve through

implementation, I see it as a constantly improving product

that we continually modify and adjust to make us

better....We are more effective and efficient deparment but

we are not done.’’

There is also some indication of burnout issues. As

noted by a learning team member ‘‘changing a culture is a

huge task that is never ending.’’ While the benefits of

committee work is acknowledged after years of committee

work and high involvement, others are getting tired. One

officer stated the problems as ‘‘we committee-ed ourselves

to death I think. People started getting tired of all the

structures involved in it. I do not know the easy answer to

this––the easy answer is to wave a magic wand and make

everybody really care about the job. Instead we created a

structure with committee after committee after commit-

tee.’’ A civilian member of the police department summed

it up ‘‘I think there are some issues still floating out there

somewhere that just have not been resolved yet.’’ This

perception was verified in one-on-one interviews with nine

sergeants in 2005. Three of the sergeants expressed reser-

vations about the move to community policing questioning

the usefulness of the strategy or questioning its longevity.

Next steps

In 2005, a team of 18 people across the organization were

formed into an implementation review committee charged

with addressing the issues found by the learning team and

other data to develop a prioritized set of recommendations

to address. The review committee identified issues such as

better integration of the detective bureau with the teams in

the neighborhoods. In addition, they identified what victory

Table 3 Dimension means for sworn police personnel on community policing survey for the year 1999 and 2003

Survey dimension Definition Mean SD Mean SD

1999 1999 2003 2003

Strategic direction Departmental goals are aligned with community policing 2.55 0.89 3.15 0.82

Top management support Commitment of top leadership to community policing 2.96 1.00 3.46 0.83

Managing change The change process has been managed effectively 2.70 0.87 3.34 0.75

Rewards Recognition and rewards for community policing activities 2.57 0.88 3.12 0.78

First line supervision Sergeant support for community policing activities 3.18 0.79 3.31 0.69

Support Adequacy of departmental resources to support community policing 2.78 0.92 3.36 0.80

Partnerships Officers are forming internal and external partnerships 2.67 0.83 3.09 0.51

Problem solving Officers are using systematic approaches to problem solving 2.66 0.66 3.45 0.55

Empowerment Officers have responsibility and control over own actions 2.76 0.96 3.18 0.88

Risk taking Police willing to think creatively and acting independently when needed 3.34 0.84 3.43 0.78

Climate Department environment is conducive to community policing 3.10 0.68 3.29 0.60

Community ownership Officer investment in local community 3.31 0.69 3.63 0.49

Community orientation Officers take a customer service approach with community members 2.93 0.63 3.38 0.61

View of community Community members will work to improve neighborhood conditions 2.83 0.96 2.95 0.95

Commitment to community policing Police personnel endorse and identify with objectives of community policing 3.47 0.81 3.53 0.94

Effectiveness Effectiveness as a law enforcement agency 3.42 0.81 3.61 0.82

Job satisfaction Satisfaction with job 3.91 1.00 4.00 0.92

Commitment to department Willingness to remain and to work hard for the department 3.91 0.83 4.00 0.92

Note: Year 1999 and 2003 response means that are significantly different from one another are bolded (P < .05). N = 53 for 1999 and N = 61 for 2003; Rating Scale: 1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree

Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334 331

123

would look like in the future relevant to community

policing. This new set of issues now becomes the chal-

lenging goals for the next three to five years. As one

lieutenant said ‘‘the change effort is a never ending process

where we need to assess where we are and where we need

to continue to improve.’’

In addition, top leadership is trying to infuse more

enthusiasm for problem solving not only within the

department but throughout the city. One of the roadblocks

to problem solving of long-standing community issues is

that some problems such as abandoned vehicles or buildings

require cooperation across city agencies. The Chief has now

taken steps to convince the city manager and agency heads

that the problem solving innovations occurring within the

police department can be expanded to include other city

agencies. As a first step, the Chief had police personnel

provide the same type of problem solving training to agency

personnel as the training given to police personnel. This is

the start of developing a common language for problem

solving across agencies so that integration is more likely.

The second step is to bring the various agencies around the

table to identify city-wide problems and to begin a dialog

about collaborative strategies that can be taken to address

long standing issues or problems.

Lessons learned

The case reveals a number of key factors in the success of

this transformational change. These foundational pillars

include: (a) changing people’s mindsets to view activities

as part of a whole system; (b) breaking down the command

and control mindset by creating a norm of high involve-

ment in the process; (c) developing a data oriented, con-

tinuous learning orientation so that people at all levels are

motivated by improvement of systems and processes rather

than by maintaining the status quo or focusing on indi-

vidual performance.

In terms of changing mindsets regarding systems

thinking, a non-supervisory member of the learning team

put it this way ‘‘it is becoming clearer that there are a lot of

parts that go into the whole of the organization. Each part

has an impact on other parts so change is a living concept

constantly morphing requiring a workforce that is flexible

and adaptable as changes occur.’’ Another learning team

member described that one of the most interesting part

‘‘was in seeing how everything is interconnected within the

department—you have to adequately assess the impact of

decisions on related systems.’’ It is safe to say that police

personnel were not talking about system interconnected-

ness prior to this change effort.

The second foundational element was the development

of a new norm around high involvement and empowerment

rather than the traditional command and control model

(Lawler, 1992; Wellins, Byham, & Wilson, 1991). As

noted by the Chief before the change process began ‘‘there

was no mechanism for the employees to have input in the

development of policies ... orders were always command

driven and that is what they knew ... they had to learn to let

go and trust the people working for them.’’ The develop-

ment of a new norm became possible because departmental

employees were involved in all stages of the change effort

such as providing the initial vision, developing the plans

for the change, facilitating the implementation of the plan,

evaluating the effectiveness of the action plans and deter-

mining what new actions were needed to continually

improve organizational effectiveness. Thirteen committees

were formed from 1999 to 2005 that worked on issues such

as geographically based teams, partnerships, technology,

training, and problem solving. Over half of the employees

(sworn and civilian) have been involved in at least one

committee and most had been involved in two or more.

Each committee started by reviewing the vision, the

roadmap for change and the specific charge for that par-

ticular team. In this transformation process, a number of

positive outcomes arose from involving employees in

resolving organizational issues and problems including

increased trust and confidence in top management and the

change effort.

A third fundamental principle of organizational change

was the development of skills for continuous learning and

improvement. Organizational learning is more likely to

occur where the culture promotes it (Fiol & Lyles, 1985;

Tannenbaum, 1997). Continual learning is achieved

through a never-ending cycle of action steps, guided by

shared knowledge that is rooted in data (Cutcher-

Gershenfeld & Ford, 2005). The change process has shown

that teams of committed people can have an impact on

improving organizational systems (Argyris, 1993). It has

also been a personal journey for some—as one police

member stated ‘‘to see exactly what was going on—the

dynamics of the organization—it has been a very fulfilling

experience for me ... this experience is one that will stay

with me for the rest of my life.’’

A final lesson learned concerns the role of leadership

(e.g., see Quinn, 1996; Rothwell et al., 1995). How well

leaders take on new roles and responsibilities such as

change agent, facilitator, and motivator can have a major

impact on the success of any change effort (Ford, 2002;

Kotter, 1990). Much has been written about the need for

constancy of leadership (e.g., Deming, 1986, Kouzes &

Posner, 1995) in order for the change effort to grow toward

a ‘‘tipping point’’ (Kim & Mauborgne, 2003). Others have

noted the need for effective leadership for building orga-

nizational capacity for change. For example, Foster-Fish-

man, Berkowitz, Lounsbury, Jacobson, and Allen (2001)

332 Am J Community Psychol (2007) 39:321–334

123

noted that leaders must be excellent administrators, skilled

at conflict management and communication, develop po-

sitive internal and external relations, be visionary, and be

effective at resource development. This case provides

support for these contentions. Leaders must also be willing

to continually ready or prepare the organization for what is

to come next in the change process. This means not just

pushing for tasks to be accomplished but for building

organizational capability to better deal with issues as the

transformational change unfolds.

The building of capability takes a lot of time. Most of

the research on ‘‘readiness for change’’ has focused on the

beginning of the change effort (e.g., see Eby, Adams,

Russell, & Gaby, 2000). The present case illustrates the

importance of the leader in creating the time horizons to

allow long term change to have the chance to be successful.

In this case, building capability around issues of systems

thinking, high involvement and learning across the various

stages of change must be considered in light of continual

pressures on the Chief to ‘‘show results’’ from the moment

he came to Jackson. The Chief was able to convince key

stakeholders such as the city manager and city council that

good things would come. The leader must have patience as

capacity is built and convince others that the time invest-

ment is worth the future outcomes.

The chief did a number of actions such as reducing

grievances and citizen complaints early in the process that

provided him with some ‘‘idiosyncratic credits’’ so that the

visible signs of the change effort could emerge more

slowly. In our view, the rush to accomplishment to satisfy

external constituents would have crippled the efforts to

build capacity. As noted by Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski,

and Flowers (2004), ‘‘all learning integrates thinking and

action.’’ Building capacity over time as a change effort

unfolds is critical to accomplishing this integration.

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