In this episode of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks vodcast series, we talk about the challenges within 911 centers, particularly the physical and emotional health and well-being of the professionals who staff them.
Watch as Chris Carver, longtime industry veteran and director of market development for Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division, talks with former Los Angeles Police Department dispatcher Adam Timm, founder of The Healthy Dispatcher.
Hear Timm’s firsthand account of the stress and trauma he experienced under the headset and how he found ways to cope, shared those with his center and eventually started his business to help 911 professionals across the country.
Explore how Hexagon supports public safety agencies.
Watch the full vodcast or read the transcript below.
Transcript
Chris Carver:
Hello everyone. My name is Chris Carver, and welcome to the latest edition of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks vodcast series, our effort to bring information, insight and really the thought leaders of public safety to you with questions and information that you can use as you do your incredibly important daily roles in this really challenging time for public safety. So with me today, I am honored to have one of the really thought leaders in public safety, an author, former dispatcher, public safety professional and really someone incredibly passionate about not just public safety and those that do the job, but also that they do the job in the best way possible that maintains their physical and emotional health and the effectiveness of their organization. So, with me is Adam Timm. Hello, Adam. Welcome.
Adam Timm:
Thanks so much, Chris. Great to be here.
Chris Carver:
No, thank you very much for being here, Adam. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and your busy schedule to share your insights with those that are watching, so let’s just start with background. That’s a great place to start, right? So Adam, please tell me about your background. How’d you move from being in dispatch to doing what you’re doing now?
Adam Timm:
Great question. So it was about 20 years ago, actually it’ll be 20 years in July, that I started as a frontline 911 dispatcher for the Los Angeles Police Department communications division. And I was 23 years old at the time and found that I was ill-equipped for the rigors of the job, and I had to learn the hard way that the job can take a toll. I experienced vicarious trauma, I was burnt out and for the first seven years of my 10 years under the headset, I wasn’t really a very nice person. And I took out my frustration on callers and coworkers, supervisors, and I blamed it all on them. And it wasn’t until I found a collection of tools that allowed me to deal with my personal stress situation that things became much easier. And I was so inspired by the way that simple breathing exercises, writing in a journal and increasing my self-awareness allowed me to be more intentional, both in my life inside the communication center as well as outside the workplace, that I proposed a stress reduction program based on these simple breathing practices at the dispatch center.
And that became the first turn of what later on became the training classes of The Healthy Dispatcher, which I now run around the country offering to 911 centers. And so after 10 and a half years under the headset, grappling with the burnout and overcoming the burnout and sticking in the job and using the last three years of my role under the headset to leave a much more intentional impact, I left to do training and consulting and speaking full-time. That’s what I’ve been doing now for the last 10 years. And so I made the leap at the 10 and a half year mark because I felt like there was a way for me to give back in an authentic way. Surely, I could continue to help people and make a difference under the headset. However, I wanted something that was uniquely mine and that’s what The Healthy Dispatcher be became for me.
Chris Carver:
So it sounds like that particular moment where you realized, wow, there’s a different way or there’s a better way. There’s something I can do here to have this not be as stressful, right? That sounds like an incredibly amazing day. Did that happen over a day or did it happen over a period of time? What was that transformative moment like?
Adam Timm:
Yeah, it was more gradual than a moment, I think, and it wasn’t necessarily by my own hand. In fact, at the seven-year mark, I got my third sustained citizen complaint, which I received unpaid suspension days as discipline. And so the signs were clear: my way wasn’t working. And not only that, but I had stress-related health challenges, like a regular ulcer, indigestion and tension headaches and migraines, and I was snapping at people, so I was highly irritable and impatient. And that third complaint gave me pause and it caused me to look outside of myself because I kept doing the same thing, expecting a different result, and obviously it meant I was somewhat crazy. And so I looked for another way and I found the six-week stress reduction class, and it was a mindfulness-based stress reduction class.
And it was over that six weeks of practicing mindfulness and practicing writing in a journal and tracking how my thoughts were becoming things and that I had the power to choose different thoughts. In six weeks, I started to make this shift, and for six more months I practiced these tools, and after six months I had turned a corner that I never went back. And it was then that I was inspired to write a proposal and to start these stress reduction sessions at the dispatch center. And so it was almost like I gradually learned a different way and then, by showing others how they could do something similar, it’s cemented things for me.
Chris Carver:
All right, so there’s much you said there that’s incredible that I want to talk about as we go forward.
But first things first, I’m really intrigued by your organization supporting your effort, that you wrote a proposal and they said, “Oh my goodness, this sounds like something really worth doing.” Tell me about that. I’m just curious a little bit about how that happened and how they came to really embrace the ideas.
Adam Timm:
Well, I was fortunate to work on the same shift as a lieutenant, Lieutenant Dennis, who had seen my transition. He was one of the watch commanders on the watch that I was working, and he had seen the transition. And so when I wrote this proposal and submitted on LAPD form 15.7, which was a form that we had to use to run things up the chain of command, he sat there at his desk and read it and looked up at me and he said, “I’ve seen the difference. I’ll support this. Make sure you get the Captain’s approval.”
And so I went to Captain Justice. No joke, real name. I said, “Captain Justice, I want to do this thing. Lieutenant Dennis supports it on the watch.” He said, “I’ll support anything that will help make life easier around here.” I had the great fortune of working under the command of a captain who was a people-driven leader, who got it.
So I think that there were all these pieces that are in the right place. And it started, though, with the desire to just share with others what had happened for me. And I don’t think I ever thought it couldn’t happen. I never questioned it. I just thought, this is something that has benefited me so much. I’m not unlike all of my coworkers. Maybe they could use something from it as well.
Chris Carver:
Wow. So, three different things I’d like to just circle around there in that story. First and foremost, or not necessarily in order, you had leadership that knew you, that could see the results, that could understand, “hey, these are my folks, and this is what’s impacting them positively or negatively”. So that’s a very important lesson, I think, or insight for those that are watching this particular episode is, as a leader, you can never not know your folks well enough, not to use that double negative and get in trouble with my high school English teacher. So we have that piece, right?
Then you have, and I’d like to use this as a way to move into a larger, broader discussion, the discipline part actually helped. The tracking your performance and saying, “Hey, Adam, this is not what we expect. Let’s get better results.” I think sometimes we have leaders that are afraid of doing that. They’re afraid of holding folks accountable. Do you think that that’s something that could be a benefit for other professionals in the 911 space with leadership and supervisory responsibilities, the importance of not just knowing your folks, but also lovingly holding them accountable?
Adam Timm:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that what we see at centers across the country is a lack of accountability. And I know I’m painting with a very broad brush stroke, but when there isn’t a strong culture of accountability, we are saying to those who work in the organization that we’ll tolerate whatever behavior is fine. And for me personally, I know full well that I would not have made the changes necessary for myself, personally and professionally, and for the organization had I not come up against unpaid suspension days. And by the way, if anything about progressive discipline, three suspension days are not the come-out role of progressive discipline. They had done their due diligence and escalated to this level. And so you learn the lesson at the severity that you want, I guess, at certain times is what I found.
But yeah, we need to be better at standing for what we believe in and have it be values-driven, because people are watching that. People are watching you walk the talk or not. And one of the leaders that I interviewed for the leadership book said, and I repeat this in so many of my leadership sessions, she said, “You become what you tolerate.” And from an organizational principle perspective, it’s so powerful.
Chris Carver:
No, absolutely. And in your role now, in the work you’re doing all around the country, you get to see a lot of different cultures of organizations. So obviously accountability is one characteristic. What are some other characteristics of organizations that are getting it right, so to speak?
Adam Timm:
Yeah. Well, the other thing I alluded to just a moment ago is that they are values-driven and they do the upfront work required to define their core values, to socialize and operationalize the core values. And they make them come to life and they allow the values to inform conversations on a daily basis. And from values-driven conversations, it’s much easier to hold people accountable because you don’t have to lead with discipline, you can lead with conversations. So if you approach people who are generally reasonable and generally intelligent, they’ve just had a moment. I was 30 years old when I came up against the rigors of discipline in that way. And I was usually a reasonable person, and I was usually an intelligent person. I had a moment. And when I met supervision that was able and willing to connect with me as that type of person, I got it, and I quickly apologized. And I allowed myself to be held accountable without deflection, without blaming others. I just owned it.
And so I think it helps to have the values inform daily conversations and communicated expectations, so that’s another thing that I see in the best organizations. And from there, we have a sense of one team where we all are on the same page. And on a daily operational basis, everyone knows what they’re working towards. And so this informs the level of team camaraderie that we see in these better organizations. They tend to have higher morale as a result. They tend to have things like trust and organizational commitment. And everyone feels part of the organizational goals. Part of achieving the goals… I’m getting ahead of myself. I think it’s exceedingly rare for organizations to have clearly defined goals that everyone is working towards.
Chris Carver:
Yeah. And it’s funny, in some of the conversations I’ve had around that topic, I always love asking 911 professionals, if you’re on a team, okay, that’s great. I think all of us are. What does winning mean? What’s your definition of winning? And even that simple question sometimes gets folks to go, “well, wait a minute, we think it’s this or we think it’s that.” And no team can really succeed until they all have a clear idea of what that goal is, to your point, Adam, absolutely right. I’m curious if you’ve seen this. The best teams also police themselves a little bit. The coach doesn’t have to tell you that you just ran that play wrong. The other players are going to be like, “Hey, get your head out of your butt. What are you doing?” So do you see that as well where the culture starts to really serve as the trainer and the supervisor in those situations?
Adam Timm:
Yeah. An aspect of organizations of this culture is mutual accountability, and we have to set that expectation from the outset. But when you have defined what the core values are and you’ve allowed those core values to flow out into the organization and inform the policies and procedures and inform the weekly one-on-ones and the check-ins, then it’s a natural byproduct of what we talk about to say, “Hey, I noticed you were being a little rude to a caller on that last call. Is everything okay? Because I know normally you aren’t like that.” And it comes out in conversations like that as opposed to what organizations who don’t have a sense of mutual accountability, fear those accountability conversations will resemble is something like, “Hey, stop being like that.” When they lead with a very pointy way of words or even non-verbals, right?
Chris Carver:
Right. No, absolutely. So do you think that our profession is getting better at handling some of the concepts that really The Healthy Dispatcher talks about? Are we becoming more aware of these and making improvement from your perspective?
Adam Timm:
I have noticed, since coming back to I guess real life after lockdowns and the pandemic, that there is a renewed sense of purpose around conversations like we’re having right now at the conferences. Many more sessions on organizational culture, many more sessions on morale, and I think that’s a very good thing. So to answer your question, in short, yes, and I think that it needs to happen much more frequently. I think that we continue to, as an industry, misdiagnose the deepest issues resulting in staffing problems. So I don’t know how many times I’ve seen an article or an official announcement about how we have a staffing crisis and staffing is the problem. And when I ask a room of 40 leaders, meaning those who occupy formal leadership roles at their organization in their agency, so they’re a CTO or they’re a supervisor or they’re a manager/director. And so many times the made problem as cited by a room of formal leaders is, they’ll say, “Staffing. If we can get to full staff, then that will solve everything.”
And the problem with that is, staffing is the result of a confluence of many different factors, all related to organizational culture. And so you can’t have a fully staffed center if you don’t attend to the aspects of the organization’s culture that drive good people out of the organization.
Chris Carver:
Without a doubt. And I would say it sounds like from your perspective that culture really is the foundation of the house, and we have no business making the house look all nice on the second floor and building a second floor on it or a third floor on it and all this other nice stuff if the basement’s cracked and there’s a good chance the place is going to fall in, in and of itself, right?
Adam Timm:
Absolutely. And you’ve been in 911 for a very long time, and I’m going on my 20th year, and what we’ve seen just in the last four years is a clear difference in the way it used to be as far as hiring and recruitment. It used to be, prior to 2020, that you could expect a steady flow of applicants into a government job if you paid enough, if you offered enough benefits, and you could just keep bringing people in the door. I remember I was doing some training classes, I think it was 2017, 2018, at an agency on the East Coast, and they were losing 50 new hires in the training process every six months. And I was like, how do you keep having this steady flow of applicants? They paid a great wage and the organizational reputation wasn’t out there enough that people continued to get sucked into the hiring and recruitment apparatus, and those days are gone.
We’re seeing people’s value systems around why they enter a job and how they will stick around are vastly different now post-pandemic than they once were. And I think what we’re being invited to do as an industry is build organizations that allow people to confidently choose to come into work each day. It’s now a day-by-day decision. And ultimately, if someone doesn’t feel like coming into work, in today’s day and age, guess what? They won’t come into work.
Chris Carver:
Right. Right. Well, and that actually leads into the conversation, I think, about 911 and public safety as a profession. If it’s truly a profession, very few people go in to be a lawyer today and then go in tomorrow and just throw up their hands and say, “I’m done with this. I can’t deal with it,” right? Same with a doctor, same with other fields, education, that really are a discipline and a profession. So it seems like, and I’m curious for your thoughts, we’re in this middle ground of thinking that, and I think justifiably so and I think you’d agree, that 911 is a profession, but not yet having all the underpinnings that create a professional culture and a professional system that then can be leveraged to address the very issues you’re talking about.
Adam Timm:
Yeah, absolutely. And people who get into the profession and find that it is their calling almost accidentally fall into a profession. And what we’re seeing and what you’re alluding to with the reclassification effort, with the great centers that are in pockets all across the country, and they’re in all states that are working hard each and every day to create a career path, a career progression within their center. We’re seeing that trend. We’re seeing that 911 is and must continue to, in a very diligent way, become a career unto itself. And instead of a stepping stone, instead of something you do because the money’s good, instead of something that you just happen into, what we want to see is more people intelligently and in an intentional way finding themselves in a career that is their calling, and that they feel valued, seen, recognized. And they know that each and every day they come in and their work is meaningful because they’re protecting their community and they’re protecting their responders.
And that inherent sense of purpose flows into the entire team. And what we’ve also seen from the research on resilience is that when there is that palpable feeling of purpose within the walls of a communication center, it translates into satisfaction outside of the job as well. Life satisfaction.
Chris Carver:
No, absolutely. So there are going to be naysayers. There’s going to be a chief or two or someone in a position of leadership watching this conversation, some of the others on similar topics and saying something like, “I’m just trying to get the phone calls answered every day. I don’t have time for all this soft hoo-ha stuff and all that.” And they’re going to try to dismiss change of the type that really you’re advocating for. What would you say if you had the chance to speak to folks like that, who are skeptics about the human element of really building great organizations?
Adam Timm:
Yeah. Well, I think I would offer that the 911 center, the communication center, is incident command to take a term out of my friend Captain Jeremy Hill’s lexicon. And if you saw the communication center as incident command: where every single incident flows through and it’s the hub of the wheel and all the spokes go out into the world, into the communities from that hub, then you would never question giving the resources needed for training. You would never question that we needed highly trained, highly dedicated personnel, and that we would do everything within our power to make sure that the same level of training and attention that we give field responders must be directed and devoted to those who work under the headset as well.
Chris Carver:
And I personally couldn’t agree with you more with that assessment, and I’ve been fortunate of that experience as well in my career. So what would you say about the future of 911? Do you think we’re overall headed in a better direction, although right now feels like a very chaotic and very challenging time?
Adam Timm:
Yeah, no, I think we’re headed in the right direction. And I can point to very specific stories and very specific leaders, the people-driven leaders, who every single day they come in and they do the tough work of empowering their people and having conversations on the floor. Do you have the tools? Do you have the resources? Do you have the support to do your job to the best of your ability? And if not, what else can I do for you? And they listen and they love this job, and it’s in these instances that we can point to, to have hope and optimism for the future. And yes, they are by far in the minority, but because they’re out there demonstrating what’s possible, it’s not idealism. We aren’t just thought leaders pointing to some fantasy land, some unicorn that doesn’t exist. We are pointing to possibility based on the experiences of those who are doing the work today.
Right now, in centers and states across the country, there are leaders doing that tough work, building the communication centers that people are passionate to come into and feel like there’s something of value being a part of that team.
Chris Carver:
Right, and I think that’s really important. I think that folks need to understand that this is not out in the ether somewhere. This is real, and there are agencies that are getting this right, and there’s agencies that could use a little help. So I think you’re absolutely right. The most important thing that someone can offer you is the validation that what you want to do is actually possible, so I think you’re 100% right on that.
Adam Timm:
And I do hear that out at conferences. I hear people who’ve read my most recent book, “People-Driven Leadership, How the Best 911 Centers Inspire Positive Change”. They will often say, when I meet them at conferences, “Hey, thanks so much for putting this book out,” because it’s simply a collection of stories of these great leaders who are doing that. I didn’t do anything except pull together 30 or 40 or 50 stories of leaders doing this type of work that we’re talking about and put it in a way that is accessible so that others can use it. And they’ll say, “It’s helpful to know that I’m doing the right thing, that when I come into and work, and even if people aren’t telling me I’m doing the right thing, that I am. And they notice. They just might not be saying anything.” And to me, what a leadership lesson. It’s lonely at the top. It’s lonely walking into the frontiers, into the wilderness and not know if people are following. But it’s that type of leadership that does inspire, that creates the type of organizations we’re talking about.
Chris Carver:
Absolutely. Is there a particular story out of the book that you’d like to highlight that reflects the scenario you’re talking about?
Adam Timm:
Well, I’m thinking of a particular leader, Tina Buneta. She’s the director over at Aurora 911. In 2020, Aurora 911 moved out from under the police department, Aurora PD, and became its own consolidated center. And so since 2020, in just three years, they have gone through a heroic number of changes and it’s really been about defining who they are as a standalone organization. And I love how Tina in particular is just ferociously dedicated to her people. And you get a sense when talking with her that that fierceness that she demonstrates not only for the industry, she demonstrates each and every day for her people. And I was visiting her center a couple of weeks ago and walking the floor, I get the sense that everyone is on that level. You talk to everybody. They know that the organization is also their organization and it’s modeled from every level of leadership. There is no question that from the frontline all the way to the top, that everyone is aligned with what they’re creating on a daily basis and whether they are a part of it or not, it’s just this palpable sense.
And it wasn’t always that way. There have been naysayers who doubted that it would be anything different than all of the stories of the vast majority of centers where people say things like, “I don’t know, I just work here. Oh, we’re supposed to change stuff? That’s above my pay grade.” At organizations like Tina’s, everybody is part of the change, and it’s modeled from the top and she doesn’t force or coerce compliance. I think that’s one thing that’s interesting about 911 is that we have paramilitary structure and you can issue a direct order, you can command compliance, but the best leaders and centers all across the country are modeling and thereby inspiring followership. And Tina and her team are a great example of what’s possible in that realm.
Chris Carver:
That’s wonderful to hear a real-world application of that approach to leadership and management. That’s great. So my last question for you, Adam, and thank you again for being here today. I’m curious what advice you would give those starting out in this profession in the middle of all this change, this transformation into a profession, the challenges we face today. As The Healthy Dispatcher, what would you say to someone, the current version of Adam, just starting out, maybe having some challenges, answering calls, what would you say?
Adam Timm:
I would say go into it with eyes wide open. Understand that the job changes us. Any helping profession changes the way that we see the world, and that is an internal shift. And by being aware of how the job changes us, we can better mitigate its potentially harmful effects, because it can change us for the worst, or it can change us for the better. There is a such thing as post-traumatic growth. By being that calm in the chaos, you are helping the world with each interaction, and that meaning and purpose can fuel you, but you got to take great care of yourself, learn how to manage your stress effectively and find others who are on the journey with you because there are many of us, there are thousands of us out there who have grappled with the rigors of the job and adapted and embraced a way that is sustainable.
So sustainability is possible, and if you need any help, don’t hesitate to reach out to me or anyone at a conference. That’s another great thing about going to conferences. You’re accessing the larger community and saying, “Hey, how do you do it?” And we can share. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to ask for help is what I would say.
Chris Carver:
Absolutely. And it’s okay to ask for help and acknowledge that we’re all part of this wonderfully large, rich community of people very passionate about what we do, who care very much about those we do that job with, and the effort to help make sure we all just are a little better tomorrow than we were today. So thank you, Adam, for your effort in that great endeavor and for what you have done and are doing and will continue to do to move our profession forward. I really appreciate your time here today and you joining Hexagon Public Safety Speaks. It’s been a great time and we look forward to chatting with you again and seeing all those out there that are watching this at conferences all around the United States and beyond.
If you do need further information or would like to connect with either Adam or myself, please feel free to use our contact information or just reach out at a conference. Say hello. That’s one of the reasons why we’re there is to connect and to build this great big network of public safety professionals that we’re so happy to be a part of. Thank you all again very much. Have a wonderful day. Stay safe and we’ll see you soon. Be well.
Adam Timm:
Thanks so much.
