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Applying 'Verbal Judo' to prevent complaints |
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At the invitation of Complaints and Internal Investigations Branch, a retired police officer from Western Australia Police, Mr Will King, who is a member of the Verbal Judo Institute, conducted a two-day workshop on "Verbal Judo" at Police Officers' Club early last month. The participants mainly came from Complaints Against Police Office (CAPO), in addition to several instructors from Police College. Mr King introduced tactical communication skills and divided the participants into groups for practising 'Verbal Judo', according to the scenarios drawn from Hong Kong's situation. Police Officers come into contact with people from all walks of life and what they do are monitored by the community at all times. Therefore, officers have to possess numerous skills such as interpersonal communication, effective listening, critical thinking and positive psychology. They have to live up to the Force Values and maintain a high standard of professional sensitivity, particularly when dealing with a potentially dangerous situation or persons under enormous emotional or other influences. In some situations, conflicts might be unavoidable but officers have to keep their cool at all times and watch their conduct and behaviour in all situations. CAPO has been promoting complaints prevention strategies to reduce avoidable complaints and enhance Force members' professionalism. About 20 CAPO officers participated in the workshop to get first-hand experience of "Verbal Judo". Mr King reminded officers of the importance of reading the scene and paying attention to the tone of voice, particularly on a phone conversation. "Most complaints resulted from the misunderstanding or misinterpretation between complainants and police officers. Our job is to communicate with them with better mutual understanding and empathy and to deal with every complaint with fairness," said CAPO Woman Police Constable Diana Thumb. "The Verbal Judo workshop offered a great opportunity for us, particularly junior police officers to learn how to have effective communication by using tactful skills to convey messages professionally in a trying situation." The workshop provided an opportunity for the participants to hone their communication skills for handling different kinds of trying situations. The message that has dawned on them is they have to control their emotion at all times, no matter on or off duty, otherwise they can hardly handle and resolve problems sensibly. |
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