THE PODCAST
Elevating the conversation about all things tactical.
Managing Resourceful Humans
Picking the human talent for your team and carefully developing them once they’re selected is a core element of leadership, and “management” is not a dirty word. Knowing the traits you need and attracting people with those traits is a foundational skill for any team leader. Keeping those people there and motivated is where the management comes in.
You Have Questions, We Have Answers
For the first episode of the New Year, Mike and Jim tap one of the podcast’s most important resources: You, the listeners! We asked the members of the Tactical Tangents Facebook discussion group for a list of questions, with the promise of podcast swag for the best one. (If you’re not in the group, get in there and join!)
Getting the Band Together
Some people are daring and some are risk-averse. There are process people and results people. For every rebel, there’s an i-dotting, t-crossing rules follower. All these personality types can bring something to a team; this kind of diversity really is strength! Selecting opposites that compliment each other is a valuable leadership skill. Most important is the self-awareness of what you bring to your team, and who can back you up in your blind spot.
The Inner Game of Thriving
Tactical skills and physical fitness can help survive the fight, but what about emotional fitness after the fight is over? In addition to common symptoms like sleep disruption and reliving the incident, high responders may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of feeling isolated and out of control afterward. In this episode Ross & Mike talk about therapy resources, the importance of finding meaning outside the job, and preventative care ahead of time for mental resilience in the wake of a critical incident.
No Shi…Kidding, There I was…
Hard landings, cockpit equipment malfunctions, fires, and near-miss almost midair collisions while in an inverted spin, these situations that were terrifying at the time can be humorous in retrospect as long as everyone lived. More importantly, they all offer the sort of lessons that can’t be learned from a PowerPoint presentation, only by things going badly wrong in real time.Jim’s here to pass his hard won lessons on to you. And watch out for pterodactyls!
Symphony of Terror
The Mumbai incident, perpetrated by a squad of ten terrorists who had been through a rigorous selection and training process, introduced multiple novel problems worth considering. What happens when there are multiple shooters at different scenes simultaneously? When they have access to serious arms, including grenades, possibly provided by a foreign actor? When they use structure fires as a weapon? When they have outside command-and-control monitoring the news and communicating with the shooters via cell phone? These and other complications inherent in an attack like this are examined in this episode.
A Scared Cop is a Dangerous Cop
The most notorious manifestation of this phenomenon is the “’Oh Sh*t!’ Bang”, where a scared or startled cop results in a lawful-but-awful shooting that might have been avoided by better stress management and more confidence in the officer’s physical skills. However, Mike also explains the many other places that the poorly managed limbic response can rear its ugly head: Bad communication in stressful situations, indecision or half-decisions that allow a developing situation to get much worse, and more.
Mandalay Bay Mass Shooting Debrief w/ SWAT Commander & Patrol Sergeant
America’s largest mass killer attack did not end when the gunfire stopped. In this episode, retired LVMPD Lt. Will Huddler and Sgt. Ashton Packe revisit the Route 91 Country Music Festival shooting, sharing firsthand accounts supported by audio and video from the event. Their perspectives provide rare insight into what unfolded in real time—from the initial confusion and information gaps to the cascading challenges faced by responding officers and commanders.
Countering the Stalker
Stalking is a problem that often isn’t recognized until it’s well out of hand, and advice from friends and relatives is often limited to platitudes about restraining orders or buying a gun. Our hosts take a look at the nuts and bolts of the problem with an eye to strategy and the recognition that legal solutions can be frustratingly time consuming.
Training: The Good, The Bad & The Dangerous
In a crossover episode of Tactical Tangents, Mike sits down with Danimal of The Thin Brewed Line to talk about setting up a training program to keep officers alive on the streets…and in the training environment. In a dangerous profession, the danger shouldn’t be coming from inside the program!
Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say
A core component of effective teamwork is that everyone has a voice, and everyone gets a vote. The Good Idea Fairy might save your life someday, so foster that within your teams. Let the crazy guy talk! This episode covers an important communication concept for teams called mitigated speech and some ways to manage it.
Get with the times: Pistol Optics are the way of the present
There are advantages and disadvantages to any piece of tech—electronics and batteries are always failure points, but in this day and age they have become status quo. And for good reason: It’s a more natural way to shoot, you don’t need to shift your focus away from your target and it simplifies the cognitive load required to line up your iron sights. Learn more on any podcast outlet in Episode 154.
Guns n’ Guitars: Go learn something new
Hobbies are an important outlet but often, the hardest part is getting started. The next thing you have to learn is how to break through the inevitable plateaus and challenges that come with learning new skills, so in episode 153 we talk about how to develop techniques without sucking the joy out of something that is supposed to be fun.
Do you trust me? Selflessness in Teamwork
It’s one thing that we all get along, but real trust isn’t something that can be assumed as a given–we’ve got to earn it. Building trust in teams has a lot to do with the often unwritten social contracts that help us get on the same page about our roles and responsibilities. We have to know that everyone is going to put the mission before their own personal interests to really build harmony and a combined effort that is greater than than the sum of its individual parts.
All’s Well…If We Make it Well
“Wellness” is a buzzword these days. Employers offer all manner of wellness aids from fitness to nutrition as part of benefits packages, but the truth is that nobody can make you care about your wellness if you don’t. In this episode, Mike explains why this is an important concept and the reasons you should care about it.
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Eyes In the Back of Your Head: A Personal Radar System
Ever get that tingling sense that someone is coming up behind you? We found a company that invented a personal security radar that could drastically limit an adversary’s ability to surprise you. That’s worth talking about.
Fighting at Night
With some reasonable preparation, proportional to your personal risk of having to fight at night — you can use the darkness to gain and maintain gross overmatch. Start by sorting out your own personal risk, which should drive your investment in training and equipment. Consider both technical and non-technical ways you can improve your ability to see and screw with your adversary’s ability to see.
How to Handle a Traffic Stop
Traffic stops are dangerous and unpleasant. A lot of forces converge to make traffic stops dangerous: cops get killed on traffic stops, so they are anxious about them, some communities feel unfairly targeted and perceive a risk from the police, and everyone is at risk to distracted and drunk motorists passing by the stop. No one likes being pulled over, especially if they don’t trust the police. There has to be something we can do to make this whole thing safer and easier for everyone
These aren’t my pants…
The subtle, contextual cues that guide our instincts are often tough to put our finger on, but they are also the reason we might approach one person or situation differently than another. The last thing we want to do is leave those decisions up to someone else’s interpretation. It is difficult to teach what stress, deception, and threatening body language look like in training.
Tactical Case for Restraint
One of the key flaws in civilian tactical training is how much time and effort we put into shooting and fighting skills and how little time and effort we put into conflict resolution. If all we teach is shooting, and the one tool in your “toolbox” is carbine skills, then the whole world might tend to look like a shooting range to you. That is a dangerous habit pattern…