The ability of the intelligence community (IC) to protect the nation is largely the product of strong teamwork. Team decision-making improves the effectiveness of intelligence practices that depend on team members sharing information, brainstorming ideas, addressing conflict, and reaching a compromise as a unit.

While individuals can be trained as analysts to forecast events, team decision-making yields more accurate results than the work of individual forecasters, an outcome AMU professor Valerie Davis can affirm based upon her 30 years of intelligence experience. Learn more about how teamwork contributes to the intelligence cycle.

If you work or aspire to work in the public safety field, being a team player is a necessity. Whether you’re a police officer, firefighter, EMT, or emergency manager, lives depend on the strength and unity of teams. And, in today’s world of complex threats, it’s not just how well one team works together, it’s how well teams from different agencies work together in a coordinated response.

In August, In Public Safety will feature articles written by American Military University faculty members investigating the ongoing shifts in teamwork and coordination efforts among public safety agencies.

At the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police annual gathering of police chiefs from around the state, police commissioner of New York City William Bratton provided his perspective on the current state of policing in the country. “The last 18 months has been a time of extraordinary challenges and opportunities for the profession,” said Bratton. “We have a new world of issues that we need to deal with, but there’s an old world of issues that are resurfacing.”

Learn more about the NYPD’s focus on five strategic areas, referred to as the “5 Ts”, which will guide the agency in its continued fight against crime, while at the same time bridging the gap between police and minority communities.