Primary: How leaders react to critical incidents and organizational crises. The agency is in the business of responding to critical incidents, which can turn challenges into organizational crises more frequently than in other types of organizations. The COVID-19 crisis, for example, has resulted in a focus of manpower and overtime funding for “essential workers” in OpComm, who cannot do their jobs from home. Other civilian employees have not gotten the same attention, mostly due to the critical nature of the OpComm function. Schein (2017) suggests that “no better opportunity exists for leaders to send signals about their own assumptions about human nature and relationships than when they themselves are challenged” (p. 191). This response by leadership reinforces the value placed on the work of OpComm, and its contribution to the agency’s mission.

Primary: How leaders allocate resources. Over the years, OpComm funding has surged and suffered depending upon the general economy and state funding levels. Consistently, short term skimping on OpComm has resulted in long term agency performance issues, greater long-term spending in other areas, and eventually necessitated the appropriate funding OpComm after the fact. Supporting OpComm up front, when the need arises, helps the entire agency. Short-sighted leaders have gotten this wrong too often. The fiscal-year nature of state funding, grant allocation and politics all play a part. Bright shiny new patrol cars are a lot more visible to the governor and legislators than a new radio console in the dispatch center, or a communications antenna on a remote mountain top.

Secondary: Design of physical space, façades, and buildings. Upon the completion of a new headquarters building in the late 1980’s, OpComm was moved from one of the older buildings, into a prominent and more visible location in the new building. The physical space has changed and expanded over the years. The “open areas, cubicles, and mixed-use space” identified as significant by Schein (2017, p. 201), are operational necessities in OpComm, not just aesthetic design choices. The fact that OpComm workspace changes are driven by operational need and not by whims of leadership demonstrates a respect and understanding for the work being done. Inefficient and unpopular changes have been made in other areas from time to time, but rarely in OpComm.

Secondary: Formal statements of organizational philosophy, creeds, and charters. The agency mission, “To protect human life and property by enforcing state laws, deterring criminal activity, and providing vital support to the State…and its citizens,” is a fairly generic statement, and consistent with Schein’s (2017) point that such a statement “cannot be viewed as a way of defining the organization’s whole culture” (p. 203).  The agency vision statement reads: “To be the national model in providing customer-oriented state-level law enforcement services.” As described in the book, this statement is “useful to publish as an ideology or focus for the organization” (Schein, 2017, p. 203), however, the agency leaders have frequently made decisions which do not serve to promote this vision. This is especially disheartening when a workgroup, like OpComm, knows that they have the ability and capacity to be one of the best units in the nation, but no support is forthcoming from leadership beyond  meeting standard expectations. This secondary reinforcing and stabilizing mechanism is tied to the primary embedding mechanism, “What leaders pay attention to, measure, and control on a regular basis.” It is not measured or pursued by the leaders, so it becomes less relevant to the culture, and losses its ability to motivate performance.