Maintaining The System
FEATURES
MANAGEMENT
After the chief officers were seated around the table, George began.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice. I don’t recall meeting any of you, so let me take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is George. I’m a management consultant. And I’ve been asked by the mayor’s office to make a brief study of your department.”
What can happen if top management protects and defends its organization despite demand for change
The System
“Why?” the oldest chief at the table interrupted. “I’m sorry,” he quickly said. “My name is Frank. I’m in charge of the fire academy. Is it all right to ask questions?”
“Sure. Ask anything you like, anytime you like.”
These were top managers of the city’s fire department, and George sensed that they weren’t going to cut him any slack. They were sincere, intelligent men who had devoted most of their lives to the fire department and the ideals that it stood for. Obviously, they were concerned about the mayor’s intrusion into their world. Frank, it was certain, sensed the start of something that he could do without.
George continued, “Before I answer Frank’s question, will you do me the honor of introducing yourselves?”
“Jack. I’m in charge of personnel.”
“Fiarold, Chief of Fire Operations.”
“Donald, Chief of Fire Prevention.”
“John, Chief of Department.”
Illustration by Arthur Arias.
A report to the mayor
George smiled. “Thanks. Now I’ll answer as honestly and as openly as I can.”
He wanted to go on with as much sensitivity as possible.
“I’m doing what’s called a ‘finding study.’ I’ll ask questions of company officers and firefighters throughout the department concerning their feelings about their jobs. Then I’ll write a report, stating what I’ve found.”
A wave of astonishment swept over the faces in the room.
John, chief of department, moved his seat away from the table. He began to stand up, but checked himself. His face was flushed. He spoke in low, controlled tones.
“We have only become aware of your activities shortly before this meeting.” His intense expression deepened. “How long have you been conducting your study?”
“For the past three weeks.”
“Why weren’t we immediately made aware of your activities?” Jack asked. “I mean, after all, I’m only in charge of personnel. And John is in charge of the entire department!”
“Don’t you think that’s kind of unfair?” Harold angrily interjected. “If they wanted to know about the department, then why didn’t they ask one of us? Who knows more about the department than us? Certainly not you! I’ll bet you’ve never been around firefighters in your life!”
Harold was really angry. George noticed the veins standing out in his thick neck.
“You’re correct,” George answered. “Before doing this study I had never set foot in a firehouse.”
“Then why you?” Harold pressed on, his eyes burning into those of the stranger.
A new eye sees more clearly
George took a moment to respond—things were heating up.
“Perhaps a new eye sees more clearly.”
“Sees what?”
“He has been asking firefighters and their bosses questions,” Frank offered. “Questions like, ‘What kind of work do you do?’ and ‘What kind of work do you like to do?’ And the big one: ‘If you were asked to do something new, what would you like to do?’
“I found out two days ago. A lieutenant from Company 3 called me. I told John. But I guess you and the others never got the word.” Frank glanced around the table for a confirmation, which he received.
Jack wanted to return to the main issue. “Would you tell us what you found, George?”
George thought carefully. He wanted to be both accurate and honest. “I found that firefighters, on the whole, want to stay with what they are doing. They enjoy their work. If I had to equate them with a similar industrial group, it would be with construction workers.
‘Firefighters, like an author or an artist, want to identify with their own work and have others recognize it as theirs.’
“They seem to enjoy working with tools and getting a job done well. Like construction workers, or similar trade workers, they are interested in producing a product.”
He paused for a moment and continued, “Perhaps that’s a poor way of putting it. It may be better to say that they are simply interested in doing a good job. And, evidently, they want to sign off on their work. Firefighters, like an author or an artist, want to identify with their own work and have others recognize it as theirs.”
He saw a general acceptance on the chiefs’ faces.
Frank waited for a few moments, letting the words sink in. After clearing his throat and with great deliberation, he asked, “Why did the mayor’s office want your study? I realize you were asked to get a feeling of likes and dislikes as far as work attitudes go. . . . But why? What are the underlying reasons?”
A good question. Frank had an idea of what was about to come. However, George felt that to answer directly at this point could be dangerous.
“Let me deal with your question by telling you a story,” he said. “It may give you an insight into what I feel the mayor’s office is about.”
Pathfinding
There seemed to be no opposition, so George continued. “At one time, the leaders of a certain country thought that there was going to be a long-term peace. They were concerned. They were worried over the disappearance of a unifying force—war—on a population with many diverse interests. Division and political strife, they felt, could occur. So they conducted a study.”
“What in God’s name has that to do with you and us?” Harold loudly protested.
“I am conducting such a study.” “Whaaat?!”
“Shut up, Harold!” John ordered, succeeding in getting the attention of everyone in the room. “What are you telling us?”
George knew that he was right where he wanted to be. All the chiefs present were about to be introduced to reality—a reality that unfortunately would seem to discredit their dedication and unselfish giving to maintain a department they defined and loved. He found it difficult to believe that the reality was not apparent to these men, men who had been around the political system for so many years. Perhaps they knew and had chosen to shield themselves from it; perhaps they were more skilled at the game of survival than he gave them credit for.
George responded, “I have been told that for over a five-year period your fire and related duties have been decreasing. And I have been informed that future projections hold forth a dramatic reduction in fire-suppression needs.” He hesitated before adding, “Your period of peace has been developing and, evidently, is predicted to bloom.”
“Are you saying there are going to be cutbacks?” Jack quickly inquired.
“I’m saying the mayor’s office could be looking for avenues to pursue so cutbacks don’t have to occur, or, at least, not on a major scale.”
A man digging a ditch
“What will you report?” John quietly asked.
George did not like what he was going to say, but he had promised to be open and honest.
“1 would like to answer with another story. It should convey what’s in my mind.
“One day I had some time to kill. So I watched a laborer digging a ditch. He carefully marked off long lines in the earth that would eventually become the trench’s walls. Then he began to loosen the earth with a pick. At regular intervals he removed the earth with a shovel, working at a steady pace. After a while, I realized that I was watching a highly perfected system of work.
“My business demanded that I leave. But towards evening, I returned. Now the trench was so deep that I couldn’t see the worker. It was over his head—and he was still digging. His presence was obvious only by dirt being thrown clear of the trench.
‘Are you implying that the department is in a hole?’
“Not too far away, a backhoe had begun to operate. With great skill, the operator scooped a mound of dirt into its large teeth. With one scoop, it made a sizable hole. The worker didn’t know it was there. Being down in the hole, he was oblivious to everything around him.
“I began to realize that if the worker dug deep enough, he’d be unable to get out of the hole he had dug. I wondered if the man ever had the opportunity to work with a backhoe. . . .”
Donald laughed nervously and asked, “Are you implying that the department is in a hole?”
George nodded. “A very deep one. And it’s growing increasingly narrow.”
“One that we’re unable to get but of, huh?”
“I feel it may be approaching that state.”
Harold exploded. “Who the hell are you to come here and say that to us? By your own admission you don’t know crap about the department. That’s what really ticks me off about you academic jackasses. You think by asking a few questions of a select group of malcontents you know everything and are empowered to become an expert with magic solutions. I’m not going to listen to any more of your crap!”
It’s a Catch-22 situation
“Let him go,” John waved, as Harold stormed out of the room.
He focused his attention on George and said, “I don’t take you for a fool. And I know your research isn’t complete enough to make such an assertion without your having some gut reaction, perhaps drawn from other studies. But I’d like to know what has led you to such an awful conclusion.”
George immediately responded, “Firefighters are uninterested in doing anything other than what they are doing. As a group, unless education is directly related to promotion or forcing a door or opening a roof or some other such firerelated activity, they’re not interested.”
Suddenly remembering, he asked the chief of department a question. “I understand that last year you personally tried to establish an executive development program for chief officers.”
John took the time to fold his hands before indicating agreement.
George continued. “And it failed because chief officers wouldn’t attend on their off-duty time. It seems that everyone is just too satisfied. Firefighters have told me about the union’s minimum manning rules that require a specific number of firefighters on an apparatus and how, if they’re ordered to school on their work time, someone would have to take their place, creating lots of overtime. They’re more than willing to go if overtime is involved.”
Jack remarked, “That’s a union contract requirement. It does make things difficult.”
“So it seems the firefighters aren’t really interested in education unless they get paid to go,” George quickly answered. “The union is for education, providing its contract rules on manning are not violated. Chief officers aren’t motivated to go to an executive development program on their own time. The chief of department’s office is in favor of education, providing it doesn’t disrupt the normal operational format. And the city is for education, providing it doesn’t create overtime. It’s a circle. A Catch-22 situation.”
‘What decisions have you made as a group to get the worker out of the trench?’
What have you done for the job?
“You’re focusing on education,” Frank remarked. “Why?”
“I am using education in its broadest sense,” George responded. “Without it, how are you going to get the worker out of the trench and into the seat of the backhoe? Use the word training. Use any term you like.”
“Why should he want to get out of the trench?” Frank asked, but immediately backed away from the question by adding, “Forget I asked that.”
George allowed a few moments of silence. Then he zeroed in for the kill.
“When we first began to talk, I made the point that a new eye may see more clearly. It was an answer to Harold’s question of why an academic ass, like me, was selected by the mayor’s office to take a look at your department.
“Now I want to make another statement. It’s a strong statement. One I’m sure you, as a group, will not like. But it must be made. And it’s this: The condition of an organization reflects, to a large degree, its management, especially its top management. And your department, it appears to me, is in a deep hole, content to do what it has learned to do well but facing a changing environment that it chooses to ignore.”
Donald was angry. “Take it easy!” he warned.
John motioned him to sit down. “He’s being honest. That’s to his credit.”
George directed his remarks at Donald. “I have been told—correct me if I’m wrong —that the fire department has turned down an offer by the city to provide emergency medical service. And somewhere along the line the department has implied that they don’t want to get involved with anything but fire duty. I’ve also been informed that, in the recent past, the fire investigation function was nearly given away to another agency.”
Donald was silent.
“Is it true?” George asked.
“It may or may not be true,” Jack answered. “At any rate, those decisions were made by another group of chiefs. And that emergency medical service decision dates back to the ’70s. You can’t hold us responsible for decisions made by others.”
“What decisions have you made as a group to get the worker out of the trench?” George asked, in a meaningful voice.
There was a long pause.
“I, and the other chiefs in this room, have always tried to protect the job and those that are in it,” John said.
“There is no question of that,” George responded. “You and your staff, like those before you, have, to the best of your abilities, helped to maintain the lines that the worker draws on the earth to mark the boundaries of his trench. But what have you—as managers—done to extend the boundaries? I mean you, as representatives of management. All by yourselves. Without the union or anyone else.”
Start with yourself
The atmosphere surrounding the table was difficult to define. George knew that the chiefs, as top managers in a paramilitary organization, were not used to a direct criticism of their exercise of authority, especially by an outsider.
“Are you going to put all of this in your report?” Donald inquired.
“The mayor’s office is looking for direction,” George quietly replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harold re-entering the room.
John thoughtfully asked, “If we were to promote change, where would you suggest we start?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Harold said belligerently. “This consultant is through. I’ve just contacted the union and let them in on what he’s been up to and what he’s been saying to us.” He glared at George. “The union has assured me that they’re going to instruct all members of the department not to have anything to do with him. As we speak, they’re contacting the mayor’s office. This guy’s finished.”
George listened intently, and he studied their faces. “Harold,” he said, “you’re a staff officer—a top member of management. But I don’t think you’ve taken the time to understand what that really means.” Directing his attention to the chief of department, he said, “You asked me a question. My answer, surprisingly, has not been influenced by Harold’s behavior.”
He rose to his feet, strode to the door, and turned to face the others. “Where to start? I suggest that you start with yourselves. Get away from ‘vertical thinking.’ It seems to be the kind that you have been preoccupied with. And it has led your organization —in these days of rapid change —into a very deep hole with well-defined and well-defended parameters that are drawing closer and closer together.”
“Wait a minute!” Frank called out. “We’re not all Harolds. What the hell is ‘vertical thinking’?”
George smiled. “If you have me back,” he called over his shoulder as he left the room, “I’ll promise to discuss it.”
He thought of the laborer digging deeper and deeper, cut off from the world around him. And he wondered if, somewhere in that laborer’s world, there were managers.
This is the first of three stories on management attitudes and the fire service. Next: “vertical thinking” is discussed.
