And the Band Played On

By Bobby Halton

There is an interesting conversation that some think is sacrilegious to question: the role of the first-arriving company officer assuming the role of incident commander (IC), as if it is something that we must accept on blind faith. But we would do well to remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, who once said, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.” Today, we boldly question whether or not the first-arriving company officer must “assume command” as an absolute, undeniable truth.

For an interesting comparison, there was a recent article on an emergency management site about a study done at the University of Maryland. Professor Dr. Yiannis Aloimos wanted to see if a conductor’s movements and gestures could be measured to validate the importance and necessity of having a strong conductor continuously controlling the orchestra. To test his theory, Dr. Aloimos had engineers put an infrared light on the end of the conductor’s baton and similar lights on all of the violinists’ bows in the orchestra.

Subsequently, when the conductor waved his baton, there would be movement by the violinists, which could be measured by a special mathematical formula designed by a Nobel prize-winning economist. The study concluded that there was a direct correlation between the conductor’s baton movement and the subsequent movement by the violinists following his lead in the orchestra. The conductor in the original experiment was known for his strict control over his orchestra, so a control group of less-qualified conductors was formed. The conclusion was that the strict conductor’s orchestra played better than those of the less qualified.

Some then concluded that this validates or proves the importance of the IC and, clearly, to some extent it does. But does it validate the need for the first-arriving company officer to assume command? A second study was done about conductors and the control of orchestras, this one involving the Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov. The object of this particular study was to find out if in fact it made more sense to devote more energy to “the first and greater portion of training and establishing conditions that lead to desired outcomes rather than devoting energies into the online process management” or the art of incident command.

In fire service speak, what this means is, does it make more sense to train diligently and thoroughly so that you establish tactical procedures and policies that match conditions and contexts identified by arriving officers rather than placing the onus on the first arriving to discern those conditions and make those subsequent tactical decisions for subsequent arriving units? Does it make more sense to train companies beforehand in the art and science of tactics recognition and synchronization rather than devote the majority of our energies to command-level training or what is called the online process management?

This alternative of the first due not assuming command and simply sizing up the event does not eliminate the criticality of the IC; it would simply mean that the first-arriving officer would size up the event and then go to work according to the tactical capabilities and resources of the unit. Subsequent arriving units would follow the same procedures based on the first-arriving unit’s size-up and their own assessment on arrival. The chief officer would maintain contact by radio until his arrival and provide input and support when necessary.

But back to our Russian conductor, to test the theory of diligent training to identifiable contexts or conditions and desired outcomes, conductor Temirkanov decided to lead a major U.S. orchestra in the performance of a Mahler symphony. This is the kind of music that would normally involve a tremendous amount of arm waving and body swaying gyrations from the conductor. But on this particular night, the conductor stood completely still. He cued the orchestra to begin, and then his hands went quietly to his side. The orchestra played beautifully, almost flawlessly, and he listened.

Occasionally, he did provide some assistance and adjustments with a simple wink of his eye or with a tilt of his body, but that was about it. He had prepared the orchestra well during rehearsals; he had drilled them diligently, and all the right conditions were in place at the performance-when it counted most, he was managing at the margins. Conductor Temirkanov demonstrated that to focus on conditions and outcomes rather than causes and reactions is to think differently about systems and to act differently leading them.

Can well-drilled and highly trained tactical practitioners work together as a team at events where they have prepared diligently for specific contexts, identifiable conditions, and desired outcomes? Is the first-arriving officer, who is generally less experienced than subsequent arriving chief officers, in the best position to make decisions about subsequent arriving units? How much working memory does a first-arriving officer have at his disposal after he has made decisions for the company and assessed the scene? Where should we invest our energies in training in process management, the IC, or companies and identifying conditions and taking tactical considerations based on resources and context? In all probability, the answer is a compromise somewhere in the middle, but we can only get there, as Jefferson said, if we first “question boldly.”