In recent columns, I told the story of becoming a battalion chief (BC) and then being assigned to a battalion that had historically been used as a special place to punish those organizational leaders considered outspoken, verbally out of control, and generally unacceptable. My sin was I successfully got through the beginning level (BC) command officer promotional process at an age/level of experience that was way too early according to my chief officer boss, who reluctantly promoted me. I did not have profound feelings about the dynamics of punishment or really think much about it, probably because I was never on the receiving end of the punishment process. Up until then, I had a fairly normal career; I got along with my colleagues and bosses and quietly was promoted a couple of times before this trip to Devils Island.
As I went through this promotion/punishment adventure, I experienced not only being the (very personal) recipient of “negative discipline” but at the same time was also becoming the boss of a battalion full of characters who also were being punished by their assignment for a completely different set of reasons. The foundation of this craziness was based on the organizational leadership’s using the prospect and the reality of the fear of punishment to somehow control behavior. No one (including me) could have predicted the effect this experience would have on me for the rest of my life as a boss. I realize telling this unusual story will create a slippery slope because it very probably is contrary to many of the traditional perceptions of how punishment fits into the framework of standard fire service personnel management and administration. Those who regularly administer the punishment end of the personnel process have probably been raised and socialized in a system where the regular application of punishment has been normalized as a way of organizational life.
Context of My Story
I now must establish some basic context for telling my story. I decided to become a firefighter when I was four years old; I became one when I was 21 years old and have luckily been one ever since. My comments about the punishment process are conditioned and directed not only by that personal experience but also by the observations I developed as a boss. Every person who joins the fire service does it for a variety of personal reasons, but we all pretty much do it voluntarily (no draft). Most fire departments are very selective in whom they accept as members. I have observed in the past that everyone who is “in” has earned and had their admission ticket “punched.” In some destination fire departments, it is more difficult to get hired as an entry level firefighter than to get into medical school. The point of my bragging about the quality of personnel is that my observations, experiences, and feelings about punishment are directly connected to the experiences and feelings about the basic (very high) quality of our personnel.
Occupational Limitation
I have no direct experience with any other workforce except that of the fire service. I am fairly certain that a warden of a high-security prison would not apply my approach to controlling the behavior of his internal customers. I have enormous respect for an individual who takes on the very challenging role of warden, but I have been connected my whole life only with a group of workers who are on the exact opposite end of the behavior scale. I do not mean this as a value judgment but as a comparative description of the people who inhabit our service. As a very young member of the organization, I instinctively wondered why a system that was so selective of whom they allowed to enter would then so frequently use punishment to control those same highly selected workers as if they were prisoners.
The Major Role of the Functional Boss
It is a major role of a boss to fix whatever or whoever is out of balance; how the boss does this will create a very critical definition of that person’s basic personality and capability. You really need a box when things are messed up; we need love the most when we deserve it the least. That is when an effective leader must emerge and operate to make things better in the short term and the long term. Up until then, when everything and everybody is doing peachy, it’s pretty easy to be an A+ boss. However, when things get chaotic and uncontrollable, it’s showtime for the boss. A huge part of the role of management and leadership is to forecast and then prevent problems; but if anyone has invented a method to absolutely prevent difficulties, problems, and mistakes, I haven’t heard of it. The only thing that continually prevents a flubproof system is that we (thankfully) have humans involved in every part of our department. Although our humans consistently perform very well, they are also fallible.
The organization gives a boss a set of tools to fix out-of-balance conditions and people. We use tactical action involving standard operating procedures, tools, water, and technology to resolve out-of-control physical conditions like fires, medical problems, a hazardous material being where it shouldn’t be and doing what it shouldn’t be doing, customers stuck on or under objects, and so on. These physical conditions occur mostly to our outside customers (Mrs. Smith). A more difficult set of issues occurs on the inside of our department when our internal customer (Firefighter Smith) is out of balance. When this occurs, the boss must use personal and positional capabilities to assist the troops under that boss’s care to correct and recover from problems, difficulty, and suffering. Realigning a “family member” on the inside is a lot more challenging than correcting what is wrong with the humans on the outside. We typically spend 30 minutes with Mrs. Smith and 35 years with Firefighter Smith.
Bosses adjust and fix human problems mostly using the relationship they have with the out-of-alignment person. When a boss must correct what a worker is doing is probably the most interpersonally dangerous period for that relationship. The worker, who is then generally very vulnerable, will remember forever (based on the feelings/emotions) how the boss treated him when he was in “mistake jail.” Using relationships creatively requires that an effective boss have the skill, ability, and caring to use his personal resources and positional authority to create a recovery of a nonstandard/nonacceptable action or behavior. Making this adjustment occurs along a scale that ranges from very gentle, where the boss connects in a very personal way to create a level of corrective persuasion, to the most severe end of the scale, where negative punishment can be the beginning of a disciplinary process that defines the member as having a problem and that, if the behavior is not corrected, can lead to separation from the organization. Punishment on the severe end of the scale includes personnel action like loss of privileges, selective assignment, unpaid suspension, punitive probation, demotion, and separation.
The internal organizational standard for behavior is directly connected to the historic feeling and expectation of the community, which gives us almost complete trust-based access to all the people, places, and things in our community. The organization must create a system and develop the leadership skills to maintain a high standard of member conduct on every level.
I was a boss for a long time. During that time, I got to see the beginning, the middle, and the end of the permanent effect of the punishment process with an essentially permanent workforce. Based on my observations and experiences of that permanence, I got to see the ongoing effect (both plus and minus) of the department that uses punishment to adjust behavior. It was interesting to live through those stages. It is critical for bosses to understand that the effect of what they do and how they do corrective action will last for the entire careers of the recipients and will affect how they feel about how they were treated mostly by their bosses. When someone slips and falls, we can either kick him when he is down or help him up.
Punishment University
Following are my observations of attending Punishment University:
- Once you start, it’s hard to stop. When the system starts using the punishment process routinely, it’s difficult to stop. The ongoing momentum of regular recurring punishment is that we create a bigger and bigger “punishment alumni”-a member had a problem, went through the discipline process that involved punishment, and now the member expects anyone whose case is similar to his to get the same sentence. When a boss or the system decides to take a nonpunitive, training-based approach, the punishment veterans can exert themselves and demand that we must now somehow “create accountability.” I was the guy who led that shift in positive recovery and continually was assaulted as wrecking the good order of the system. I noticed as time went on that the guy who was yelling at me last week about my liberal policies stopped objecting to my approach the next week when he got out of balance himself. It’s interesting to get to live a long time in the same system and see the full range of evolution of an idea, including organizational forgiveness.
- Short-term relief/long-term pain. Sometimes punishment is the easiest/quickest short-term way to “dispose” of a problem. Using a range of a boss’s resources is longer and more difficult and necessitates a lot of engagement and personal effort. Having the boss directly engage the worker, mutually develop a recovery plan, and then monitor that plan takes a lot of time, energy, and attention on the part of the boss. It’s a lot easier and much quicker to suspend the person (as an example) than to “fix” that person and prevent/solve the problem. Using just punishment does not require being very creative or innovative. Many times when punishment is used, it creates long-term resentment and bitterness, and that effect removes a very human part of the recipient that never returns.
- All we can do is break even. A basic dilemma is that when we use punishment as the major organizational response to a problem, the best we can do is break even. The dilemma with just breaking even is that we cannot punish our way to paradise; we can only move through the continuous improvement process by being positive. When somebody creates a problem and we negatively react, it may give the appearance that the system is effectively creating a fix. This response may get us through the day, but it generally will not fix anything in the long term. We cannot effectively fix problems by being negative. If the problem is caused by a reckless, recurring, or malicious act, punishment may be appropriate if it is part of an ongoing recovery plan that involves the person who did it and his bosses. Having a boss with the skill, ability, and patience to work with the punisher will create the most critical (positive) part of the process. This is not easy. The person in trouble many times has many difficult things going on in his life that got him in a jam. Most of the time, the boss is frustrated and upset by the behavior and must cool off before acting. The review of discipline includes what we do to correct the problem and how we do it. Basic functional problem-solving boss behaviors include the following: stabilizing the situation, finding out what happened, taking advantage of discretionary time, determining an effective and a kind course of action, consulting smart advisers, directly engaging the players, and executing long-term follow up. Do not do anything that feels good when you are mad.
- Recovery resilience. When a problem occurs, the organization must develop an individual or a collective recovery plan that leads to revising, improving, and inventing the procedures, technology, training, and direction that will produce a durable set of improvements in the humans and the systems that effectively will prevent the problem from occurring again. When performance or behavior must be improved and the system punishes those involved in a situation, it will set the stage for the future that will have members believe that when something goes wrong, it would be best for them to hide out and shut up. When the department badly needs those who had direct personal experience and who know the most about what happened to participate in the fix, these parties will go underground to avoid the punisher. Creating a positive internal environment that supports an effective recovery process will maintain an energetic level of creativity, and the system will continually and naturally fix itself. This requires positive, accessible leadership; high levels of trust between all levels; and an ongoing active communication process-all of this is driven by positive bosses. As the organization improves its overall ability to recover from problems, it automatically refines the skill, ability, and mentality to naturally use those same capabilities to predict and prevent problems. This creates human and organizational resilience.
- Forgiveness is forever. Most of the people I was involved with who zigged when they should have zagged wanted their problem fixed, learned the lessons, and worked to get back to normal. When our department was in control of the resolution (most of the time), we directly engaged the involved players; tried to develop a smart, humane solution; and practiced second-chance management I did that for a long time in a fairly big department (fifth largest U.S. city) and very seldom saw that person in trouble again. Although we may have been taking a chance with that member-centered approach, I very seldom had to consider a third chance. If a person was in a corner, we built a door and helped him get out and get on with his personal and occupational life; the long-term effect of forgiveness is profound. Sometimes a member created a very serious external problem for himself-like breaking a law-and then had to deal with the legal/judicial system. When this occurred, we tried to operate in a considerate, professional way internally while the individual went through the external resolution process-sometimes (not often) the consequences of the outcome eliminated the person’s employment.
- Smart boss yes/no card. Having effective bosses in place every day supporting the members under their direction is a major part of the punishment-prevention process. These bosses have continuous access to the workforce and are given the authority (power) to create a yes/no response to the behaviors of their troops. Although we live in the fire service in a mostly positive land of “yes,” sometimes the boss must use the “no” card to eliminate something he predicts will cause a problem. Doing this creates an ongoing level of sensible and humane organizational control on the lowest level that stops trouble and suffering before it occurs-the best way to manage a problem is to prevent it. Being able to do this effectively requires that the boss use his backbone/brain/heart at the correct time and firmly redirect unacceptable behavior. Company officers can be empowered and very effective persons in a position to prevent early problems and the confusion that a problem typically creates every day. These prevention efforts eliminate a ton of paperwork, meetings, and pain. I was raised by old school company bosses who were very direct, forceful, and effective in exerting themselves to quickly stop anything they identified as being out of balance. They were not timid in managing (controlling) their troops and were not concerned by the current confusion caused by the “ buddy to boss” dilemma of newly promoted young officers or the instant reaction to having a boss who is awake and active who is somehow “micromanaging us.” I am not suggesting we go back to 1960 but that we create an effective combination of old-fashioned firmness and modern human relations.
Earlier, I compared a prison environment to the fire service and commented on how different our system of punishment is based on the profile of the “inmates.” I had a very interesting experience when I was asked by the Arizona Department of Corrections to assist in developing an incident command system for their prisons. A young, smart, very savvy warden was assigned to help me understand the details of how the system worked. In our many conversations, I asked him how he managed inmate behavior. He told me when he got a new guest he would sit with him and explain his approach to punishment. In that discussion, he told the person: “I will be as nice as you let me, or I will be as mean as you make me.” I instantly saw the face of my first captain (also very smart). Old and profound memories die hard.
Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINI is a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.
Loyal Insubordination
Who Works for Whom?
An Unusual Classroom with Unusual Classmates
Fire Engineering Archives
