BY JOHN M. BUCKMAN III
Conflicts present SoMe of the greatest challenges for fire departments staffed by volunteers. They can break a department into cliques, destroy personal relationships, and transform a seemingly functional department into one that has lost its spirit and camaraderie. Unfortunately, most fire department leaders have had little or no training in conflict resolution, and many will avoid becoming involved in conflict issues at all costs. Leaders should not ignore conflicts within their organizations.
Conflicts arise for a variety of reasons. Most often, however, they come down to personal values vs. organizational values. Some conflict is normal. Leaders need to accept it as a normal part of successful organizations. Two human beings brought together for common purposes will disagree on direction, process, andin some casesjust for the sake of disagreeing.
You cannot eliminate conflict. There will always be some type and degree of conflict. There are times when you may even disagree with yourself, so how can you expect to have two or more human beings agree all of the time? However, there are times when conflict must be confronted head-on. Failure to confront conflict that threatens the success of an organization is like ignoring an infectionwithout treatment, it will only get worse. The degree to which conflict is managed determines success or failure.
Identify Causes
Fire departments staffed with volunteers should examine their processes to see if they have a culture that encourages conflict. In many all-volunteer departments, there are monthly business meetings; members vote on everything from paying the utility bills to buying a fire truck. Why are there so many votes? This is where conflict begins to brew. Voting in membership meetings is a holdover from the traditional days when fire departments staffed with volunteers were organized primarily for fraternal reasons. This is one of the traditions of the volunteer fire service that needs to be examined at the organizational level. There are by-laws, but they can be changed. I know there are still many volunteer fire departments that vote to pay the monthly utility bill. Why? What would happen if the membership voted not to pay the bill? Sometimes we create our own conflict opportunity.
Conflict at the emergency scene many times continues to brew long after the emergency incident is over and the apparatus is returned to service. Every member needs to understand that there are clear-cut levels of authority at an emergency incident and there is no appropriate behavior other than to comply with the orders. The only way to reduce conflict from emergency incidents is to conduct open after-action reviews that provide everyone with the opportunity to express their frustrations about individuals’ actions and to work out their differences.
It is important to recognize differences that occur and to validate them, but all differences will not be resolved. In such instances, decisions are made at the instant they need to be madefor example, if competency is the issue, then the answer is scheduling additional training.
CURBING INDIVIDUAL CONFLICT
Everyone has an opinion. Leaders must accept those differences. The differences can be real, or they can be perceived. Either way, they create conflict within the individual. The leader’s job is to make sure individual conflict does not graduate into organizational conflict.
Conflicts generally fall into two categories: emotional and factual.
Emotional conflict might occur when a fire department is confronted with significant organizational changes. Many members involved in the conflict may oppose it for reasons that sound something like this: “It is not the way we have always done it” or “I think the way we do things now is OK; it has worked for many years.”
What does a leader do when confronted with emotional conflicts? The overall strategy may be to move from the emotional side of the issue to the facts surrounding the issue. This takes significant strategic thinking. The leader must do considerable homework to create a fact-based analysis of the pros and cons surrounding the issue. Create a fact book. Examine the issue. Focus on the reason the organization exists. In this type of conflict, firefighters sometimes forget that it is not their fire department. If the community has changed in the past 10 years, then it might be time to change the way the fire department operates. Identify the organizational failures and strengths. Do not identify issues that resulted from individual failurethe conflict could quickly deteriorate into an all-out war. This issue is not personal.
Do not become involved in personality conflicts. Leaders must not insert themselves in the middle of personality disputes involving two or more individuals. The leader should facilitate an event that will bring the individuals to the table to discuss the issues. Leaders should ask open-ended questions that could help the individuals build respect for each other as persons. Point to good things the individuals bring to the table. Work with them to identify common personality traits; build on the commonality. This meeting should not last more than 30 minutes, and there should not be more than two such sessions unless progress is being made.
Only the individuals themselves can bring about the changes necessary to resolve the conflict. This is sometimes hard for leaders to accept. Some people will change if their safety and security are threatened. A big issue for many volunteers is the threat of a loss of standing within a specific group. The leader, however, should not make threats but instead should strive to get the members to resolve the issue between them.
If there is no movement from either side, someone is going to have to leave the organization. If there is movement from only one side and the other individual has drawn a line in the sand, the leader will have to decide what is best for the community the fire department serves.
A factual conflict can be just as difficult to manage. The issue in many cases involves the facts. How were they created? How were they gathered? If you can justify the authenticity of the facts, you may be able to resolve the conflict. Be extremely careful when producing facts to make sure they are not based on speculation or opinion. They must be based on sound research and judgment. Be prepared to back up facts with more facts. If you develop a change model based on a set of facts that are weak and are not based on a sound hypothesis, you are destined to fail. Again, as with the emotional conflict issues, there are some conflicts that will never be resolved.
MAINTAIN PARTIES’ DIGNITY
Be creative when attempting to resolve a conflict. There is no single way to ensure 100-percent resolution. Approach the issue from a win-win perspective. If the end result is that one of the parties involved in the conflict has his integrity, pride, or stature destroyed, this is not resolution. Conflict resolution entails techniques similar to those used in labor negotiations. In most conflicts, neither party ends up getting everything he wanted before the conflict started. If both sides can walk away with their heads held high, there is a chance that there will be fewer conflicts in the future.
Many leaders have gotten gray hair from conflict issues that have arisen among their staff. To make things easier, sign up at your local community college and take a class in conflict resolution. You will be a much improved leader if you can resolve conflicts and reduce their impact on your members and department. Be prepared for the time when conflict will raise its ugly head. Think strategically: What do I want the end result to be? Plan tactically: What do I need to accomplish my strategy?
JOHN M. BUCKMAN III has served as chief of the German Township (IN) Fire Department for more than 30 years. He is a member of the FDIC executive advisory board, is treasurer of the National Fire Academy Alumni Association, and was president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (2001-2002).
