Being able to hang out with you every month offers me the opportunity to share whatever is sailing throughout my noggin at the moment. Most of the time, it is directed toward what I am attempting to work my way through, the latest phase of trying to understand and then write about. Transferring and translating what landed in my imagination into written form generally require a lot of repackaging and rearranging; most of the time, my original mental jolt is not anywhere close to a version someone can understand. Having to submit something every month is a good drill for me: It requires that every month I must convert my mental electricity into written form. We have discussed in the past how critical writing is for a student.
In this column, I have described myself as a very senior student who has attended fire service class for about 60 years and who, on a good day, is roughly at the level of a second-semester sophomore. Most of the “classes” I have been enrolled in were directed at the behaviors of a boss. The first classes I attended (in the street) involved trying to make sense out of the job of the boss of a structure fire-that was mostly what we did then. As a young firefighter, I was interested in how critical the skill and fireground personality of the boss of the incident were to the outcome of the event and the survival of the troops. At first, we called the guy (at that time, we were all guys) the FGC, the fireground commander. Later, the California guys developed the incident command system (ICS) and invented the title incident commander (IC), which we all use now.
The IC Function
Being an IC is a very functional job, so we developed the eight standard functions of command [assumption; evaluation; communications; deployment; organization, strategy-incident action plan (IAP); organization; revision; and termination] in response to a battalion chief’s asking his boss (me), “What do you want me to do when I am the IC?” These simple, basic, very doable fireground command boss behavior activities outlined in the command functions have been around for a long time and basically describe the command-and-control role of an IC operating at a local Type 5 or 4 incident.
Helping our members become effective incident bosses involved developing the leadership and management skills necessary to command the tactical operations required to locate, cut off, and overpower the incident problem. We increased everyone’s technical and tactical knowledge of critical factors to improve their skill. Continually improving our ability to conduct effective and safe incident operations is (and always will be) an absolutely fundamental responsibility for us. I am still enrolled as an incident command student and now get to hang out with my sons, who have taken our primitive FGC beginning to a modern Blue Card electronic level of delivering those same eight command functions.
Customer Service
About 25 years after the beginning of the incident command adventure, Mrs. Smith showed up. Before that, we called her a “victim.” She was to us historically an important “accessory” that came with a burning building. Although we had a very positive traditional relationship with and affection for her, our internal organizational perspective changed (dramatically, in some cases) when we started to refer to her and then treat her as a “customer.” To more effectively serve her, we had to add a new customer-centered dimension to our organizational perspective. This necessitated that we become more “emotionally literate.”
This capability made it necessary that bosses create internal educational and support systems that would enable their troops to develop a new awareness and the related behaviors so they could better relate to delivering improved basic core customer service and revised and expanded added value. Making this change required that we address a new combination of tactical and human dynamics and the emotional support for the tactical and command needs of a typical incident. Making these emotionally based service delivery improvements was a steep slope for most of us, who were born, trained, and operating our entire career in a system in which, most times, emotionally illiterate bosses consciously instructed us to eliminate our personal feelings (just as they did) because the feelings were a distraction and barrier to performing well-coordinated and skillfully executed manual labor.
Continual Organizational Adjustments Needed
Looking back on how our service has evolved from the single firefighting function to the current customer-centered, full-service menu we now deliver, we see that the fire service had to have the capability to continually do new; different; and, hopefully, better functions and services. These changes required functional bosses to manage, support, and improve the traditional manual labor-intensive (core) service along with providing emotional support (added value) to the organization and the community. This simultaneous core-service/added-value reality requires a new level of leadership awareness and skill. Now, a functional boss must be able to effectively and sensibly repackage the classic, traditional (read: autocratic) organizational leadership style to effectively provide, as a boss, the same positive support on the inside that the troops must extend when giving service to Mrs. Smith on the outside. Our continual message is, what we do on the inside gets delivered on the outside.
We have recently discussed a progressive organizational characteristic that forms the foundation of continually connecting our performance to the internal and external changes that never stop occurring. Developing this philosophy of always staying effectively attached to the needs of Mrs. Smith is an attempt to make the internal adjustments necessary to continually stay relevant. Leading the core-service/added-value process requires that a modern boss always tune up our service by recognizing, and then connecting, how we handle Mrs. Smith’s needs. Continually making the organizational adjustments becomes a huge leadership function, and a functional boss is needed to create and maintain a positive internal organizational environment. This is a lot easier to write about than to do.
Add “Sensible” to a Contemporary Organization’s Critical Components
It seems that everything on the outside of our system (what/who we protect) is colliding with our internal environment in a fast and, many times, furious way. This reality increases the need and challenge for an organization to be able to seat belt the baby to the tub as it adjusts the water to maintain the fire service’s functional traditions along with a modern level of versatility and agility. Our ability to continue to survive and prosper as a department is directly connected to the effective internal characteristics of our organization. Contemporary fire bosses must develop the perspective and ability to evaluate, create, and maintain positive organizational characteristics and capabilities. In recent columns, we discussed what being organizationally positive, progressive, and well-managed looks like. It is worthwhile to continue that discussion. Now, we are going to take on another critical component of that positive internal environment: SENSIBLE.
The members of our service are typically very capable. It is challenging to successfully navigate and survive the highly competitive entry-selection process; your personal skill, intelligence, and background ticket got punched to get a seat on Big Red-simply, there are no idiots riding backward. We have historically trained our regular, existing workforce to perform virtually every new and improved specialty and skill required to do 300 years of program development in the American fire service since Ben Franklin got us started. I have been actively involved in that process for the past almost 60 years and have never had a training officer tell me that the next proposed change was not possible because it exceeded the capability of the firefighter students (of every rank) we sent them. I also listened to the street service delivery tactical radio channel for all of that time and never once heard a unit announce it was going back to the station because the problem we dispatched them to resolve was too difficult-in fact, I can’t even imagine anyone saying that. Sometimes, the problem may exceed the capability of the firefighters present; we then quickly call for more teams of manual laborers (fire companies) and overpower or cut off the problem by ganging up on it; but we never leave until the situation is stable.
The reason I am bragging about the inherent capability of our troops is simple: Smart people are attracted to and flourish in an organization developed around and directed by systems that are sensible. Basically, what this means is that when a worker (particularly a young one) asks the boss why and how something is done and it is explained to him, he nods his head in a positive fashion because it makes sense to him in his terms and within his frame of reference. Ideally, these workers connect to the context and the details of that (sensible) explanation. Sometimes when the topic is brand new, the student may not have the experience or orientation to effectively load the new stuff in the “understood file” quite yet, but it is only a challenge because understanding and doing it are new and different, not because it is illogical, dumb, or nonsensical. Creating positive head nods in young students because they got the lesson should be a major topic in boss school.
Functional bosses connect to their troops by effectively engaging them in developmental experience by encouraging and skillfully managing them in the front end of new educational experiences. Many times, effective change logic necessitates an adjustment in our operational habits; changing these personal routines means that we must unlearn the old while we learn the new. This takes a patient, good-natured, serious teacher. This is a critical boss role. This functional leadership behavior creates the foundation of a functional teacher/student trust relationship with an effective boss and the development of personal and occupational confidence that emerges from building skill and understanding. Confidence, inclusion, and respect are directly connected to competence, so developing capability is a critical lifelong gift a functional boss gives to a worker. This development process is inherently sensible.
Logic Inherent in Sensibility
A huge part of creating an effective level of organizational and operational sensibility is the practical application of logic. Although the connection between sensible and logic is pretty simple, allow me to use a very basic example: In the fire service, we kind of start off at a disadvantage in discussing the subject of sensibility because our service is based on an approach that is basically not at all logical-a building is on fire; every normal person runs out, but we run in. That is very illogical in many ways, particularly as it relates to our physical welfare and survival.
We do this because Ben organized us in the beginning to protect the community when parts of it are on fire. We are trained, equipped, organized, and highly persuaded to physically and directly put our bodies in between Mrs. Smith and the immediately dangerous to life or health area to protect her and her belongings. This is the highest and finest tradition of our service. We have a highly developed tactical system designed to do this.
The challenge is that our safety system has a very discreet set of capabilities and limitations to protect us from the structural firefighting hazards we routinely face (toxic/thermal insult and structural collapse). The hazards we face have their own set of characteristics; and when those hazards are more robust than the safety system, we must assume a defensive strategy-this is basic tactical logic. The dilemma is that sometimes our commitment to protect outperforms the unforgiving connection (and related logic) between the safety and the hazards. When this relationship is out of balance where hazards are bigger than safety, sometimes we are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we get injured or killed. This is a huge challenge for the bosses who must manage hazard-zone operations.
Although fireground survival logic is timeless and potentially painful or fatal, there are a ton of other areas where considering occupational logic leads to creating organizational sensibility. Personal behavior management (control) is mostly based on contemporary community and society standards. It is sensible to engage in being occupationally self-disciplined to stay out of trouble. Being politically incorrect, hurting someone’s feelings, being on the misbehaving end of the human condition, and doing something electronically stupid are only a few of the examples of operating in a highly hazardous, not very sensible personal/professional area (to say the least). These are behavior boundaries that bosses on every level must pay attention to, predict, control, and sometimes manage in those under their care. This leadership direction creates the standard application of sensibility and the ongoing application of the prompt, prepared, and polite connection that over time, hopefully, will become a happy, secure, and productive organizational/personal way of life.
An important member of my family is my LWD (little white dog) Bella. She and I have many conversations throughout a typical day. I share with her most of the ideas, thoughts, and mental projects (hallucinations). She is very smart. When I relate to her something that is within my mental boundaries, she generally takes it in, she processes it, and we go on with the “discussion.” Sometimes, when I am mentally fighting out of my weight class, she listens to me and cocks her head just a little. When she does this, I truly believe she is sending me the message: “What in the world (of logic) are you talking about?” I think she is sending me a sensibility signal. Every boss ought to understand that when they are managing organizational sensibility and someone “cocks his head,” they had better regroup and take another stab at logically connecting to that person.
Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINI is a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.
Another Day at the Office #2
Recovery 102: Just Another Day at the Office
Recovery 101
Fire Engineering Archives
