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It is vital to build a fire service culture accepting of improved communication. No matter how well the communication processes in ICS and CRM are taught, communication will not improve in a counterproductive culture. As an example, it is hurtful to effective communication to hear senior firefighters and training officers say things such as, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason” to new firefighters. Although the intent may be good, it sets the wrong expectation of not speaking up. Given the training processes used in today’s fire service, we have very smart people working as firefighters and officers. The technical aspects of the profession have caused the fire service to seek out smart, effective decision makers and then train them to be even better decision makers. We should take advantage of that training and decision-making ability.
Given that, we need to change the culture of the fire service from the traditional hierarchy by teaching our newest firefighters that we hire them to be part of the team. We hire them to use that brain in their head to contribute to operations when they have specific information that is important to the crew achieving its task, which is in turn important to achieving incident objectives. However, if we are going to teach our newest firefighters this, we also need to teach our officers to do the same and to be open to someone who is junior to them bringing up alternative suggestions.
The way to bring about this type of communication is to (1) build trust and (2) reduce the negative impacts of the fire service hierarchy. Building trust is complicated and takes time but can be lost with a single decision or action. Likewise, our culture’s reliance on the hierarchy means it is a constant give-and-take to reduce the effects of the hierarchy on communication.
Trust is built and lost, in many cases, on how a single situation is handled. The type of situation most prone to building or breaking trust is one that involves the potential for discipline. A leader or supervisor, including the informal leaders such as a senior firefighter, must be thoughtful in how an error is handled. We all make errors; an error being something that is done wrong because of a lack of training or information but with the right intent (in contrast to a violation that is done intentionally to sabotage or undermine). Disciplining a subordinate for an error is counterproductive to building trust. This is particularly true if the error was a result of the supervisor’s lack of training of the subordinate.
Last, the fire service hierarchy is critical to the completion of tasks at an emergency scene because it provides a system to account for tens, hundreds, or thousands of firefighters operating in a dangerous environment. This is the hierarchy’s positive side. However, the top-down nature has a negative influence on communication that must be overcome for effective communication to occur. Overcoming the negative effects of the hierarchy on communication includes:
- Treating subordinates as peers
- Particularly when they know more about a particular subject
- Having honest, transparent conversations with them
- Training them to take your place one day instead of holding knowledge as a source of power
- Reducing the hierarchical signs that are pervasive in the fire service
- Same color of uniforms for all ranks instead of a visual separation by rank
- Do not force subordinates by rule to address a supervisor by name and rank at all times
- Officers not performing some of the same tasks as the firefighters when they have time (e.g. washing vehicles or cleaning up the kitchen)
- Certain privileges that come with rank (e.g. picking vacation under an advantageous set of rules compared to the firefighters)
- Building a high-performance team
- As the officer, instill the right values in the team such as open communication, dedication to the group’s success, professionalism, etc.
- Work with the members to determine how they define a high-performance team according to the group’s values and then work toward that vision
- A high-performance team becomes cohesive because of a common goal of remaining a high-performance team, which leads to effective and honest communication
- Identify the high-performance team and take pride in it; a leader should want the team members to be proud of saying, “I work with Engine 5 B shift,” for example
Conclusion
Although there has been much improvement in the ability of members to speak up in the fire service, there is still room for improvement, as the incident previously mentioned illustrates. Performing a detailed, in-depth root cause analysis – one that moves beyond the technical aspects of things like pump or radio failure – will often show that organizational behavior, the things we unintentionally teach our members, are a significant part of any near miss, injury, or line-of-duty death. In fact, it is likely that a culture that does not build effective communication contributes, in some way, to the majority of near misses, injuries, and line-of-duty deaths. The experiences and statistics from the fire service and outside support this. Some of the tools and ideas presented here help improve that situation, but only begin to scratch the surface.
References
Carley, D., & Nelson, C. (2017). No time for playing cards: Higher reliability organizing for the fire service. Tulsa, OK: PennWell Corporation.
Crescent Fire Scald Injury Facilitated Learning Analysis Team. (2017, July 1). Crescent Fire Hot Water Burn Injury (2017). Retrieved 1 12, 2018, from Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center: https://www.wildfirelessons.net/viewdocument/crescent-fire-burn-injury-2017
Craig Nelson works for the Fargo (ND) Fire Department and works part-time at Minnesota State Community and Technical College – Moorhead as a fire instructor. He also works seasonally for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a wildland firefighter in Northwest Minnesota. Previously, he was an airline pilot. He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in executive fire service leadership.
Dane Carley entered the fire service in 1989 in southern California and is currently a captain for the Fargo (ND) Fire Department. Since then, he has worked in structural, wildland-urban interface, and wildland firefighting in capacities ranging from fire explorer to career captain. He has both a bachelor’s degree in fire and safety engineering technology, and a master’s degree in public safety executive leadership. Dane also serves as both an operations section chief and a planning section chief for North Dakota’s Type III Incident Management Assistance Team, which provides support to local jurisdictions overwhelmed by the magnitude of an incident.
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