Voluntary Compliance
FEATURES
MANAGEMENT
Whenever someone readily complies with an order based on an internalized set of values, he is demonstrating one of the highest forms of authority acceptance in our society,
Yet, this admirable level of self-commitment can be downright dangerous when complusively practiced during fire service operations.
The other day, I was trying to work up some enthusiasm in a group that I was teaching,” said George, the leadership consultant who was conducting a management seminar attended by five volunteer fire chiefs. “The group was composed of some fire service personnel, a considerable number of police officers, as well as people from a variety of emergency and governmental agencies.”
“What were you teaching?” Frank asked.
“Safety. I was teaching safety. I was well into my subject matter when I suddenly realized that most of the attendees were turned off. Safety can be a little dry.”
Frank smiled. “I know what you mean. But it’s important.”
“Well,” George continued, “I searched my mind for some story, anything that would wake the group up. Then I remembered a conversation that I had with a young, very informed deputy fire chief. But before I go into that, I want to ask you all a question. Does anyone here know what is meant in leadership by the term voluntary compliance? If you recall, we touched on this topic at the end of our first meeting.” (See “Hey, Chief, I Got No Gloves,” FIRE ENGINEERING, August 1984.)
After a moment of silence, Steve, an older chief, answered, “I imagine it means that someone volunteers to do something.”
“Yes,” George said, “but it really means much more than simply volunteering.” He looked at the group for another response, but none came.”Roughly,” he said, “we can get someone to do something by inducing fear, distributing rewards, or simply taking advantage of a deep belief. Elliot Aronson, a social psychologist and the author of THE SOCIAL ANIMAL, treated compliance in depth. He divided the subject into three categories, compliance, identification, and internalization.”
George wrote the words on the chalkboard and continued, “Voluntary compliance has to do with Aronson’s notion of internalization.” He paused and asked, “Does anyone remember our discussion of Abraham Maslow?”
“He’s the one with the needs hierarchy,” John responded.
“Good. Now tell us about Maslow’s theory.”
“Well, Maslow listed five needs that a worker wants to satisfy. If a boss can find ways to satisfy these needs, the worker can be motivated to work harder or, I guess, do something the boss wants done.”
“And,” George added, “once the need is satisfied, it is no longer considered a motivator or a reason to work harder or to comply. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Can you give us the five levels of needs? I’ll write what you say on the board.”
John thought for a moment. “Level one is physiological. Level two, I believe, is safety and security. Three is affection. I guess belonging is a better term. Self-esteem is the fourth level, and the fifth and highest level is selfactualization.”
“Does anyone care to explain what we have on the board?”
“The first level relates to basic human needs like hunger and thirst,” Robert volunteered. “The second level involves things like job security. The third level relates to our desire to be accepted and appreciated. Self-esteem, the fourth level, has to do with something higher than just being accepted. It probably relates to having prestige and being looked up to. The highest level, self-actualization, is tied into trying to be fully self-developed, to do everything you’re capable of doing.”
“That’s great,” George said.
Harry, who had remained silent, thoughtfully said, “I think I see a relationship. Say, for example, a worker having the satisfaction of job security is suddenly subjected to some scare tactic exercised by management. Not only will he perceive his security level as being threatened, but his physiological or first level which was no longer a motivator can be reactivated.”
“I understand the belonging level,” Frank called out. “If I let some officers know that I’m unhappy with their performance, they really take it to heart. I don’t even have to say a word in some cases; just a disappointed or disgusted look can do it. I guess they feel that they won’t be in my good graces if they don’t shape up.”
“Is that really important?” George asked.
“Yeah,” John said. “In a job like the fire service, it’s important to feel like you’re doing good and that you belong. In my outfit, I know it’s important for all of my officers to feel like they’re appreciated and belong.”
“So you can actually motivate them with a look?” George asked. “That’s odd, because just the other day two young captains claimed they had very few ways in which to motivate their men. They were in a paid department, and they said, ‘We can’t give our good men a raise or even a night off. I mean our hands are tied. How can we motivate or reward good performance?'”
“Well,” John said, “I’m a volunteer and my people don’t need a night off or a raise to be motivated.”
“Interesting,” George remarked and then moved the group into the area that he really wanted to focus on. “Aronson, the social psychologist, felt that the lowest level of compliance is gained through the use of fear tactics. The intermediary level, which can be more than satisfactory, is obtained through the ideas that Maslow associated with his third level, the belonging concept. Aronson expressed it as a process of identification, in which an individual wants to become like another individual or assumes an image that a group will accept. On this level, an individual will comply with an order as long as he is not disillusioned. It is the medium that Frank and John referred to, and it is a much more sophisticated and humane way in which to gain compliance.”
“I’m not too clear on the selfactualization business,” Harry remarked.
“Self-actualization involves a boss finding a way for a worker, or, in our case, a firefighter, to become a part of something that willfully consumes his imagination, expertise, and overall effort.” George hesitated and studied the group.
“Firefighting offers an area of selfactualization. Self-actualization and Aronson’s concept of internalization are related because in selfactualization, a firefighter’s highest value level is in control. A level of self-commitment that can be dangerous.”
George paused and added, “An officer could either knowingly or unknowingly issue an order that could be interpreted as recklessly taking advantage of a firefighter or a group of firefighters who are operating on such a high level of motivation.”
“Wait a minute,” Steve called out. “I thought we were talking about methods to motivate.”
“We are talking about motivational methods,” George replied. “But, I’m concerned about the responsibility that is associated with giving an order to an individual or to a group of individuals who are perhaps not thinking clearly about the risks that they are about to face. I’m concerned because they have internalized the basic doctrines of the fire service.”
“I don’t follow you,” Frank said.
“What’s wrong with our doctrines?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the doctrines. Risking your life for your fellowman, woman, or child is among the highest aspirations of mankind. I started this session by asking if anyone knew what voluntary compliance was.” He hesitated. “Now, I’ll tell you.
“Voluntary compliance describes a state of readiness developed within an individual to comply with an order based upon an internalized set of values. If an organization is staffed with individuals who have internalized values consistent with the organization’s goals, it is indeed a rich organization. The fire service has many such individuals. Such individuals are not operating out of fear or out of a desire for a reward. They are beyond that sort of thing.”
“What about your statement of a chief taking advantage?” John asked.
“I told you that I was teaching a class in safety. To keep them alert, I repeated part of a conversation that I had with a deputy chief who was in a paid department and who recently had been promoted. This is what the young chief said, The other day I found out why I am earning such a high salary. I arrived at a fire a few seconds after the battalion chief had requested a second alarm. I actually gave orders to a truck officer to search a building that I knew was full of fire. I knew that I would be committing that officer and his crew to an extremely hazardous task. And to show you how bad it was, one of the firefighters ended up in the street at my feet after he jumped from a window.'”
George waited for a few seconds. Then he said, “A police department lieutenant was in my class. He became very upset by the story. ‘Long ago,’ he said, ‘we gave highspeed, high-risk pursuits because we were ordered to, but that’s not done anymore. I’m a boss in the police department, and I don’t think I or any of my peers would knowingly send a police officer into a situation comparable to the one that the chief described.’ The police officer hesitated before adding, ‘Man, it’s hard to believe that the chief actually did such a thing. I mean if the firefighter at his feet died, what does he do? Order an inspector’s funeral for him?’ “
There was no response from the chiefs in the group, and George sensed that he had better move on. “A firefighter in my safety class said to the police officer, ‘Well a lot of times a chief will give a crazy order, but the firefighters will sort of use their own judgement.’
” ‘Not in my department,’ another student in the safety class called out. ‘We obey orders. How can you have a department if firefighters are going to decide which orders they are going to obey?’ “
George noticed John, the youngest chief in the leadership group, stir. “I don’t know what to say about the chief who gave the order. I don’t know enough about him, but it would seem that he may need an in-depth psychological interview. Maybe we all do. After awhile it gets confusing. But I do feel that the fire service is a lot different than the police department. At least it is where I come from.”
George smiled and continued his story, “After the class was over, I spoke to a high-ranking fire official who was retired. I told him the story. I especially related the feelings that the police officer conveyed. He said, ‘Well, the police department can’t be considered a true emergency response agency.’ I don’t know what he meant, but I sensed that he found nothing wrong with the chief’s action.”
“Do you?” John asked in a serious voice.
George thought for a moment and said, “I can’t get the picture out of my mind of a group of dedicated firefighters welcoming an opportunity to self-actualize and voluntarily comply with an order that could send them into an environment in which the risks were probably too high and which could result in a firey death. And, I can’t get the chief’s face out of my mind. His look of self-confidence and his feeling of justification in being able to give such an order, to me, from a safety point of view, is frightening.”
George sensed he had lost his audience. He continued, “I remember talking to some municipal fire chiefs who told me they had to stand in doorways of abandoned buildings to prevent firefighters from fighting fires the way that they had always done. They did it because in the early days of inner city decay, firefighters blindly applied the same life-threatening tactics to abandoned buildings that they had applied to occupied structures. That, to me, is command responsibility in action.” He slowly added, “Now here it is only 10, maybe 15 years later and a young chief, in the same department that he was probably a firefighter during the days when the chiefs stood in the doorways, feels justified sending men into an impossible situation.”
“I think maybe the chief didn’t expect the truck company to actually get themselves burned alive,” Frank said.
“In the name of safety,” George responded, “the fireground, on which firefighters self-actualize and easily comply voluntarily with internalized values associated with self-sacrifice in the service of mankind, is not the place to play games.”
