Boxes and Arrows

BY ALAN BRUNACINI

Last month we began to look at the steps in a basic management model that could help us first get through the front end of the change process and then with ongoing performance management. We used the reference “ready, aim, fire” to describe getting the steps in order. In an earlier life, I messed that order up (a lot) and sometimes had actually practiced a “ready, fire, aim” approach. Getting the steps out of order is a pretty common mistake of young, enthusiastic change agents who are anxious to get to the substance (i.e., “meat”) of the proposed change. Their enthusiasm causes them to jump into the middle before they take care of the beginning. Firing without aiming misses the target and can produce a lot of shrapnel for the change agent. Journeymen make it look easy because they don’t skip any of the steps; they always aim first so they don’t have to go back and do it right the second time.

There is a reason that the model has boxes and arrows (see May column napkin). The boxes each contain a separate step in the process (SOPs/Train/Apply/Critique/Revise). You must complete every individual part inside its own box before going on to the next box. The arrows connect the steps and “direct traffic” between the boxes. Like most traffic arrows, they provide very simple direction on how to navigate through the program and to keep the parts from bashing into each other.

The model is made up of a package of separate but highly related components that together form a complete management system. The system forms a package of integrated activities that are required for consistent, sustainable performance management. Most models (particularly management models) are not very sexy or exciting.

Action-oriented characters—like firefighters—tend to inherently go to the center of the model where the action occurs. They typically feel that the other steps are mostly academic/abstract and those extra steps just delay or complicate the business end of the process. Their focus is very vocational (water on the fire), so they become very impatient with anything/anybody that slows down their trip to the hot zone.

As a young command officer, I followed that basic “jump into the action” approach during a period of very active department change. This change abundance created the opportunity for me to mess up a lot. I was preoccupied with the physical performance of our operating companies and concentrated on continually engaging the troops in how we were managing the current event and then yelling about what went wrong after the event. The problem with my driving like heck to the next fire and then creating organizational insanity with my displaced “performance review” was that it did not result in any significant improvement. In fact, I was doing the wrong thing harder, and when that didn’t work, I just did it even harder. Basically, the performance problem was not that the troops could not perform; it was mostly that we had not created a management system that went beyond 2½-inch hoselines.

I ask the gentle reader to forgive me for using up a page of our highly operational journal with a bunch of management blab. My reason for this lapse is simply that all the steps of the model are critical and that operational problems emerge from skipping steps in the process. It is difficult to correct problems that occur in an activity that requires multiple steps to effectively manage if we don’t start with the beginning box and then develop the discipline to follow the arrows through the model.

We must create the organizational understanding that effective performance must have both an effective front end that prepares us for “showtime” and another standard set of activities that automatically occurs at the back end of the process. The beginning part includes developing and refining SOPs and then using those procedures as the basis for training the workers and the bosses. The back end involves standard steps that record, review, and revise (as required) the system SOPs and training based on the performance experience of the incident. A major boss job is to effectively connect the front end and the back end to support the application part (water on the fire), which is the point of the whole process.

Application of the beginning/middle/end performance model is particularly critical for managing an episodic, fast-moving dangerous event like a fire. On the fireground, there is very little time to evaluate, plan, decide, and make assignments. Effectively managing such a “combat” situation requires that we go into the event with a refined plan, a practiced set of roles/routines and an agreed-on set of operational priorities and objectives. Developing this critical capability requires that we habitually do all the required steps that create, execute, and then review the game plan—and that we forever do it every time.

A major challenge of consistently following the model is that it requires a big-time ongoing commitment of organizational resources—people, time, effort, and attention—to effectively follow the model. Many times the model is outperformed by organizational distractions like competing programs, changing priorities, and laziness. Application of the model is a never-ending process; the only fun part is the middle part, which is going out the door to help Mrs. Smith, which is what we all signed up to do. We would think firefighter candidates were a little daft if they told the interview board that they wanted to become firefighters so they could spend their career writing spellbinding SOPs and conducting scintillating fire critiques. Sorry, Chief, that is, in fact, what comes with your room … forever.

Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINI is a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.