BY JOHN M. BUCKMAN III
What motivates someone to do his best work in any endeavor? Management theory and practices traditionally focus on external forces such as pay, status, and time off. Although these are powerful motivators, they are no longer enough-intrinsic rewards are essential.
Recent dramatic changes have occurred in management and the workplace. In the past, bureaucratic or command and control management simply demanded compliance from firefighters; today, newer methods of management have empowered workers to perform “smart work.”
In earlier times, fire chiefs asked how workers should be managed. In most cases, the reply was something like “rationally.” Firefighters are emotional and must be controlled. We must give them simple tasks with many rules and watch closely to make sure they obey. As such, fire chiefs, based on their experiences and upbringing, designed complex and detailed rulebooks and compensation systems and built tall hierarchies to administer them. This took time, but the world moved slowly and the fire service even more slowly, and there was little competition. So, their organizations and, in most cases, the fire chief individually prospered. Firefighters were controlled, and they obeyed.
As time passed, workers gathered into unions to protect themselves from low wages and firings. They shared in the general prosperity and became more educated. As this came to pass, firefighters began to petition the fire chief that their emotional needs might better be met. This frightened the fire chief, who truly believed that emotion was the doorway to CHAOS. But many fire chiefs gave in to the firefighters’ demands and began to modify the rules to permit modest participation and job enrichment, and the fire department began to prosper even more than the fire chief could imagine.
THE SHIFT FROM COMPLIANCE TO PARTNERSHIP
It is hard to grasp how quickly and dramatically the firefighter’s role has changed. The word “empowerment” was first used in the business community in 1991. Those departments that empower firefighters don’t use the word subordinate as often as in the past. This change signals a profound shift with which contemporary fire chiefs and firefighters are trying to come to terms.
From the beginning of the 20th century, the fire service and the fire chief thought of firefighters in terms of compliance. Sound management meant simplifying work tasks, producing thick rulebooks, and building tall hierarchies to make sure that firefighters complied with the rules. This was command and control management in bureaucratic organizations. And generations of chiefs and officers had time to get to use to this reality.
There were some challenges to this mindset in the 1970s, when participative management and job enrichment began making inroads. Demonstration projects showed the fire chiefs could sometimes relax constraints to allow firefighters more “voice and choice.” Participative management and job enrichment were short lived and not widely accepted in the fire service.
With all these changes, it is clear today that firefighters need to be treated differently than in past decades. They have earned somewhat higher wages. However, the most significant differences go beyond economics. The new work role is more psychologically demanding in terms of complexity and judgment and requires a much deeper level of commitment. While economic rewards were pretty good for buying compliance, gaining commitment is far more difficult. Many recent books have addressed the new leadership and the new management.
When fire departments wanted only compliance from firefighters, they usually tried to buy it with money and other tangible benefits. In the language of motivation theory, these are external rewards. External rewards don’t come from the work itself; supervisors to ensure that work is done properly and that the rules are followed dole them out.
External rewards were a simple solution to easy motivation in the compliance era. They were possible. The tall hierarchies allowed managers to supervise firefighters closely so that they knew when rules were being followed and could give or withhold rewards accordingly. And those rewards were enough. Organizations needed only to buy rote behavior, not commitment or initiative. They didn’t need to appeal to firefighters’ passions or even enlist much of their intelligence. Finally, they were all management had to offer. With the simplified work and the constraining rules and procedures, few intrinsic rewards were possible.
NEW WORK INVOLVES INITIATIVE AND COMMITMENT
Motivational issues are more complex and demanding. Close supervision and detailed rules are no longer as possible. Workers need to be self-managing. Self-management, in turn, requires more initiatives and commitment, which depend on deeper passions and satisfactions than extrinsic rewards can offer. Finally, the new work has the potential for much richer, intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards come to firefighters directly from the work they do-satisfaction like pride of workmanship or the sense of helping.
The new firefighters operating under this new type of management are in many cases energized by their work and feel passionate about it. They see their work as making a significant difference and believe in what they are trying to accomplish. Usually, they see themselves helping the organization in some way. They get satisfaction from situations they have handled well and are proud of their creative innovations and ideas. Of course, there are challenges and some setbacks, but overall the firefighters are fulfilled and rewarded by their work.
In the new fire department, intrinsic motivation is crucial. Does this mean that extrinsic rewards have become unimportant? Of course not. Some early research on intrinsic motivation had an either-or flavor, believing that extrinsic rewards would drive out intrinsic motivation.
Why do soldiers continue to serve the military? It is clear that salary and benefits were important for many when they decided to join or reenlist when their contract expired. After they made the decision to join, however, they were faced with the reality of the work they had taken on, and their energy for that work depended on the intrinsic rewards they got from it. The same is true for any job. Work is seldom a short sprint for a reward. Over the long haul, people need intrinsic rewards to keep going and to perform at their peak. Despite your best intentions, you can only gut it out so long if you don’t enjoy the journey itself.
It is crucial to understand and implement an intrinsic reward if you are going to be able to keep your good workers. A number of theorists have noted that the informal psychological contract between organizations and workers has shifted. Firefighters have been forced to take on more responsibility for their own careers, going where the work is rewarding and where they can develop skills that will guarantee their promotability when the opportunity presents itself. Mobility and free agency have created greater competition among fire departments for skilled and talented leaders. Good firefighters with a desire to promote have more choices today than they did before and are more likely to use them.
Firefighters are more likely to leave unrewarding jobs and move to other fire departments. The cost of training and replacing those who leave is an astronomical burden the progressive fire department really can’t afford. It costs considerably more money to train a new firefighter than it does to keep one who needs to be motivated. Experience is not something you can train into people; it has to be earned, and the only way you earn experience in the fire service is through longevity.
Managing for intrinsic rewards is the next crucial step in keeping good firefighters. Fire departments have had generations to develop their extrinsic reward systems. To be sure, some refinements can still be made. Most of the really great benefits have already been offered in an extrinsic reward system. The biggest gains in the future will come from systematically improving intrinsic rewards-making the work itself more fulfilling and energizing so that firefighters don’t leave it.
JOHN M. BUCKMAN III is chief of the German Township (IN) Volunteer Fire Department in Evansville, Indiana, where he has served for 25 years, and is president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). He was instrumental in forming the IAFC’s Volunteer Chief Officers Section and is past chairman. He is an adjunct faculty member in the National Fire Academy residence program, is an advisory board member of Fire Engineering, and lectures extensively on fire service-related topics.
