BY SALVATORE J. SCARPA
You’ve undoubtedly heard, “You can’t get there from here”-probably in an impossible traffic situation, or you may have uttered it when trying to give directions to a difficult-to-reach location. Essentially, getting to the desired destination will probably be difficult and time consuming, and you will not enjoy the journey.
How does this apply to the fire service? At a national training program, an attendee related the challenges his organization was going through and how impossible it would be to return to a state of normalcy with high morale, engaged personnel, and progressive leadership. His desired result for the organization was good-who wouldn’t want it? Yet, considering his organization’s challenges and the current leadership mindset, the reality was, You can’t get there from here!
I’ve been fortunate to travel and attend various fire conferences around the country as a participant and as a presenter. Unfortunately, the plight of the gentleman above and his organization is not unique. Across the country, I’ve had similar conversations with frustrated company and chief officers, all seemingly resigned to the fact that overcoming the challenges facing their departments is nearly impossible.
Although I fully believe their experiences are daunting and taxing on morale and personnel alike, there are a great many other examples where such obstacles have been overcome. Members’ willingness to confront the difficulties in redirecting efforts and personnel in a more positive direction is directly related to their propensity to engage tough challenges. The unwilling or uninspired will endure difficult and unfulfilling careers in organizations rife with conflict, disenchantment, and comfort in the status quo. Those willing to engage the challenge head-on will obtain fulfillment and the satisfaction of “righting the ship.” On the other side of this challenge, agencies will be more resilient, brimming with engaged personnel, and yield regional and national leaders in the fire service.
Getting Off Track
Most agencies don’t set out to get off track. When sworn in, the new leader doesn’t solemnly swear to run the department into the ground within 12 to 18 months. Most leaders and organizations have the best of intentions. But somewhere along the way, they go off course. When making a long journey, such as directing a department for five, 10, or 15 years, if you take a few steps in the wrong direction early on, years down the road it may put you off course by miles. You’re so far afield, it’s hard to imagine your way back. As the “lost” feeling permeates the organization, morale plummets and organizational dysfunction sets in as people resign themselves to their new circumstances and refuse to address the need to right the ship.
The normalization of deviance is part of the problem with organizations that stray down the wrong road. It begins with a slight deviation from what is standard, appropriate, or normal. Consider the employee “Jim,” who utters an inappropriate comment before a group of firefighters about another employee who is not present on the apparatus floor. Normally, such inappropriate behavior would be addressed immediately according to the organization’s discipline policy. But this time, nobody says anything; maybe some even chuckle at the remark. Discipline is not administered, and the event goes largely unaddressed.
Over time, other employees recognize that nothing detrimental happened to Jim. The apparent acceptance of inappropriate comments emboldens members to make additional inappropriate comments about other employees, even supervisors. Again, the behavior is unchallenged and unpunished and even encouraged. Although plenty of reasons are given for not challenging the behavior or addressing it in the first place, they are simply excuses and a failure to hold others accountable. The behaviors worsen over time as members openly address other members and supervisors inappropriately; this cultural deviation soon becomes the norm. What would have been considered egregious, even repulsive behavior some months ago is now accepted, copied, and the new “normal.” Reverting to the previous state becomes difficult.
Although the behavioral facet is troubling enough, more damaging is the lack of leadership displayed and the failure to hold people accountable for their actions and inactions. When Jim first uttered the inappropriate comments on the engine room floor, his colleagues should have called him on it if a supervisor was not close by, and that should have been the end of the deviation. It should not have been allowed to progress to become a new state of normal. Holding Jim accountable for his actions would essentially have shut down the pattern of deviation and thwarted the disabling effects that would hamper the organization over time.
Normalization of deviance is a significant problem in many fire service organizations that have found themselves in an environment that they feel is inescapable. Examples are evident in many areas. A forgetful, lazy, or complacent firefighter puts a self-contained breathing apparatus back on the truck without completely topping it off after bleeding it down during training. Pretty soon, the truck is not being washed as often as it should be, equipment turns up missing because nobody checked the rig at shift change, and daily equipment checks become checks on the last day of a tour. Little deviations from the standard create new norms because accountability and leadership have failed the organization.
One area in which this normalization of deviance often occurs is training. It often starts innocently enough. A crew engaged in tactical fire or medical training is interrupted when it must answer an emergency call. En route, the company’s response is cancelled, and members return to the station. But instead of returning to the drill ground to complete the training evolution, they decide it’s getting close to lunch and it’s getting hot. They head to the grocery store and do not complete the final part of the training. The company officer, although riddled with guilt for not doing the right thing, succumbs to the company’s pressure. Members rationalize their excuses until their guilt is overcome by the station’s cool air-conditioning and the comfort of a recliner after a good meal.
If this were a one-time occurrence, perhaps it would not be that big of a deal. However, the next time the company doesn’t want to complete an exercise, it actively seeks out ways to get out of training-e. g., “Gotta get some paperwork from H/R, Captain.” Before long, the crew is missing entire training sessions. The company develops a reputation as a bunch of slackers among its peers. Others in the battalion begin to resent the company. Training gaps lead to mishaps on the fireground; some are minor, but others become close calls. Finally, fate catches up to the company and its shirking, and it earns the ire of other companies as members brag about their ability to “skip out” on routine training. Members let their medical licenses lapse and have become embroiled in a high-visibility lawsuit. A patient suffers a cardiac arrest after one member inadvertently administers the wrong medication. Now, sitting with the city attorney and the chief of the department, the company officer wonders, “How did it come to this?”
Training is just one area where normalization of deviance can occur. But it could happen in any program in your organization. A decrease in company inspections over time could indicate a problem. “Auto-generating” reports when more details are warranted is a common area of deviance that is often overlooked. Pencil-whipping performance appraisals; skipping the large-diameter hose during hose testing; dress code lapses; reporting false pressures during hydrant testing-all are potential areas of deviance that can affect your organization’s direction. Small, incremental (negative) changes over time can yield large, troubling challenges in your department that may become seemingly impossible to reverse.
Finding a Point of Reference
Perhaps most troubling for an organization that has found itself in a new, degenerative state of normalcy is the seemingly impossible task of figuring out how to dig out of it. I often hear, “Where do you begin?” or “I don’t even know where to start!” When your organization has strayed so far from acceptable that it’s hard to even imagine deviating from this new norm, it distresses leaders as well as rank-and-file members. Like the navigator of a vessel lost on the high seas, you must first establish a point of reference and move toward a specific end state.
Consider the earlier example about the crew that had shirked its training responsibilities for so long that it became commonplace. Finding a reference point may begin with an audit of all companies’ medical license expiration dates. If you identify a percentage of members who need relicensing or are in danger of losing their licenses, that’s where you begin-stop the bleeding! Then set a goal for all companies regarding training. It could be a number of classes or hours to attain; but keep the time frame you are measuring relatively short (maybe one quarter). This will allow you to measure compliance often and early and will ensure compliance without letting deviating members to get too far down the wrong road. Correct the small mistakes early so they don’t snowball into larger problems later.
Finding this point of reference begins with deciding on where you want to go. What new end state do you desire for your organization? Identifying it and moving in that general direction may sound easy, but, it’s often more complicated. How does an organization decide on a new end state and develop a direction? Is it a function of management or of an outside entity such as a regulatory agency or body? If everybody is not on the same page, how do we obtain “buy-in”? What if we get off track again? These questions make moving forward a bit more challenging.
Deciding on a new end state should be a thoughtful process based on input from a variety of sources. If the chief or head official declares a new direction and destination without consulting a group of interested stakeholders, those who disagree may make the journey difficult or even sabotage it. Encouraging participation and welcoming input do not necessarily guarantee agreement, at least initially, but they allow those who have a stake in the outcome to participate in the decision making. This participation is more likely to garner support and consensus and facilitate a deliberative process focused on establishing a new direction and destination.
Often, an agency knows it needs a new direction and destination but struggles to identify what that might look like. This is an opportunity to consider more significant stakeholder input by engaging in a strategic planning process. This involves gathering input from sources internal and external to the organization. Often, an independent third-party agency is contracted to facilitate the department through the planning process. Depending on the organization’s size, planning may take several weeks or several months. However, in the end, a firm end state and a direction to move forward are established with benchmarks and milestones to gauge progress.
The Long Road
When committing to redirecting your organization and charting a new course, there is sometimes ambivalence about the long road ahead. It will take some effort and time to get to the new destination. Some who start on the journey with you may not make it through to the end. There will still be difficult times, discontentment, and sacrifices to make along the road. Some may find it difficult to support challenging long-held, “new standard” practices and implementing new policies. It’s all part of the process of re-engineering your organization. Staying the course is critical at this juncture. Anxiety, doubt, and even fear are natural by-products. What is best for the organization should be your focus, the guiding principle that enables you to forge ahead. You’ve heard the phrase, “Adversity builds character”? I say, “Adversity reveals character!”
As you move along the path of re-engineering your organization, you may likely take on some tough challenges. You may need to establish and enforce a new standard of discipline-generally never popular and especially challenging for those who promoted the normalization of deviance previously. By enforcing more stringent policies, you will enforce a higher level of accountability than may have existed for some time.
Consider a uniform policy, for example, that requires your Class B uniform from 0800 hours to 1700 hours daily regardless of temperature or activity. It may be more strict than required, but it will draw attention to what you’re trying to do and the importance you are placing on the particular area. If you want your transition to a renewed organization to succeed, you must adhere to these stricter measures and focus on staying the course even at the expense of some established relationships. Remember, the ultimate goal is the renewal of the whole organization, which is greater than any one individual.
As the organization progresses along the road toward a new destination, significant milestones along the way should confirm for the leadership and the rest of the organization that they are on course and moving forward. If addressing a training problem, perhaps it’s getting a certain percentage of members to attain desired certification. Or, if promoting a wellness initiative, once you get 25-percent participation, recognize that milestone and continue to work toward 50 percent, and so on.
These milestones witness the fact that the newly enacted changes are bearing fruit and positively affecting the rank and file. They will be different for each organization, whose leadership should determine their frequency. Each one should be tangible evidence that the directional change is indeed in the organization’s best interest, such as marked improvements in morale, increased personnel engagement, and renewed leadership among the change brokers in the organization.
As the organization moves forward, you may need additional course corrections to ensure that the department arrives at a desired end state. You may experience a setback in your wellness program, such as the insurance carrier dropping the discount for it. It should not be a surprise that a planned effort didn’t work out quite as anticipated and the course had to be adjusted.
The dynamism of change should be evident in the organizational strategy and reflect a broader understanding of the impacts of the effort. Although the stakeholders should ardently focus on their determined end state, they should remember that one may arrive at the same destination by various routes. A steadfast rule that permits flexibility in the process will undoubtedly yield a more sustainable future. Allowing for such adjustments will enable decision makers to move the organization forward in a manner that best serves the interests of the organization and, ultimately, those it serves.
The Other Side of Lost
After an arduous journey and several course deviations, a department can arrive at a new state of normalcy. Arguably, this new normal should be far and away better than the previous state with its undercurrent of resentment, in-fighting, and bitterness. Again consider the earlier example of the company and its lapsed training: A new normal might have all members not only fully trained but also pioneering a system of checks and balances that prevents future lapses. Commemorate the arrival at this point with a formal event, and celebrate it as a significant accomplishment for the organization’s members and the stakeholders who helped chart the course and effect changes necessary to improve the organization. This is something truly noteworthy.
Though the achievement is significant, temper this celebration with the realization that more work needs to be done. To plateau at a new end state is a typical temptation-the leaders must guard against it. Although it is appropriate to pause to recognize the achievements accomplished to date, the bar is constantly being raised. As the organization suffered through a difficult time, other departments charged ahead and became models of progress. The potential to stagnate is significant. And so, the time has come to chart a new course, to identify new goals and a new end state, and to make plans to move the organization forward once again.
As a new effort ensues to engage in a strategic planning initiative once again, new personnel will likely be involved. Some of those who spearheaded the previous process may hand off the reins to new change agents and new leaders. This natural progression is healthy for the organization and reflects the changing landscape to which organizations must adapt to remain vibrant and healthy. Once again, begin by gathering stakeholder input, identify benchmarks and milestones, and chart a new course and destination. The organization’s vitality depends on this cycle of renewable change and progressive motion.
Every organization goes through periods of struggle and challenge. Sometimes the struggles lead to a normalization of deviance that puts members in positions where they feel they are unable to see a way out. With stakeholder input, focused planning, and an adherence to the charted course, the organization can overcome that “lost” feeling-how long it took to get to the current state. Overcoming the challenges created over a significant timespan will not be achieved overnight. But change agents and leaders can find ways to get you there.
SALVATORE J. SCARPA is the deputy chief for the Shawnee (KS) Fire Department. He has served more than 24 years in the fire service in career and volunteer fire departments. He is a national presenter on emerging issues in fire service leadership.
THE DEPARTMENT OFFICER AS CHANGE AGENT
MAKING DIFFICULT CHANGE
RESPONDING TO THE NEED FOR CHANGE : ONE DEPARTMENT’S EXPERIENCE
