Occasionally I write about management issues that have the potential to affect people outside the prevention arena. Though I’m hardly an expert, my perspective comes from years of experience. I believe management is currently facing even tougher challenges than we have in the past few years.
Due to our existing economic circumstances, courage has become more important than ever–a courage that isn’t just about running into burning buildings. As my friend Earl Diment said, it sometimes takes a lot to face our peers on any subject, and that will be more evident during continued budget battles.
First, a little background.
Budget Challenges
In difficult financial periods, it’s common to hear people attack the pay and benefits of public employees. Those criticisms force local governments to scrutinize expenditures and ask hard questions. Example: During a recent budget discussion in a California city, those responsible stipulated that, based on their research, the number of personnel deployed by fire departments nationwide varied greatly with no discernible rationale. They also stipulated that departments with quicker emergency response goals didn’t perform any better (in terms of overall loss from fire) than those with longer response times. They noted fire incident rates were down in recent decades, but costs for fire protection are radically up for the same period. So they were pushing for a staff reduction.
It has been argued before that the reduction in demand for fire response and suppression services means we could do with less staffing. It’s a dangerous argument, but it’s being made regardless.
Communities have also proposed closing stations due to fire incident rate reductions. And when we argue that most of our calls are EMS related, some point to the privatization of EMS as an option.
These assumptions aren’t just about emergency operations. Communities are also questioning the need for certain traditional fire prevention services. They ask why we need to do so many commercial fire inspections. Many of the prevention ideas being considered today may go against our intuitive and institutional knowledge about the field, but today’s budget conditions require that we respond intelligently.
You can argue against the logic and research being presented, and we should. But you can’t ignore the fact that the questions are being asked and that what was previously sacred is no longer so.
Creative Management
So how does that tie into courage?
Creative managers and leaders in the fire prevention field will likely face significant pushback from their employees and their peers. Some will demand that we stand up to those who go after our budgets and question traditional programs. If we as managers are willing to take nontraditional approaches and sacrifice some programs to save others, our peers may question our leadership, even our integrity. We may be seen as weak.
To succeed in the long term, we must have the courage to face this kind of criticism and keep pushing for ways to best protect our communities. Some of these will be different, if not uncomfortable, approaches, such as phasing out certain types of commercial inspections to free up resources for high-risk property inspection.
Standing firm on some things is a necessity, but we can’t fight the policymakers by putting up a stone wall. We are going to have to consider alternatives and answer questions with data, research and facts. We can’t just say “people will die.” We must consider our circumstances, question our past practices and be open to new ideas.
I do not reflect lightly on the fear and anxiety of fire service managers as they confront dismal realities about the future of their programs. But fire service managers and prevention personnel must also have the courage to deal with community concerns about rising budgets in creative ways–and to do so while we protect essential services with reason and data.
