The next 3 or 4 posts will all be related to the previous one about "Sad Facts and Silver Linings" inspired by an article I read a while ago written by Tom Peters (whom many consider to be one of the Godfathers of effective management).
I want to start out with a post on firefighting. Especially for those Youngleaders still in school, this concept might be a little foreign. And no, it does not mean literally breaking out the axes and fire extinguishers. Firefighting is working on a task or problem that has suddenly become urgent and important. Examples might include having to create a Powerpoint for a presentation at 3 o'clock, scrambling to recover from a server crash in a key system, or literally trying to recover manufacturing production after a fire in the electrical room. The thing is... you never know what you are going to get.
Nobody enjoys firefighting. It's stressful. It's unexpected. There are more people asking 'Why did this happen?' than 'We need to do this to put things right'.
But [stuff] happens, right?
Well, yes and no. Yes, there will always be things that will come totally out of left field that you could never have expected, but a little planning can go a long way in preventing many of the other fires.
Thinking about the Powerpoint that needs to be finished for 3pm... and it's already past noon. If this were for a brand new client that just yesterday made this appointment just this morning... well that happens. But if this is a presentation to management on the status of a project that has been ongoing for the past 6 months... well someone should have know that this was coming up and even if the key stakeholder made the last minute schedule change, this should have been expected and the appropriate materials should have been collected as the project progressed.
And yes, maybe a power outage caused by an electrical storm may cause a server to crash. But if this were a critical system, why didn't we have back-up's and disaster recover plans in place?
Worse yet, why hadn't the hazardous conditions in the electrical room been found during routine inspections... or why hadn't the proper maintenance been made to repair damaged wires and etc...
OK, so you get the picture... what am I getting at? Well we all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... aka we must Be Proactive. But the simple fact is that we would like to be... but we're to busy fighting these fires to take the time to prevent the next ones from creeping up.
Maybe that's why people hire outside consultants to do this for them. The outside consultants can work on being proactive and solving this longer term solutions why the full-time people work to put out the fires at hand.
Though, I probably should say this (since I work in consulting), but I would say this is a pretty inefficient way of running an organization. (And maybe that's why Tom Peters calls this a "sad fact").
So what can a Youngleader do about this? Well the easiest answer is also the one that requires the most discipline. You have to be proactive and put in those extra hours to prevent the fires, especially if you are not in a position to tell those in charge to ease up on your other responsibilities.
But maybe you are running a community organization or group. Then the strategy would be to go for controlled growth. So there's no point in shooting for many new and ambitious programs and projects, if there isn't the manpower to support them all properly. Yes we all know you can stretch and if 'all goes well' achieve larger goals. But, what if your luck doesn't hold out and you all of a suddenly need people to label, stuff, and mail-out 5000 flyers... will you be able to handle that?
And finally... what is the silver lining when it comes to fire-fighting? Well for one thing people are definitely focused and motivated when they are fighting fires. Perhaps you could direct that energy and emotion towards making the appropriate changes and improvements to prevent the same things from occurring next time.
What are your thoughts on this? I really want to make this blog more of a two-way conversation and I hope that more people will post comments so that we can all enhance our learning together!
Thanks again for reading!
-Jason
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1 comment:
Jason,
There is so much going on in that firefighting scenario. When I think about why this is a normal mode for many organizations I believe it goes back to the inertia comment.
Drucker says something like "All one can do in a short period of time is think like one has always thought and act like one has always acted". Which just means that it is easier to stay the same. But why would we stay the same when we are always "smoke jumping"? Smoke Jumping is my favorite term for the behavior that is expected and cultivated in a place that has a lot of firefighting. It just means diving right into the problem and figuring it out.
I think one of the core reasons for firefighting paradigm existing indefinitely lies in the distinction between Management, and Leadership.
With Management we have the responsibility for making sure that people are productive. With Leadership we have the responsibility of identifying goals and purpose.
I believe most organizations probably have more management and less leadership.
To change from a culture of firefighting requires first a reason to change. And this is difficult in the best circumstances to push from the bottom up. It is counter to the normal paradigm of having someone identify tasks for the worker, and then having the worker perform. Meaning it is not a normal responsibility of a Manager.
That isn't to claim that Managers are not Leaders - very many are. However most managers may not have a good perspective on they "Whys" behind the "Whats" and as a result are less prepared or situated to behave as leaders. This may mean that the responsibility of the manager and how their performance is measured is less focused on paying attention to the smoldering flareups and instead focused on pushing an agenda that ignores the fpossibility of flareups.
This is what I mean by inertia, the structure, processes and culture all support the firefighting paradigm in their current forms.
So to change the culture of firefighting will probably require time and dialog. The culture did not evolve over night, nor will it change over night. To make the dialog effective people have to want to talk. No one ever changed their mind be being talked to, they only change their mind by doing the talking themselves.
So when you want to get people to talk my recommendation is to begin with Socratic questioning.
Best Regards,
Kahnec
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