'Chief, What Does This Have To Do with Me?'

摘要

Last month we talked about how the change process must somehow deal with basic fire company sociology to be effective. Fire companies are constructed like most internally directed teams, so they naturally detect anything that enters their space that is irrelevant, pretentious, or abstract. They maintain control of what that mission really means, and, to be effective, any change that will affect their behavior must fit into that mission. The firefighters are the actual gatekeepers of what is and what is not relevant in relation to the work they do (sorry again, Chief). Let me use two mission-related change examples-one successful and one not so successful. In the early 1970s, the American fire service became involved in the beginning of using its traditional response resources to deliver emergency medical services (EMS). I was then the assistant chief in charge of the Operations Division. It was my job to get us into this newfangled program. We had delivered some very primitive "first aid" service through the years. We responded simply because there was no one else to call.