The late Chief Alan Brunacini once said that there are two things that firefighters hate: change and the way things are. This might be true, and if it is, in many cases, it’s because of past and present leadership treating organizational changes as a one-time transaction that needs no preparation or strategy.
Members might feel blindsided; they might not understand why change is needed or what it will do or how they will accomplish it; or they might experience an array of other feelings that shape their response to changes.
In my Firehouse World 2020 session, “Leading Organizations through Change,” I discussed the eight-step process that’s needed to influence and anchor successful change, which John Kotter discussed in various books and studies. I briefly articulated how over the course of my career my understanding of the human element behind change processes and my ability to leverage the eight steps ensured that I was successful.
Take a step back
In business, successful companies have no choice but to invest in their employees and organizational leaders, to elevate these individuals’ performance and to maintain an advantage over the competition. Over the years, there has been a significant shift in requirements that civic organizations place on their leaders and that communities place on their organizations. The evolution of these expectations is driven by change. It is reckless and irresponsible for leaders and organizations not to be ready for that change. No matter where you are in the fire service, eventually, change finds you.
The challenges that the fire service faced just over the past five years are astounding. Operationally, the integration of fire and law enforcement rescue-task-force practices for active shooter and the increased research into firefighter health and wellness—not to mention dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic—immediately come to mind. (The pandemic has caused organizations and the fire service at large to absorb and adapt to change at unprecedented levels.)
Professionally, according to the Center for Public Safety Excellence, just in the past five years, 75 departments were accredited and almost 1,000 fire service members achieved a professional designation.
Organizationally, agencies are trying to maintain fiscal responsibility yet still provide the highest levels of service. This has caused larger departments or jurisdictions to absorb smaller ones or to break away from past consolidation to stand alone again.
All of these changes require leaders to develop an adaptive and progressive culture that has a clear strategy. As Mark Divine described it, leaders must be ready for “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity,” or VUCA, to lead themselves and others in an ever-changing environment. The famous consultant and writer Peter Drucker wrote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” To be clear, Drucker didn’t mean that strategy was unimportant—rather that a powerful and empowering culture was a surer route to organizational success. Although I agree with that statement, I believe that culture and strategy are more partners than one dominating the other.
As Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linksy discussed in “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading,” leaders must gain a perspective that provides oversight of everything, as if stepping up on a balcony to watch the people who are on a dance floor. Down on the dance floor, you only see the people who are dancing around you and not the others who are spread across the room. In this case, the culture component ensures that everyone who is “dancing” demonstrates the values, behavior and attitudes that the mission needs; getting on the balcony allows you to be strategic in what you do and how you do it as you see the whole floor.
The strategic lens in which the eight-step process of change is applied and discussed was through the behavior and human psychology lens. Many of the foundational elements focus on the basic needs of people as their environment changes regarding how to influence their behavior and communicate. The eight-step process includes culture assessments, needs analysis, building trust and creating momentum. Here, combating the so-called FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) factor is essential.
However, although the behavior optic is a critical piece to anchoring sustainable change and leading people through the eight-step process, my own experiences and current research suggests that the work systems optic is critical, too. The work systems optic focuses more on designing the work environment to support change and on altering how people experience the work environment. Designing the work environment means that you have the technology, systems, methods, process and other resources for change to be effective. According to Gregory Shea and Cassie Solomon, who authored “Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work,” change at any level requires you to change the cues in the work environment that people encounter all day, any day. To get there, at least four of Shea and Solomon’s eight “levers” need to be pulled.
Transforming change
The first of Shea and Solomon’s eight levers of change is organization, or structure. They ask, how can you change organizational structure to best facilitate communication, supervision and ideas? To what extent does horizontal organization play, and how do you manage that? What meeting committees or groups do you need or need to change?
The second lever is workplace design, or the layout of physical and virtual space, including office space, where people are located, tools/supplies/machinery/technology and the proximity of people to those tools/supplies/etc.
At one of the organizations where I worked, we implemented three new records management/learning management systems for staffing, reports and training over nine months. Implementation was hindered by less than ideal internet service/speed/bandwidth, computer access and proximity. A deeper dive into workplace design would have prevented backsliding and extra time to get everyone on the same page.
The third lever is task, or the work process, protocols and pathways. This can include checklists, a re-engineering of process, total quality management, workflow and consideration of whether tasks need to be more or less specific.
For example, if your organization uses specialty, acting or probationary task books that must be completed and passed along, how are they signed off? Who is authorized to sign off? How do you ensure standard evaluations across stations and authorities?
At one organization, we used task books as part of the probationary evaluation. Through observation and feedback, it was determined that company officers were all over the board in regard to how they ran each individual skill and evaluated. More specificity was required. To improve continuity and consistency of excellence, specific evaluation protocols to be administered were implemented. These included employee task briefing, safety briefing, review of evaluation process and critical failures, and PPE and equipment that must be used before the evaluation process.
The fourth lever is people and involves their selection, their skills and how orientation is conducted, which affects the personnel’s ability to learn. Much of what we attach to the failure of individuals stems from poorly designed systems of work. Repeated failures might indicate flawed systems, not individuals. A question to ask is, what would the desired end state require of whom?
Rewards, which is the fifth lever, works both ways (good and bad). What needs rewarding (process, behaviors, outcomes)? What nonfinancial rewards facilitate change (access/no access, social, training)? A change leader must be aware of unintended consequences of rewards, too.
The sixth lever is measurement (metrics, scorecards), because you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Measurement can be a form of communication. What measures foster the desired scenario? What measure helps people to judge how they are doing? How do new measurements differ from current ones?
Information distribution (who knows what, when and how?) is the seventh lever. The greater the flow and the stronger the current—including instant feedback—the more likely that decisions will be better. What kinds of information facilitate the desired behavior? Who needs to know what when? Who has access to performance measurements, and how real-time should information be?
Although the fire service tends to be paramilitary and has a clear chain of command—utilizing a mostly vertical communication conduit—the organization, leadership and climate dictate how information flows across the department. The level of communication, vehicles for communication, and the three C’s of communication (clear, concise and consistent) must be understood and practiced. Just as important: How is/should real-time information be distributed, and/or how is real-time feedback analyzed, used and acted upon?
Once, when I visited a station to have coffee and see how members were doing, some questions were asked about information that hadn’t been discussed widely. I answered; no worries. Less than an hour later, battalion chiefs called me to ask about the topic, because it was operational in nature. In my desire to be transparent and upfront, I created problems for myself and my chief officers. Not all information needs to be real-time. Now, I prepare better for casual conversation by having talking points if needed, and I try to travel with another chief officer or training officer, to maintain consistent communication. I note any questions that concern information that isn’t ready to be discussed, to follow up appropriately later.
Conversely, how others react to feedback when communicating with others is just as important. Having clear expectations on how we would receive, process and act on information is key. Knee-jerk reactions can undermine individual and organizational credibility, can question continuity of command and can have negative cultural consequences for employees who worked on the program and/or those who opposed it.
The eighth lever is decision allocation (who participates when, what way, etc.?). Where do employees fit into decision-making? This lever needs to align with the sixth and seventh levers. Who has input to what type of decisions, and when? Who leads and who follows, and when? So-called RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) charting applies here.
Embrace the clash
According to Fabian Bourda, who is the author of “Change Management Theories and Methodologies,” “Aggregate research confirms that a structured approach to change management is beneficial, as it moves organizations away from merely reacting to resistance to change to providing a solid framework for engaging and mobilizing impacted employees.”
Bourda further indicated that ease of use was the most important factor in a change process. It includes: easy to implement; easy to understand; easy to communicate to others; simplicity; practicality; structured and systematic; logical; and comprehensive and holistic.
These findings support the work that Shea and Solomon conducted. Restructuring the work environment to make the change process easier for employees clears the way for successful change efforts.
Having had success using the culture component of Kotter’s eight-step process, I have found that understanding and assessing these eight levers of change can increase or enhance further your change timelines. Now, having been part of a department that started from scratch—hiring all new employees from the fire chief down; developing all new policies and processes, budgets and training; and implementing technology and software—it makes sense. Since the day that I came on board the management team to this past eight months of operation, culture and strategy truly clashed, and leading both became a necessary and critical tool for success.
