Buzzword Management I recently made an error in dealing with something in an appropriate manner. As I reflected upon the error, I began to think of a lot of different issues which I will share with you now. I consider myself to be a pretty good manager and fire officer, but like everything else I am certainly human and more than fallible. I begin to think about why fire officers and managers fail in many ways. We are being bombarded with the new and improved "buzzwords" of management theory. When you are dealing with managing people you need to realize that the key word in that phrase is people. After this error that I have made I am wondering if we should not be better served in attempting to manage the environment that people work in rather than managing the people! We have the folks who subscribe to the One minute Manager method and the positive praise, explain the negative behavior and then end on a positive. This is a great technique and I have used it many times when appropriate. When we begin to fail is when we attempt to manufacture something positive to say at the beginning and the end. We attempt to apply all sorts of techniques to dealing with problems in our fire service workplace environments when we have a couple of simple management techniques that work real well. People will work for you and jump on hand grenades for you if they trust you. Simple......... end of lesson. If you are insincere or try to BS the troops underneath you you will be finished. Your personnel see how you work, and what your work ethic is and then when you attempt to have them behave in a manner in which you don't behave you have a conflict. There is a ton of stuff being written about coping with change. I think anyone will change with you when they trust you and believe in the actual mission of what you are doing whether that be a new customer service promotion, public education promotion or something as simple as a change in the uniform policy. People will comply if they see the end result objective and they trust what you say. If you ask for employee input from you lieutenants and captains and then you disregard all of it and dismiss it, do not wonder why they don't give it to you next time. They do not trust you. There is a lot of talk about firefighter's and "trusting their lives to one another" and that is certainly true at every fire scene. What is happening in your department between fires and emergencies? Do the men trust officers? Does the labor union trust the chief and management? Does the chief trust his officers that his message is getting out? Last week I gave you an acronym for problem solving using my name as the acronym. I won't live my life on acronyms but I felt the need to share this one with you. I believe that if we as leaders, officers, and supervisors used this premise and encouraged it's use in our organizations whether full time or volunteer we would be better able to manage the environment and not our people. Our people would be willing to support us in what we do, the changes we make because we believe in them and they believe in us. Stop the "buzzword" management, face problems head on. You will be very uncomfortable and have some immediate unpleasant results but the end goal will be very worth it. T - Truth. Tell the truth consistently R - Respect others and their positions and opinions U - Understand and empathize with others T -Teach and mentor others to make them better H - Help others when they are having trouble Let's use simple concepts in our leading others. Let's rely on our simple values to help us in dealing with people rather then those buzzwords and techniques that are thrown at us. It's hard and unpleasant work sometimes but the results are rewarding. That's what leaders do. |