Succession planning in the fire service
A leader who is not developing the people they serve is a leader in appearance only.
British Admiral Nelson didn’t survive the battle of Trafalgar, but his legacy did. Nelson invested his life in developing the officers around him. Early in the fight, Nelson received a fatal shot from a musket. Still, Nelson’s team gained a decisive naval victory against the larger French fleet. Ultimately, the French fleet lost two-thirds of its ships while the British lost none.
Nelson built successors, not subordinates. His death merely transferred command to a group of equally competent captains. Vice-Admiral Villeneuve, the conquered French commander, described the genius of Nelson’s focus on succession planning; “To any other Nation, the loss of a Nelson would have been irreparable, but in the British Fleet off Cadiz, every Captain was a Nelson.”
Firefighting is, at its base, a human enterprise. We thrust people into chaotic environments where each fire is a unique combination of circumstances requiring novel solutions. Success depends on individual competence, judgment, and trust on all operational levels.
Operational levels in the fire service
Activity in the fire service takes place on three conceptual levels; tactical, operational, and strategical.
Tactical is the lowest level of activity and refers to the methods used to accomplish objectives on the fire ground. The tactical decision process is rapid and decisive, producing immediate results.
Strategical is the highest activity level and refers to methods of creating objectives. The strategic decision process is slow and deliberate, producing delayed results. Organizations thrive in the merger of short-term tactics and long-term strategies. In other words, tactics and strategy are codependent; one cannot succeed without the other. As Sun Tzu said, “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
The operational level links the strategy to the tactics. It dictates the when, where, and under what conditions tactics are best applied to achieve the strategical objectives. A fire department that deploys tactics out of alignment with the strategical goals is experiencing failure at the operational level.
The problem — The fires service is dominated by tactical thought
Individual competence, judgment, and trust on all operational levels take years to develop. Constant pressure must be applied to individuals to achieve a level of expertise where others can trust their judgment.
The fire service is outstanding at applying pressure on the tactical level, where many spend the entirety of their career. But the fire service frequently fails to build strategic thinkers. Instead, we tend to put excellent tacticians into strategic leadership roles with no training, education or nurturing, ultimately setting ourselves up for failure.
Consider how long it takes to develop a strategic military leader. They frequently start at age 17 in an academy like West Point and continue to Ranger School, War College, Naval Post Graduate School, etc. Thirty years later, you might get General McCrystal, Mattis, or McRaven.
Now consider the time we spend developing our fire service leaders. We give 90% of our career to a tactical environment solving problems like a gunslinger at the OK corral. Suddenly, some find themselves in a strategical climate in their last five years. Many haven’t developed the hard skills of writing or applying analytical technics. Few have the soft skills to understand political forces or social identity dynamics. And even less have the academic credentials to push back against a civilian with an MBA touting we should run the fire department like a business.
Time to develop
“The problem is, you’re so much better at crisis than long term-planning that you turn everything into a crisis.”
-Chris Fussell, One Mission
Succession planning cannot be treated as a crisis. It will likely take 15 years for the tactical expert to grow into an influential strategist. It will probably include a graduate degree from a reputable college and the reading of hundreds of books. It doesn’t come from seminars or conventions, it comes from constant pressure over a long time rooted in a massive context switch.
From the current leader’s perspective, succession planning is more akin to gardening than playing chess. The chess player places pieces on the board, picking winners and losers. But life is too fortuitous to handpick successors. The thoughtful gardener creates an environment of growth by planting seeds and watering sprouts. Well-tended gardens have numerous productive plants; uncared-for gardens are overrun with weeds. The gardener needs to plant the seeds of “hard skills,” “soft skills,” and leadership constructs in all of its members and watch them grow. The best place to start is with a reading list.
Reading list
“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”
-General Mattis
The development of hard skills and soft skills can take lifetimes. Fortunately, domain masters have taken a lifetime of knowledge and put it into books. All military branches have reading lists for officer development. The fire service needs one as well.
As a starting point, I’ve assembled a list of books designed to incorporate the science of hard and soft skills. From complexity science to selectorate theory, the readers of these books will see the world through the lens of military leaders, scientists, and politicians. I scored the books in three categories, relevance to the fire service, difficulty, and academic rigor. The list is not meant to be a finish line for knowledge but a starting point for growth.
For the complete list, click the link below.
The need for hard skills
“They should think about how they make judgments and reach conclusions, not just about the judgments and conclusion.”
Richard Hauer
Hard skills revolve around critical thinking and logic, One’s ability to analyze, interpret data, and write a clear report. Such skills include understanding finance, budgets, technology, and analytical frameworks.
The worlds of finance and budgets are the limiting factors to all projects. Future leaders need to speak the language of money and grasp the applicable mental models. For example, if leaders lack an understanding of “opportunity cost” or “return on investment (ROI),” talks about future spending are impossible.
And much of the budget discussion will revolve around new technology. The person who “doesn’t get computers” will not survive in the future environment. Microchips and software will influence every action, decision, and communication we make.
Technology in the fire service is a double-bladed sword. On the one hand, new tech can increase capabilities while decreasing cost; on the other hand, it can reduce resiliency and robustness. In other words, technology creates a capable yet fragile environment. We tend to speculate on the significant advancements of new technology and neglect what will happen once it fails. And all tech fails. Choices surrounding technology require deep analytical skills.
Analytical skills overcome one’s internal bias by applying a systemic framework to a problem. Biases’ are natural to all humans. They consist of common syndromes such as:
-Confirmation bias — you tend to seek the answers you believe to be true.
-Anchoring bias -all data is subconsciously framed against whatever problem is presented first.
-Recency bias — your conclusions are based on recent events, not the totality of history.
Analytical frameworks are designed to overcome natural bias so leaders can reach rational conclusions. Examples of Analytical frameworks are:
-Diagnostic framework
-Contrarian techniques
-Imaginative thinking
To say that you “analyzed something” is to apply a method or structure to the problem. Hard skills take training and practice. They don’t just come naturally to “smart people.” Like all skills, they come from repetition and study.
The need for soft skills
Whereas hard skills are about finding the correct answer, soft skills are the ability to sell the solution. There is a growing body of science behind navigating human interactions, and future leaders need to understand domains such as:
-Social identity theory — Study of self-identification and ingroup/outgroup dynamics
-Selectorate theory — “The theory of everything” or how politics work.
-The Backfire effect — How challenges to current beliefs tend to solidify them stronger.
One cannot overstate the importance of soft skills. They are the antidote to being “right and dead.” Successful leadership requires soft skills.
Leadership constructs
Since firefighting is a human enterprise, effective leadership is essential for success. And there are volumes written on leadership. Unfortunately, most of the leadership books are personal stories wrapped in confirmation bias and survivorship bias. As a result, many leadership books are misleading pseudoscience science. However, the constructs of leadership are essential to understand, such as:
-Attributes of leadership — Empathy, mental agility, resilience, ECT
-Levels of leadership — Direct, organizational, situational
-Conditions of leadership — Formal, informal, collective
-Desired outcomes for your field- Sound decisions, healthy environments, engaged teammates
Leadership constructs are guides to developing a whole person. They are ideals to pursue our entire life; There are no perfect leaders, only people trying to improve. For an example of a leadership construct, click the link below.
Succession planning takes time. It is not something slapped together in a weekend, nor is it met with quick classes or seminars; It requires a context switch, a reading list, and fifteen years. Start now.
“There’s likely a place in paradise for people who tried hard, but what really matters is succeeding. If that requires you to change, that’s your mission.”
-Stanley McCrystal
