When I visit departments across the country, it always starts off the same: “We have no problems here,” people tell me. I have been to enough departments and have heard this comment enough to know that it is not true. The reality is that we all have problems but we do not necessarily want to share them with others as we “keep our trash at home.”
While I understand that keeping our problems internal is good for public relations, I wonder if it is hurting our departments and the profession overall. It may be that we are not only hiding our problems from the public but from ourselves, and therefore we may not be able to address them until it is too late.
This is most evident in departments that are collapsing or have already broken down. Departments do not fall apart just like that, it is a result of ongoing problems that are often overlooked or ignored. This may be a conscious choice or a result of a culture of denial, even to ourselves. It is not a far leap from denying our problems to others to complete denial. The end result is that problems tend to grow or come out through other seemingly unrelated fights, errors, or at worst, people getting hurt.
Negative impacts
This may sound like stuff you would hear from a personal therapist, but it applies to organizations, too. Organizations are an extension of the lives within the organization and therefore they can be dysfunctional, negatively impacted by the withholding of problems and affected by both internal and external issues. In addition, what can things worse is the fact that the fire service tends to be a “macho” organization full of “alpha dogs” who cannot admit their weaknesses or check their egos at the door.
Too many of us see admitting our problems as a weakness rather than something to learn from. The amazing thing is that when I walk into departments, no matter where they are, they all have the same problems. These include recruitment and retention of members, fairness in discipline, infighting, backroom chatter, and the future of their organization.
We are all so similar that I can even name the same personalities in each department. Every department has their chief, and then they have the person who actually runs the department. They also have the person who has a great big heart and means well, but always goes too far.We all have our group of members who drink together and those who hate them.
If we all have the same problems, and the same people, then why can’t we find a solution? There has to be someone out there who has found it. The challenge is that we need to all share our problems and solutions and that is what VolunteerFD.org was founded to do. The forums are a great place to share problems and solutions, but I also always love to hear them at jason@volunteerfd.org.
I will leave you with a great example of how sharing our problems can help find solutions. While I was running a volunteer fire department roundtable, the problem of recruitment and retention came up. Every department in the room admitted to the lack of volunteers, except for one, which actually had a waiting list seven deep to join! It turns out that they were a combination department and had set up a system where in order to get employed, you had to volunteer first. While it was possible to get a job without volunteering, the points system was such that volunteering experience sent the applicant to the top of the employment list. As members leave the volunteer ranks, the department goes to the next person on the volunteer membership list and keeps creating careers for their members.
Not every solution will work with every department, but if we do not share our problems, we cannot fix them together. Share your problems at VolunteerFD.org, find solutions from other members at VolunteerFD/Topics and as always, I would love to hear both problems and solutions!