Why decisions are tough - Officer Training

Why Decisions are Tough

There is an awful lot of talk about making the tough decisions. My thoughts this week as I have recently watched the inability of some chief officers and in one small case that was recounted to me about a union leader afraid to make a decision.

While I think I understand these cases that I refer to, I am taking the point of view that we must better prepare our first line supervisors and other organization leaders to be able to make these tough decisions.

The first issue stems from becoming unpopular and not being liked. It is a natural human tendency to want to be liked. When we make a tough call, we know that the troops are going to go back to the kitchen table and talk about "what a bad-ass" we are and how we forgot where we came from.

So what? We know this is going to happen and probably has happened. Three things are going to happen after this. After a period of time they will either calm down and realize that you did the right thing and in time things will be the same again. The other thing is they may never agree with your decision but will get back to normal, and always harbor this as a negative incident in the back of their mind. The third thing that could happen is that you have made an enemy.

Let's look at these a little closer.

In the first case you will have to feel uncomfortable for maybe a few hours to a few days. If you are comfortable and confident in your decision you can just ride it out. If you really cannot tolerate this uncomfortable feeling, then go to the affected parties and try to see what the root of the problem was. When we do not have information, our minds tend to insert the worst case scenario, so communication can bridge these simple tensions. Talk about the problem and not the people or personalities.

In the second scenario there has been some slight damage or a trigger event that will always surface or be used in the next confrontation you may have. Understand this, try not to focus on it, and when it does get raised at some future time, refocus the conversation on the present conditions. This person got over it the first time, and while there may be some initial trouble, they will get over it again. This person will always be a little problematic but you know how to handle it now.

In the third case you have made an enemy. There are very few people in the world that do not have any enemies and you just need to understand and deal with that. You can speak with enemies you can interact with enemies and you can coexist with enemies. None of it is easy but it can be done.

So whats the big deal, make the proper decision and stand by it. Failing to take an action or putting the action off to another person does not show any signs of leadership.

Remember acts of both bravery and cowardice happen on the fireground and in the firehouse as well!

How can we create a training scenario that gives a new officer this unpleasant feeling the first time, before we turn them loose in the firehouses? I am looking for ideas that are safe, but would force a person to make some difficult choices and more importanlt to live with the consequences. Let me know if you have any ideas.


Pete Lamb
Copyright 2014