From the Jumpseat: The Safety/Identity Conflict
08/02/2010
By Mark J. Cotter
Several
quotes from firefighters, in response to the interviewer’s question
about why an offensive attack was still attempted at a fire where it was
confirmed that no victims were threatened and the building was already a
total loss, were particularly enlightening:
Outsiders see things that insiders cannot or will not see. We
have all heard the usual praise from citizens about how much they
appreciate and admire the fire service and its members for the work we
do. Often, these statements are made in general terms, somewhat like
extolling the virtues of a democratic society and nutritious food. Other
times, usually more passionately, they are an outpouring of gratitude
and relief in response to a particular incident that firefighters helped
to bring under control. We have become accustomed to, though no less
appreciative of, those compliments.
On the other hand, I have been repeatedly taken aback when persons who are not firefighters express
a belief or opinion regarding the fire service that is either
substantially different from my “informed” understanding of our
practices and motivations or provide an insight that I had never
considered. In both cases, this causes me to reflect on our collective
“image” and the perceptions of our “customers.” Sometimes, these
divergent perspectives are based on the speaker’s lack of information.
Other times, the assessments are quite accurate, usually because they
are unbiased by familiarity.
For instance,
my wife once stated, with some sincerity, her belief that one of my
department’s most common activities was to purchase clothing for our
members (“How many T-shirts do you need?”). My son, on the other hand,
who apparently did not inherit any of my firefighting
genes, generally rolls his eyes when the virtues and honor of the fire
service are brought up, the result of his limited experience with
coworkers who were also young volunteer firefighters. He could not relate to their seemingly endless discussions about what their activities were at the last fire and believes that
such a narrow focus of interest is evidence of limited intellect. Both
of these examples of alternative perceptions could be changed by
education, although my success in correcting these impressions has thus
far been elusive.
The truly valuable
critic is one who provides a view that has not previously been
considered, often the most difficult aspect of which is recognizing the
difference between uninformed and unbiased opinions. Sometimes, such a
perspective comes from an analysis of our craft or its practitioners by
people with a nonfire interest. In that vein, a reader from Switzerland
(really) forwarded to me a study from a scientific journal because it
cited a “fact” about fire behavior that I had debunked as a myth in one
of my articles (see Emergency Service Myths #2: A Myth and a Half).
Although I appreciated the thought and had my belief in the tenacity of
longstanding fire service falsehoods reinforced, what truly intrigued
me were the overall findings of the research project that contained the
quote and its implications for the fire service.
The article, “Organizational Discourse and the Appraisal of Occupational Hazards: Interpretive Repertoires, Heedful Interrelating, and Identity at Work,”* published in the August 2008 Journal of Applied Communication Research, described an attempt to analyze how “every day organizational discourse”[2] (i.e., conversation among members) “enables amplified appraisals of risk” (i.e., make things seem more dangerous) or “enable attenuated appraisals of risk” (i.e., make things seem less dangerous). The questions were deemed worthy of consideration because prior workplace risk management research and theory attributed greatest importance to corporate culture, training, and policy issues rather than the everyday language and relationships of employees. Although this article would seem to be merely an esoteric, academic discussion with little application to you readers, it caught my attention because of the study subjects: firefighters.
The article, “Organizational Discourse and the Appraisal of Occupational Hazards: Interpretive Repertoires, Heedful Interrelating, and Identity at Work,”* published in the August 2008 Journal of Applied Communication Research, described an attempt to analyze how “every day organizational discourse”[2] (i.e., conversation among members) “enables amplified appraisals of risk” (i.e., make things seem more dangerous) or “enable attenuated appraisals of risk” (i.e., make things seem less dangerous). The questions were deemed worthy of consideration because prior workplace risk management research and theory attributed greatest importance to corporate culture, training, and policy issues rather than the everyday language and relationships of employees. Although this article would seem to be merely an esoteric, academic discussion with little application to you readers, it caught my attention because of the study subjects: firefighters.
The “Plateau City Fire
Department,” a pseudonym for “a large metropolitan fire department in
southwestern United States," allowed the researchers access to members
in the stations and on ride-alongs. The actual name of this department
doesn't matter, since the description of its members and their attitudes
could apply to virtually any fire department, or at least any with
which I have been involved in the past 30-plus years. Information was
gathered by observation, unstructured interviews (where questions are
informal and are used to educate the researcher and help guide the
direction of the data collection), structured interviews (where
specific, predesignated questions are posed, the answers to which can be
analyzed and compared among respondents), and focus groups (where
interactions of the group members tend to bring out additional
information beyond that of one-on-one interviews). The results were then
categorized and analyzed to determine how discussions among
firefighters serve to exaggerate or dismiss risks.
The
article itself was, in my assessment, both tedious and fascinating,
requiring frequent use of a dictionary to learn the meanings of
unfamiliar terms from the language of social research, but well worth
the effort. I could mine its results for several columns to come. The
most striking finding, though, and which relates to the title of this
article, was how important firefighters’ sense of identity is in shaping
their conversations about, and therefore assessment of, risks. The
researchers noted that this “preferred identity” was “someone who coolly
and selflessly accommodates hazards in the course of saving dependent
members of the public." In other words, firefighters see themselves as brave and heroic.
A
consistent theme brought out in interviews was the importance of the
need to act like a “’real’ firefighter,” often to the detriment of
safety. Evidence for this was found in the informal department culture
and members’ expectations, as demonstrated by “interpretive
repertoires,” the “terms and metaphors drawn upon to characterize and
evaluate actions and events” by firefighters. This is where the value of
an outside observer was truly demonstrated. The researchers,
unconcerned with “fitting in” during in-station conversations, asked
pointed questions about typical kitchen table accounts of exploits and
sought thorough explanations of the conditions surrounding them. They
were thereby able to identify multiple examples of how the perceptions
of firefighters conflicted with the reality of the situations
described. They repeatedly observed departmental risk management
policies being subordinated by members of all ranks because, to a great
extent, they did not fit their “preferred sense of identity.”
“Specifically,
discursive attenuation techniques downplayed the dangers of traffic,
dismissed vulnerabilities that were invisible but familiar, and relied
upon and sustained a valued for speedy intervention that arguably
reduced the margins of safety.” In other words, firefighters, through
their conversations, showed and reinforced a lack of concern about the
hazards of fast driving, the importance of wearing SCBA during overhaul
(where hazards--toxic gases--are “invisible but familiar”), and
defaulting to offensive fire attacks even on fully involved building
fires. This was despite ongoing, formal efforts by that same department
to address those very hazards and behaviors.
“Yeah, it’s really what we all have signed up for, you know? We all signed up to make a difference, you know. We didn’t sign up to try to make a difference. We signed up to make an impact on something."
"To
operate safely and to slow down even a little bit is wrapping yourself
in cowardice” (this statement came from a captain!). The researchers’
interpretation of these conversations was that “the value of speedy
intervention served the preferred identity of firefighters as agentic
‘difference makers.’” They observed that “Slowing down might lead to
more rational risk assessment and more effective long-term intervention,
but this possibility could be resisted, indeed subordinated, through
appeals to the value of speedy intervention.” Ready, fire, aim.
The
primary result of this research was evidence of the previously
unappreciated importance of everyday conversation in shaping risk
assessment and safety,
with one of the implications being that “increases in the clarity of
communication and amount of information flow do not automatically
translate into cultural or behavioral change.” That is, safety campaigns
and education are inadequate by themselves. What I see as the more
important, underlying finding is the strong influence of how
firefighters see themselves, which, in turn, shapes our talk and,
ultimately, affects how we evaluate and manage hazards.
Besides
the obligatory call for more research into these areas, the study
writers suggest several practical applications for their findings. For
one, “safety training should highlight the significant role that
everyday talk plays in ongoing risk management.” If we are serious about
safety, we have to talk the talk in all settings--the classroom,
fireground, station, and everywhere in between. I have experienced and
participated in conversations that highlighted and even celebrated
reckless actions in the pursuit of emergency mitigation, with little
regard to the effect such talk has on the group’s response to similar
circumstances in the future. From here on, I will be more aware of the
dangers of such contradictory storytelling.
Transforming
firefighters’ individual sense of self to one that values thoughtful,
measured, efficient intervention would be the most obvious method to
correct the root disorder identified in this research. No easy
task. Since we collectively share and sustain the current cool and
heroic “preferred identity” and its roots are so deep in both the fire
service and popular cultures, change is not going to come easily. Still,
the importance of everyday conversations in shaping this perception and
our universal participation in such activities allow us all to be
potential change agents for this improvement. We don’t have to change
who we are; just how we see ourselves. Real courage will be displayed by
those who can oppose the accepted norm of reckless aggression by
firefighters in exchange for one involving a still fearless, but
careful, model of intervention.
REFERENCE
This article is based on the following:
Scott, Clifton Wilson and Trethewey, Angela (2008) ‘Organizational Discourse and the Appraisal of Occupational Hazards: Interpretive Repertoires, Heedful Interrelating, and Identity at Work’, Journal of Applied Communication Research, 36:3, 298-317. All subsequent quotes are from cited article.
Mark J. Cotter has more than 30 years experience in emergency services and is a volunteer Firefighter/EMT-B with the Salisbury (MD) Fire Department. He can be reached at markjcotter@comcast.net.
Scott, Clifton Wilson and Trethewey, Angela (2008) ‘Organizational Discourse and the Appraisal of Occupational Hazards: Interpretive Repertoires, Heedful Interrelating, and Identity at Work’, Journal of Applied Communication Research, 36:3, 298-317. All subsequent quotes are from cited article.
Mark J. Cotter has more than 30 years experience in emergency services and is a volunteer Firefighter/EMT-B with the Salisbury (MD) Fire Department. He can be reached at markjcotter@comcast.net.
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