“Says who with what proof” is an idea that was introduced to me several years back by a good friend of mine, Kirk Allen. But it was another friend and senior leader in the United States military, Jenna Stuart, who got me worked up about the topic of validation.
Validation is the process of proving something is worthwhile. From a leadership perspective, validation is how we justify that something is worth the initial and continued fiscal and time investment. I do not know of many, if any, organizations that do not have to concern themselves with the fiscal realities of our current time. Furthermore, validation is how we determine if what we are trying to accomplish is successful, needs improvement or needs abandonment. It speaks directly to “says who with what proof.”
Validation can impact every aspect of the organization, but for the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on fire prevention and training.
Validating fire prevention
The first step in the validation process is recognition of a need. Proactive organizations will recognize trends within their community and then develop solutions to reverse the trend. Validation must be part of the planning process, as validation measures performance.
A prime example where validation could prove useful is in neighborhood smoke detector campaigns. Such initiatives will place at least one working smoke detector in every home within the community. While we all know that smoke detectors have the potential to save lives, we do not know to what extent. This is where “says who with what proof” comes into play. Now, if you did your homework prior to launching this campaign, you may know that X number of people successfully self-evacuated their homes when a smoke detector activated and Y number of people were injured or killed because they did not have a working detector within their home. Additionally, data such as fire dollar loss in homes without working detectors and fire dollar loss in homes with working detectors could be captured. In having these figures, it would be easy to compare and contrast the effectiveness of this program against past data, thus validating the positives of the program, identifying areas to improve the program, or the need to develop a new strategy. While this may seem like common sense, you would be surprised how many departments do not proactively use data in this manner—or use data incorrectly.
Validating training effectiveness
I would submit to you that training is the foundation of every successful operation; however, it has to be the right training conducted the right way. So how do you determine that you are conducting training that will improve upon or maintain a high level of readiness? Validation. All training must have several key (minimum) components to create a pathway of success. In terms of operational performance, these components include but are not limited to a need, realism, knowledge transfer and a way to track operational performance against training performance.
We will use structure fires as our example. After every fire, do you conduct an after-action review (AAR) and capture the main talking points (e.g., what happened, what went right and what areas could be improved upon)? You cannot promote a culture of safety and not do an AAR. Over a given period of time, let’s use one year, the data from the reviews are analyzed and trends begin to emerge. Once the trends begin to emerge, the recurring items should become the foundations for the following years training platform. As time passes, if you are developing the right training and delivering it the right way, you should see a reduction in the identified trends. If this occurs, you have just validated the effectiveness of your training. If you do not see a reduction in the trends you’re attempting to change or modify, then the validation process has shown you that your current training methodology needs to be tweaked.
In sum
Given today’s tight fiscal environment, the validation process is an excellent tool to assist in securing and retaining funding. Imagine the scenario where the chief goes before the city council and they want to reduce spending. Among the first things that will typically be cut are prevention and training. Prevention and training are easy targets because they prevent things from happening, and if it did not happen, you cannot quantify its success. However, when you establish a sound validation program, you can respond to calls for budget reductions by explaining how the system works and why the system works. And in doing so, you have just transitioned from “says who with what proof” to “says me with this proof.”
Steven M. Gillespie
STEVEN M. GILLESPIE, Ed.D, started his fire service journey in 1993 and is a professor with Columbia Southern University’s College of Safety and Emergency Services, teaching fire service and leadership courses to current and aspiring leaders. Dr. Gillespie has held all ranks within the fire service, and has earned a doctor of education degree in organizational leadership and development and a master of science degree in executive leadership, a bachelor of arts degree in organizational leadership, and an associate of science in fire science technology.
