Chief Concerns: Taking Ownership or Checking Boxes?

You run that EMS call to Mrs. Jones’s house, you know, that tedious sick call for the 85-year-old lady who has called two or three times this year from the house down the street with the constantly tall grass and peeling paint. Mrs. Jones is nice enough, but come on, The Price is Right is on!

OK, maybe I’m being a little dramatic with The Price is Right reference, but what’s going on with Mrs. Jones? What are WE doing to make sure that Mrs. Jones and the rest of our community members get the best care and attention we can possibly provide? Are we taking OWNERSHIP in our communities or are we just checking the response and patient-care-report boxes?

Time to refocus

What it means to “take ownership” has changed through my years of service, from the time I joined as a volunteer through today, and it will continue to change until the day I leave the service. I remember as a fairly young volunteer, ownership involved things as mundane as making sure all the dishes in the kitchen sink were washed and put away as well as more operational issues, like washing and rolling the last bit of hose after the big fires and scrubbing the ambulance down after every call. Anything less should be unacceptable to us, but that doesn’t mean you throw in the towel if you or someone else isn’t there yet. It just means we have work to do.

This harkens back to my January 2015 article, “What Does Leadership Look Like?,” in which we talked about the continuum of personnel, from those who just occupy space (the Slug) to those who have the vision to take people where they didn’t know they wanted to go (the Leader). How do we develop the next generation of leaders, managers and supervisors in our business?

Motivating people has become increasingly difficult, especially in the volunteer world, where standards and certification requirements seem to outpace available time, and our litigious society seems, to some, to not appreciate the nature of our business. We also harbor a tech-savvy workforce that responds to stimuli differently than “we” did.

Regardless of the reasons, it is clear to me that many within our ranks need to refocus, or be refocused, to ensure that the basics of community service, fire prevention, public education and response are more than just a checkbox. Keeping our communities safer and healthier is better for all of us. The fire/EMS departments are a big part of most communities and should be a big part of improving the communities’ health and safety. Further, making sure you recognize individual achievements and accomplishments is equally important to ensuring that proper discipline and retraining is completed for those who “don’t get it.”

Follow-through matters

The discussion here is ultimately about follow-through—thoroughness, task completion, and the ability to see and act toward influencing “the big picture.” Is Mrs. Jones a 9-1-1 “abuser”? Probably not. I suspect she needs a little help, whether that’s related to social services, family services, aging services, law enforcement, housing or fire/EMS. Whatever it is, when Mrs. Jones calls us, we need to look beyond the initial 9-1-1 call and determine what underlying issues need to be dealt with.

At our department, more than once, we’ve had crews return to a home to mow the lawn or trim the bushes after a significant event, especially involving the elderly. Further, our new Mobile Integrated Home program will take a much more holistic look at these users, ensuring that we’re taking ownership of our role within the community.

When you think about it for just a minute, it’s really no different than the arcing wires that caused a brush fire. You show up and likely put the fire out (as long as there are no wires down), and then you leave, right? NO! You also deal with the root cause—the arcing wires, trees or obstruction safety. Whether by calling the electric company or making the area safe, you deal with it; you don’t just put the fire out and turn around and go home! So why are we treating Mrs. Jones or other situations any differently? It may not be the fire/EMS department’s DIRECT responsibility, but it is our ethical responsibility.

How about your special assignment to staff a public event—an event where you’re in charge. Do you just show up and “work” (checking the boxes)? Hopefully not. You preplan the event; you know who and how many are coming and what the event is about; you verify your resource needs and schedules in advance; you arrive early, ensure that all the equipment is ready, check the facility, check the fire protection systems and the first-aid equipment, ensure the appropriate equipment is on hand and assigned personnel know where to post, etc. During the event, you maintain constant awareness, listen to the radio, interact with the guests/attendees (as appropriate) and make sure everyone presents a professional image. After the event, you make sure everyone leaves safely and all the equipment is properly stowed and accounted for. In other words, you TAKE OWNERSHIP.

Incident command posts (ICP), divisions and group assignments and their operations deserve this same critical analysis. You’ve listened to these incidents on the radio. The incident commander (IC) is as cool as a cucumber, the building is burning down around them, and they have no idea what to do about it or how to process the information coming in to them. They’re checking the boxes on the command sheet.

While there is utility and necessity to the checklists associated with running an emergency incident, not every incident can be run by checklists and command sheets. Don’t get me wrong, we mandate the use of the tactical worksheet for all ICP activations. My point is that the critical thinker has to look BEYOND the boxes and checklists, and consider the actions and reactions in the dynamic environments we operate within. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to an incident operation where an IC is clearly “checking the boxes by radio” on the command chart. It may not be “burning down around them,” but more often than not, those are the incidents where you hear that someone has to return to the scene because they didn’t handle business thoroughly the first time they went out (read: rekindle). Most “rekindles” are a misnomer to me, though; what it really tells me is that we didn’t put the fire out the first time! These are the incidents with knee walls, balloon construction, paper insulation or any incident where overhaul is not properly executed—usually the difference between someone taking ownership of incidents as opposed to just checking the boxes. 

Ownership continuum

Interaction at all levels within our departments and with our communities is part of the “ownership continuum”—a space and place where we make sure the boxes are checked but also pay attention to the details and think on our feet; where we make sure Mrs. Jones is taken care of; and, most importantly, where we take responsibility and ownership. The Joneses, Smiths and everyone in our communities and membership deserve nothing less.