Firefighting is an Especially Dangerous Job - Essay Example

Reflexive Journal Fire fighting is viewed as an especially dangerous job, and the admiration of members of the public for the firefighters is based upon their ability to cope with an emergency. This “establishes firefighters as special and can lead to firefighters believing their image and acting out at work how they subjectively judge they expect to be seen, by themselves, their peer group and the public” Baigent (July 2001). This ability to cope with danger and the need to project themselves as brave, strong and masculine appears to permeate the atmosphere throughout the watch, both among new members as well as veteran firefighters. Bion’s (1961) assessment of a group emerging when a relationship develops between members based upon the perception of a common external threat, applies in the fire fighting context. One of the basic assumptions underlying formation of the group is the fight/flight mode of functioning, wherein individuals within the fire fighting group may perceive its very survival as dependent upon fighting, requiring active aggression in facing the danger of life threatening fires that are fought every day. As a result, the “welfare of the individual” may be a matter of secondary consideration – the group comes first” and its primary motivation is to survive.(Bion 1961:64). Applying Bion’s assumptions, the source of anxiety within the new entrants to the group appears to be the sensitivity to the external danger and threat in the job, and the need for loyal followership within the group. They are anxious to prove themselves and all new entrants, including females and openly homosexual males mention the urge they experience to undertake operational tasks during the first year to demonstrate their strength and ability. However, with the recent modernization of the Fire and Rescue service, the trend appears to be shifting away from the focus on the group to a focus on the individual. The Integrated Personal development Service allows a higher degree of autonomy to the individual, by issuing them their Personnel Assessment and Training records, which allow individuals to asses their own training needs, evaluate their own competence and request for training rather than being mandatorily assigned to training irrespective of individual needs. Therefore, it appears that changes are being implemented slowly, yet surely within the watch, in order to ensure that individuals are accorded more autonomy, which is in direct contrast with existing practice. As a watch manager in the Fire Service, working in training and development, it has been interesting to observe the interactions among the watch group. Schauber (2001) mentioned that Organizational climate is found in the private language of the organization. In the fire watch, the gaps in operational work frames, when members are engaged in station cleaning, equipment testing and similar tasks, are the periods of social interaction, characterized by conversation and robust humor. The fire service is still largely white, heterosexual, male and between the ages of 35 to 55, although there has been an increase in the numbers of women and non traditional males, i.e, homosexuals in recent times. The dominance of this group has percolated down into the watch, bringing with it the working class working class education of West Yorkshire and the cultural values and homogenizing the workforce, thus “forcing conformity” (Hampton, 1999:113). As a result, this has also resulted in the group becoming “endowed with a darker side….if groups are capable of great deeds, they are also capable of great follies.” (Hampton, 1999:113). While the group of firefighters is endowed with strength and bravery to accomplish the noble task of fighting fires, it also at the same time, entertains the belief that sexist and homophobic views may still be expressed in private, despite the knowledge that they may need to limit what they say and do in the interest of ensuring justice and fairness to all members of the watch. Argyll suggests that social behavior within a group is the product of at least seven different drives, where a drive may be defined as the “persistent tendency to seek certain goals” (Argyll, 1994:1). One of these drives is self esteem and ego identity or the need for one’s projected self image to be accepted as a valid one, while another is aggression or the drive to harm other people physically, verbally or in other ways (Argyll, 1994: 2). A particular pattern of behavior becomes a drive when it leads to a certain goal. In the social interaction between the new recruits and the veteran firefighters, the recruits appear to manifest the self esteem drive more strongly, because the goal is to achieve acceptance into the bastion of masculinity. According to Tajfel (1982) social identification begins with the assumption that each individual wishes to maximize his or her self-esteem. In order to ensure high self-esteem, individuals engage in a series of social comparisons with others, just as the new recruits may be doing, to gain acceptance within the group and to demonstrate their capability to cope with danger. . The aggressive drive appears to predominate among the veterans, since such behavior is used to defend the group and territory and occurs between males of the same group who are competing for dominance within the group. In this instance, this behavior appears to be conditioned by the need to conform to the public image of firefighters. Applying Bion’s basic assumption of oneness to the group of established firefighters, the very homogeneity that exists among them is because the group has committed itself to a movement or an external cause as a means of survival. As Bion puts it, this level of functioning occurs when “members to seek to join in a powerful union with an omnipotent force, unobtainably high, to surrender self for passive participation, and thereby to feel existence, well being and wholeness” (Bion, 1961:357). In my role as a trainer, I deal with individuals who are at different levels in terms of their fire service experience. At the beginning of the course, I question students on what they hope to achieve and gain from it, highlighting the greater autonomy to individuals that is slowly transforming the culture of the fire station watches. As Reece and Walker have stated, “Our task as teachers is to create an environment where students feel past of a group and feel that their contribution has worth” (Reece and Walker, 2003:88). During the two day training course I administer to members of the watch, I’m aware that some individuals also believe they know how best to handle their watch, so I prefer to function as a facilitator, or as “person who assists students to learn for themselves.” (Reece and Walker, 2003:3). I have been somewhat uncomfortable using Power point displays and talking to the participants in the training course and have attempted to promote active interaction among the group by engaging them in tasks, and using my sense of humor in drawing them out and establishing an informal role. The transformational leadership approach as advocated by Bernard Bass (1985) states that a good leader will try to transform the attitudes and relationships between the people who work under him. This has been my approach, since instead of attempting to control the behavior of the watch members who enroll in my training course, I have been more interested in coaching staff and providing guidelines for conduct in an emergency rather than exerting high levels of control and talking down to them. This I believe, has been appreciated, since as Reece and Walker put it: . “Without a positive environment, your students will not reach their full potential. They will find their learning boring will not devote the required time to it and even during periods of learning will find their minds wandering” (Reece and Walker,2003, p6) During the course, I present students with a white board scenario of an operational incident and they are challenged to develop a successful outcome. This engages them on a practical level, so that they are provided with the opportunity to put whatever they have learnt into practice. Some members of the group appear to naturally develop a leadership role while others are content to listen. Belbin describes the ideal management team as a group that can fulfil the nine team roles, suggesting that “a team of six” might be “most suitable for enabling a management team to tackle a complex problem.” (Belbin, 1981:116). A well balanced team must include leaders – Shapers and Implementers – as well as team workers, in order to be able to function effectively. In response to the operational problem presented to the trainees, I have observed how the performance of the group is optimized and the best outcomes are developed when individuals with different skill sets are organized into groups with some naturally standing out as leaders, taking the initiative in offering ideas and opinions, and others fit more naturally into the roles of team workers, coordinators or monitors. As pointed out by Hughes et al(2002), “Leadership is a complex phenomenon involving the leader, the followers and the situation.”(p 6). Therefore leadership cannot be assumed to be a position, rather it is a process of interaction between a leader, followers and the situation. This is typical of the interaction that takes place on the watch and during training, since the activity of all individuals are geared to respond to a particular situation. During these training sessions, as I have observed members of the watch interacting with each other, it appears to substantiate the theory put forth by Lave and Wenger (1991) that learning is basically a social process and is not merely concentrate din the learner’s head. These authors have also mentioned that the central defining characteristic of learning is legitimate peripheral participation. By taking part in an operational exercise, all members of the team have the opportunity to contribute and interact socially with each other which appears to speed up the learning process. Bloom’s taxonomy comprises six stages which aim to not only evaluate the lower levels of learning which require recall of information and principles, but also interpretation and application of those principles (Lazear, 1995: 192-3). The first stage is knowledge which tests the learner on facts, comprehension tests the extent to which a learner may have understood a particular set of instructions and application tests the student’s ability to apply the theme in interpretation of other tasks. The last three stages of Bloom’s taxonomy – Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation help a learner to apply his or her cognitive faculties in deriving underlying meanings from the learning event. The power point slides that I present initially help to acquaint members of the watch with information that is likely to be beneficial and helps them in the process of acquisition of basic knowledge, while the operational exercise helps them to synthesize the information and to apply what was learnt. The situated learning context is also beneficial to the participants in the training process, since it enhances this process of synthesis and evaluation of the knowledge that has been acquired initially. Bibliography * Argyll, Michael, 1994. “The Psychology of interpersonal behavior”, Penguin Books * Bass, Bernard, 1985. “Leadership and Performance beyond expectations” New York: Free Press. * Belbin, R.M., 1981. “Management Teams: Why they succeed or fail”, London: Butterworth-Heinemann. * Bion, W.R., 1961. “Experiences in groups” New York: Basic Books * Hampton, M.M, 1999. “Working in Groups in Y. Gabriel (ed), “Organisations in Depth” London, Sage. * Hughes, Richard L, Ginnett, Robert C and Curphy, Gordon C, 2002. “Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience.” McGraw Hill Lave, J and Wenger, E, 1991. “Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation”. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press * Lazear, D, 1995. “Multiple Intelligences: Approaches to Assessment”, Cheltenham: Hawker Brownlow * Reece, I. and S. Walker (2003). Teaching, Training and Learning: A Practical Guide (Fifth edition). Sunderland: Business Education Publishers Limited. * Schauber, A, 2001. “Talk around a coffee pot: A key to cultural change toward diversity”, Journal of Extension, 39(6), Retrieved November 22, 2007 from: http://www.joe.org/joe/2001december/a1.html * Tajfel, H, 1982. “Social identity and group relations”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Read More