March 19, 2010

Are you a Firefighter or Smokey the Bear?

Are you a firefighter or Smokey the Bear? More importantly, which does your organization value the most? A firefighter is someone that has a tremendous skill set and can come into a giant mess to solve the problems immediately. They can quickly diagnose the issues and get into the details in order to move the project forward. Firefighters are a great asset to have and I don't think you can survive in this world without them.

While it doesn't happen often, many firefighters allow situations to get out of hand before they come in and save the day. Or maybe, managers allow situations to get out of hand before they send in the firefighters. Many years ago I was hired to run a 40 person group and the only instruction I had from executive leadership was don't mess with Bob (Not his real name); we must have him in order to survive. Now being in the business for 15 years, you can imagine my excitement to meet such a technology expert. It didn't take long; within a month I had seen him work late into the night or weekends so save the departments skin with systems going down or in need of repair. After another month or so, I noticed something else. Most of the problems he solved over the weekend could have been solved the Tuesday before they got out of hand. In other words, he ignored the small issues that were the foundation for the big problem to come. Eventually, I replaced him with a new employee at about 50% the expense. Issues and firefights dropped by 80% and our customer satisfaction rose by 20%.

This brings me to Smokey the Bear. What is Smokey's primary job? I suppose he is a symbol and spokesman for the forest. You never actually see him putting out fires thus his job is to ensure the fires never start to begin with. As in my previous story, we moved away from a fire fighting response mentality to one based on Smokey. We focused our attention on the small and seemingly insignificant issues. You see, you also need Smokey the Bears in the organization to understand where problems start and ensure that a match doesn't become a raging fire. The skills sets are completely different and sadly the response of management is equally different. Not much has changed in the last 20 years; fire fighters still get the praise they deserve and Smokey the Bears get... Well, I guess they get the satisfaction of a job well done if nothing else. In a world based on "What Have You Done for Me Lately", ensuring problems never emerge in the first place isn't highly regarded.

Posted by Todd at March 19, 2010 12:12 PM

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