During the Thursday General Session, attendees will be engaged and excited as they watch a timed, live broadcast of a mutual-aid excercise of hundreds of emergency vehicles and staff. The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) of Illinois will demonstrate the dispatch, mobilization, deployment capabilities and capacities of a statewide system. This exercise is unique to FRI and gives attendees an inside look at the mutual-aid process.

In addition, MABAS will have specialized equipment, including decon, compressor/cascade, mobile semi warehouses, mobile semi tent cities, ventilation units, ATVs, generator/light plants, state-sponsored US&R vehicles, mission-support mobile offices, mobile fleet maintenance and refueler, and more will be on display throughout the week.

Traditionally the FRI call for papers opens in the fall, closes before Thanksgiving and the agenda is set—not this year! While we still completed that part of the process, it was only the foundation for the FRI program for 2010.

A second call for papers was announced in early January and the submission period just recently wrapped up. This opportunity for submissions allowed the program planning council to capture emerging topics and the latest in leadership education. New presentations have been added to the agenda, including sessions you won’t see anywhere else. Hear about topics such as:

• Medical Operations in Haiti
• The “Snowpocalypse” of 2010
• The Fort Hood Incident and Response

Look for more to come on other emerging topics being covered at FRI 2010.

The IAFC and FRI continue to cover the most relevant topics facing fire chiefs. In 2009 Weathering the Economic Storm program was a huge success, and FRI 2010 will feature a new series of workshops focused on economic recovery. Many departments have made drastic budget cuts, laid-off employees and faced other difficult cost-cutting measures. But this has also made departments everywhere evaluate how things are done, and in several cases, organizations have been able to streamline processes and increase efficiencies.

Recovering From the Economic Storm will feature groups who have found opportunities in downsizing, replaced tedious tasks with inexpensive technologies, and positioned their department for success in the future. Look for more details in future blog updates.

Sports is used very often to draw analogies to everyday life situations. And in fact, there are a number of parallels between professional sports and the fire and emergency services industry.

Both are team activities that require everyone on the field and at the scene to know and execute their responsibility. The incident commander and the quarterback have a lot in common in that they both “call the plays,” though a running back or division supervisor has some latitude once they’re “in the open field” or if they have completed the tactical objective. The Head Coach and the Fire Chief are also very similar, especially when the team has a losing record.

When a professional sports team has what it considered a “culture of losing,” it’s not surprising to see new coaches hired with mandates to turn the losing culture around. In fire departments, this situation sometimes occurs when the organization is not winning in the view of the ownership (taxpayers) and management (appointed and elected policy makers) or when the previous coach (chief) finally decides to leave the team. In either case, there tends to be a pretty high expectation of the “new coach.” The question is, “How does the new person go about addressing the new expectations without breaking the system altogether?” It depends on the situation.

There is a process that new leadership can use to determine how to make a difference in their new position in a few simple steps:

1. Evaluate cultural conditions
2. Evaluate resources
3. Evaluate the level of empowerment
4. Evaluate risk and resistance
5. Implement change
6. Continuous improvement

When this strategy indicates that “revolutionary change” is required in a fire and emergency services organization, an effective leader may want to consider the “hyper change” concept. Hyper change is a form of revolutionary change in that it is change that occurs at a pace that meets the needs of the organization, while not “driving everyone crazy” in the process. Hyper change tends to be most effective when the pain of remaining the same outpaces the desire to stay the same.

In many cases, the challenge is not “what to change” but “what to change into?” To be effective with cultural change, it is important that the “evaluation of cultural conditions” includes not only an evaluation of the past and the present but of the future. Too often leaders find themselves faced with a position of dealing with the past decisions and the present consequences of those decisions without a clear vision for what the future could or should be. This is where exposure becomes so critically important. If a leader travels in homogeneous circles and engages in repetitive group-think exercises, there is little possibility that outcomes will change.

Sometimes the process of hyper change is not as much the issue as the uncertainty or fear about where the hyper change will take you. When the subject is safety culture, an argument could be made that “hyper change “is absolutely necessary if the current state of affairs injures or kills firefighters.

Chief Daniels will be presenting “Managing Hyper Change” at FRI on Friday, August 28 from 3:00-4:30 pm.
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I. David Daniels, MHRM, CFO, MIFireE is the Emergency Services Administrator in the City of Renton (WA). He is a member of the IAFC Board of Directors, representing the Safety, Health and Survival Section.