Locked in Solution Thinking, Part 1

Revisit the what and how of your achievements

During a recent strategic planning session with a county’s leadership council, the participants were asked about their vision for their departments as they worked on a template for the strategic plan. Although there were many responses, one that stood out clearly came from the chief of one of the fire stations. “I see a fire station on every corner,” he said.

Although this certainly created a visual, it was somewhat uncreative and shallow, representing a rather expensive and limited vision. Here was a leader locked into a solution… locked not into a vision of service or success, but of doing more of the same. This statement clearly indicated the need for a change in mindset.

What sort of a culture do you think this kind of thinking leads to? How likely is it to lead to success? What is the likelihood of budgets being approved for such a “vision?” How likely is it to get buy-in from either the taxpayers or from the county leadership? It says nothing about what this would achieve. It says nothing about how this would be beneficial, or how that change would be measured. It doesn’t convey anything about underlying issues.

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Akhilesh,

You pose some very interesting questions, especially for the fire service.
Although there are some very progressive fire agencies across the country, many
have never ventured down the path of strategic planning. From an operational
perspective, the chief had a vision of a fire station on every corner; although
not necessary or economically feasible, I'm sure you could flush out why that
was his vision by asking why as you mentioned in the article. I imagine his
answer would be something close to "so response times are
short"...why..."so we can intervene with our critical tasking before
flashover occurs in a fire or brain death occurs on a
medical"....why....."so we can have a positive outcome on the
citizens we serve".....and so on.

The fire service is steeped in tradition, and only now in the midst of an
economic downturn are they looking to the private sector for cues on how to
survive. By asking why, looking for the root cause, researching different
methods of not only deploying, but preventing incidents all together and
utilizing sound data and reasoning can the fire service evolve with the needs
of the citizens they serve. By teaching all areas of government to shift to an
outcome based thinking model, we can increase efficiencies and service levels
while decreasing the financial liabilities placed upon our customers.

I would ask how you are teaching the county to shift their thinking and what
tools are you giving them to measure their successes? Although measuring KPI's
is great, many times in the early stages an agency will measure anything and
everything, even without looking at how it impacts the actual outcomes. Do you
have a best practice model that you believe would work for the fire service?

Thanks for the work on this article, it was very timely with what local
governments, especially the fire service are experiencing.