Collaboration
I recently was fortunate enough to attend the 2nd U.S. Fire Administrator’s Summit on Fire Prevention and Control. Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell assembled an outstanding and impressive group of individuals that are extremely passionate about the fire service. They were tasked a year ago to present recommendations to the American fire service to address problems in our profession. There were six workgroups formed to provide a strategic approach and a sole mission moving forward.
Many fire service leaders were invited to the table to participate in the work groups alongside members of the 9 sister organizations. These 9 sister organizations include the International Society of Fire Service Instructors, Fire Department Safety Officers Association (FDSOA), North American Fire Training Directors (NAFTD), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) to name a few. It is important to mention this so we can all collaborate with Dr. Moore-Merrell with her “one voice” mission. This mission is to ensure all agencies in the fire service are addressing the same problems to make a positive impact on the pressing issues in the American fire service.
Collaboration is only one of the key elements of this tremendous effort however probably the most important. Crossing outside our organizations to gain a different perspective can be intimidating at first. The result is looking through a different lens that may not have been considered before. This collaboration can produce dramatic effects to get the work done without repeating the effort. I challenge your organization to explore this methodology both internally and externally. Internally, when everyone has a common goal in mind, can be departments collaborate to save time and effort. An example of this could be that your organization wants to their community to reduce false alarms that are exhausting resources. Operations identifies where those calls are taking place, Prevention identifies what is causing the problem, Community Risk develops a best practice approach to reduce calls, and Training delivers the education. By having a collaborative approach to solve a problem, the results can be massive. Having Dr. Moore-Merrell’s message “one voice” on a local level can be highly effective. Externally having that same message on regional and state level with her actionable items, the results can be exponential.
Dr. Moore-Merrell goes on to highlight issues in the fire service to include fire fighter cancer, codes and standards, and recruitment and retention to name a few. If we ALL address these recommendations in and around our region, we will make the fire service tremendously better. We need to work together to have the same goal in mind across all organizations.
I encourage you to look up the U.S. Fire Administrator’s Summit on Fire Prevention and Control Workgroup Recommendations. This is a heavy lift and no one organization can do this alone. We need to work together to leave our job better than we found it.
We need to Collaborate.
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