It's Not My Emergency...

"As a First Responder you have to realize that it is not your emergency - you are the one they called to be calm, cool and get the job done. If I am fumbling around and super excited about a call, I am not doing my job well." 

- Colorado First Responder

Good afternoon and happy Thursday. What an interesting and educational week I have had - and it is only Thursday. It started with an outstanding meeting on Monday with a super talented, accomplished senior leader working in the public safety arena. Lots of insight and a fascinating story which they shared. The older I get the more I believe - everyone has a story... and I'm that guy who will ask.

These past two days I had the opportunity to sit down with three First Responders from Fire and Rescue and two from our Law Enforcement community here in Colorado. Yes, those individuals "we invite in to our lives on our worst day ever." What an honor to talk with them and understand what runs through their minds when the alarm tones go off. Words that come to mind include passionate, committed, well trained - exactly who you want next to you when your life is on the line. Thank you to these professionals and the job they do every day. Your time and the energy you invested to share your thoughts - is something I will never forget. Thank you!

So, from where I sit there seems to be a lot of work on getting First Responders on the same radio frequency (and other capabilities) using cutting-edge technology. Right behind that is a focus on moving and turning lots of data into visual pictures that show time-sensitive information for an incident. Good stuff, all of it but don't miss this - "information is important but insufficient for shared situational awareness which is in minds, not machines." Check out my previous post on how this community might use this new tech and information during a major, complex incident to make the knowledge leap towards shared situational awareness (SA) - using the Human Net.

Now...

Thanks to John G. and his questions, the past two days had little to do with technology. It was spent listening to how these first responders get on the same mental frequency. I wanted a clear understanding of their domain and how they worked through the mental SA as an individual, as a team and as a team of teams responding to an incident. That's what I was listening for during these interviews. By the time I finished at 7pm last night my head was about to explode. Wow, just wow.

5+ hours of audio recordings (with the first responders permission) to work through over and over again to pull out their super insight. Lots of work still to come listening/transcribing all of it but it will answer a lot of questions for me...and maybe even plant seeds and create ideas for tomorrow's collaboration supporting this community.

Here's how it worked - I began by describing a scenario. Yep, some were "red-centric" (fire), others were blue-centric (law enforcement)...and since I am such a rebel, I even threw in a red/blue scenario because that teamwork is very likely (check the headlines from Colorado over the past few years) during a major incident. Plus, anyone who has been through my collaboration training and certification knows the scenarios may be laced with ambiguity, conflicting information, red herrings, fog of war - just like life.

...and then I invited them to take over.

1. Tell me what you are thinking about during "turn out time" and/or as you begin to move toward your vehicle. What information are you getting and from whom?
2. You are en route to the scene... what's going through your mind? What information are you getting from the radio, etc. that helps you form a picture of the scene?
3. Arriving at the scene, what are you looking at, in what order, that helps you size up the situation? What are you hearing, other senses? [cues]
4. Have there been instances where what you expected and what you found at the scene were significantly different? Please share some recent examples. Thoughts on why?
5. Have there been instances where the situation changed significantly during the incident or your understanding changed? What tipped you off and why?
6. Your team... what are some specific examples of being in total synch, on the same page mentally, etc.? Are there examples where this did not happen or the teamwork started to fall apart? How did you respond?
7. Think about all of the above... what difficulties would a less experienced person have? Have you seen specific examples of this happening? How did you and/or your team handle the situation?

As I begin to re-listen to one of the audio recordings, their response to question #2 caught my attention. Maybe it's just me, probably is but... I resonated with this statement. In some ways it didn't surprise me but yet, to hear it from a First Responder was important.

"One of the biggest aspects and I am still training myself to do it...is to slow down. It's a funny saying but it stands true...it's not my emergency."

In the middle of the chaos where you will see things you can't unsee how hard is it do what they are describing? What impact does it have on their mental SA picture on scene if they can't get their mind around this? How about in the Incident Command Post or the State Emergency Operations Center? Same approach? Is this simply about being clinically detached or is there something else going on here?

What if there was a trained collaboration facilitator leading an online chat room with 500+ people during a major incident that has morphed into something even bigger. This is a challenging way of thinking, even for the most seasoned, experienced operators.

The phrase, this is not my emergency is something that will stick with me.

Thoughts?

Humbly,
Collabman