Over the past few months, the Fire Department of New York has been in the limelight for taking positions that seem to go against the grain.

First, there was the issue of the notorious “green berets,” a group of South Bronx firefighters who have worn green berets instead of uniform hats in the St. Patrick's Day parade since the '70 s. The group became increasingly more undisciplined until Chief Peter Hayden finally took on the issue. The senior staff at the department decided to prohibit the group from marching in the parade because it was not upholding the dignity and perception of the department's public safety image. While the staff believed the right decision was made, Hayden took the heat for the team's decision.

More recently, Hayden took a stand opposing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to exclude the fire department from command on terrorist incidents involving hazardous materials. Once again the chief defended his opinion based on his knowledge of the department's skills, abilities and intellectual capital garnered through training, exercises and best practices developed over many years. Bloomberg obviously had other information and a different opinion and made a tough, unpopular decision.

I admire both Hayden and Bloomberg for their courage to stand up for what they truly believe is right or wrong, rather than what is good or bad for their own image or legacy. However, good decisions can run head-on into bad politics and vice versa. The meanings of “good” and “bad” today are sometimes inverted, sometimes mistaken and sometimes intentionally misconstrued as right and wrong to divert attention from the real issues.

In the '70s, standing alongside 20 other firefighters on a staircase designed for a lot less weight in a vacant tenement, I wondered why? The good order demands that you rely on your officer to make that call. Hearing an order from the battalion chief in the street to shut down the line and move out of a vacant building immediately was not unusual. For a battalion chief managing these units, the risk management issue is enormous.

Sometimes, however, the response to the same order would depend on who the officer on the landing was, his self-confidence and whether he thought the chief “worries too much.” Sometimes those factors would determine if the order was followed immediately, in a few minutes or maybe not at all. Some units had no problem dropping the line and returning to the street. Others were concerned about the image of being the first unit out of the building.

Personal reflection

When I became commissioner in 1996, I knew that this good-versus-bad kind of thinking still existed.

Watching the phenomenal results other agencies were having establishing systems of accountability and performance measurement, I wondered why we couldn't institute these systems at FDNY. Why shouldn't we move away from our anecdotal measurements of whether “Chief Smith” was a great manager or a disaster? We believed there was an identifiable link between how well chiefs manage their people and resources and the overall performance of the department. The private sector made that connection a long time ago. How much more important is the connection when lives are at stake? Wouldn't we make the job safer if everyone was measured against a common performance standard? Why miss the opportunity to really know for sure how well trained we are? How well are our firefighters prepared and equipped for the tasks they have to accomplish? How are scarce resources being managed? How else can we get an honest assessment of our capabilities?

We realized this kind of accountability was going to be difficult. We talked to chiefs and civilians who understood the merits — and pains — of building a successful system. We decided to go for it.

I had always believed, and still do today, that the battalion chief is the most important person at FDNY. That position is responsible for the safety, efficiency and performance of eight units on average. There are about 50 battalions at FDNY. Each battalion, like any other organization or business, varies in levels of performance, ability, seniority, motivation and everything else. My dream was to make them all outstanding. The only way to accomplish this was to end the anecdotal measurements and begin developing standards and real performance measurements.

As we talked to concerned lieutenants and captains, they all told us that the great battalions had motivated, engaged chiefs. Unfortunately, some battalions had become homes for longtime members who were just going through the motions and weren't prepared to rock the boat, some complacent after spending many years getting physically beat up in very active areas. The measurement system that was working so well in other agencies was basically very simple: Gather as much information as possible; give the managers the resources they need and follow up relentlessly.

Over a three-year period, we began to try to figure ways to measure every battalion's performance. Some of the criteria:

• Response time. Why were medical calls different from fire calls?
• Supervisor performance.
• Medical leave level. Line-of-duty and non-line-of-duty, injuries per hour, and how were they injured?
• Average training time. How many training sessions are supervised by the chiefs in the battalion? Do they measure results of training?
• Personnel policy and overtime efficiency.

• Building inspections. Not just numbers of buildings, but relevant hazards and risks.

• Administrative policies.
• Firehouse resource management. Efficient use and maintenance.
• Apparatus. Vehicle accidents, breakdowns and care of apparatus.

As we worked to develop criteria to measure performance, we used this time to address the issues as they came up. Every exercise was helpful and productive. Why was one battalion having a certain number of accidents in relation to responses, while another was having half that number? Was the chief aware and taking action? We knew that as our effort progressed we would think of more and more criteria to measure and additional ways to use technology to accomplish it.

As you would expect, the superstars were loving the additional information and support we were providing to improve performance. As you also would expect, the unions were outraged that we would have the audacity to imply that if a battalion ranked 50 out of 50 in monitoring training, maybe the commander should either get with it or be ready for transfer, additional training himself or retirement.

Compare and contrast

We finally had the program up and running in spring 2001. It was called Fire Management Analysis Review and Comparison, or FireMARC. After months of preparation we began to bring divisions to headquarters to explain the program and its goals.We believed we had reasonable metrics and that no one was being evaluated for things beyond his or her control. We would ask officers what their needs were and explain where there were areas for improvement on both sides.

Often there were good reasons why: For example, response times varied from one part of the city to another because of road construction in the neighborhood, mechanical problems with spare apparatus, units out of service for extended periods. There were really very few surprises.

Most managers bought in, but others had excuse after excuse. When asked to explain a serious discrepancy in time between medical and fire response time, one division explained that “the guys don't like medical calls.” At Microsoft this fellow would have been escorted out of the building. Civil service doesn't afford you that luxury.

Around this same time we asked our divisions to prepare performance evaluations for all of their battalion chiefs. We wanted help to evaluate actual performance, not on seniority or entitlement. One senior division chief responded with a single evaluation filled out and then copied for all the others. Photocopying evaluations would be reason enough for demotion in most military or public service organizations, but when we went after this division commander, we had a revolution with the union. (In New York the top 40 deputy chiefs are still in the union.) It gives you the sense of how difficult this effort to change is in a department so locked into accepting the old and resisting attempts to improve if it's going to inconvenience or threaten status quo.

In June 2001 we had the Father's Day Fire and lost three outstanding men. It brought into focus some weaknesses that we had been trying to improve with FireMARC. The fire was at a hardware warehouse that supplied many hardware stores. There was an explosion in a storage area where a self-closing door had been modified to remain permanently open. In addition, volatile propellant was stored in quantities that were not allowed.

We found almost immediately that the supply store had not been inspected by our local units for five years. How could that happen? How could a local battalion not make sure that a building in the district with such risks was not inspected more frequently? Was there something wrong with the inspection policy or the battalion's process? We can't prevent every tragedy, but we can make sure that dangerous, high-risk buildings get inspected more often than those with fewer inherent risks.

Lost focus

When my team left the department in January 2002, the FireMARC program was quickly shelved. Certainly there were more important things to worry about after Sept. 11, but this was the perfect time to strengthen accountability not dismantle it. Safety at FDNY has always been a priority, in word anyway. My administration made it a priority in action. At one point some members in the field were complaining of too much training. The training has continued, thanks to federal money and a commitment by Bloomberg to make sure training is funded. However, there is no resolve to make sure it is actually working. The department has changed drastically.

In addition to the devastating losses suffered on Sept. 11, hundreds more firefighters and experienced officers retired in 2002. With all the new and inexperienced officers and firefighters, it was a perfect time to make serious changes in firefighting procedures. It is again time to evaluate how well the talent and resources in the department are being managed. When the experience level changed the way it did and so many old-timers retired, is it outrageous to think that many of the old procedures should have gone with them?

A great opportunity is being lost at FDNY to actually change thinking. Instead of reacting to every tragedy and looking for blame, the department should be proactively looking for ways to make safety an actionable priority. The “good” chiefs have always known that it is easier to keep people out of trouble than to get them out of trouble. That kind of proactive leadership means constantly monitoring everything and measuring results. The “bad” thing is you could get accused of “worrying too much or trying too hard.”

The work of the fire service is changing dramatically. Some of the problems on Sept. 11 are still visible today, and not just at FDNY. Critical thinking and training are key, but holding bosses accountable for performance is just as important. When I left FDNY after the worst four months in the department's history, I knew there needed to be a change in thinking to help the department recover and thrive again.

Second chances

To paraphrase Albert Einstein, problems that exist can't be solved by the level of thinking that created them. FDNY needed a shift to management and leadership principles practiced in organizations like the Marine Corps, where accountability and performance evaluation are part of everyday life. They co-exist with that same first-line supervisor respect and courage that we see at FDNY. A performance evaluation system along with accountability is the best way to achieve real safety.

Along with that information though is the ability to actually know what battalion chiefs are doing and the time needed to do it. With accurate information and support, you are giving them the tools to make sound judgments. It's hard work and sometimes unpleasant, but the results could make firefighting and the fire service safer in whatever mission comes our way.

The Department of Homeland Security has just released an extensive list of task and capability standards to measure the performance of all agencies. It says that “capabilities are combinations of resources that provide the means to achieve a measurable outcome resulting from performance of one or more critical tasks, under specified conditions and performance standards.” It uses a standard approach to help answer: How prepared are we? How prepared do we need to be? How do we prioritize efforts to close the gap?

Our ultimate goal is to measure up to any challenge and protect our firefighters in the process. That's good, isn't it?

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Thomas Von Essen served as the 30th fire commissioner of New York City from April 996 to December 200. Before becoming commissioner, he spent three years as president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest firefighters union in the country. Von Essen joined FDNY in 970 and was assigned to Ladder 42 in the Bronx, where he spent most of his firefighting career.