What do Dirty Harry and Groucho Marks have in common? If you guessed personality, you are going down the wrong path. Both were grouchy, but one was humorous and the other violent. If you guessed that both were movie stars, you are getting close. However, if you guessed that both provided society with an opportunity to answer basically the same simple question in two very different ways, you are on the right track.
Dirty Harry once offered a criminal a choice while pointing a .357 Magnum at him. The criminal's next course of action would have to be based on how lucky he was feeling. Groucho Marks hosted a quiz show called You Bet Your Life. His threat was not nearly as violent, but he would constantly ask people to bet on whether they were feeling lucky.
Louis Pasteur once said, “luck favors the mind prepared.” If Dirty Harry's foe had been counting bullets, he might have realized that the hero's gun was empty. And, if someone with a post-graduate degree went on Marx's game show, his probability of winning might be higher than the person with nothing but a high-school education.
Let's look at the concept of gambling with your future in the context of fire-service success. The concept of risk-taking is almost entirely aimed at emergency operations. Most people don't like to take risks with their careers, their promotional opportunities or their administrative actions. They don't want to be lucky; they want to be successful. However, when we the outcomes of processes aren't in our favor, we often characterize it as being unlucky.
Is it? Luck has nothing to do with it. If you are going to take your money and gamble, you probably know that the odds are almost always stacked against you. If you visit Las Vegas, Atlantic City or Monaco and place your money down on the table to play a card game, the odds are loaded against you — unless you have a plan. People who bet on the outcome of sporting events more often are successful because they have technical expertise about the sport. This is especially true if they have kept really good statistics.
For every problem you are confronted with, you are more likely to have a positive outcome by being better prepared.
Granted, if you are at the scene of an emergency, there often are factors beyond your control that can turn a bad incident into a tragedy. But I am not talking about those kinds of problems. I'm talking about the ones that have to do with making a decision regarding discipline, budgets, political activity, code enforcement, or any number of other policy choices.
To quote the “gambler” himself, Kenny Rogers, “you have to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run.” Getting into risky circumstances is as linked to your ability to read the signs and signals as it is to whether you stand a chance of winning and whether you are willing to pay the consequences of losing.
Let's talk about preparation rather than training. I have talked to many fire officers who have enough certificates to wallpaper their houses with diplomas but who lack a very essential element of surviving a critical and stressful decision-making process: They aren't prepared. The job description and the badge often aren't an adequate explanation of what is expected when there is a really catastrophic and stressful problem to solve. As you acquire knowledge on your way up the pecking order in the fire service, you should be obtaining experience at the same time.
But a leader also needs wisdom. Wisdom is different than knowledge and experience. Wisdom comes from making judgments in the past from which you have learned something. It is ephemeral, as opposed to being very specific. It was once stated that good judgment depends on wisdom. In turn, wisdom depends on experience. And sometimes, experience depends on bad judgment.
Continuing with the gambling metaphor, one of the things that will improve your chances of succeeding in a highly stressful situation is to know the rules better than anybody else. Studying the options before you are asked to exercise them is not an exercise in futility. Instead, it improves your odds of being successful. Imagine a diagram in which the horizontal axis represents the passage of time and the vertical axis represents the number of options available. At the far left, when there is no crisis on the horizon, you have multiple options that are available to you. As you move across the bottom axis, a diagonal line comes from the upper-left-hand corner to the lower-right-hand corner that ultimately means one of those options is going to have to be exercised. The lower-right-hand corner — where there are few options and a lot of time has passed — is the crisis box. That is when a deadline becomes readily apparent.
It is sort of like when you are sitting at the card table and someone has just bet against you and you now have to determine whether you are going to raise the ante. The longer that you stay out of the crisis box, the better off you are. Examining all of your options as part of the preparation phase is a lot more important than having a certificate that says you know about the subject.
For example, many fire chiefs get themselves in trouble over labor relations, yet have not really examined the relevant laws or the memorandum of agreement in detail. They make assumptions and bluff in hopes that their feint will carry them through the bet.
In one sense, this model illustrates the fact that you get luckier the longer you can stay out of the crisis box. But you also need to realize that sooner or later there is going to be an end game. You need to be prepared for that end game by making sure that all of your options have been explored.
Lastly, learn how to be a good loser. Anybody can be a winner if all the cards are stacked in his favor. The character of a person often is demonstrated more by how he handles an unsuccessful attempt. If you go into a crisis situation unprepared and you do lose, then go back a couple of paragraphs and read what I had to say about losing. It does you no good to be angry at the party who did come out ahead; it only means that if you are going to have to gamble again against that same party, you better be prepared next time.
In a lifetime of making decisions, you are going to find some decisions that you almost have to make by the flip of a coin. You have a 50/50 chance of succeeding. There are other decisions you will need to face that you cannot flip a coin because the price that will be paid is significant to someone. It could be just as significant to you. It could be significant to your taxpayers. It could be significant to your labor group. You can't afford to gamble.
When Dirty Harry asked, “do you feel lucky?” the operative word was “feel.” An overconfident person might make the wrong judgment at that point in time. A person who has a strong sense of inner confidence, i.e., the feeling that they know what they are doing, might make a totally different decision.
So, in the final analysis, don't be lucky — be better prepared!
With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the state of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.
With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the state of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.
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