Managing the Unexpected When the Unexpected Always Happens
Our lives are not on the line, but in seems we are often putting out fires. In some ways our jobs are often like those of professional wildfire fighters—the people who fight forest fires for the U.S. Forest Service. Wildfire fighters put their lives on the line in a fast changing environment, the following are also true:
ü They depend upon immediate and accurate communication
ü They must know where the fire line is and how it is moving at all times
ü They must pay attention to the smallest detail and the surrounding environment at all times
ü They must remain flexible and make quick adjustments as circumstances change
ü They have to put the right resources in the right place at the right time
ü Timing is of great importance
ü They have to expect the unexpected at any moment—or perish.
All of these elements are eerily similar to things we face in our time-sensitive, fast changing, and communication intensive work environment. That’s is why we can possible learn from how the Forest Service copes with their challenges.
Mindful of the dangers and challenges they face, the U.S Forest Service has adopted the principles of High Reliability Organizations (HROs). These principles were explained in yesterday’s LaserDay. Perhaps the one HRO principle that gives people the most difficulty is “preoccupation with failure.” People like to plan for, expect and celebrate success—and find it difficult to focus on failure. Yet, this is precisely what is required for the Forest Service wildfire fighters to survive. Think of it like defensive driving: being constantly alert to the possibility of what could go wrong and having a mental plan of action to deal with the situation should it arise.
The firefighters have had to adopt an upside down way of thinking about and looking at the world: What they stood on its head—to gain a different perspective—is the very concept of expectations.
To have an expectation is to envision something, usually for good reasons, that is reasonably certain to come about. To expect something is to be mentally ready for it. Every deliberate action you take is based on assumptions about how the world will react to what you do. Expectancies form the basis for virtually all deliberate actions because expectancies about how the world operates serve as implicit assumptions that guide behavioral choices. Expectations provide a significant infrastructure for everyday life. They are like a planning function that suggests the likely course of events.
Yet, the very problem with expectations is that we expend so much energy on expecting the expected—what we have planned for, built our systems around, trained for, wake up hoping for—that when the unexpected starts to happen we either do not see it or we deny its existence until it is too late. It is as if the continuing search for confirming evidence of the expected postpones our realization that something unexpected is developing. It is human nature to actively seek out evidence that confirms our expectations and avoid evidence that disconfirms them.
This is the very “problem” the firefighters have turned upside down. They understand the problems that expectations create: Expectations guide people to search narrowly for confirmation that the plan is correct, that the expected is happening even when it is not.
Trouble starts when we fail to notice that we see only whatever confirms our expectations but nothing else. The trouble deepens even further if we kid ourselves into believing that we expect to see is really happening. The truth is that we see what we expect to see. We see what we have the labels to see. We see what we have the skills to manage.
Surprises are inevitable. And with surprise comes the necessity to improvise, make do with the hand you are dealt, adapt, make adjustments, think on your feet, manage on the fly, and contain the problem, then bounce back from unexpected events. It is impossible to manage any process that depends solely on stable and fixed rules and routines or expecting to operate on automatic pilot. No one knows enough to design such a system or process so that it can cope with a dynamic environment.
Yes, surprise is inevitable which is why the firefighters have learned not focus on what is expected but have a preoccupation with failure—the only way to live is to constantly entertain the thought that they may have missed something that places them at risk.
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