This deserves further investigation, as to how this might apply to our industry. Is your company an HRO? –Matt
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Get Serious About HRO(High-reliability Organizations)
By Mike DeGrosky
Jul 1, 2008
Everyone in this business knows that wildland-fire management involves complex work with many inherent and unavoidable risks. Wildland-fire personnel operate in an uncertain environment, often at a high operating tempo. In the course of routine work, fire management personnel often confront unexpected events and conditions that easily can escalate beyond control. However, experience shows that certain organizations can operate in similar high-risk environments, with similar operating tempos, and still achieve their operational objectives while keeping human error and accidents to acceptable levels. Experts call these “high-reliability organizations.” These organizations manage their activities according to five organizing principles:
1. Preoccupation with Failure
Keeping track of all errors and small problems and quickly responding to them before they become significant.
2. Reluctance to Simplify
Avoiding the common tendency to oversimplify the explanation of events.
3. Sensitivity to Operations
Paying attention to current, frontline operations.
4. Commitment to Resilience
Accepting that human error and unexpected events are inevitable, assuming that sooner or later the organization will be surprised, and developing the capacity to contain and bounce back from undesirable surprises swiftly and effectively.
5. Deference to Expertise
Empowering expert people closest to a problem and shifting leadership to people who have the answer to the problem at hand.
While HRO can denote a type of organization, I prefer using the acronym to signify “high-reliability organizing,” an operating philosophy in which the five principles, when taken together, produce a more alert, aware and responsive organization. Considerable research shows that HRO proves invaluable to action-oriented organizations, and by operating this way, fire organizations can anticipate unexpected events, including human errors, and act quickly to contain them.
Since 1995, wildland-fire personnel increasingly have taken an interest in HRO, particularly the works of organizational theorists Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe. Following training opportunities provided by the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, the wildland-fire community recently has seen some fire organizations stepping onto the path of high reliability and implementing HRO principles in the workplace. Often, these fire organizations find much of what they already do consistent with HRO, and build on that foundation.
However, 13 years is a long time. It seems that while we’ve talked a lot about HRO principles, many wildland-fire personnel maintain only an awareness of HRO, and too many organizations treat it as just another interesting theory. One must wonder why wildland-fire organizations have not acted more quickly or vigorously to implement a concept with such obvious applications to our work. I’ve heard some explanations — we’ve been preoccupied with other important initiatives, risk management, leadership, doctrine and such. However, not only are these initiatives compatible and consistent with high reliability, HRO principles would strengthen and provide guidance for each. I’ve also heard some people in the fire community assert that they have chosen not to take up the banner of HRO because they prefer alternative safety models.
Some cite James Reason’s approach to safety culture, of which “just culture” is a part, or his Swiss-cheese model of error causation. That might reflect a little confusion, however, because HRO does not lie at odds with Reason’s work (or Charles Perrow’s or Diane Vaughn’s). In fact, these models very likely represent a constellation of mutually reinforcing ideas that, when taken together, can dramatically improve the safety culture of wildland-fire agencies and the wildland-fire service as a whole.
We in the wildland-fire community have known about HRO for more than 10 years. Its relevance to our work seems very clear, and several authors have powerfully described its application to wildland-fire work. Perhaps it is time that we got serious about HRO. High-reliability organizing is more than a nice-to-know for wildland-fire personnel. HRO, as an operating philosophy, could serve as fundamental organizing principles fortifying other important wildland-fire initiatives. Those important initiatives include the National Wildfire Coordinating Group leadership curriculum, the U.S. Forest Service’s doctrine efforts and the community’s approach to risk management.
I’ve recently heard of emerging efforts that sound good, including incorporating HRO instruction into the S-520 curriculum, a pilot project conducted jointly by Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management and the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group, and incident management teams requesting HRO training and coaching. A friend recently told me of an incident commander invoke the language of HRO in a briefing. These are encouraging signs indeed.
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center maintains a treasure trove of HRO related resources, including a recently published special guide for teaching and facilitating high-reliability organizing. In the coming months, the center will add a series of case studies documenting the experiences of fire organizations that have been implementing HRO principles in their workplaces.
Mike DeGrosky is chief executive officer of the Guidance Group, a consulting organization specializing in the human and organizational aspects of the fire service. He also serves as an adjunct instructor in leadership studies at Fort Hays State University. His interests include leadership, strategy, and bringing the concepts of learning organizations and high-reliability organizing alive in fire organizations. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. focused on organizational leadership. He can be reached at info@guidancegroup.org.
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