Welcome to Part 2 in this series. When I started Part 1, I had no idea how quickly a whole lot of thoughts would flow regarding the cross-over utility of some ideas from sometimes time-pressured or higher-stakes fields into general product management.
Train How You Fight
Another great line from a fire instructor, “You can never train too hard for a job that can kill you.” This stresses the importance of realistic training that prepares firefighters for real-life scenarios. And train we do. Beyond initial training, we have weekly sessions, special classes, and more. In aviation there’s recurrent medical and flight checks, etc. Now, in corporate, there are hopefully less things that will kill you than in emergency response situations. But there are systems and equipment breakdowns. There are high-stakes situations. Are you prepared? Have you practiced scenarios? Or is the book up there on the shelf getting dusty? The problem with risk mitigation is you don’t make money from it. It’s value preserving, not value accretive. It’s a cost item, not a revenue item. Backup systems, security efforts are necessary, but they are on the cost side. Regardless, the only way to be really ready is training. Some say – with some validity – that’s what insurance is for; to buy away risk. And yet, is that responsible? Is it ethical? Maybe. It depends on your situation. You have to assess that. It’s not all gloom and doom though. There’s items on the plus side here. What about customer training / onboarding? Or sales? Whether it’s to mitigate bad outcomes or drive towards good ones, are you constantly learning? The better the training, the better the game is likely to go. Train how you fight.
Risk a Lot to Save a Lot, Risk a Little to Save a Little, Risk Nothing to Save Nothing
This guides decision-making about the level of risk firefighters should take based on the potential to save lives or property. If you pull up to a small wood frame construction home and fire is utterly ripping through all sides, out every eave and window, it will make no sense to go in. Regardless of what’s inside. The strategy will likely be “surround and drown.” It’s always going to be a judgement call. But the risk will dictate. Even with today’s best gear, strategy and tactics cannot always prevail. And yet, some have a tendency to try. We are biased towards action, sometimes in spite of risk. Not everyone of course. Certainly those that do first responder tasks are no strangers to risk. The same is true of entrepreneurs or those responsible for driving businesses forward. Thankfully, modern approaches attempt to inject some degree of sensibility into balancing these risks for the potential gains, in both first responder tasks and business. Are you responsible for calling the shots in your business for what level of risk to take on? Do you have an assessment framework? Maybe risk a lot for a lot, a little for a little or better yet a little for a lot! But nothing for nothing. (See Action Bias and Environmental Decisions, Patt, Zeckhauser and The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty, Gunther, McGrath.)
Communication Breakdown
On September 20, 1989, a 737 aircraft at LaGuardia airport in New York City was cleared for takeoff. As the aircraft accelerated, there was an apparent problem and the captain decided to abort the takeoff. He apparently did not use the well understood proper phraseology of “Abort Takeoff!” Instead, he told the first officer, (who was handling controls at the time), to “take off power.” The first officer did what he thought was requested and set throttles for takeoff power. While the captain was riding the brakes trying to stop and the first officer held full power to get off the ground, some confusion was understandably also present. Meanwhile, the plane skidded off the runway into Bowery Bay. Two people died and others were injured. (Confusion on Runway and Wikipedia – USAir Flight 5050)
English is supposedly a challenging language for non-native speakers to learn because there’s a lot of ambiguity in it. (Homonyms, homophones, etc.) Sometimes we have fun with words. We make puns with words subtly misused. And there’s whole websites full of amusing mis-heard song lyrics. However, there’s very good reason for specific procedures and language in some fields. In aviation, (among others), phonetic alphabet, (Alpha, Bravo, etc. etc.), was specifically designed to be clear and mitigate audio issues over what is sometimes still today challenging radio clarity. And there’s all manner of other standard phraseology specifically designed to eliminate ambiguity. Ideally of course, a minor miscommunication isn’t a great big deal. Maybe it results in a “sorry, what was that?” But other times, it could mean a misunderstood critical instruction. In medicine, an incorrect medicine or its dosage is administered. Or an ambulance goes to the wrong address. And so on. (See 8 Tragic Miscalculations And Miscommunications.) If your products involve anything safety critical, consider these lessons.
In business, we will generally not face the same level of penalty as a fatal accident for a verbal misunderstanding. Though it’s certainly possible if we communicate poorly regarding safety critical applications or products someone could be hurt or worse. And – as you may have experienced – miscommunication can lead to legal issues, product definition confusion, re-work, waste, contract misunderstandings, and more. Failure to effectively communicate is quite costly. (See The Cost of Poor Communication, Wesley Dove)
Know Your Tools
Here’s a fun drill. In full turnout gear, (coat, “bunker pants” and so on), drop to the floor. Now, someone will take your air pack, disconnect various parts of it, tie them up in knots a bit, do some of the same to the straps, and move the parts around in front of you on the floor. Then you have to put them back together. Oh, but first, put on your balaclava/flash hood. (A fire resistant hood you put over your head and part of your mask so your face doesn’t burn.) Ummm… no… not like that. Put it on backwards. So you can’t see anything. Good. Now, put on your heavy fire gloves. OK. Great. NOW go ahead and untangle and reassemble your pack and put it on.
How well do you know your tools? Yes, you can run a spreadsheet somewhat. But are you still using VLOOKUP? Or have you upgraded to INDEX MATCH? Yes, I know the former is simpler and just fine for most tasks. But what about control key equivalents for things you do ALL the time. What about your analytics software? What about… whatever you use. I’m not suggesting you need to be able to use these things blindfolded. I am suggesting that whatever you’re using, if you take things up a level you’ll likely not only find things easier, but may even be able to move beyond simple manipulations and find more insights faster.
It’s Zero Dark Thirty. You Have to Get Up. Now. And Get it Done as a Team.
Most First Responders, (Police/Fire/EMS), run off military time. E.g. 3:00 AM is “Zero Three Hundred Hours.” When we say “Zero Dark Thirty,” it’s kind of an unofficial time when it’s dark. Maybe midnight through 4:00 AM or so. But the term implies for than that. It’s when things can just get different. Night. Dark. Things are just different. Some things in obvious ways, others you kind of have to just experience to feel it. You’d be surprised at what comes out. You might think your nice little town is just all sung in bed. Maybe. But things are sometimes going on. While medium-sized cities and up will generally have career first responders, from the ‘burbs to rural personnel are most often volunteer. Either way, sometimes we’re sleeping when the calls come in. Something like half of the 1.3 million or so fire first responders are volunteers, and another couple hundred thousand EMS people. And we have other jobs to go to in the morning. When the alert tones drop, and whether the lights come on automatically or not, you’ve got to get up and go. We can go from completely asleep to heading out the door in under a minute. Definitely under two.
And when we get to wherever we’re going, we do what we can, where we are, with what we have. We don’t always have the perfect gear to deal with what we find. But we know how to use what we’ve got. Do you know when fire gets deployed? Pretty much any situation that doesn’t need a gun. (And maybe some that do.) That is, for violence or peacekeeping, that’s our friends in blue. For EMS, it might be ambulance or fire or both. (Sometimes dispatch just calls out whomever is “closest to the pin” on the map. Depends on your town resources and operations.) Then, obviously, there’s fires. But also, everything else. Wrecked vehicle at bizarre angles needing tearing apart to get people out? That’s fire. Cat up a tree? Maybe fire. Flooded basement in ‘burbs? Most volunteer corps will help with that if we don’t have another emergency. It goes on and on. We have our engines and trucks to put “wet stuff on the red stuff,” but also our rescue units; which are basically giant toolboxes with heavy rescue gear. We have things to stabilize things, rip things apart, lift things, and more!
We understand our priorities, our goals and objectives, and we know each of our roles on a call. We practice with our tools. And in training, officers try to come up with interesting new scenarios. We adapt as necessary. We do these things as a team. And we watch each other’s backs in ways both obvious and subtle. After all, we practice dragging each other across the floor to pull someone out of danger.
How well does your team work together? How well are they covering each other’s backs vs. their own butts. I am not suggesting you start dragging folks around boardrooms or corporate hallways. (Though true enough, it may do some of you some good.) I am suggesting that you think honesty about your culture. Most have all the right euphemisms. But is this what you actually are? Or is your business just using the words to try to pretty up that which is actually toxic? Well, c’mon now. You know the truth. How well do your team members truly support each other and your customers, stakeholders, whomever. If it doesn’t seem to be as much as you think it should be, is the problem your people? Or your culture. Now, everything isn’t always so perfect. Anytime you get more than one person together, there’s probably at least some differing views. And there can be political garbage anywhere. But when it comes to getting critical things done, when it really matters, what kind of team do you want to be on? If you’re in leadership, what kind of team do you want to create and lead? Who do you want and trust to go into battle with? Who would trust you? Have you hired mercenaries or missionaries? There may be good cause and place for either. Regardless of what you’re trying to do, are you being intentional about it? Choose as you will. But do so with intention. With purpose. Ethos will develop one way or another. Ethos and Culture are bidirectional. Ethos underlies culture as this is basically foundational values and beliefs. Culture is the the manifestation of these beliefs. There’s a feedback loop between these things. It becomes clear fairly quickly if there’s mis-alignment. Your team will know this. And at some point, likely your customers as well. Sort it out with intention or it will sort itself out for you.
