In response to this week's Keep the Joint Running ("Iacocca's alliterative leadership list,") Ned Horvath sent me the following, excellent analysis. I thought it well worth sharing, and he was kind enough to give me permission to do so.- BobNice observation on crises - I've identified a personality type (and confess to being in recovery myself) I call "smoke jumpers", after the guys who parachute into a forest f In response to this week’s Keep the Joint Running (“Iacocca’s alliterative leadership list,”) Ned Horvath sent me the following, excellent analysis. I thought it well worth sharing, and he was kind enough to give me permission to do so.– BobNice observation on crises – I’ve identified a personality type (and confess to being in recovery myself) I call “smoke jumpers”, after the guys who parachute into a forest fire area to do rapid response, in an effort to contain the blaze while it’s still small enough to be contained. They are typically few in number, very highly trained, and do very dangerous work under difficult conditions. In short, they are very effective in crises. In the workplace, they are invaluable when the [excrement] hits the fan. The dark side is that – they tend to leave messes that need to be cleaned up, and – they tend to become addicted to the adrenaline. They also tend to inflict collateral damage, and they are often praised by management – “these guys saved our bacon with that customer.” No surprise that last – stuff happens to any organization, but it happens more often when the management isn’t farsighted enough to minimize it. This can set up a dangerous co-dependency: management doesn’t have to learn fire prevention, the smokejumpers will bail ’em out, and the smokejumpers love the praise and the adrenaline. A dangerous secondary effect is that when things are quiet, smokejumpers start playing with matches – letting routine situations deteriorate until they become crises. I realize this is looking pretty negative – not my intention. Every organization has crises, and you need some people who are cool and effective under pressure. But good management will follow up by figuring out how to make the next occurrence routine, and will visibly reward the process improvement too. For adrenaline addiction, try soccer or rugby… Oh, and for an amazing book on smokejumpers, look for “Young Men and Fire,” by Norman McLean. McLean painstakingly reconstructs a dangerous (and fatal) fire in Montana. A great read for anyone regardless of interest in fires! Powered by ScribeFire. Technology Industry