Public Safety Insights Newsletter: What are You Building?: Why Context is Critical for Public Safety

What are You Building?: Why Context is Critical for Public Safety
Public Safety Insight:	Providing a compelling context that people understand and appreciate is a game-changer for public safety.

A story of unknown origin tells about a man who visited a construction site during the Middle Ages. He approached one worker and asked, “What are you doing?” The man replied, “I am laying bricks.” The man walked further and posed the same question to a second worker. The answer: “I’m building a wall.” Approaching a third worker, the man asked the same question and got this response: “I’m building a great cathedral that will last through the ages.”

Context is critical because it shapes how people see the world, think about issues, and make decisions. Imagine the difference the three workers’ perspectives must have made in how each one approached his job every day! Which perspective would you prefer that your employees and stakeholders have?

As fire and rescue service leaders, your responsibility is to provide a context that inspires your employees to do their best work, and compels your stakeholders to become a community of advocates for public safety. You can’t do that by laying bricks – i.e., focusing on activities or programs. While both are necessary, neither is inspirational or compelling. You can’t even inspire people by building a wall – i.e., talking about saving lives and property. You only need recall the number of times you’ve heard victims or patients say, “I never thought this fire/flood/accident would happen to me!” to realize that most people refuse to face the very real possibility that one day they will need your agency’s services. The way you create your “great cathedral” is to co-create with your stakeholders a compelling “big picture” of public safety – e.g., a safe, healthy, economically viable community.

Once your employees and stakeholders develop that picture, the logical next question is, “How do we get there?” Instead of looking for what CAN’T be done due to budget constraints or other real or perceived obstacles, people who see a compelling context focus on what CAN be done to make the desired picture a reality. With that mindset, they will find the answers they need to achieve their desired outcome. Although it won’t happen overnight – even today, great cathedrals take time to build – they will get there. And if you keep that picture alive by referring to it constantly, by “connecting the dots” between what you do and how it impacts that outcome, and by making the picture the touchstone for the community’s decisions about public safety, it will last for the ages.

What context are you providing for your employees and stakeholders? Are you asking them to help you lay bricks, build a wall, or create a great cathedral? The safety, health, and economic viability of your community depend on your answer.

To learn more about how to inspire your employees by helping them focus on the big picture instead of their tasks, take a look at our article Improve Performance by Re-focusing Attention from Tasks to Vision.

To find articles and resources that may be of value to you, I invite you to visit my web site at www.PublicSafetyInsights.net.

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©2015 Pat Lynch | Public Safety Insights