OD In A Fire Department

INSTITUTIONALIZING OD IN A FIRE DEPARTMENT:

A CASE STUDY by Tom Packard and Robin Reid (1988)

First published in Consultation, Volume 9, Number 2, Summer 1990)

This paper reports on the results of a long-term OD project in a large municipal fire department, adding new learning, presenting a new conceptual model, and supporting earlier research. In spite of well-known difficulties in changing public sector organizations, OD in the fire service, a subset of this field, has not been reported extensively. After its history is presented, the project will be evaluated with particular reference to features which led to successes and learning about strategies and activities which were not successful.

History of the Project

The level of analysis here will be a macro one; detailed descriptions of strategies and activities will be omitted, since they generally were of a "standard" OD nature. Activities during the first three years of this project can be conveniently grouped into yearly segments.

The first year was highlighted by the arrival of a new Fire Chief, contracting, team building and strategic planning with the senior management team, role clarification for the top three management levels, team building and problem solving within one division, the formation of a department-wide steering committee, and the development of performance standards for all jobs in the department.

During the second year, key accomplishments were department-wide data collection and feedback, formation of problem solving groups, development of a department-wide MBO system, and the training of seven internal trainer/facilitators.

During the third year, problem solving groups continued, the employee survey was repeated, new OD goals and objectives were developed, and the OD process was institutionalized as internal OD capacity was increased to gradually replace the original consultants. Throughout this time, process consulting to key managers and various training activities continued, as did annual team building workshops with the senior management team. Now in its seventh year, OD in the department continues at a less intensive level and is fully managed by department employees with occasional outside help from the consultants.

Year One

The OD effort began shortly after a new Fire Chief was hired. He had been the Assistant Chief at another department which had had a positive experience with team building, and he wanted to use similar techniques to help carry out some of the visions he brought to his new position. He became aware of consulting resources in the City Manager's office -- the Organization Effectiveness Program (OEP), located in the Financial Management Department -- and requested their help.

The OEP unit consisted of 14 professional staff, including both OD consultants and analysts skilled in industrial engineering. Two consultants were assigned and a preliminary commitment was made for three years. An initial three-day team building workshop with the Senior Staff (the Chief, Assistant Chief, and five division heads) successfully demonstrated the value of this type of activity to the group and led to formal contracting and planning for the project. The commitment of the chief executive is often mentioned as a sine qua non for successful OD (Boss and Boss, 1985; Boss, 1979), and the Chief's commitment here was a major driving factor.

The Fire Chief's commitment was a major driving factor.

This was enhanced by the paramilitary norms in the fire service: subordinates, although initially skeptical, were willing to cooperate, not out of intimidation but out of a sense of duty to obey orders. Use of OD was strongly encouraged, but never ordered, similar to the approach described by the U.S. Army's Organization Effectiveness program (Cahn, 1978). Another key feature at this point was a dual-level contracting process involving the Fire Chief and his superiors, the Deputy City Manager and the City Manager. This insured action and follow-through in the future: the Deputy City Manager monitored progress on the OD effort as he did on other Department activities. Weekly process consultation with the Chief and Assistant Chief, senior staff meeting facilitation by the consultants, and implementation of action plans from the team building workshop ensured a continuing awareness of the OD process.

One identified problem -- lack of role clarity -- led to role clarification workshops for the Senior Staff and the Battalion Chiefs (the first activity to link down to the next level). These all represented concrete accomplishments which helped the managers in their daily work, reinforcing the value of the process.

Development of A Steering Committee

A steering committee known as the OD Task Force (ODTF) was formed to guide planning of subsequent activities. Initially, the Senior Staff rejected consultant advice to make this a multi-level, diagonal slice group because they wanted to maintain direct control themselves. The consultants did not resist this since it represented a way to insure their continued involvement and support. The Senior Staff did agree to add the firefighters' Union President to the group as an initial step toward broader employee involvement in planning and controlling the process. They were willing to do this partly because the Union President was an intelligent, forward-thinking individual who was not only a strong advocate for workers but was also interested in advancing the department as a whole. The Fire Chief and the Union President sharing a common goal of improving the department's ability to serve the community and their mutual lack of dysfunctional political/power agendas was a great asset to the effort. They agreed to the principle common on quality of working life projects (Mansell, 1980, pp. 25-26) that traditional adversarial roles can be continued in areas related to collective bargaining but collaboration would be used on OD activities. The successful management of this dichotomy will be discussed later. After six months, the Senior Staff felt comfortable with broadening the membership of the ODTF to include all levels of the hierarchy and many functional divisions. The Fire Chief, the Union President, and one other Senior Staff member continued as members. The remaining members were chosen by the Senior Staff as a "diagonal slice" to represent other groups. This was the substantive use of a parallel organization in the project.

The ODTF developed a charter and goals and objectives for the project. To represent these elements conceptually, the consultants proposed a model (see Figure 1) which the Chief and others said later represented a subtle but most helpful mechanism to provide direction and vision. It was useful for clearly presenting the roles of the department and the consultants and the goals of the project, and relating these directly to the department's philosophy and goals.

During this period other activities were taking place. Another problem identified at the team building workshop was a lack of valid department goals and objectives, and one action plan involved a comprehensive planning effort. The Senior Staff developed department philosophy and mission statements and goals for each division. Next, the Senior Staff and the Union President (the original ODTF) listed and set priorities on all department programs. These were approved by the City Manager's office and served as the basis for a department-wide MBO planning process. Each division and work group set its own objectives, based on guidance from the next highest level. These objectives were incorporated into a quarterly report which was systematically reviewed by each supervisor and subordinate group. This new planning and accountability mechanism was augmented by the development of performance standards for each job in the department. As was done with the setting of objectives, this was done participatively, in facilitated workshops at which the group developed the products. The City's Personnel Department conducted the workshops for non-management employees, and this model was used in other departments as part of a City-wide initiative.

Other activities during the first year included team building and problem solving in one division; and training workshops in several work groups on topics including effective meetings, conflict management, time management, creative problem solving, and delegation. A department-wide anonymous call-in system with an answering machine was started to allow employees to call with any question or concern. All were answered in a newsletter sent to all work areas. The second-level managers, Battalion Chiefs, received attention through quarterly meetings and input mechanisms on the budget and new program implementation.

Year Two

In the second year the project went department-wide, with the implementation of an employee survey and other data collection and feedback. A Data Collection Task Force (DCTF), with a diagonal cross section of employees, developed an employee survey and a customer survey, and identified secondary data sources which might highlight problems for action. A department-developed survey was chosen over a standardized one to insure the inclusion of relevant areas and greater legitimacy in the eyes of respondents. Such an approach has been advocated by Taylor (1978 ) and others, and led here to a product of high quality. The 55 questions measured many areas commonly included in attitude surveys and also some items specific to the Department. Prior to administration of the survey, the Department prepared a video explaining the OD and survey processes which included statements of support from the Chief and the Union President and which was shown to all work groups. The survey was mailed to all employees' homes to allow simultaneous administration, since not all firefighters worked the same days. There was a 74% response rate, considered good for a mailed survey.

Because of the unique services of the Fire Department, the definition of customers was broadened to include other stakeholder groups. Data were thus gathered, in mailed questionnaires, from fire victims of the previous year, senior citizens' groups, town councils, the City Council, the City Manager's office, the Taxpayer's Association, the Civil Service Commission, the Union's Executive Board, and the local news media. Department performance data identified for collection included sick leave, equipment breakdown, grievances, company performance standards, accidents, and injuries.

Survey results were fed back to all work groups in over 50 two-hour sessions. At the sessions, employees were given the opportunity to sign up for problem solving groups in any identified problem area. Nearly 200 signed up, almost one fourth of the 850-member department. Most were interested in the top two problems: promotions and training. The ODTF reviewed the results and sanctioned the formation of groups addressing topics including promotions, training, stress, uniform guidelines, safety procedures, Fire Prevention Bureau reorganization, office coordination, and a smoking policy. Seven department employees were chosen to receive training as group facilitators; they and the OEP consultants facilitated all problem solving groups. The remainder of year two consisted of problem solving group meetings and ongoing process consulting and team building in various management groups.

Year Three

By the beginning of the third year, most groups had submitted recommendations and implementation had begun. The ODTF updated the goals for the OD project, with a focus on continuing problem solving and management development, monitoring the change activities, developing internal OD capacity, and creating an awareness that the process does work. The process was institutionalized through the development of an official OD policy manual, regular reports from problem solving groups, facilitation on implementation of approved changes, and coaching by consultants. The consultants' strategy during the third year was to decrease department dependence on them and increase the department's skills and ownership of the process.

A posttest of the employee attitude survey was conducted during the third year, with favorable results which will be reported below. There were two noteworthy aspects of the survey feedback. First, all sessions (over 50, each lasting 3 hours) were conducted and facilitated by the department's seven internal facilitators. OEP consultants attended the early sessions to provide assistance and feedback to the internal facilitators. Second, the last half hour of each session was attended by all Senior Staff members (some had as few as four, due to schedule commitments, but many had all seven). Employees were impressed by their willingness to meet face to face with virtually all employees to hear questions, comments, and gripes. Occasionally items requiring follow through emerged from these meetings and were action-planned by the facilitators. Their attendance also served to reinforce the importance they attached to the OD effort and to improved departmental communication.

Years Four to 1988

(to be added)

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RESULTS

The consultants paid particular attention to documentation of results, partly because OEP, as an internal unit in a public sector organization, was eager to document its cost effectiveness to the City Manager and the City Council, and also because they saw this as a weak area in many OD interventions. Documenting success in terms considered valid by decision makers should aid in the advancement of the field. The City's OD and Training unit, a precursor of OEP, did this on an earlier project which was able, due to grant funding, to use a comprehensive evaluation design which included a control group (Paul and Gross, 1981). External evaluators noted the success of the project and added that in the future such elaborate (and expensive) evaluation designs of similar projects should note be necessary (C&E final report: SRI).

On the current project, the basic evaluation elements were pre-posttest results on the employee survey, documented cost savings, documented qualitative improvements, and accomplishment of stated objectives. Results are reported in detail in the annual and final reports of the project (Organization Effectiveness Program 1982, 1983). Two of the original data collection areas, customer/stakeholder satisfaction and organizational performance, were seen ultimately as too indirectly connected to the OD activities to be used as evaluation measures. Furthermore, customer/stakeholder response rates were not high, and comments received were generally so positive in the initial surveys that further improvements seemed unlikely. One of the consultants' frustrations was the department's lack of interest in performance measurement. This is common in service organizations whose accomplishments are difficult to measure, and may be even more problematic in the not-for-profit arena. Nevertheless, all involved decision makers, from client managers to City management and the City Council, have seen this and other OEP projects as successful enough to warrant continued funding for the unit.

The employee attitude survey was repeated 15 months after the original survey, with a response rate of 58% (administered by mail, as was the original survey). Comparisons using a t-test showed significant (p<<.01) improvements on 36 of 52 questions. These improvements occurred on most questions in the following categories: leadership and decision making, goals and workload, cooperation and communication, immediate supervision, rewards and promotions, work assignments, job satisfaction and training, repairs an maintenance, and Union/Chief cooperation. Improvements but no significant changes were found in platoon/shift cooperation, currency of policies and procedures, supervisors' expectations and standards, the exceptional merit pay program, promotions, affirmative action, discipline, and work area design and furnishings. One question on exceptional merit pay and administration of discipline were the only two questions which did not show improvements in satisfaction. Firefighters received a 10% raise between the surveys, and this may have had a halo effect on other ratings. Generally, scores did increase in areas which received attention from problem solving groups, suggesting that OD did have an effect. Exceptions to this are the areas of promotions and affirmative action, both of which were addressed by problem solving groups with little success. This will be discussed below.

An evaluation criterion which had greater relevance to City decision makers was the documentation of cost savings related to the OEP project. Documented annual cost avoidance savings of $367,997 resulted from the project. $158,805 of this was from the development of a new fire academy model, which was done by OEP and Fire Department staff. Other savings included productivity increases in fire inspection, new procedures for equipment purchase, personnel consolidations, and more efficient emergency response levels. Some of these were "hard" savings leading to direct savings, and others were "soft" cost avoidance savings which are reflected only as costs avoided in the future. This type of activity and documentation creates a significant impression on decision makers who have often seen OD as not able to impact the proverbial bottom line.

Perhaps even more important to the department managers are qualitative improvements which, while not as visible as cost savings, make their organization run better and make their jobs easier. Managerial processes such as planning, organization redesign, and program refinements were seen as much improved. Team building workshops for many work groups - managerial, staff, clerical, and line workers - led to demonstrated improvements in problem solving, teamwork, and intergroup cooperation.

The inclusion of the OD project as a regular department program aided in its institutionalization and, since it became a part of the Department's MBO quarterly reporting system, allowed its progress to be monitored. During the second and third years of the project, there were 71 objectives related to OD activities, and by the end of the third year 60 had been met, with 9 in progress. After seven years, the Department still uses the MBO system, with reports by all top managers to the Senior Staff every two weeks. Objectives for the OD program are included.

SUCCESS FACTORS

Many of the key success factors here merely reinforce existing knowledge (Boss, others?) while others represent variations of or elaborations upon what is known about successful OD. The role of the chief executive is, of course, key. On this project a new Fire Chief came in with some knowledge of OD and a vision of where he wanted the department to go: he had some specific program priorities, and beyond that he wanted the department to have a national reputation as the best and most innovative in the country. Paralleling this was a Union president with vision, competence, and commitment. He was able to lead his membership into this new and threatening area while maintaining the necessary balance of power and the control over collective bargaining issues. Early on the consultants provided a quality of working life model which insured that collective bargaining issues would continue to be handled according to the Memorandum of Understanding while employee involvement in collaborative change could continue in many other areas (Olson, etc.). Some initial confusion over this on the issues of promotion procedures was a major shortcoming on the project and will be discussed below. Effective labor and management leadership, good labor relations within the department, and early involvement of the union were thus major elements in getting the project successfully under way.

Department and City management resource commitments were additional essential factors. The City committed two full-time consultants, and the department enabled managers and employees to spend countless hours on OD, from off-site workshops to large numbers of problem solving groups. They also sent, over a 2-year period, all department managers to a 2-week executive development program at the National Fire Academy and sent two internal facilitators to OD workshops conducted by University Associates. The effort started at the top, with the Fire Chief and City management: dual-level contracting, a strategy used occasionally in OD (ref), was a major factor here. The Fire Chief's supervisor, a Deputy City Manager, was involved in all contracting activities, and the City Manager reviewed all key planning documents as they were developed. Both were kept informed on a quarterly basis with written progress reports on project objectives and periodic review meetings. This follow through was essential to insure that OD was not preempted by more urgent priorities.

Domain theory as presented by Kouzes and Mico (1979) offers a useful model to explain some of the dynamics of both successes and problems on this project. While the consultants operated primarily within the management domain (the senior staff), they realized the importance of the policy domain (the City Manager's office, the City Council, and the Civil Service Commission) and the service domain (the battalion chiefs and lower-level workers). Conscious attempts were made to bridge domains, through union and broad-based employee involvement, dual level contracting, attendance of Deputy City Managers at workshops and meetings, regular briefings and reports for City management, and supportive process consulting with the Fire Chief, who had to manage all the conflicting demands of the different domains.

Two strategies of the consultants seemed to be particularly important. First, the conceptual model (see Figure 1) was seen as most useful. It was a concrete description of an amorphous process and was appreciated by a client group used to concrete thinking and technology. The consultants presented the model with material in the cells representing the department contribution (i.e., role), the consultants' contribution, and elements of the agreement (the contract). The blank cells - the department's guiding philosophy and goals and the OD project goals - were completed by the clients, with facilitation. This gave the clients a clear picture of how OD fitted within their regular operations. Related to this, the consultants, knowing their unit had to be able to show concrete results for the City's resource commitment, maintained a results orientation and continually reminded the OD Task Force of this need. This insured that OD activities did relate to identified problems and would, if successful, improve department functioning. On the other hand, the consultants were consciously flexible in responding to client ideas and adapting to client reactions to their suggestions. They would make recommendations based on their knowledge and experience but would allow the department to take a different course on items the clients had strong different ideas on. No major OD principles (eg., regarding confidentiality, data feedback, etc.) were violated, and results were better to the extent that the clients' good judgement of their situations prevailed.

Patience turned out to be a valuable quality for both consultants and clients. While the consultants insured that some quick successes would be likely (e.g., action plans from team building, problem solving groups on relatively easy issues such as training), other solutions required long routing for approval through the City bureaucracy. For example, recommendations were made for a program on dealing with job-related stress, and a stress program was finally implemented two years later. Subsequently, the City developed an organization-wide stress management program in conjunction with its employee assistance program.

Although OD projects do not always connect with formal and informal reward systems, this occurred here in intended and unintended ways. Meetings and other rituals which involved worker contact with upper management allowed direct input to superiors, and all involved with the project received at least some skill training and a form of job enrichment by virtue of their getting more involved with new dimensions of their worklife. However, the most significant dynamic was serendipitous: as the Chief's interest in OD became known, some people participated to enhance their visibility (and, hence, their promotability) as employees interested in furthering the activities of the department. Over the duration of the project, many who were most involved - internal facilitators and task force members in particular - were promoted. While cause and effect relationships were not at all clear, the effect on the culture of the organization was the perception that OD was a highly valued activity, leading to increased involvement with it.

A final key feature was the visibility of the process. A weekly department newsletter added a column on current OD activities, and all ODTF meetings were advertised and open to anyone. The videotape shown to all employees before the first survey was followed by one showing the results of the process after three years. The Fire Chief and others did presentations on the project at conferences and meetings with other departments. OD activities were mentioned prominently in their annual report and other reports to City management and the City Council. All these served as subtle reminders to the department that they would be asked about progress on OD in the future, motivating them to follow through.

LEARNING

In addition to the successes, there were failures and frustrations, described here as learning which may be of use to others in the future.

This project used a common linking down strategy for gradually reaching all levels, and it became clear after the department-wide survey that the middle level - battalion chiefs - was passed too quickly. They did receive attention: a new system of meetings and formal problem solving task forces were set up and were successful, but very little training and skill development was done with them, rendering them less able to effectively manage the new culture which evolved. Furthermore, as is often the case, they feared that employee involvement would erode their own authority; and since many of them had authoritarian, theory x styles they resisted or ignored the process and felt alienated from the change effort.

Although the reward systems operated well in terms of involving employees in OD, there were not similar systems to substantively reward overall performance. In many service and public sector organizations, valid performance measures are difficult to develop, and that was the case here. There was a distinct lack of interest in developing performance measures to be used for problem identification an evaluation, resulting in no follow through on this part of the process. To be fair to the department, the system as a whole did not have high interest in this either, and the department therefore gave it little attention. The development of an MBO system was seen as a valuable addition and did increase the results orientation of the department and City administration. Nevertheless, the lack of felt problems in the area of organizational performance deprived the process of a potent driving force.

The major mistake made by the consultants was in not insuring clear limits and constraints on problem solving in an area affected by both the labor agreement and the policies of City administration: promotions. This was identified on the survey as a top problem, so the consultants believed it needed to be addressed in some way, but not enough time was spent initially on clarifying the limits of its discussion based on the authority of the labor agreement and based on what City administration would be realistically willing to consider. When the problem became apparent, the ODTF devised a way for the recommendations to be routed through the Union's Executive Board to insure that any collective bargaining issues could be taken out for action through the regular negotiation process. For the future, the ODTF restructured itself as described above as a labor-management committee, in which bargaining items were handled by the Union and department management and other items were handled through the OD process. Problems with City administration were more difficult. Several recommendations conflicted with City policies (actually set by the independent Civil Service Commission) and were not adopted, leading to resentments by some employees. After that experience, the department and consultants were much more careful in assessing whose action would be needed to approve and carry out a recommendation so that constraints and parameters could be shared in advance with the problem solving group.

This project also highlighted several dilemmas for which there are no right or wrong answers but which need careful consideration. One concerns the level of consultant directiveness. Generally the consultants were clear and firm in recommending appropriate OD processes and principles but left to the department decision making on specific activities. Usually this worked well, but on occasion the department acted in ways the consultants thought unwise, sometimes leading to less favorable outcomes. In recent years, OD practice has shown more evidence of consultant directiveness (article in <)9>The Cutting Edge<):>), and on this project the consultants gradually became more directive in suggesting overall strategy and structure, functioning as "experts," usually leading to successful outcomes.

Another dilemma concerned the employee survey. It was not done until the second year of the project, and this delay while smaller-scale activities with middle and upper management were completed was, if anything, not long enough. On the other hand, activity with the battalion chiefs had leveled off due to their lack of enthusiasm, and going to a department-wide scope did serve to revitalize the change process and in effect bring middle management along in spite of their lack of interest. The survey had a major effect in mobilizing the department, although interestingly much of the most productive problem solving occurred in staff groups which could have been involved without a full survey. After a second survey to serve as an evaluation posttest, the department and consultants decided to not repeat it again.

A final dilemma appeared on the two occasions on which the membership of the ODTF was changed. When all but two Senior Staff members were replaced to involve lower levels, a side effect was their inevitable lessening of involvement in the process. This occurred on another level after year three, when the department decided to change to a labor management committee model in which no employees but two union officers and two senior staff members were involved on a regular basis. While each of these changes had overriding benefits, the fact remains that there was less formal involvement of larger numbers of employees. ---- (TVA QWL presentation) found that this indirect representation does not necessarily weaken the process, and in this case in seems to have been a good decision.

In summary, the project represented an application of basic OD with several useful elements which are not always present: the constraints inherent in a public sector context, a conceptual model useful to the clients, dual level contracting, a focus on the documentation of visible results, and vision and commitment by both managerial and union leadership.

POST INTERVENTION PERSPECTIVES (1988)

Eight years after the start of the project, this intervention was presented by department management and union leadership and the consultants at a case study at a quality of working life conference (reference). Serendipitously, this event served as a catalyst to reinvigorate the process. Four months later, the new Fire Chief and three new Senior Staff members (R2: not the whole group?) assessed the status of change and commitment levels to Organization Development processes at a team building session conducted by one of the original consultants to the project. It was agreed that several key structures established during the earlier project had become institutionalized approaches to facilitating change.

The Organization Development Steering Committee (see p. --) still meets bi-weekly, alternating as a labor-management committee every other week. The ongoing conversations between the Union President and the Fire Chief (and each with a key assistant) had become a true part of the new culture, even with a increased level of conflict created by different values held by the new Fire Chief. The new Chief had been a battalion chief during the initial project, and

did not at first support or understand the OD process or collaborative approaches. The ODSC structure insured that a dialogue continued. Some department members report a positive change in the style of the chief since the most recent team building.

The ODSC continues to oversee employee initiated problem solving

committees. Any employee can submit an identified problem to either a standing or ad hoc committee for discussion and possible solution if that problem is approved for study by the ODSC. The problem solving committees, and other group meetings (such as critiques of multiple alarms fires) are facilitated by employees who have been trained in small group problem solving facilitation techniques. The internal facilitator group is in its third generation, and has

the capacity to conduct most of its own training using its own members.

Other ongoing positive results are improved meeting management and problem solving skills at all levels of the organization. The techniques taught throughout the project are part of daily life for most groups that meet. Also, although the culture has remained somewhat authoritarian, input from appropriate stakeholders is an accepted norm. An excellent example cited was a decision to conduct department wide EEO training, after the Fire Chief held a consultative meeting with many people representing interested groups or stakeholders from both within and outside the department. It was taken for granted that this type of input was necessary prior to any designing or decision making.

Thus the OD project created a culture that could respond to a new Fire Chief who did not truly support the participative process when he entered office. But he has responded well to feedback and has developed a style dramatically more participative and collaborative than the one previously held. The team building and subsequent discussions with city management (co-contracting) have resulted in a decision by the Chief to revitalize some of the OD processes and to target the neglected Battalion Chief ranks as a primary objective.