Everybody knows a firefighter. No, I am not talking about the firefighters that you see on Chicago Fire and in the fire engines speeding down the street rushing to the rescue. I am talking about the proverbial firefighter. The person that you know personally or professionally that can be counted on to rush to the rescue to fix an issue quickly.
Firefighting behavior is commonly defined as someone who is consistently and constantly resolving issues that arise. Because they are constantly addressing issues that crop up, the firefighter must be quick to make a decision, sometimes creating a band-aid for the issue and or being impulsive. They excel under pressure because of these attributes.
There is a time and place for the firefighter behavior. Yet, as with everything, when firefighter behavior becomes a set go-to mentality and a way of operations, it can be detrimental to you and your organization. This firefighter mindset can be incredibly detrimental to IT operations. Here are a few things that can crop up when you are stuck in a firefighter mentality.
Everything you do is a knee-jerk reaction. You are in a reactive mode and not a proactive mode. When you are reacting to fires, you must have things completed quickly, and quick means costly. Whether it is having your internal team work overtime to complete the work needed, if you need to hire a vendor to do quick work or if you are even trying to have something delivered in a rush, this is all an additional cost that you probably have not accounted for.
Something will get missed. When firefighter mode is your go-to, you are working to fix what is right in front of you, whether it is a critical application or hardware. You aren’t always thinking about things that may be affected by the problem that you are currently addressing. You may not even be thinking about the chain of events that caused this problem. You want to fix the issue and fix it as quickly as possible. When this happens, you have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and how things may or may not be connected. If you fix this problem in this way, are you overlooking something else?
Your team will have to go back to finish the resolution. A quick IT fix is only temporary. It is not meant to be permanent, only to help you get through the current time so that you can take a step back later. If the team does not go back to put the fix according to standard and make a more permanent resolution, it will come back and could possible be worse than before.
You are always playing catch-up in other aspects of your organization. Whether it is about growth planning, finding ways to be more effective or innovative, or just taking care of the administrative activities that keep the business running smoothly. When you are constantly fighting fires, that doesn’t leave much time to focus on other areas. Yes, sometimes it is good to react to some things, but if all you are doing is reacting then how will you get your business where YOU want it?
Inevitably, you will get burned out. You and your team are running from fire to fire and spending lots of time, energy, and money. It will be exhausting, and you deserve more. You have enough on your plate as you are an integral part of your organization’s normal operations; adding the firefighter behavior on top of that would eventually make your team not want to be a part of the organization, no matter how passionate they are about it.
So, what do you do if you are stuck in the firefighter mindset?
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If this is your normal inclination, then you find personnel to integrate into your organization that are not of that mindset. Whether these people are internal or a 3rd party, such as a vendor, it does not matter. This will help to create the diversity and different ways of thinking and problem solving that is needed in any organization.
Next, you build processes and procedures that help with solving the problems that eventually crop up. These processes should consider looking at the bigger picture, determining a pattern, reviewing the root cause, and looking at how to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future. This will also make sure that you aren’t having the knee-jerk reaction or having to pay exorbitant fees for quick turnarounds. Finally, budget and take preemptive measures to be prepared for the issues that will come up based on the processes and procedures. This includes having budgeted line item(s), maybe a special crisis team, and/or having backup resources. What you do as a final step is really up to how your organization needs and wants to be run.