Shannon Pieper’s blog on complacency http://www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/routley-at-egh-summit got the little guy in my head excited. He had me googling all kinds of articles on complacency, statistical data and anything else that might have me whirling around in a frenzy of legal paper, pen and alternative metal music.

I found several perspectives on complacency, its causes, its cures and in a wide venue.

One theory that is out there, according to David W. Folk is that: occasionally, there is a level of complacency present prior to the occurrence of a serious accident. Then, during a span of time following an accident, complacency will eventually return accident prevention efforts to pre-accident levels.

The fire service has built strong training programs that require the tasks to be done over and over again to produce the mastered skills.

Folk also states in “The Workplace Complacency Trend in Accident Prevention”: However; when we perform tasks repetitiously, there is a tendency to become bored or complacent and we begin to perform them almost subconsciously. In an accident prevention program, a repetitious task has the tendency to create a lack of interest and complacency.

In other words; as we learn the safe way to perform repetitious and dangerous tasks, we are already growing complacent.

Before we go further, let me define “complacency” with the help of Dictionary.com. Complacency is “the feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc.”

Keep this definition handy, as it will be central to the focus of this blog.

Are we growing complacency in our young recruits?

Earlier I mentioned repetition as a cause of complacency. That is, of course, if some departments are actually training. Are we training at a level that will fill the gap between what we learn and our call volume? That is; with departments that have less than a couple of calls a week (lack of work), are their training programs bridging to preparedness?

We’ll come back to that as we look at a “lack of work” as a cause of serious accidents with our firefighters.

Getting back to our young recruits; I was amazed at the number of articles that suggested that technology provided by parents was causing complacency in the next generation.

Tim O’Dell stated in “Are We Creating A Complacent Generation” that: My children have a television, a PC, DVD players and music centers in each of their bedrooms. At their age, I only had a television and record deck, which the whole family shared. So, why do my children need to struggle to get anything?

Let’s face it; that describes a pretty universal picture doesn’t it?

He continues: It is inevitable that young people today have Life easier than their parents and I believe the next generation will have it easier again. In this type of climate, complacency is bound to set in and young people will be inclined to sit back and let the world look after itself.”

This raises two thoughts in my mind: (1) Insert “young recruits” for “young people” and “officers/instructors” for “parents” and you have an interesting analogy and (2) Are we missing an important psychological indicator for their future behavior that is through no fault of their own?

O’Dell concludes: …modern living is creating a complacent generation, but I also think we need to accept some of the blame. As parents, we need to instill the need for hard work into our children, teach them that the good things in Life need to be striven for. If we don’t, then they will simply sit back and wait for things to happen. Is it really the attitude we want to nurture in future generations?

I don’t know if his last thought is profound, but it’s damned close. I also know that some of us raised our children to work hard and to strive for the good things in Life.

But, going forward, can you look at recruits as we always have or as O’Dell describes our future generation?

Drew Price, on the same question states: …our society is partly to blame for creating a somewhat complacent generation. We eventually destroy our children’s intrinsic value of learning, replacing it with a set of values that revolves around rewards and punishment. As students progress through school, they gradually become less enthusiastic about learning, because they are no longer learning for the sake of learning; they are learning to receive grades, to satisfy Mom and Dad, to satisfy teachers, but the intrinsic value no longer remains. Instead, students act to either earn a reward or avoid a punishment.

Think about that last statement.

How is our training structured? Are recruits receiving too much “clinical” training and not enough “street smarts” and are we expecting classroom training to translate into street smarts and punishing them if it doesn’t?

Fast forward to the NOW!

If this underlying, undetected complacency hasn’t been discovered and addressed in the early stages of our firefighters’ evolvement, then is it any wonder that we are seeing more injuries and no significant drop in LODDs?

Is complacency being cultivated somewhere between our training and our call volume or a lack of it?

If our training is not filling the gap between it and low call volume (Lack of Work), then the fire-ground discipline will break into complacency when there is a call.

I will end with words from my friend, Paul Grimwood: Systemic Failure: Various tactical and command failings have directly evolved from a triangle of complacency that is rife throughout the Fire Service. The result has been catastrophic system failure in numerous situations that have ended in tragedy. This issue is at the very root of the vast majority of traumatic fire-ground deaths and injuries amongst firefighters.

1. Lack of firefighting experience

2. Inadequate firefighter and command training

3. Complacency (Lack of discipline)

So; would you all at least think about it?

TCSS.

Art

The article as submitted is published under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella and is the intellectual property of Art Goodrich a.k.a. xchief22 and ChiefReason. It is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-printed in any form without expressed permission from the author.