The International Association of Wildland Fire will be hosting an Ignite Talk designed for mission critical teams of 4 to 12 people who must make decisions and take action quickly. It will be held online December 8 at 3 p.m. MST. Here is the link to register in advance.
More information:
WORKFORCE RESILIENCE IGNITE TALK
YOU are part of Mission Critical Teams: Reflection, Reset, and Residue in Wildland Fire Management
December 8th at 3:00 pm MST
Mission critical teams are small (4-12 agents) integrated groups of indigenously trained and educated experts who leverage tools and technology to resolve rapidly emergent complex adaptive problems in an immersive but constrained (300 seconds or less) temporal environments where the consequence of failure can be a catastrophic loss. These teams are able to consistently innovate as fast, or faster, than the evolving problem sets by moving their focus from trying to predict future problem sets to building the capacity of the team to resolve whatever problem set emerges.
Reflection: MCTs are made up of experts like you who hold the requisite skill and solutions but may lack the language to pass that knowledge on to the rest of the team, such as knowing how to ride a bike, but being unable to explain it to someone else. Leaders in Wildland Fire need to find the language to pass on their experience and navigate between critical and routine environments.
Reset: Wildland fire is about having one experience after another, throughout your career. The question is how do we make meaning of those experiences in such a way that they fuel us, rather than distract us from the next experience. Part of this is about taking the time to find purposeful meaning with After Action Reviews which actually influence the story that team members will tell about themselves, and their team, after an event.
Residue: You are not broken. You are not a victim. You are not a survivor. You have chosen the hard path—a path full of extreme experiences, both good and bad, which leave memories. These memories, in turn, leave a residue within you, which if processed can serve as the fuel that moves us to wisdom and joy. If unprocessed, however, it will begin to build up, to harden, until you can no longer move or breathe, until all you know is pain and sorrow. MCTI rejects the idea that Operators, in Medicine, Fire, Law Enforcement and Military, must sacrifice their lives and souls, in exchange for living a life of service.
Presented by Dr. Preston B. Cline
Co-founder and Director of Research and Education at the Mission Critical Team Institute; Senior Fellow, Center for Leadership and Change Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Visiting Scholar in the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative (WiN), The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Preston spent 30 years in the field of Adventure Education leading expeditions on all seven continents. These journeys became the catalyst for a lifelong academic investigation on how humans learn to interact with uncertainty. Along the way, Preston has received a B.S. from Rutgers University, focusing on professional youth work, a Masters of Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education on risk and uncertainty, and a Doctorate in Education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education on the training and education of Mission Critical Teams: Small (4-12 agents), integrated groups of indigenously trained and educated experts that leverage tools and technology to resolve complex adaptive problems in an immersive, but constrained (five minutes or less), temporal environments, where the consequence of failure can be catastrophic. In 2018, after 10 years serving as the Director of the Wharton Leadership Ventures, at the Wharton School, Preston founded the Mission Critical Team Institute, which is an applied research institute focused on the development of an international collaborative inquiry community made up of Instructor Cadres within Military Special Operations, Emergency Medicine, Tactical Law Enforcement, Aerospace, and Urban and Wilderness Fire Fighting Organizations within Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States. When he is not working with Cadre, he resides in Annapolis with his extraordinary spouse Amy.
I’m here for Dr. Cline. The man is truly interesting and a hell of an educator. I attended his MCT training when he was at Wharton. A week long training that was an amazing experience about building teams and how to quick build an effective team while solving immense problems. He is a lead instructor for most of the top special force teams in the world and he has been an advocate for wildland fire and crews for a long time. If you have the time, I recommend folks attend the meeting and enjoy the conversation.
Bill, Randy Moore said the FS lost 38% of their workforce in a Congressional hearing and NPS HR said they lost 40%.
Do you have links?
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/10/13/in-congressional-hearing-forest-service-chief-randy-moore-recommended-improved-pay-for-federal-wildland-firefighters/
How can the Forest Service say they are resilient when they lost 38% of their work force? How can the National Park Service say they are resilient when they lost 40% of their work force? How can you be resilient when management keeps firing your support staff? It just seems to me that management keeps blaming their people for not getting it done, when it’s management who is not hiring people to do the work. People can’t keep doing 5 people’s jobs and not get burnt out. I guess the sad thing is management doesn’t care. They burn you (a GS-9) out and then hire a GS-5 to do the work until that person is burnt out and then the cycle continues. Meanwhile, management blames you (and the next person) for not being resilient.
“SR”
We try to have accurate information on Wildfire Today. You need to provide sources for losing 38% and 40% of the FS and NPS work forces.
@SR, the International Association of Wildland Fire is an independent group of managers and researchers. Just because they’re talking about an idea doesn’t mean that its been realized throughout our land management agencies. In fact, because it hasn’t discussions like this should hold greater value.
Andrew, this is not new. The 3 R’s have been around for a very long time. The idea of resilience has been around for over 100 years. Reflection, Reset, Residue? “You are not broken. You are not a victim. You are not a survivor…” Really? Come on!!! Would you say that to a person who has a broken arm or worse a person who is suicidal? Or a rape victim? Or to someone who survived a fire when the rest of his or her crew died? Come on!!! I know, I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this, but some people are broken, some people are victims, and some people are survivors…and they don’t need to be shamed, they need help. Anyway, that’s just how I feel…Peace Out!
>SR<
I did a quick search on Google and did not find any articles relating to your assumption that these principles have been around for 100 years; related to wildland fire? Do you find anything wrong with pursuing these deeper dive principles as it pertains to wildland firefighting personnel?
I don't think you will get a lot of hate for your comments, it's just that maybe you are viewing this with a different lens than most.
I'm sorry if you or anyone else reading this thread are connecting the content of today's presentation with actual assault or mental health challenges resilience – you are talking about trauma that should be addressed through professional therapists and/or wildland fire trauma-informed clinicians. That, most certainly, was not the intent of today's presentation, but maybe it had a different interpretation when you read the announcement.
Kelly Martin, I googled the word resilience and according to the dictionary the word has been around since the early 17th centry. (The FS and the NPS like to use it to talk about the health of the forests/parks or the moral of the workforce.) I also googled the 3 R’s (Reflection, Reset, Residue) and it’s a concept that took off during the 1970’s, but according to my great, great, great, great grandfather’s journals it was around during the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. Back in the day of Gifford Pinchot. I don’t have a problem with y’all pursuing these deeper principles, what I have a problem with is the comment, “You are not broken. You are not a victim. You are not a survivor…” I represent over 600 people who have been traumatized by the FS and the NPS and THEY ARE ALL SURVIVORS!!! These words you use are triggers, they also have legal ramifications. They blame and shame the person. If you had a broken arm, the doctor would not say “you are not broken,” s/he would set your arm. S/He would try to fix you. If you were raped, your therapist would not say “You are not a victim,” s/he would say you are a victim of rape and then counsel you…try to fix you. If you survived domestic abuse, a car accident, a fire, so on and so on, your therapist would not say “You are not a survivor,” s/he would say you are a survivor and then counsel you…try to fix you. This is a technique to break people down and it is a very dangerous one, because you have to invest time in the person to build them back up and I’m afraid that the NPS/FS does not have the time nor the resources to rebuild these men and women back up. The NPS/FS is too willing to throw these people away. I could go on and on about how the military uses techniques like this and to be honest it sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Anway, I’ve said my peace.
>SR<
I'm sorry you felt Dr. Cline's presentation was about the USFS and NPS loss of workforce and firing support staff and how to be resilient – this is NOT the nexus narrative that came across tonight. Maybe you missed the presentation; it will be posted here: https://www.iawfonline.org/events/webinars/ There are major issues with our federal wildland fire workforce and we are doing the best we can to systematically address long-overdue reforms.
Kelly Martin, thanks for the link!