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Artikel I. “Struck” in the midst of action
Bøhm, Mikkel (2016). “Struck” in the midst of action: Incident commanders from Denmark handling everyday emergencies.
Accepteret for publicering i “International Journal of Emergency Management”, Volume 11, Number 3.
Int. J. Emergency Management, Vol. x, No. x, xxxx 1
Copyright © 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark handling everyday emergencies
Mikkel Boehm
Management and Organization,
Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University,
Roskilde, 4000, Denmark Email: mboehm@ruc.dk
Abstract: This paper investigates micro-sociological events which affect the construction and negotiation of sense in the handling of emergency situations.
Through participatory observation and action-cameras attached to fire brigade incident commanders, critical events are identified and condensed. The effects of these critical events upon the incident commanders are analysed in dialogical sessions. The dialogical sessions reveal vulnerability when critical events affect them cognitively, but especially when affected emotionally and physically.
Acknowledging and understanding the effect of these striking moments is the baseline from which incident commanders and researchers can gain insight into the realities of practice. This paper argues that in order to gain insight into the actual practice conducted in the midst of everyday action we need to shift our view of incident commanders from privileged sense-makers to privileged sense-facilitators.
Keywords: incident command; struck; emotions; everyday-perspective;
sense-making; action-camera; learning; decision-making; practice-learning;
fire-brigade; vulnerability.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Boehm, M. (xxxx)
‘‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark handling everyday emergencies’, Int. J. Emergency Management, Vol. x, No. x, pp.xxx–xxx.
Biographical notes: Mikkel Boehm is a Senior Lecturer at the Bachelor’s Degree Program in Emergency and Risk Management, Department of Technology, Faculty of Health and Technology, Metropolitan University College and PhD fellow at Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University. In his doctoral project, he is studying learning from real incidents through the action-camera as a learning-technology.
1 Introduction
Research related to emergency response and incident command acknowledges that emergencies require a coordinated and rapid response (Alexander, 2005, p.152). At the centre of this coordination is the incident commander who is highly influential towards the overall outcome (Njå and Rake, 2008). Studies related to the emergency services sector in both Denmark and Norway have criticised emergency response outcomes,
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proposing a discrepancy between lessons learnt and lessons identified (Hove, 2014;
Politidirektoratet, 2012; Sachs and Bohm, 2013), and indicating that parts of everyday practice remains tacit. This lack of insight has resulted in a kind of ‘black-box’
enforced storytelling, learning by doing and getting a feel for it (Sommer and Njå, 2012), as well as hindering self-reflexivity towards more vulnerable aspects of leadership in the midst of action.
In this paper, insight into the practice of incident commanders is gained from outlining discrepancies in individual and collective sense-making processes. Research related to collapses in sense-making tends to focus on large and atypical incident categories, or incidents with a well-known and devastating outcome (Weick, 1990, 1993;
Weick and Sutcliffe, 2007). This paper stands on the shoulders of these main contributors but wishes to address these aspects in the setting of everyday emergencies and everyday incident command, where the outcomes of an incident are not being questioned by other authorities or by the public.
The purpose of this paper is to understand the challenges which affect incident commanders, similar to the purpose of the quantitative study conducted by Groenendaal and Helsloot (2015). They too used action-cameras in order to better understand the command and control practices of incident commanders. They concluded that incident commanders were not generally “in control over what happened at the front line, as is supposed in formal policy” (Groenendaal and Helsloot, 2015, p.9). This approach of seeking links between standard operational procedures (SOPs) and practice is interesting but the central question remains – does it provide us with insight into why the role and function of an incident commander is unfolding this way?
Or rather are we unintentionally displaying an understanding of ‘wrong incident command’ because we assume the incident commander to be a privileged professional without recognising the sociocultural setting that he or she is a part of. Doing so, we ascribe an understanding of the practice of the incident commander that fits the widely accepted and rarely challenged notion of the reflective practitioner (Yanow and Tsoukas, 2009, p.1341). This notion can be recognised in the guidelines for incident command stating that the incident commander is expected to analyse the incident, extracting relevant cues, choose a relevant course of action and participate in inter- as well as intra-sectorial negotiations of sense, and in the midst of these activities still be able to monitor the incident response and act proactively towards adjusting elements of the response (Beredskabsstyrelsen, 2013). The normative guidelines assume that such an inter- as well as intra-sectorial construction and negotiation of sense is unproblematic even though research into sense-making on several occasions have shown how complex collective sense-making and heedfulness (Weick and Roberts, 1993) can be to retain in complex vulnerable situations (Weick, 1993), and that sense-making inherently is social (Weick, 1995, p.39; Weick et al., 2005, p.417). This underpins that the characteristic of being ascribed a role and function as a privileged sense-maker is linked to incident command in general.
Research related to incident command tends to focus on the cognitive capability of the individual (Kahneman, 2003; Kahneman and Klein, 2009; Rake, 2003; Njå and Rake, 2009) to make decisions based on intuition and mental simulation (Klein, 1998, 2011a) in a singular-evaluation approach corresponding with the recognition-primed-decision model proposed by Klein (1998). However, this cognitive focus seems inadequate in explaining the challenges the incident commander faces in the midst of everyday emergency action:
‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark 3 The central research question is: “How do critical events affect the incident commander’s construction and negotiation of individual and collective sense-making in the midst of action”.
The paper begins by establishing the notion of the incident commander as a privileged sense-maker. It then discusses how action-cameras can be used in investigating sense-making in the present rather than just the past. This is done through dialogical sessions which recapture events where the sense-making process was hindered or challenged. This leads to the last section which presents the empirical findings from several real incidents.
2 The incident commander as the scope of the study
The practice of the incident commander is inherently a sense-making-practice, usually within ‘an unknowable, unpredictable context’ (Weick, 2002, p.9) and their role and function is described in the legislation and SOPs (Beredskabsstyrelsen, 2013). The role of the incident commander is embedded in a hierarchical structure and there are some unique artefacts ascribed to this function, including the colour red on their jacket, a silver helmet. All of these institutionalised artefacts signal the privileged position of this individual in acknowledging and recognising the problem being faced and what needs to be done as in the terminology of the reflective practitioner proposed by Schön (1983).
The notion of reflection-in-action is something the practitioner does as a kind of artistry when facing a surprise. This surprise initiates a process whereby the practitioner, through a dialogue with the background context, constructs a sense of the situation and “reveal[s] their capacity to construct models of unique and changing situations, to design and execute on the spot experiments” (Schön, 1983, p.273). Schön’s perspective is indicative of a very experienced and competent practitioner able to handle different processes simultaneously and in a way which will reduce complexity and give direction for action. To some extent, this is the same perspective offered in the recognition-primed-decision model (Klein, 1998, 2011a, 2011b). In these approaches, emotional physiology becomes noise that can disturb cognitive problem-solving, such as the assembly of action sequences in mental simulation (Klein, 1998, p.60). Schön and Klein portray the incident commander as a competent problem-solver able to condense a lot of information and take appropriate action, but they leave us without insight into how sociocultural elements affect their interpersonal coordination. The sense-making perspectives represent a cognitive approach, such as that of Klein, but are embedded in the notion of cognition as being inherently social. Both perspectives recognise a pre-aware state, which Klein frames as intuition and Weick frames as enactment.
3 Sense-making, struck and learning
The incident commander is ascribed a function as a privileged sense-maker. Even though individual sense-making is inherently social (Weick, 1995, p.39), the term ‘negotiation of sense’ is chosen to frame those sense-making processes that occur in collaboration between the incident commander and others in the midst of action. The individual sense-making processes, which often would be tacit, are made explicit in the negotiation of sense in handling the incident. The two distinct processes will therefore be handled
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equally in the analytical section. Discrepancies between the performative and prescript practice reveal critical events that have the capability to challenge, interrupt and affect the incident commander. Analysing these interruptions and the way they affect the incident commander is being framed through Cunliffe and the notion of being ‘struck’. Cunliffe represent a dialogical constructivist approach which understands that “[meaning] lies in living conversations […] in our situated, moment-to-moment dialogue with many others we shape our understanding of possible worlds, of ways of orienting ourselves in these possible worlds and of new ways of being and acting” (Cunliffe, 2008, p.130).
When we engage in these ongoing moment-to-moment dialogues, our sense-making can be challenged by discrepancies “… a feeling there is something important we cannot quite grasp in the moment”. This is what Cunliffe refers to as ‘being struck’. Being struck involves: “… our spontaneous response (emotional, physiological, cognitive) to events or relationships occurring …” (Cunliffe, 2002a, p.42). ‘Being struck’ can lead to two different types of reflection or reflexivity (Chia, 1996; Corlett, 2012), where: “reflective thinking is often seen to be a logical objective and analytical process where we attempt to make sense of experience [...] … reflective dialogue incorporates sense-making devices
…” (Cunliffe, 2002b, p.50).
The moment of being ‘struck’ has the capability to initiate a reflective as well as reflexive process which can have transformative consequences regarding the individual incident commander (Illeris, 2004, 2014) what Cunliffe recalls as questioning “our ways of understanding, being and acting in the world” (Cunliffe, 2002a, p.51). The incident crew, as a group, is being understood as a community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and the preliminary centre for learning (Dysthe, 2003, p.16). The learning is then not a matter of becoming skilled or becoming a skilled, legitimate member but about developing experience as part of a continuous transaction between the individual and the organisation ‘through joint inquiry and/or reflective thinking’ (Elkjaer, 2004, p.425).
The focus upon discrepancies is well known from learning theory where surprises initiate learning processes. Discrepancies in the sense-making process are at the core of the pragmatic approach suggested by Elkjaer (2004), who states that learning is an inquiry process ‘that starts with a sense that something is wrong’ (p.425). Identifying discrepancies is not the same as pursuing individual failures. All the incidents in the empirical section were fundamentally successful. The incident was handled in a way that caused no internal or external critique. To analyse these incidents represents, therefore, an opportunity to learn from an incident, which actually went well even though the focus in the empirical section is to identify and analyse discrepancies. It is, moreover, important to state, that even though a struck moment is potentially critical, it can still be coped with in a successful way.
4 Presentation of methodology
The methodology applied allows for access to emergency responses in a real setting, which has been requested by Njå and Rake (2008, p.8). The field studies were conducted at the fire brigade in one of the largest municipalities in Denmark. The incident commanders participating in the dialogical sessions are all employed by the same fire brigade in the same municipality. All incident commanders work their daily shifts from the central fire station and participate in the same monthly exercises and share the premises towards the overall role and function as incident commander. This offers insight
‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark 5 into the sociocultural aspects of being an incident commander in that particular fire brigade, but limits the empirical findings to this very sociocultural setting. The role and function of being a privileged sense-maker is not only linked to incident commanders in Scandinavia but is being assumed to expose some of the difficulties of being ‘the one’
who facilitates the overall sense-making processes that is not only linked to this specific fire brigade but is a more general phenomenon.
Four incident commanders were followed as they responded to emergencies all over the municipality from June 2014 to October 2014. Prior to the involvement of the incident commanders an agreement with the management of the fire brigade was established to ensure that the potential exposure of failures or mistakes could never be linked and used to sanction the individuals participating in the research-project.
The entire team of incident commanders were invited to participate in the project and four incident commanders volunteered. The incident commanders differ in age and length of service but all have in common that they have been part of the internal action-camera project. The technology was therefore well known to them and they were confident about mounting the camera and handling the data. The incident commanders were able to relate to their practice in a way that was neither defending nor glorifying the practice but adapted an explorative approach upon investigating discrepancies.
5 Gathering data through action-cameras
The empirical section consists of six cases that represent different everyday incidents.
The cases represent different critical events, which have had the impact to strike the incident commander in the midst of action. Each incident is unique and is handled by different fire stations, different squad leaders and different incident commanders. Inspired by the dialogical constructivist approach, the focus is upon ascribing meaning to critical events that potentially strike the incident commander, which represent a learning potential. The purpose of the cases is not to seek any causality between the striking events or the learning potential each incident represents.
The data have been collected with action-cameras (DRIFT-HD) attached to incident commanders with specially constructed clamps, which allows us to study the subject’s perspective (Lahlou, 2011; Lahlou et al., 2015). The incident commanders wore the camera for every incident, not only those incidents which initially seemed atypical or severe. The data were then transferred to individual external hard-drives from which it was analysed. When the recordings had been transferred to the storage device by the incident commander and verified in relation to sensitive information. The incidents from the storage device were then analysed and everyday incidents requiring coordination were selected. This was done to remove data for smaller incidents handled by the fire department alone, such as fire detection responses and small fires in containers with no need for coordination.
The first step was to conduct a preliminary registration detailing the incident category and the incident commander on duty followed by a full transcription of the performative practice recorded by the camera. The recording was then analysed with the purpose of outlining events where discrepancies occurred in the construction and negotiation of sense.
Discrepancies in individual and collective sense-making were identified in the recordings as discrepancies between the performative practice and the prescript practice.
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The prescript practice follows from the legislation and states normatively what expectations there are upon the role and function of the incident commander as a privileged sense-maker. The incident commander should, for example, normatively be able to solely analyse the situation, provide other inter-sectorial critical information and negotiate an overall situational coordination, and simultaneously be able to monitor and adjust the handling of the incident intra-sectorially. The performative practice draws on the understanding of the organisation as ostensive (Czarniawska, 2014, p.6).
To understand the actual ‘organising’ in practice we need to investigate the performative practice of the incident commander in the midst of action, which is captured by the camera. Discrepancies between the prescript and the performative represent potential critical events where the practice of the incident commander potentially experiences
‘being struck’. These potential striking events are thereafter analysed together with the incident commander in the dialogical session.
6 The dialogical sessions
Prior to the dialogical session, the researcher had identified critical events where a discrepancy between the performative and the prescript practice occurred. These events were then analysed in the dialogical session between the researcher and the incident commander. The purpose of the dialogical session was to engage in reflective as well as reflexive dialogue from an explorative approach. The recording representing the discrepancy was replayed not as ‘here-is-a-discrepancy, reflect on that’ but much more as
‘try to explain what happens here – what do you recall from the midst of action’.
On several occasions, the incident commander disproved events that the researcher framed as potentially critical and emphasised others, which underpins the explorative rather than decisive approach.
7 Empirical findings
In the next section, each incident will be presented briefly. Afterwards the dominant critical events will be condensed and the effect upon the incident commander analysed.
8 Presentation of each incident-script 8.1 Incident A. Fire in allotment hut
The incident commander responds to a fire in an allotment hut during the day. While on the way there the incident commander receives additional information that the fire has spread into several huts. The command-vehicle drives the incorrect way which results in the delayed arrival of the incident commander at the scene. On arrival the incident commander meets the squad leader from the local firehouse who has already begun the tactical handling of the fire along with the squad leader from the assisting firehouse.
‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark 7 8.2 Incident B. Fire in apartment
The incident commander responds to a fire in an apartment. When the incident commander approaches the area they can see a big column of black smoke rising. There is a major flame bursting out from the first floor, a lot of smoke rising from the apartment just above the fire and its energy level looks such that it could burst into flames very soon. The squad leader starts to extinguish the fire while his men prepare to smoke dive.
At this phase of the incident, there is only one person missing from the first floor apartment.
8.3 Incident C. Fire in collegium-building
The incident commander responds to a fire in a collegium-building early in the morning.
A fire in a collegium potentially involves many people and long hallways which can lead to a spreading of the initial fire through horizontal smoke-progress. When arriving at the scene the fire is located and the squad leader on the scene has already sent smoke divers into the building. The person in the apartment is already out of the building and is being treated by the healthcare sector.
8.4 Incident D. Fire in house/store
Early in the morning the fire brigade responds to a fire in a joint house and store building.
The house is constructed with a sloping roof and the store is constructed with a flat-topped roof. The tactical solution is to extinguish the fire with teams of smoke divers inside the house and for the remaining teams to impose barriers for the spreading fire.
The tactical solutions from outside the building are supposed to have a major impact upon the fire but they do not work as expected.
8.5 Incident E. Workplace accident
During a construction operation one of the workers has been trapped under a steel sheet.
When the incident commander arrives on the scene it becomes evident that the person was killed instantly. From this point, the incident becomes static and the main objective is to release and transfer the body to the healthcare sector.
8.6 Incident F. Fire in apartment
The incident commander responds to a fire in an apartment during the daytime.
On arrival, white smoke escapes from a window. It is unknown if there is a person trapped inside the apartment and the incident commander orders the squad leaders to initiate a search for the person and for spreading smoke on the roof.
Shortly afterwards the team on the roof reports no spreading of the fire and the smoke divers report that they have found one deceased cat but that there are no people inside the apartment.
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9 Giving meaning to the effect upon the incident commander
The critical events identified all had the capability to affect the incident commander emotionally, cognitively and/or physiologically. In the following section, the notion of a
‘struck’ will be adopted as an analytical tool and the different notions used in coding the effect of the critical events from the dialogical sessions are identified.
9.1 Incident A. Fire in allotment hut
The critical event in Incident A is caused by the fact that the command vehicle drives the wrong way. On entering the scene the incident commander’s main focus is water and the spreading of the fire. This is the result of mental simulation as the incident commander assesses that ‘this one can run too fast for me’ (J.nr.1:3). Throughout the entire incident the focus remains on the wind and the fire spreading and causes the incident commander to focus on cues which indicate that the incident is not under control. To control the spreading of the fire the incident commander orders the squad leaders to change the tactical solutions they already had in place. When the incident commander informs the squad leaders about this tactical view of the incident it becomes evident that the squad leaders view the cues related to wind and water differently. When we discussed this situation in the dialogical session the incident commander recalls: “The first thing I remember from that incident was that I never really got on the top of it” (J.nr.1:6). Even though the incident commander articulates that he has doubts about the fire spreading the squad leaders continue to coordinate the activities, not actively involving the incident commander. The incident commander recalls the event this way: “these squad leaders are the most self-reliant, independent and they signal in their entire attitude that we do not need an incident commander here” (J.nr.1:6). This behaviour displayed by the squad leaders hinders the incident commander in actually performing the role and function assigned and leaves the incident commander with the question of whether to try to control them (the squad leaders) or align with their assessment of the incident. The result is that the incident commander accepts the interpretation offered by the squad leaders and described it this way in the dialogical session: “The hardest part of being an incident commander is … when to step up and when to step down […] it’s something with how much of the responsibility you are willing to give away […] if it went okay out there, then it’s the squad leader who has put out the fire, if it’s run away from us then it’s the incident commander who has not” (J.nr.1:8).
9.2 Incident B. Fire in apartment
The intense fire affects the incident commander in a physiological, emotional and cognitive way leading to what the incident commander describes as reactive incident command. When the incident commander arrives at the scene the squad leader is focused upon extinguishing the fire and is not able to get a sense of what is being faced.
Therefore, the incident commander assesses the situation alone, which sets in place the cognitive thinking understood as intuition and mental stimulation under pressure and causes an emotional struck: “I can feel that this is serious, then I become very focused, you know very much focused upon the task” (J.nr.3:2). When the incident commander walks around the building he discovers several people in the windows who need help.
‘Struck’ in the midst of action: incident commanders from Denmark 9 The incident commander is not able to deliver this information to the squad leader due because “he is actually just standing there and cannot manage more tasks, he is overloaded” (J.nr.3:6). This forces the incident commander to lead the initial smoke diving in the stairwell and to become physically close to the incident. This causes a physiological struck leading the incident commander to walk around the scene as if searching for something. The incident commander explained in the dialogical session that the proximity to the incident and this walking around was uncomfortable. This feeling followed the incident commander throughout the response and left the incident commander with a feeling of being reactive (J.nr.3:9). The incident commander felt that the squad leaders did not engage in a collective negotiation and construction of sense which led to the his isolation and reactive response, which in the dialogical session was clearly still frustrating the incident commander: “it’s annoying that they like just throw in a towel in the ring, then I am just your multi-tool if you need to lose a bolt […] I am the one in charge but it’s still a cooperation” (J.nr.3:20).
9.3 Incident C. Fire in collegium building
In Incident C, the incident commander was worried about the fire spreading and relied on information provided by the squad leaders. From a cognitive perspective the mental stimulation is unproblematic; it is a fire in an apartment and there is one team of smoke divers to go into the apartment and one team to control the spreading of the fire. The incident commander tries several times to talk to the squad leaders but he does not receive clear information about the spreading of the fire. The squad leaders provide the incident commander with traces of important information such as ‘there is a lot of smoke in the passageway’ (J.nr.4:6). When the incident commander pursues further information the squad leader walks away. This situation isolates and leaves the incident commander with no information about how much smoke there is and how the fire is spreading.
This resulted in a situation where the incident commander recalled a feeling of missing central information but ultimately accepted and adapted to the situation and waited for further information. The incident commander explained the attitude displayed by the squad leader in this way: “it’s just that attitude, and he is actually renown for doing this.
His opinion is that I shall not interfere, it’s something they (the squad leaders) talk about and he thinks that my set of tasks is something different” (J.nr.4:10). Asked why the incident commander did not put more pressure upon the squad leader, the incident commander explained that the behaviour of the squad leader is rooted in history; this person was not employed as a higher ranking officer and therefore demonstrates this odd behaviour and tries to challenge the incident commander. Therefore, the incident commander doubts that applying stronger leadership pressure would have changed anything and was not willing to allow a potential conflict.
9.4 Incident D. Fire in house/store
In Incident D, the main objective of the incident commander is to hinder the spreading of the fire to the nearby store. From a merely cognitive perspective this seems to be unproblematic. The incident commander is able to conduct a mental simulation, construct a tactical solution and apply the resources. This is done relatively fast and the incident commander explains that he is confident that they will be able to control the fire with the resources available and estimates the overall timeframe to be 30 min (J.nr.6:44). The