Team Work During a Response

In Gary Klein's book Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions he studied a variety of different teams to understand how they made decisions. The team he found to be the best at working through disagreements as well as the myriad of other problems faced during a response were the wildland firefighting over head teams. There was a trust and respect built through shared experience, sharpness gained through continued experience by individuals on the team, and stability through working together on a number of different incidents. They did not shy away from disagreements about tactical or other decisions. Instead these issues were brought up and hashed out in team meetings at the beginning of a shift. Arguments were made and the decision of the Incident Commander was the final say. They would carry out the decision once it was made because it had been addressed (argued out) and a decision was made. If a member who brought up the argument still had problems with the decision then that was hashed out in private to prevent wasting of time and energy on a decision that was made.

The key to this type of team work was the mutual respect they had for one another. They all had worked their way up through the ranks to qualify for the position. While this is very difficult to replicate in the civilian sector it is something to be strived for in preparation for a response. How any emergency manager can build that kind of team will be up to the organization he/she works for and their policy's and procedures. No matter how it is accomplished it is important for an organization to have built such a team. It is critically important that such teams are built and in place within organization or jurisdiction if it is going to respond to  incidents with the command team needed.

Team building and training seem to be concepts that are left out of a lot of discussions in emergency management yet I feel they are at the heart of any preparedness actions prior to a disaster. Without a good functioning team then you will not have a good response to an incident.

By the way Klein's book Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions is a must read for any emergency manager. He not only studies the people and teams but delineates the needed inputs and characteristics of good team work and decision making. These lists can form the basis for training to build the types of teams necessary to respond to any emergency private or public sectors (he studied both).