More and more each day, fire service professionals are engaging in conversations about the culture of their departments. The conversations vary from how great it is in one department to how bad it is in another. Why, we may wonder, do firefighters care about what is commonly acceptable regarding our behavior toward each other and the citizens of the community? Why do we care about our department’s reputation, character, and accountability to ourselves and each other?
This concern is often apparent in the frequency of conversations among firefighters on the topic of culture when discussing their departments. Conversations will take an avenue such as, “How are things at your department?” The responses may vary: “Well, they are still paying us; that’s about all I can say. Nothing has changed” or, “It’s great. Everybody seems to be happy. We enjoy coming to work.”
不同的反应可能是相关的with differences in culture. One department may have a culture that is defined; the other department may just exist and have no identifiable culture. Most leaders do not define their organization’s culture. The culture is a result of the organization’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) and policies: As long as everyone follows them, these guidelines and documents define the culture. They are meant to maintain a sense of order and keep personnel safe. It is true that SOPs and policies often look quite similar in many departments. This could lead one to believe that all organizational cultures, therefore, are similar, or at least closely mimic each other. If that’s true, why do cultures vary exponentially when most of the rules set in place mimic those of other organizations?
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