By Harry Carter
The future of the fire service is at stake. There are those who are trying to move into the future using of “book knowledge.” They have no concern for the things theirfire departmentfolks have learned over the years. For some people, if it isn’t in the book, it isn’t worth knowing. Do you know a person like that? Does that approach even sound right?
我已经有一段时间了。我首先开始回应emergenciesin 1964. It has been my privilege to ride on fire trucks as well as ambulances. It has been my good fortune to have worked with some really great leaders. As you might imagine, it has also been my lot to work with some leaders whose skills asleaders不存在。
幸运的是，我已故的父亲告诉我，保留好笔记并节省任何可能对您有帮助的东西很重要。多年来，我一直保持笔记，好，坏或冷漠。这可以解释为什么我的办公室看起来好像我学会了将房子从纽约市著名的柯利尔兄弟名声中保留。尽管我的办公室里装满了书籍，记录和报告，但我仍然可以找到我所需的所有工作，以使自己的工作成为消防界的观察者。
因此，我在本文中关注自己的想法正是非常关注的。我相信我们心爱的人正在酝酿一个严重的问题fire service. It seems as if some people in the fire service are beginning to view older members of the department as people who lack wisdom instead of as treasure troves of knowledge that should be shared and celebrated. Veteran folks, who should be pivotal members of an organization’s knowledge base, are being kicked to the curb by younger people who claim to know “it all.” They do not recognize the value of tacit knowledge–the learned experiences each of us gathers as we move through our careers.
奋斗
我决定与您分享我对退伍军人成员的想法。我对下一代教学和培训的想法发了一条推文。我的推文很简单，“我们不能指望我们的年轻成员突然知道他们需要知道什么。我们必须与他们分享多年来我们学到的知识。”
由于Twitter施加的局限性，我没有完全表达自己的想法。考虑到这一点，我发出了第二条推文：“当我说'分享'时，我的意思是那样。分享;不要指示，需求或强制饲料。找出他们所知道的，并以此为基础。”
The responses to my two comments came flying in. They seemed to split into a couple of schools of thought. There were those who said that the younger generation was causing the problem. Others blamed the whole situation on the older members of our fire departments who, theserespondentssaid, have refused to embrace the younger members of their organization and welcome them into a leadership role within their departments.
Since I have seen glaring examples of both, I suggest that there has to be a middle ground for which we all should strive. One of life’s lessons for me is that when one side wins a knockdown, drag-out battle, the other side loses. This is never a good situation. Some hard feelings go on for generations. I know of a couple of fire departments that are stillfighting1915年的战斗时，有人用小麦的奶油小便，许多人踩着脚步并成立了自己的消防公司。
某些人很难意识到他们的时间领导role within an organization must come to an end. They hang on angering people to the left and to the right until the local undertaker carts them off to their final resting place. That is not the way I want people to remember my life and my time in the fire service.
My life has been a series of adventures wherein I rose up through anorganization，领导该小组，然后辞去了我的继任者。我正处于现在考虑到我可能经常登上盘子的年龄。现在是时候让我为下一代加油并在适当时与他们分享我的智慧了。
Some veterans will never share what they know. They hoard the智慧and use it as a club to beat the younger people into submission. They refuse to step aside and let the next generation step up and begin to take charge. I have seen some really fine organizations go off the deep end because the older members of the group were unwilling to welcome, nurture, and help their new members grow into productive members of the group.
在这种情况下，将发生两件事之一。人们会厌倦受到这种对待，并会用脚投票。这是事件的正常过程。人们不会留在同龄人感到不想要的地方。
Another scenario that could play out is that the younger members bide their time until enough new people come onboard to create a solid voting block for the youth group. The younger members will then treat the older members as they have been treated in an effort to return the favor and run them off. Neither of these two ways of operating is god for thehealthof an organization.
Complete Knowledge
In far too many instances, I have witnessed a number of younger members of the fire service ignore the wisdom of a veteran member of their department just because he was a veteran member. It seems to me that these younger folks see their trip through the fire academy’sfirefighter我的课程补充了对消防官员培训课程的访问，这是他们在消防服务知识世界中旅行的全部和最终旅行。
There is a distinct difference between Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge. Unfortunately, this distinction is not often made in our fire service训练程式。我已经看到教练坚持这本书，并在书中测试了他们的部队。尽管这可能是您所在州的要求，但我向您保证，我从未通过在火焰上扔书或一些知识来扑灭火灾。知识是必要的，但经验也是如此。这两个组件必须混合以获得最佳效果。
显性知识收集、铰接codified, and stored in certain media (an example would be London is in the United Kingdom). It can be readily transmitted to others. The information contained in course handouts, encyclopedias, and textbooks are examples. People for whom explicitknowledgeis the be-all and end-all of their exposure to knowledge place no value on the experience of people who have been performing a series of tasks for an extended period of time.
默认知识（与正式，编纂或明确的知识相反）很难转移到另一个personby means of writing it down or verbalizing it. Examples include speaking a language, using algebra, or designing and using complex equipment. These skills necessitate knowledge that is not always known explicitly, even by expert practitioners; they are difficult or impossible to explicitly transfer to other users. Tacit knowledge has far-reaching consequences and is not widely understood.
Sharing Tacit Knowledge
How, then, do we pass along this hard-won knowledge that lies solely within the heads of the people who possess it? The answer is simple and then again not so simple. Implementation depends on the willingness of afire department认识到有必要建立官方部门赞助的指导计划。必须与我们的下一代共享的大量必要知识是在您的消防部门的资深成员的大脑中，他们已经生活并学到了它。
多年来，我一直是火装置driver in a number of fire departments. I completed the driver’s training program at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1967. It covered the basics of how to drive and operate all of the air crash and structural apparatus in use at the time. The books I read and the lectures I attended provided me with the basic skills needed to drive and operate the equipment.
I had a basic set of skills, but that was not all I needed. My skills improved over time through the continued operation of the apparatus under the guidance of more senior人员, who rounded off the rough edges of my performance as they saw me at work. I hesitate to use the words “trial and error” because those words fail to describe the interaction between the senior people and me.
他们与我分享的建议和知识使我能够改善pumpoperator and crash truck driver/operator. The same held true when I was made a driver in the Adelphia, Rahway, and Newark (NJ) fire departments. I had the privilege to have as my best friend the late Jack Peltier, one of the greatest pump operation teachers in the world. He shared his decades of experience with me. He mentored me and made me a better pumpoperator. He also taught me a great deal about the importance of using common sense in the fire service.
我经历了他在火场上有一天的指导的宝贵好处（您可能会认为这是令人毛骨悚然的）。好像杰克（Jack）从天上望去，向我提供有关如何在我们地区严重的大火中操作我们的阿德菲亚杂货店的建议。在大火的高峰期，我正在喂两个1¾英寸的接种台，一个带有坚固的孔尖的2½英寸的手柄，还有一个五英寸的大直径软管饲料到我们在大火侧面运行的塔楼。我一直在监视pumppressure, gating down or opening up the lines as the situation dictated. It really came to the fore when I noted that the five-inch line feeding me from the hydrant was beginning to collapse. As you know, you can’t draft off a hydrant. I believe it was Jack who was whispering to me, “Gate them down, but give them all some water.”
On a sunny day in June 2014, the collective wisdom of 47 years of driving, pump operations, drills, classroom sessions, mentoring, and advice were brought to bear on the situation facing us at that fire. No one was injured. No one lost water. And the fire was extinguished. I offer this story as an example of the need for ourfire departments通过指导和支持计划分享我们的隐性知识。
在21世纪，“我们一直以这种方式这样做”的勇士没有空间。我们一直做事的方式可能是错误的方法。我们需要对自己诚实。我们需要不断审查我们的运营程序，以确保我们按照我们领域的最新研究进行操作。多亏了财富research现在被提供给我们，我们正在为我们提供全新的操作方式。我们会愚蠢地忽略它。
I offer these suggestions:
· Old-timers: You aren’t going to live forever. The time to select and train your replacement is now. Share what you have learned.
·年轻人：白发并不等于无知。听老人。
· Younger troops: With any luck, you will get to be old someday and be younger firefighters will be chomping on your backside.
·所有成员：学会一起玩得很好。
***
The future is right out there in the next tomorrow you will face. The future of the fire service and your fire department depend on your ability to share andlearn作为一个团队。我敦促你们每个人fire departmentto create a mentoring program. Partner each new member with a veteran who wants to be a mentor. If your department agrees, fine; if not, do not that let that stop you from reaching out to a senior member for help and assistance. Senior members, find that young person who needs your help and give it to him. Mentor or lose; sharing and caring are so important.
生物
Harry R. Carter是Howell镇（NJ）消防区＃2的消防专员董事会主席。他在纽瓦克（NJ）消防部门工作了26年。他还在豪威尔镇的阿德菲亚消防公司（Adelphia Fire Company）工作了39年，并于1991年担任酋长。他担任公司牧师，是活跃的终身会员。他拥有明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯的Capella University的商业哲学博士学位，并且是Capella公共安全领导学院的兼职教职员工。
