Organizational Management Philosophy
I hope you are either avoiding the Mardi Gras festivities or diving into the fray, depending on your preference. For me, Mardi Gras marks the beginning of the tourist season and is the point where we switch from preparations to going into a more operational mode. Of course, this season has been so warm and there have been so many people on the beach that it doesn’t really feel like we had an “off season”.
I think all our full-time staff is looking forward to the seasonal lifeguards coming back and for the organization to transition to beach mode instead of planning mode. Me too, but I’ve been so impressed with how our year-round staff has handled themselves all winter. Especially how the 4 new people that were promoted to Supervisor have been integrated into the system. We had a very minor dispute between a few of them recently and it seemed like a good time to clear the air before we go into the season and our staff size grows with all the seasonal guards.
When we met, we also had the opportunity to discuss our organizational philosophy of communication and decision making. Sometimes it’s good to review this kind of thing to make sure everyone is bought in to the process. Being from a specific generation and from a public safety background, I have traditionally followed a top down management style, where the boss makes the calls always and directives are pushed down from the top. But this doesn’t always work so well with the younger work force who likes to be part of the process. I’ve learned a lot in the past few years from the Texas Police Chief leadership courses, Park Board directed leadership training, my staff, and listening to how other organizations have altered their management style. To a certain extent I’ve changed a bit in how I see effective leadership working.
Being an emergency response group, we always default to a strict chain of command system where it’s very clear who tells who what to do during crisis. This is essential in responding to emergencies because of its consistency and practicality. But when it comes to other types of tasks it seems to work better for us to take a different approach. If we’re figuring out what types of training would work best, working on a maintenance task, or deciding how best to keep guards’ morale up, we move to a non-hierarchical style. The working group may pick their leader/facilitator and the choice may not be made based on seniority or rank. The two systems are not mutually exclusive and through dialogue and practice we’re getting better at moving between the two models.
One example is that we let a working group decide what training they feel they need and let them choose who teaches the modules. After much discussion and debate they’re rotating through topics as diverse as oxygen delivery methods to kite board rescue. They chose relevant topics and are engaged and bought in to the process.
