Oops. The last post (comms problems) was number III of discussing the Fennessey interview, and this one is actually IV, and the final one in the series.
I said, well, in many cases, and I’ll just speak about the DOI, it’s a culture of no, you know? And when you ask, well, why not? It’s like we have no money. And that’s not true. That’s not true. It’s all about priorities. And I think when you go through a career, maybe for decades, where the answer is always no, why would I surface any new idea? Why would I step forward and do anything? All they’re going to do is say no, and they’re going to say there’s no money for it. That’s not true.
When I moved from Region 6 to Region 5, I noticed that the Forest Service trucks were dirty where I was. When I asked why, they said “we don’t have the money”, implying that Region 6 could have clean trucks because they had more money. So as Fennessey points out, even in my own non-fire experience, culture is a thing. But back to the “culture of no.”
I’d add something, again, from my experience. It’s not just a “culture of no” but at least these three things (and you can add your own). First, so many people all have to agree to change anything important. I think of it as a long line of toggle switches that all need to be switched on. Only one “off” means that your idea goes nowhere. And with the large centralized shops (say IT or HR) you don’t have the human relationships with the folks working there to give them the encouragement to broach a new idea with their superiors.
Second is a culture (this is FS, I don’t know about Interior) in which trying to make things better can be seen as complaining. And complaining about things that can’t be changed (see 1 above) is bad for morale. I used to say (back to the fleet analogy,) that the culture was if you complain about the tire pressure, you might be put in charge of fleet management. So there was a grumbling aspect (not good for teams) plus a “you point it out, you fix it” aspect.
Third is the existence of “antibodies to change.” If you managed to get past 1 and 2, there is a tendency to go back to the way it was, and again, it only takes one person higher up to squash your innovation.
My example has to do with Service First on the San Juan Public Lands Center. As I recall, the Forest Service and BLM there used dual delegation of the Forest Supe and Deputy (Mark Stiles and Bill Dunkelberger). At one time, we were going to do a joint RMP/Forest Plan (this was finalized in 2013) , and we did do a joint review of the unit between BLM and the FS (I was one of the co-leads, hence my knowledge). As part of the review, we spoke with many members of the public, who were all enthusiastic. And things were going along swimmingly, or so it seemed. One day, as far as I know, they received a phone call from a higher up who said “stop.” I don’t know why, maybe they do, or maybe the people who decided do. What leader would want to put people through the excitement of doing something grand for the land, the people, and the taxpayer, only to have everyone’s hopes crushed by apparently random decisions of higher-ups? Which may have been rooted in power or control issues, who knows?
One side note to all this. Through many parts of Colorado, BLM and FS land is adjacent. And yet, the BLM did various assessments that sounded the same as FS assessments of the same thing. Why couldn’t they a joint assessment using the same variables measured the same way? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a joint Interior/FS team nationally that looked at “things we could do together and save bucks?” Plenty of that goes on locally, but does anyone look at that more broadly?
**********
Circling back to the wildland fire organization, in this THW interview with Dan Kleinman, Kleinman notes that there was an experiment with siloed wildfire people in the FS, which gradually changed back. Apparently the antibodies were at work again, or maybe there is a document somewhere that says it was an experiment that didn’t work? Kleinman is the Chair of the Alliance of Retired Forest Service Fire Leaders. I couldn’t find their website, but here is info about them from THW.