DON’T GET MAD, GET S.O.A.R.
TRAINING NOTEBOOK
IF YOU HAD just radioed an order for one of your engine officers to catch the Siamese, would you be surprised to see him holding a furry feline? What could you expect if you asked for monitor operations to be set up—a pile of radios in the street, maybe? Are you afraid to request a “reverse lay” because of bad experiences in the past? Perhaps you have a communications problem.
With the advent of mandatory implementation of the Incident Command System, many departments are undergoing major changes in their command and control procedures. Now is the time to evaluate and correct those old communications problems that hamper smooth operations.
For the first time our department has developed written procedures for command and control of most incidents after years of “seat-of-your-pants” decision making. We attempted to address all areas where a possible breakdown may occur.
Obtaining and maintaining control of any chaotic situation calls for skilled management and labor, decision making, task performance, strategy, tactics, and communications—specifically positive communications, or giving and taking orders.
The strategy the incident commander sets at a specific incident may be a true stroke of genius, but if this strategy cannot be communicated to the task performers in understandable language, what good is it? Goals and objectives must be realistic and obtainable considering the available resources. However, the simplest operation can go haywire with the omission of a single word.
For example, several years ago I rode out as one of four men on the tailboard (back in the days when such a practice was commonplace) of an engine responding to a working bam fire. As we arrived, there was an engine at the scene already connected to a hydrant. The officer of my engine dismounted from the cab, strode to the rear, and promptly gave his orders. He then did an about-face and returned to the front of the apparatus, at which time the other men on the tailboard immediately turned to me with a puzzled look and said, “What’d he say?”
Being the farthest person from him when the orders were given, I surmised he wanted a masterstream device laid from the engine already on the scene. After the fire was knocked down and some of the smoke had cleared, we realized we had not carried out the officer’s plans: Through the smoke you could see our engine carefully placed in a driveway at a very advantageous position for handlines to be laid ofL.with no supply line.
Who failed here? The officer, who did not convey his orders and ensure that they were understood? Or the firefighters, who did not ask the officer to repeat orders they did not hear? We all contributed to the total lack of communication. This situation breeds free-lancing, and free-lancing breeds unsafe acts and disorganization.
S.O.A.R. SYSTEM
As part of our policy changes, we adopted a system of giving and receiving orders called S.O.A.R.—Situation, Objectives, Assignment, and Repeat.
Say, for example, I need positivepressure ventilation to be placed immediately behind the initial attack crew. The truck company officer reports to me for assignment. I tell him briefly what the situation is, in this case one room of fire on the exposure 2 side, engine company on interior attack. The objectives are for the engine company to confine and extinguish the fire and for the truck company to ventilate it. I then give the assignment—for the truck company to set up positive-pressure ventilation behind the attack line, exposure side 1. Finally, after providing enough information for the orders to be understood and issuing them in short and simple terms, I must ensure that I have communicated them successfully by having the truck company officer repeat them.
In the year since we instituted S.O.A.R., commanders have reported less incidence of failure to understand or carry out orders. They have also noticed better coordination between groups operating in separate sectors because each task commander knows the overall situation and objectives set by the incident commander. The company-level commanders are reporting less confusion and better coordination among themselves because they have more information and more oppportunities to ask questions and provide input.
In general, we frown on a unit giving an “OK” or “10-4″ signal via radio. As a commander, have you ever issued an order to a unit and wished you could see the individual’s face because of the tone of his voice? While he responds affirmatively, you can just tell by his voice that he has no idea what you really want. Instead, we recommend that the receiving unit paraphrase all orders to relay back to the commander to show comprehension.
You can use S.O.A.R. with radios or telephones, but it works most effectively face-to-face. The next time your order is misinterpreted, try S.O.A.R.