This is a very interesting point Leanne Allen. Many of us speak romantically at how stories are shared by indigenous people and then move on. However, this may be a mistake.

The power of stories to be restorative, ‘to bring people back into the community fold when they have done wrong, but also to heal harm, and to inspire change,’ is a case in point. I will suggest an example.

 

Fire colleges throughout the world, teach and play out emergency scenarios to train their leaders. These can be highly interactive and stressful, as leaders test their skills against the problem in hand.

During the debrief, participants will be looking critically at themselves and others to seek better solutions. When they leave the room, particularly if the course is residential, discussions will continue. On return to their service information will be shared with colleagues. And this is how the formal culture works. Knowledge is shared, re-enacted and stored for future use.

 

The is a similar process at work on the station. Watches will discuss the job they have just attended. Although this may seem a simple process of talking about what happened. It is far more than this. Firefighters can be critical of their own actions and look for better ways of working. Sometimes this will be lead by watch officers, sometimes it will a conversation during a post incident cup of tea around the mess table.

 

At these times conversations will more likely lead by more experienced firefighters and they will bring in details of other similar incidents they have attended. On the successful watch, this process can be very forensic and through self reflections they train themselves to improve their skills.

 

Because firefighters move around, this knowledge can be shared with other watches and travel through whole services and internationally. Such are firefighters networks, that firefighters in New Zealand will hear about jobs in the rest of the world and vic versa. And during discussion they may innocently almost pre-plan for a time that they may experience a similar situation.

 

This is all very positive and both leaders formally and firefighters informally, build their skills to be the professionals that they are through the passing on of knowledge. However, there is a dark side. When the knowledge held by those with experience is passed on to less experienced firefighters, this can also include many toxic agendas. On the cusp of good and negative, is the need to bond as a team. Stay close and not share secrets. Clearly negative, are the agendas about maintaining firefighting as essentially a white male masculinity (see www.fitting-in.com). The details of this are not going to be pursued here because this is a post building on what Leanne Allen has written, about sharing stories.

 

I am sure colleges may regal against the thought that they are telling stories on their leadership courses. Saying that their knowledge is scientific, not a story. Nonetheless, there is a paradox here, because there is a very real potential to compare how the FRS shares knowledge with indigenous population’s stories (which is very real knowledge).

 

Getting to my second point. Do we need to think about how we can tap into this source of sharing through ‘stories,’ to seek to disrupt negative agendas on their home ground and spread the positives about equality.

 

 

 

Many women have their careers destroyed in FRS because of the behaviour of their colleagues.

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