Rescue Digest Helping You Help Others
Compliance, Cooperation, or Collaboration?
These are listed in order of how well your colleagues or subordinates will work with you.
Whether you were leading a group, or an entire organization, mentoring an individual or individuals, or acting in the role of an educator, today’s rule of three will help you clarify how well people are working together.
What are you were trying to figure it out yourself or trying to clarify it for others, if you’re thinking about expectations and consequences,
…it helps to have a clear and simple framework to describe how well people are hitting their targets.
Compliance
The lowest level allowable is compliance. While you may have some people who are not yet meeting this mark, it is obviously unacceptable to allow noncompliance in your organization. Not only is it important for you to make the “bare minimum” expectations clear to everyone, everyone should see that those standards are being upheld throughout the organization. That is not to say that anyone who becomes noncompliant for any reason should be fired, or even punished, but the bare minimum this should be clear to everyone. Once the expectations them selves are clear, you should make sure that it is clear for each member of the organization if they are failing to meet, meeting, or exceeding compliance.
Emergency services are unique professions in their need to act both individually and in teams. Type A personalities enjoy working individually and we love our individual freedom. We may chafe at having to be a true part of the team. That’s why, one level up from compliance, is cooperation. This is where people are just starting to be able to work together to achieve or exceed the goals set in compliance.
Some people think that they are real team players just because they can get through a call without openly fighting with the other people there working with.
Cooperation
Cooperation is one step up from compliance, and an important one because we have to be able to work not only with the other people in our organization, but also with people from other organizations. That’s right, you heard it here. Fire and EMS need to be able to work together. Firefighters and cops need to help each other out. And some organizations, and with some individuals, this is no problem. If there’s an issue, you need to clarify the difference between compliance, cooperation, and the highest level, collaboration.
The difference between cooperation and collaboration is the difference between a bunch of people working near each other, and people working as a true team.
Collaboration
Collaboration produces better results than you could ever get with just a bunch of people working together.
How one achieves collaboration will differ with the individuals and tasks involved, but it can only be achieved if everyone understands exactly the difference between compliance, cooperation, and true collaboration. Using this rule of three to provide a clear and simple framework of compliance, cooperation, and collaboration, should help you move forward to achieving those results.
