Tactical Mastery and the 10,000 hour rule - Physcologists have studied many elite people from different professions to see how much time was invested to master their chosen skillset. Many have concluded that investing roughly 10,000 hours, takes the average person to the elite. One of these studies conducted by K. Anders Ericsson looked at violinists and divided them into three classifications. These three categories were "Stars", "Good" and just "Average" players. The third category was noted to most likely never play the violin professionally and would probably become music teachers.  The study also revealed that stars... "the elite musicians" had invested roughly 10,000 hours during their career development. The middle of the road, "good players" were in the 6,000-8,000 hour range, these people played well with a high level of confidence and the latter was in the 2,000 hour range.   Now if we were to look at one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time The Beatles, they had a unique development back story. You see John Lennon and Paul McCartney started playing together in 1957. This was (7) years prior to the Beatles invasion of the United States music scene.
Up until 1960, The Beatles were just a struggling high school band that was mediocre at best. But in 1960, they were afforded an opportunity by chance to travel to Hamburg, Germany to play regularly.  These Hamburg, Germany gigs were (7) nights a week and the performances were (8) hours per night. Prior to their success in the United States, The Beatles had polished there live act an estimated 1,200 times.  That developmental time was a critical component to their mastery.  Even today, many bands will never play twelve hundred times in their entire career. If we were to add up "The Beatles" investment in mastering their sound and stage presence, it totaled around 10,000 hours. By the time they landed in the United States, they had been together for over (8) years and took the music scene by storm.

 

The fire service has many different levels of fire service delivery. We can see different levels of service delivery within many of our own personnel. There can be three categories of firefighters within the fire service similar to what Ericsson concluded.  Many times I hear the standard internet forum argument that we are "all trained the same".  I will agree that on paper we truly are trained the same if we all attended a nationally accredited program.  But looking deeper into that statement, why do many fire department's have a few, elite, go-to-firefighters or company officers?  And in the same scan of the fire ground, you can find some firefighters who are just sliding by as well...  A lot can be attributed to an individual's personal desire to provide the best service possible, but in a side by side comparison of equally trained brothers, it can also be the commitment towards mastering the job that makes the difference. This mastery takes an enormous amount of time and effort. And that time on the job can often be related to the 10,000 hour rule.  Firefighters who take the fire service seriously, you know the ones who treat everyday as a training day, the brother or sister who is invested into following the latest training materials, techniques or scientific studies are investing in their own mastery. I often tell my firefighters to "invest in your mind and become a student of the fire service".  Another motivational phrase I use is "be a master of your domain".  You see when I was a younger, I will admit I had low self esteem and lacked confidence in my fire service skillsets and I believe to this day that many new firefighters have the same concerns.  That being said, having a solid foundation of basic skillsets, combined with field experience starts to provide personal character growth. While the firefighter gains confidence in his or her abilities, he or she is ultimately building self esteem. As a student for life, your commitment toward obtaining mastery is important toward self preservation. Firefighters who feel they know everything about the job, are a danger to themselves and others. This mentality will eventually catch the complacent firefighter off guard and under trained.  To achieve mastery we must be a student for life.

  A lot of people ask me why I chose to teach while off duty. My answer to them is while training others, I am constantly practicing my skill sets which ultimately make me a better firefighter.  I like to tell firefighters that "time on the bottle" is critical.  I am not talking about the beverage type either, "time on the bottle" being the SCBA. You see the more that I wear my self contained breathing apparatus, the more comfortable I become with the actual unit, its capabilities, the limitations of the device and ultimately the environment for which I am expected to work in. Now I understand not everybody has the opportunity to be exposed to 300-400 hours of training annually. But if you are training to the bare minimum, like 2 hours per month which category are you naturally going to fall into?  If and when you do obtain the 10,000 hour rule within the fire service, those experiences will provide you with a high level of confidence. Like I said earlier, many will achieve this later in their career. It all depends on the time available to commit to training, emergency responses and daily exposures to the job in general.  One thing that is fact though, is all of these experiences will better align the firefighter to become an officer down the road. There is a clear reason why some promotional candidates present with a high level of personal confidence. Command presence is all about having the right amount of tools in your toolbox, the knowledge of how those tools work (training) and the field experiences that all equate towards tactical mastery.

 

Stay Safe Brothers and Sisters and Train On...

Billy Greenwood, host of "Tap the Box" on Fire Engineering Radio

 

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