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Training is important, but is perfect practice really necessary?
From my Kitchen Table blog at: http://thekitchentable.firerescue1.com/
Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach once famously said "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."
Old Vince had a good thought but face it, perfect practice on a regular basis is unattainable for most people. More importantly, is perfect practice really important to the fire service?
An unknown author's reply to this was "Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so screw practice."
Frankly, this is a really bad idea - don't give up before you start, or you have no chance of success except by sheer luck. What we do is much too important to trust only to luck.
I think my brother John has the best solution. He once told me that "Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough."
A little background on this...John is a cardiac anesthesiologist. He has been keeping patients alive during open heart surgery for over three decades. His explanation is that if you try to be perfect in the details of everything you do, you tend to get distracted by details. That often leads to missing an important part of the overall picture. When you're working on a critical process, if you achieve a workable solution to 100% of the problem, you're going to be successful almost all of the time. If you achieve perfection on 90% of the problem, the 10% you don't get to may kill a patient, a firefighter, or someone else.
Let's practice until we're good enough at everything we do.
Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach once famously said "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."
Old Vince had a good thought but face it, perfect practice on a regular basis is unattainable for most people. More importantly, is perfect practice really important to the fire service?
An unknown author's reply to this was "Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so screw practice."
Frankly, this is a really bad idea - don't give up before you start, or you have no chance of success except by sheer luck. What we do is much too important to trust only to luck.
I think my brother John has the best solution. He once told me that "Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough."
A little background on this...John is a cardiac anesthesiologist. He has been keeping patients alive during open heart surgery for over three decades. His explanation is that if you try to be perfect in the details of everything you do, you tend to get distracted by details. That often leads to missing an important part of the overall picture. When you're working on a critical process, if you achieve a workable solution to 100% of the problem, you're going to be successful almost all of the time. If you achieve perfection on 90% of the problem, the 10% you don't get to may kill a patient, a firefighter, or someone else.
Let's practice until we're good enough at everything we do.
Add a Comment
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Comment by Andy Marsh on February 12, 2009 at 5:36am
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While we may not achieve perfect practice, we should aim for it. Physicians, nurses, paramedics, emts and police officers, at least in this State, must attend continuing education in order to maintain their certification or licensure. There is generally no continuing education for firefighting certification or rescue practices. Is it needed? I don't know. I think we do a pretty good job on our own. Could it be better? Sure. We could say that about anything and everything. It's been said before by a number of well known and not so well known ffs. When things go bad, the fire service usually gets there first or gets called period. We may never be experts in all responses, but we sure have to appear that way, because the public expects us to. This has been said before too; "Train as you are to perform and perform as you are trained." Sadly, sometimes being good enough, is not enough. Perfection may well be out of reach. But why not work towards being better? Our residents, (sometimes our financial supporters, our "customers" as Bruno calls them) expect that. More importantly, our lives depend on it. Just my 2 cents worth. Thanks for the opportunity. TCSS.
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Comment by Mary Ellen Shea on February 11, 2009 at 11:53pm
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There's a repetitive component to training for the fire service. While we can't prepare for every scenario, the basic tasks, hydrants, laddering, entry, search and rescue, ventilation etc. remain the same.
The point of drilling on the basics is to kick start that "auto response". In terms of the fire service, I'm still far too new to state with any certainty that it works, but in my FAA Emergency Response training while employed in the airline industry, I can state with 100% certainty that repetitive training does and will kick in during an emergency. I had an emergency landing at the Dutchess County Airport with a full boat of passengers....no landing gear.
I found myself, in an almost out-of-body moment, performing the emergency procedures to the letter. Was I scared? Yeah. I was shaking through most of it, but that didn't keep me from thinking about the lives that were entrusted to me, or to my responsibilities, or to the countless hours I trained, and drilled, and trained.
The difference between a good firefighter and a great firefighter is mindfulness. .
While I was going through that emergency landing, my mind never stopped assessing. What was the situation? What could I do to facilitate a positive outcome?
think on your feet, drill like your life depends on it, because it does.
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Comment by BillySFCVFD on February 11, 2009 at 10:42pm
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After completing a task my Brother-in-law used to say "good enough for government work". Some might think that is a slam on government but I believe he was saying good enough period. What you stated Ben makes sense to me. Good enough. TCSS
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