Smoke Jumpers-Young Men and Fire
Mark Kendall
11/21/2011
MGMT 313.002
Reframing: Smoke Jumpers
The Symbolic frame focuses on how humans make sense of the ambiguous world around them. Symbols take on many forms in an organization including, stories, ritual, language, and values. Whereas the political frame proposes that interdependence, divergent interests, scarcity, and power relations inevitably create political activity (Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal, 2008). In the case of the Smoke Jumpers, the mishandling of scarce resources, separation of collations, and their organizational culture lead to the disaster of Mann Gulch in August of 1949. Little to no unity existed among members of this organization which caused them to be doomed from the beginning. To fire-jump everything needs to be in unity in order for average men to commit their lives for the job. Power struggles and cultural norms impeded group cohesion causing sub-groups and ambiguity along the way. By using both the political and symbolic frames from Bowman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations we can begin to get a sense of what went wrong, and help suggest possible solutions.
Organizations are coalitions of assorted individuals and interest groups. The smoke-jumpers were a small coalition made up of mostly young inexperienced men, whose primary interest was to make as much money as they could. Although there were a couple experienced members among the group, the foreman Dodge, and the second in command Hellman among them. Dodge, an ex fire-jumper instructor, held most of the power in the coalition including, authority, positional, intellectual and experience. He would often reframe from using these to the benefit of the group. He was one of the most experienced jumpers in the outfit being there for more than 9 years. Yet he never seemed to be too interested in spreading his knowledge to his young, and inexperienced crew. He seemed to lack personal power within his team. This kind of power is only achieved through crew
11/21/2011
MGMT 313.002
Reframing: Smoke Jumpers
The Symbolic frame focuses on how humans make sense of the ambiguous world around them. Symbols take on many forms in an organization including, stories, ritual, language, and values. Whereas the political frame proposes that interdependence, divergent interests, scarcity, and power relations inevitably create political activity (Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal, 2008). In the case of the Smoke Jumpers, the mishandling of scarce resources, separation of collations, and their organizational culture lead to the disaster of Mann Gulch in August of 1949. Little to no unity existed among members of this organization which caused them to be doomed from the beginning. To fire-jump everything needs to be in unity in order for average men to commit their lives for the job. Power struggles and cultural norms impeded group cohesion causing sub-groups and ambiguity along the way. By using both the political and symbolic frames from Bowman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations we can begin to get a sense of what went wrong, and help suggest possible solutions.
Organizations are coalitions of assorted individuals and interest groups. The smoke-jumpers were a small coalition made up of mostly young inexperienced men, whose primary interest was to make as much money as they could. Although there were a couple experienced members among the group, the foreman Dodge, and the second in command Hellman among them. Dodge, an ex fire-jumper instructor, held most of the power in the coalition including, authority, positional, intellectual and experience. He would often reframe from using these to the benefit of the group. He was one of the most experienced jumpers in the outfit being there for more than 9 years. Yet he never seemed to be too interested in spreading his knowledge to his young, and inexperienced crew. He seemed to lack personal power within his team. This kind of power is only achieved through crew
Cited: Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal. (2008). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass. Maclean, N. (1993). Young men and fire. (pp. 39-109). Retrieved from http://learnonline.unca.edu/file.php/1415/Case_Assignment_-_SmokeJumpers.pdf