Monday Morning QBs

Comment

Comment by Matthew Trexel on April 8, 2010 at 10:20pm

It is very easy to criticize after the fact. It makes me cringe when I sit in a class where the instructor rips other firefighters on you tube videos. Give me an instructor who honestly criticizes his or her own mistakes. I believe in taking a mistake and making a teachable moment out of it, not taking it and beating someone over the head with it.

Comment by T. Hardeman on April 7, 2010 at 10:02am

You're absolutely right. Criticism can sting, especially when it is undeserved and comes from those who simply don't know the facts. Unfortunately, there are times when we either close our minds or let our egos get in the way and keep doing the same thing, the same way, and expecting different results. That's the definition of insanity. I believe another of your posts reflects that idea.

Comment by Paul Combs on April 7, 2010 at 9:55am

There is absolutely nothing wrong with POSITIVE criticism. My problem is the negative, demeaning, and contentious criticism that does nothing but make the situation worse. There's a big difference between "how do we learn from this?" and "I can't believe those idiots did that!".

It's bad enough when things go wrong, and most of us would suck-it-up, take the criticism, and learn from our mistakes - but having your nose shoved in it is an entirely different matter.

Comment by T. Hardeman on April 7, 2010 at 9:40am

Paul, surely we all can relate to the second-guess syndrome by folks who don't have all the facts. But, certainly, you aren't knocking the importance of "after incident reviews". In hindsight we all have 20-20 vision and can learn from our mistakes. I guess you could say that without hindsight, we just might lose sight of our hindsides!