TO: ALL WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
ALL NON-WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATERUS
FROM: KEN HARRIS WA8LLM
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS INCORPORATED
WOOD COUNTY BULLETIN NR 11.15 DATE: April 10, 2011
SUBJECT: ONE MAN SHOW
Have you ever heard the saying "One Man Show?" A one man show is when one person tries to do everything himself. This happens a lot when there are several activities going on at once and there is either not enough people to handle the task at hand, or one person wants to do it by themselves.
Trying to be a one man show does not work, it causes a lot of mistakes, some of them could be costly. In a disaster drill a few years ago the Incident Commander was trying to monitor and communicate on too many radios, and some of the traffic and calls to him were being missed. He should have had others help him with the communications.
In a true ICS (Incident Command System), the Incident Commander is the one in charge and he, or she divvies out the work or jobs to other people. Each of these people have a job to do and may have other people reporting to them. The ICS is a way to keep control of an incident and make sure that all bases are covered. No one person should try to do every job that needs to be done.
The person in charge should let others do the work while he, or she, monitors the situation. It's important for those involved with an event or incident know what is going on and be able to handle any job they are handed. When the job they are doing gets too big, then they need to split the job into more pieces and let someone else do some of the work.
The main thing to remember is no one person can do all of the jobs themselves, and they need to pass some of the work to others. At the same time others need to be ready and willing to step in and help.
Ken Harris WA8LLM
WCEC
Wood County WV