B O O K S I N R E V I E W
In 1949, a forest fire claimed
the lives of 13 young men.
Their tragedy holds lessons for
today's organizations.
Prepare Your
Organization to
Fight Fires
by Karl Weick
Young Men and Fire
Norman Maclean
Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1992
What should the structure of a
small group be when its business is
to meet sudden danger and prevent
disaster? That question was not
posed by an arbitrage unit leader, a
turnaround artist, or an aircraft dis-
patcher coping with the blizzard of
tbe century. Instead, it was asked by
a former professor of English litera-
ture at tbe University of Chicago
wbo studied a forest fire tbat killed
13 young men.
Tbe professor, Norman Maclean
(1902-1990), is best known for bis
novella A River Runs Through It
(1976). Young Men and Fire, wbich
Maclean spent more tban a decade
researching and writing, was pub-
lisbed postbumously in 1992. It
cbronicles tbe attempt to extinguish
a deadly forest fire that raged in tbe
mountains of Montana in August
1949. Maclean combines interviews
with the survivors and other U.S.
Forest Service veterans, personal
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-fune 1996
see from what follows, minimal or-
observations of tbe remote Mann
Gulcb site, documents from Forest
Service arcbives, and mathematical
models of tbe blaze to reconstruct
tbe events of tbat tragic day nearly
balf a century ago.
On August 5,1949, at about 4 P.M.,
15 smoke jumpers - trained fire-
figbters but new to one anotber as
a group - parachuted into Mann
Gulch. The crew's leaders originally
believed that the blaze was a basic
"ten o'clock fire," meaning that the
crew would have it under control by
10 the next morning. Instead, the
fire exploded and forced the men
into a race for their lives.
The Mann Gulch fire may seem to
be a distant tragedy, but Maclean's
exploration of tbe event touches on
many questions of deep significance
for readers today. For those of us
concerned about leadership in orga-
nizations, the episode illuminates
problems facing corporate leaders.
Increasingly, corporate work unfolds
in small, temporary outfits where
the stakes are high, turnover is
chronic, foul-ups can spread, and the
unexpected is common. As we will
ganizations, exemplified by the crew
at Mann Gulch and found at a grow-
ing number of businesses, are sus-
ceptible to sudden and dangerous
losses of meaning.
Fight Fire with Fire
The fire at Mann Gulch probably
began on August 4 when lightning
set a small fire in a dead tree. The
temperature reached 97 degrees the
next day and produced a fire danger
rating of 74 out of a possible 100,
indicating the potential for the fire
to spread uncontrollably. When the
fire was spotted by a lookout on a
mountain 30 miles away, 16 smoke
jumpers were sent at 2:30 from
Missoula, Montana, in a C-47 trans-
port plane. (One man became ill and
didn't make the jump.) A forest
ranger posted in the next canyon, Jim
Harrison, was already on the scene
trying to fight the fire on his own.
Wind conditions that day were
turbulent, so the smoke jumpers and
their cargo were dropped from 2,000
feet rather than the usual 1,200. The
parachute connected to their radio
failed to open, and the radio was pul-
verized as it hit the ground. But the
remaining crew and supplies landed
safely in Mann Gulch by 4:10. The
smoke jumpers then collected their
supplies, which had scattered wide-
ly, and grabbed a quick bite to eat.
While the crew ate, foreman Wag-
ner Dodge met up with ranger Harri-
son. They scouted the fire and came
back concerned that the thick forest
near which they had landed could
become a "death trap." Dodge told
the second-in-command, William
Hellman, to take the crew across to
the north side of the gulch, away
from the fire, and march along its
flank toward the river at the bottom
of the gulch. While Hellman did
this. Dodge and Harrison ate a quick
meal. Dodge rejoined the crew at
Karl Weick is the Rensis Likert
Collegiate Professor of Organiza-
tional Behavior at the University of
Michigan's School of Business in
Ann Arbor. An earlier version of
this work was published in Ad-
ministrative Science Quarterly in
December 1993.
143
 5:40 and took his position at the
head of the line moving toward the
river. He could see flames flapping
back and forth on the south slope as
he looked to his left. Then Dodge
saw that the fire had suddenly
crossed the gulch about 200 yards
ahead and was moving toward them.
He yelled at the crew to rim from the
fire and began angling up the steep
hill toward the bare ridge of rock.
The crew was soon moving
through slippery grasses two and a
half feet high but was quickly losing
ground to the flames - eventually
towering at a height of 30 feet-rush-
ing toward them at a rate that proba-
bly reached a speed of 660 feet per
minute. Sensing that the crew was
in serious danger. Dodge yelled at
them to drop their tools. Two min-
utes later, to everyone's astonish-
ment, he lit a fire in front of the men
and motioned to them to lie down in
the area it had burned. No one did.
Instead, they ran for the ridge and
what they hoped would be safety.
Two firefighters, Robert Sallee and
Walter Rumsey, made it through a
crevice in the ridge unburned. Dodge
survived by lying down in the ashes
of his escape fire. The other 13 per-
ished. The fire caught up with them
at 5:56-the time at which the hands
on Harrison's watch melted in place.
Sense Making and Structure
It is easy to read about this fire and
conclude that it was a tragedy
caused by bad luck or poor decision
making. In fact, the problems at
Mann Gulch cannot be attributed
solely to those factors,- the reader
must also consider the issues of
"sense making" and structure. In
retrospect, Maclean knew that the
If is hard to
sense vvheri each
sees
smoke jumpers were meeting sud-
den danger. But the firefighters
themselves didn't know that. And
that very uncertainty is the core is-
sue in this disaster, and one that has
lessons for executives.
144
When the noise created by wind,
flames, and exploding trees is deaf-
ening and the temperature is ap-
proaching a lethal 140 degrees, and
when relative strangers who "love
the universe but are not intimidated
by it" are strung out in a line, people
can neitber confer with a trusted
neighbor nor pay close attention to
a boss who is vinknown and whose
commands make no sense whatso-
ever. As if these obstacles were not
enough, it is hard to make common
sense when each person sees some-
thing different-or nothing at all-be-
cause of the smoke.
But the level of disorganization at
Mann Gulch is not all that different
from what companies face today.
People are often thrust into unfamil-
iar roles to fulfill difficult tasks, and
small mistakes can combine into
something monstrous. Faced with
sudden crises, organizations that
seem quite sturdy can collapse.
We often attribute such collapses
to a company's wrongheaded strat-
egy or to a failed move into an un-
stable product market. We presume
that business problems arise from
bad decisions. The problem witb
this diagnosis is that the world of
decision making is about strategic
rationality and is built from clear
questions and answers that attempt
to remove ignorance.
The world of sense making, how-
ever, is different. Sense making is
about contextual rationality. It is
built out of vague questions, muddy
answers, and negotiated agreements
that attempt to reduce confusion.
The men at Mann Gulch did not
face clear questions such as: Where
should we go? When do we take a
stand? What should our strategy be?
Instead, they faced the
more basic, frightening
feeling that their roles
as firefighters no longer
worked. They were out-
running their past experi-
ence and were not sure
about what was happen-
ing or who they were.
As the events unfolded on that
August afternoon, the smoke-
jumper crew at Mann Gulch began
to unravel and lose its structure. As
it did so, tbe firefighters became anx-
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1996
ious and found it harder to make
sense of what was happening. Final-
ly, they were unable to understand
the one thing that would have saved
their lives, the escape fire.
At least two key events destroyed
the tenuous organization that held
the firefighters together. The first
occurred when Dodge told his sec-
ond-in-command, Hellman, to take
the crew to the north side of the
gulch. During the 20-minute period
of Dodge's absence, the crew became
confused and ended up in two groups
500 feet apart; each had its own
leader, one of whom was making up
his own rules as he went along. Hell-
man was more familiar with imple-
menting orders than with construct-
ing them or plotting possible escape
routes. As a result, tbe crew was left
for a crucial period with unclear or-
ders that were apparently challenged
by at least one crew member.
When Dodge reappeared on the
scene, he began to reunite the crew.
About five minutes later, he realized
that the fire had jumped the gulch
and was now proceeding toward the
men. At that point. Dodge was prob-
ably tbe only one to bave seen tbe
fire. He yelled at the crew to reverse
direction, which alarmed the fire-
fighters; they could not see the fire
yet but began to suspect that they
were running from one.
Eight minutes later, with disaster
only three minutes away. Dodge in-
structed the retreating crew to drop
their heavy tools. That was the sec-
ond-and in some ways more unset-
tling - threat to the role system.
A fire crew that retreats from a fire
rather than face it will necessarily
find its identity and morale strained.
But if retreating firefighters are then
told to discard the very tools that are
their reason for being tbere, the mo-
ment quickly turns existential. If
I am no longer a firefighter, then
who am I? With the fire bearing
down, the only possible answer is,
an endangered person in a world
where it is every man for himself.
It was under such circumstances
that the firefighters encountered
Dodge's escape fire. The foreman
pointed to it and yelled, "this way,
this way." But he could not persuade
the men; he overheard one of them-
 Igniting the power of many!
probably Hellman-say, "to hell with
Organizational Learning is your oniy sustainabie advantage—learn
that, I'm getting out of here."
front ttie leaders how to use it in your organization—attend Because clear communication, fa-
miliarity, and trust were missing,
I LEADING LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS the firefighters failed to understand
May 29-31, Los Angeles; June 12-14, Boston; July 22-24, Baltimore; that Dodge was actually setting the
August 12-14, Boston; September 18-20, San Francisco; September 25-27, New York fire to clear an area in which they
Learn to build and sustain high-performing organizations and "smart" would be safe. With no structure in
teams—produce results now. place and an absence of clear sense,
it is not surprising that the crew
I SYSTEMS THINKING would refuse to escape one fire by
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walking into another one that had
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Resilience and Wisdom
There are larger lessons in this
tragedy for those whose job it is to
make sense of environments that
suddenly change from the expected
to the unexpected, the inconceiv-
able, or the incomprehensible. To
point the way to safety in the face of
surprise, leaders today need to de-
velop resilient groups that are capa-
ble of four things: improvisation,
wisdom, respectful interaction, and
communication.
The collapse of role systems need
not result in disaster if people devel-
op skills in improvisation. By impro-
visation, I mean bringing to the sur-
face, testing, and restructuring one's
intuitive understandings of phe-
nomena on the spot, at a time when
action can still make a difference.'
Improvisers remain creative under
pressure precisely because they have
the ability to bring order out of
chaos. Thus, when situations unrav-
el, they can proceed with whatever
materials are at hand. Dodge knew
how to use the things at his disposal,
fire and brush, to create a safe area
where none existed.
If organizations paid more atten-
tion to improvisation, it would be
possible, when one organizational
order collapsed, to invent a substi-
tute immediately. Swift replace-
ment of a traditional order with an
improvised one can forestall the
confusion that follows a command
such as "drop your tools" or "jump
into this fire."
Wisdom is the second source of re-
silience. To understand its role in
this case, we need to remind our-
selves of the crew's belief that most
fires could be extinguished by 10 the
next morning. That was consistent

with the general experience of
smoke jumpers in 1949 and with
their belief in their ability to control
any fire they landed on. Their major
purpose was to put out fires so fast
that they didn't become big ones.
The "tragic corollary," as Maclean
calls it, is that the smoke jumpers
could not learn much about big fires
by fighting small ones.
To state the point more generally,
what most organizations miss - and
what explains why most fail to
learn - is that ignorance and knowl-
edge grow together. The more people
learn about a particular domain, the
more questions they raise about
other areas in that same domain.
The organizational culture best
able to accept that ignorance and
knowledge grow together is one that
values wisdom. In a fluid world,
wise people know that they don't
fully understand what is happening
at a given moment, because what is
happening is unique to that time.
They avoid extreme confidence and
extreme caution, knowing that ei-
ther can destroy what organizations
need most in changing times, name-
ly, curiosity, openness, and the abil-
ity to sense complex problems. The
overconfident shun curiosity be-
cause they think they know what
they need to know. The overcau-
tious shun curiosity for fear it will
only deepen their uncertainties.
Both the cautious and the confident
are closed-minded, which means
that neither make good judgments.
In this sense, wisdom, understood as
simultaneous belief and doubt, im-
proves adaptability.
Wise behavior is easier to display
in a setting where people are respect-
ful of the interactions that hold the
group together. Respectful interac-
tions have three imperatives: Re-
spect the reports of others and be
willing to base beliefs and actions on
them (trust); report so that others
may use your observations in com-
148
B O O K S I N R E V I E W
ing to valid beliefs (honesty); and
respect your own perceptions and
beliefs and integrate them with the
reports of others without depreciat-
ing them or yourself (self-respect).^
If a role system collapses among
people for whom trust, honesty, and
self-respect are underdeveloped,
then they are on their own. And fear
often swamps their resourcefulness.
If, however, a role system collapses
among people for whom trust, hon-
esty, and self-respect are
developed, then new op-
tions, such as mutual
adaptation, blind imita-
tion of creative solutions,
and trusting compliance
are created. When a for-
mal structure collapses,
there are no leaders, roles, or rou-
tines; the situation no longer makes
sense. That is what seems to have
happened in Mann Gulch. Dodge
couldn't lead, because the role sys-
tem in which he was the leader dis-
appeared. Worse, he couldn't rely on
his crew members to trust him,
question him, or pay attention to
him, because they didn't have time
to get to know him. The key ques-
tion is. When formal structure col-
lapses, what is left? The answer is
communication, but only if there
is trust and time.
It is striking how little communi-
cation occurred during
the three and a half
hours that the crew
was together. There
was apparently little
discussion during the
noisy, bumpy plane
ride or while the men
retrieved equipment scattered on
the ground. After a meal together,
people began hiking toward the river
but quickly got separated. They
were suddenly turned around and
told to run for the ridge, and they
quickly ran out of breath scaling the
steep north slope. The point is an
important one: Evidence is growing
that nonstop talk is a crucial source
of coordination in complex systems
that are susceptible to disasters.
Readers may conclude that the
world they face is simply not as
threatening or explosive as the one
faced by the men at Mann Gulch.
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1996
Remember, however, that in the be-
ginning the Mann Gulch fire seemed
safe and small. And when events are
increasingly interdependent-as they
are in today's world-small, unrelat-
ed flaws can interact to produce a
forest fire blowup or a currency mar-
ket meltdown. Maclean tells us that
the fire at Mann Gulch was shaped
by "little screw-ups that fitted to-
gether tighter and tighter until all
became one and the same thing-the
fateful blowup."
Maclean's book helps us talk more
candidly about little mistakes that
escalate. Talking about Mann Gulch
at a distance of nearly 50 years en-
ables us to glimpse vulnerabilities
that lie much closer at hand. To
grapple with those vulnerabilities
and design our way around them is
not an exercise in rationality and de-
cision making. Instead, it is a task
that requires a closer look at the so-
cial context in which sense making
creates the decisions that people
think are so crucial.
Mann Gulch teaches us that the
real action occurs long before deci-
sions ever become visible. By the
time a decision needs to be made,
sense-making processes have al-
ready determined its outcome.
That's why, in answer to Maclean's
question about the need for better
structures to meet disaster, we need
to design structures that are resilient
sources of collective sense making.
If, instead, we design for better deci-
sion making, then we improve a mi-
nor portion of organizational life
that occurs too late to make much
difference. Sense making is where
the action-and the tragedy-live.
1. See D.A. Schon, Educating the Reflective
Practitioner (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987].
2. See Donald T. Campbell, "Asch's Moral
Epistemology for Socially Shared Knowledge,"
in The Legacy of Solomon Asch: Essays in Cog-
nition and Social Psychology, ed. Irwin Rock
(Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1990|, pp. 39-52.
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