The Firehorse Effect

• In the early 20th century, a horse pulling a wagon would all of a sudden gallop towards a burning building nearby, endangering itself, the driver, & the passengers. What was the reason for this peculiar phenomenon? And why does this matter today?
• Fire has been one of the biggest dangers that humans have faced ever since they started living in structures. In the olden days, firefighting was a community responsibility. When a fire broke out, the people in a town or a village would form a "Bucket Brigade". 
• Visualize a double-line of people passing buckets of water from a nearby water-source to the fire, and sending empty buckets back to be refilled. That’s a Bucket Brigade. Eventually, tanks of water, hand pumps, & hoses became the preferred firefighting equipment. 
• Then came steam pumps, more powerful & efficient. Great, but the equipment got heavy & it became difficult for firefighters to pull it to wherever the fire was. What to do? 
• Enter horses. It wasn’t an easy change. Horses had to be trained to reliably run towards a fire. They also had to be strong. As horses became more commonly used to pull fire engines, places like Detroit even created a Horse College, along with report cards for each horse (!) 
• What happens when one is trained to do a job well, is systematically evaluated, & rewarded or punished based on job performance? One often gets rather good at that job. Same with these firehorses. 
• At some point, a firehorse would be retired from the firefighting job & given the job of pulling wagons on the street. A new job! Things were generally fine in the beginning. 
• But whenever a former firehorse heard a fire alarm or felt the presence of a fire nearby, it instinctively galloped towards the fire: terrorizing its drivers, passengers, & owners. 
• This firehorse did a rather poor job in its new context due to the very behaviors and patterns that were reinforced in its old context. Twitter, this is the Firehorse Effect. 
• The Firehorse Effect is why some accomplished business leaders fail to inspire, create a compelling strategy, eliminate drama, or rebuild the culture when they take on a leadership role in a new organization. The Firehorse Effect is also why a manager with a string of prior successes is just unable to execute at your startup. 
• What can be done about the Firehorse Effect? As with most such things, the solution needs to be grounded in Self-awareness, Organizational-awareness, & Sound Management. Leaders in a new setting should regularly think about the Firehorse Effect. 
• Leaders in a new setting should take the time to observe & learn. Doing is important, but doing without a deep understanding of one’s new role can be frustrating or even fatal. 
• The leader should invite people to challenge them. Ask "X has worked for me in the past, will it work here?" And the leader's managers & mentors need to help accelerate this process by candidly sharing organizational context & feedback during the leader's early days. 

This term is coined by Shreyas Doshi, I heavily recommend reading his writing for organizational and leadership development.