Jenni Donohoo - Quality Implementation: Leveraging Collective Efficacy to Make What Works Actually Work

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People who have high collective efficacy will mobilize their efforts and resources to surmount the obstacles to the changes they seek (Bandura, 1998, p. 69).

Ray Navarro, a California fire chief, and his fellow firefighters always shared a strong conviction that they could succeed, despite all other circumstances. Navarro described how this worked to their advantage during a particular rescue that he and his team will never forget. It was a nearly impossible situation they encountered on January 12, 2012, when they were called to the scene of an accident on Highway 101 in Buellton, California. Kelli Groves, a second-grade teacher, and her two daughters were in a horrific automobile crash. The BMW that Kelli was driving was so badly crushed, it was barely recognizable.

Kelli was traveling to San Francisco with her ten-week-old daughter in a rear car seat and her ten-year-old daughter in the backseat next to her infant sister when a semitruck ran over the car, damaging it so badly, it seemed impossible that anyone could have survived. In our interview with Ray Navarro, he described how the firefighting team put their training and practice to use as the team got into operational mode. Below, Ray described how the team stayed focused, relied on their training, and worked interdependently during the two-hour rescue operation.

I recall when arriving on the incident and scene, we had three different things that were going on at the time. We had a semitruck that had demolished Kellis BMW. The semitruck went over the highway where there was a gap between two bridges, fell one hundred feet, and exploded into flames. Unfortunately, the driver had perished. Hazardous materials had spilled from the truck, and we have this car dangling off a bridge by a tire with people inside. Kelli could feel the heat from the flames coming up the cavern between the two bridges and informed us her daughters were in the backseat. We were also dealing with a traffic jam and a road closure on a major freeway.