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Turtles, Circumstances, and Change

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Hilton Head Engine 7Just this week, not only on our relatively quiet haven of Hilton Head Island, but right here in the community in which I live (Palmetto Dunes), comes a story which has become national news.  Before I knew it would be on CNN and everywhere else, I read in our Island Packet this article on a romantic proposal gone wrong, and the subsequent death of sea turtles.  Now while I never really thought I might read in the same article anywhere, the words “sea turtle”, “romance”, and “death”, you really might be wondering, “What does this have to do with the fire service?”  I can reassure you that it does. 

 

How it does is that it clearly illustrates the law of unintended circumstances.  I’d be willing to bet you that no one involved in this story desired to kill off 60 turtles and had no idea that their simple luminary tribute to the sanctity of marriage would touch off what ended up on the AP news feed.  But as a result of something they did, or might also be the case in our situation in fire and emergency services, didn’t do, there was heartache, conflict, and even injury and death.

 

Actions are taken in our fire stations and on emergency scenes on a daily basis that sometimes go badly, and I would venture to guess that 99.9% of actions that resulted in poor outcomes were purely unintentional.  However unintentional these actions (or inactions) are, though, our actions may have wide-ranging impact on our entire organization.  Our actions or inactions may not even be noticed today, or could end up as front page news.  We must constantly be vigilant of the actions we take and how they affect our current situation, and even more importantly, our team, our agency, and our customers.  What may seem insignificant to us may end up costing someone their life later.

 

Working together as a team, we have to have the courage and the ability to say, “Hey, that doesn’t look right” to our colleagues, and they should also be able to say it to us.  It’s a basic tenet of crew resource management.  Fostering this attitude in your team requires cultural and social change, especially in our traditional paramilitary hierarchy.  Our most important role in this concept is awareness of the things we do and importantly enough, to do things right, as well as to be open to the suggestion from others that we should be doing something differently.

 

Being in the position of a transformational leader requires more than being right, it requires us to be open to the idea that we might not be.  As part of a team, when we make a mistake, we must strive to understand what occurred and what the results were, so that we and others don’t repeat that mistake.  When we mistakenly lay off blame we don’t really learn from the mistake. 

 

I had a driver once who had a minor accident with the apparatus we were assigned to.  It was obviously a result of a failure for someone else to do their job.  But he owned that situation and every time he pulled out of the station from then on out, I noticed him looking to insure it never happened again.  It is imperative for us to understand our shortcomings (hey, I have many), own them, and resolve to do better next time. 

 

I’d say that if that couple ever does decide to re-visit our Island again, they’ll never forget to blow out the candles when leaving the beach.  It’s called a watershed moment,  In our lives, it is one thing, but when we have one of these events occur while operating as part of a team we are tasked with leading, it is a requirement that we critique it, learn from it, and resolve to not let it happen again.

Posted by truck6alpha on September 25, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, General, Media Relations, change, customer service, education, fire service, leadership, officership, professionalism, revolution, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Ambition

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At Mass today there was a reading from the Letter of St. James that got me thinking: “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.”  It goes on to say, “Where do the conflicts among you come from?  Is it not from passions that make war within your members?”

It reminded me of several passages from the Tao Te Ching, one of which says: “Those on tiptoe don’t stand up, those who take long strides do not walk; those who see themselves are not perceptive, those who assert themselves are not illustrious.”

These are some teachings that have lasted centuries and what, exactly have we taken from them?  When I was younger, I wanted it all.  When I grew up and could have it all, it was hard at first for me to understand, but I realized that it wasn’t altogether worth it.  Power comes from within and can’t be seized.  If you let it come to you, it will.

Conflict comes from people wanting something.  The amusing part of that is those who have power will say all day long, “If you really want it, you have to let it come to you.”  I’ve found that to not exactly be true.  That concept relies on enlightened leaders seeking people who are also enlightened, and not on surrounding oneself with “yes-men” and deceivers.  Had I waited my whole life for people to come to me and ask for my help, I’d probably still be waiting.

Thus the neverending struggle between seizing opportunities and creating them;  I have put a significant amount of research into what it would take for me to get from Point “A” to Point “B” and in some cases, made it happen.  I’m happy to say, however, that a lot of what I have accomplished has actually come about because I didn’t walk up the backs of others to get where I am at.

Ambition is not necessarily a bad thing; being deceptive, manipulative, and doing things contrary to the good of the team and the public we serve is.  What we individually have as a vision of our organization is proper if it involves service to the people we are charged to protect and assist, and not if it involves the “benefits” of public service.  By those, I mean the “perks” of having a badge, importance in the community, and the ability to lord over others and speak down to people.

There is such a thing as being an advocate for those who have no power, for standing up and doing the right thing, even when the right thing requires going out of our way to do so.  The other day I was driving down the road in my chief’s wagon and saw a family broken down on the side of the road.  I also saw several other official vehicles (not ours, thank God) pass these people by.  Had I been going somewhere in a hurry, would I have stopped?  Maybe those other official vehicles had places to go and people to see.  I stopped and helped them out.  They were grateful but I didn’t do it for their gratitude, I did it because it was the right thing to do.

As leaders, are we interested in the chase for power?  Or what we can do with the power once we have it?  I was talking about money with my oldest daughter today and explained to her, what good is money if you already have what you need and you are more interested in accumulating “stuff”?  Wouldn’t it be a better idea to help others who are in need, or at least taking the time to do something nice for others?  Once we hit the mark we desired, as a company officer, or a chief officer, what will we do with that newly found power?  Will we share it with others and empower them?  Or will we use it to beat others down and tell them what to do and where to go?

Posted by truck6alpha on September 20, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, change, command, customer service, fire service, firefighting, leadership, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Tribes

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I’ve been pretty busy lately so I haven’t been able to post.  Something about the end of summer, doing deliveries and computer stuff for my wife’s company, doing the initial planning and contacts for our annual Down Syndrome Buddy Walk, and of course, getting the kids back to school.  With all of that, something really important is also this weekend, the beginning of football season.

When I met my wife almost 20 years ago, I’ll admit, I was not as much of a college football fan as I was of the NFL.  But my very subtle leanings toward the Notre Dame Fighting Irish became pretty intense as a result of my wife’s having attended the University, as well as much of her family.  It was in becoming part of the Powers clan that I learned much more about the University of  ”Our Mother” and really more than what I saw on TV that I liked.  I learned more about what the University means to the alums (and to us “subway alumni”) because of their adherence to higher standards, standards that may not have recently evolved into winning on the football field, but standards that have resulted in producing people of integrity, faith, and dedication.

But this isn’t a blog about that.  This blog is about tribes.  The “tribe” that I am a member of, those of Notre Dame fans, is so because of what the University means to me.  It’s not because the number of games in the win column (although that’s nice), it’s because of what they stand for.  There aren’t names on the backs of their shirts because it’s not about the individual, it’s about the team.  The student-athletes at the Univeristy of Notre Dame are expected to graduate; they’re not just taking up a scholarship for the purpose of winning.  When I wear a shirt identifying me as a supporter of Notre Dame, it’s because of my pride in the school and the product it turns out; from the people I have met, those would be educated, compassionate, involved people.  I am proud of my association with the University, even if it is only as a supporter and not an alumni.

Why do people wear shirts or hats or anything with a logo on it?  Generally, it’s because they identify with the group or product that the logo represents.  People wear logos or get tattoos often because they are trying to send a subtle (or not so subtle) message; “I relate to this advertisement”.  People put stickers on their cars for the same reasons.  They are trying to say, more often than not, “I like what this represents”.

Why do we wear firefighter logos or tats?  Why do we sport “colors” even when we don’t have to?  I live in a resort community and often I’ll be shopping at the supermarket and see someone wearing a t-shirt with a FD logo on it.  I always ask- “You on the job?”  Surprisingly enough, some of them are not.

We identify with our fire service identity because it is meaningful to us.  If it were not, we would certainly not advertise it.  If we worked with the “Loser Fire Department”, something tells me we wouldn’t wear their shirt when we were off duty.  We’d probably wear someone else’s.  Or maybe we wear the shirt of another department simply because we identify with them as brother firefighters.  I have a shirt that is one of my most prized possessions, the shirt a Capitan Miguel of “Cuerpos de Bomberos y Rescate, Cancun, Quintana Roo” told a firefighter to take off and give to me when his own shirt didn’t fit me.  I can’t even imagine that happening here in the States and interestingly enough, the same thing happened to my brother in Dublin, Ireland.

So the short version of this is, if we are so proud to associate with each other as brother firefighters, why is it that we continue to battle each other over trivial items and fail to band together to achieve greatness?  Even when we realize that we have more in common than we don’t, we continue to bicker and we fail to get together to realize gains in important issues, like sprinkler legislation, fire prevention, embracing accountability and incident management strategies, and especially in firefighter safety.

Then, what makes things even worse, is when we have people who bring disgrace to what we value.  People who represent themselves as members of our brotherhood who do things contrary to our mission, by setting fires or calling in false alarms, because they are “bored”.  People who steal from their brother firefighters, and people who say they are something when they are not, and in doing so, short-change those who HAVE earned the right to wear the badge or the patch.  And of course, people who wear the colors but don’t train and don’t work toward betterment of of their team, people who are just filling a spot.

Although I never went to Notre Dame, I realize that when I am wearing a logo on my shirt that says I support Notre Dame, that in some small way, I do represent what that stands for, even though anyone with a few bucks can go down the street and buy one easily enough.  But when I am in a crowd and I see someone wearing something with an “ND” on it, I yell, “GO IRISH!” to them and in a lot of cases, the person ends up stopping and talking to me about the University, or this year’s team, or the last time they were on campus.  We have an immediate friendship because of our common interest and of course, our view as to what is good about our “team” is often something we share.

When you are wearing your colors, your fire department colors, are you saying something good about your organization?  Are you trying to tell others that you are proud to be associated with that group? Or worse, are you ashamed to be wearing anything identifying you as part of your organization because of what they are and what they stand for?  if so, perhaps you should consider associating yourself with a different team.  I think if you wear the colors, but constantly bad-mouth the organization, then you probably should look really hard at what it is that you think the team is about and ask yourself if you really do want to continue being associated with that group.  Maybe it’s a message to move on.

We don’t wear items that associate us with things we detest.  We may not be completely in love with whatever it is that we happen to be wearing, but I can reassure you, no one wants to wear ANYTHING that has any identification with something they hate.  So if you like it enough to wear it, and that patch happens to be the trademark of the organization you are a part of, shouldn’t you be doing whatever it is that YOU can do to make that team better, or at least showing that you endorse what that group is all about?

When I put on a blue t-shirt that happens to come from your organization, I can reassure you, I wear it because I have a lot of pride in the fire service, enough pride that when someone says to me, “You on the job?”, I say back, “Yeah, I’m a firefighter”.  How many other jobs are out there where people do that?

Posted by truck6alpha on September 5, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, Media Relations, change, customer service, education, firefighting, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism • Tagged: , , , , , , ,