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The New Year: The Object of Power

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Orwell said:

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.  The object of persecution is persecution.  The object of torture is torture.  The object of power is power.

Once empowered, as we discussed before in this blog, what would you do with it?  Use it to beneficial means?  Punish your detractors?  Lift the world?

Legitimate power, in the sense of leading others, is limited to the amount of leverage your followers will permit you. Granted, you can dismiss those who don’t agree with you in some cases, but the shouting never goes away.  The powerful may believe themselves to be so, but the mighty can at once be chopped down by the feeble. If you doubt that, there are hundreds of stories in which this can be shown to be true.

I’m not impressed because there’s a bridge named after you, or a building, or even a document.  Maybe if your image is imprinted on currency, that might change things.  But the truly powerful are so because they have empowered others and that lasting image of mentorship, of fostering knowledge, of truly leading others, because others have granted you that privilege, well, that is real power.

Only the truly transformative and engaging leaders can provide that kind of experience, where their vision is communicated and moved forward by others.  This is a concept that transcends professionalism; it is embracing leadership as a calling.  Do you want to be an ordinary leader, or one that is powerful?  Leadership at this level requires commitment, honesty to self, and an understanding of the world.  It’s yours if you can embrace change, open yourself up to it, and to set the example to others.

Happy New Year.  Lead on.  We’re watching.

Posted by on December 31, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Strategy

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From Miyamoto Musashi, “Go Rin No Sho”:

It is said the warrior’s is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways. Even if a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assiduously to both divisions of the Way. Generally speaking, the Way of the Warrior is resolute acceptance of death. Although not only warriors but priests, women, peasants and lowlier folk have been known to die readily in the cause of duty or out of shame, this is a different thing. The warrior is different in that studying the Way of strategy is based on overcoming men. By victory gained in crossing swords with individuals, or enjoining battle with large numbers, we can attain power and fame for ourselves or our lord. This is the virtue of strategy.

Posted by on December 18, 2010 • Filed under: command, Command & Leadership, leadership

FHZ On The Road – Upcoming Classes through Task Force 1

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I’ve been really busy getting the home ready for the holidays. In the meanwhile, though, here’s an update on where and when I’ll be in your part of the world:

February 19-20 – Command for Company Officers, Ballardsville FD, Crestwood, KY (near Louisville)

March 8-9 – Command for Company Officers, Canyon Lake, TX

March 10-11 – Incident Safety Officer, Canyon Lake, TX

March 26 (one day class) – Command 101, Johnson City, NY (near Binghamton)

I expect to continue working with Ron Richards and Task Force 1 to present some really dynamic programs.  There are also some real quality courses being presented that I am not teaching, and you can see those class offerings in this link.  and I even have one in the works that I’ll hopefully be offering beginning in late Spring 2011.  If you are interested in having me come teach or speak at your event, I’m happy to work with you, or point you toward Ron who can help set up some really nice programs with multiple instructors, if that’s what you are looking for.

I hope to have a nice post here in a few days when things settle down but it looks as if everyone else seems to be carrying the load right now just fine.  Until then, thanks again for reading and I hope you are having a great holiday season.

Posted by on December 14, 2010 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, Major Incidents, News, professionalism, Training & Development, training-fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Residential Fire Sprinkler Comparison

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Post-fire picture of a room with a single residential sprinkler head activation. Nice save.

We conducted a comparison burn today at Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue to demonstrate the effectiveness of residential sprinklers in the control of incipient fire. Since I was off, I was able to video it as your ordinary citizen and the crowd, which was pretty nicely sized for the Island on a Saturday morning, was very impressed.

I posted it to my personal Facebook page, but felt like this was important enough of a video to share it with all of you Firehouse Zen readers. Feel free to pass it on. (UPDATE: These are now posted to YouTube also).

The teamwork involved in putting this presentation was very encouraging: all three shifts participated in one way or another, led by Chief Fire Marshal Joheida Fister.  It’s another reason the people I work with at HHIFR are individuals I consider to be the best in the business and make me proud to be associated with them.  The funds for creating the demonstration were provided through a grant. The building of the props were done by HHIFR personnel and local businesses (including my personal favorite, KPM Flooring) contributed elements of each room, lumber, the sprinkler system, and the installation.

The first burn is of an unsprinklered furninshed room of frame construction.  The inner walls are sheetrock.  In addition to an ordinary fire load in a bedroom, a small Christmas tree was at the front of each room (which surprisingly did not significantly contribute to the fire load in either case until well into the fire spread, as you will see).  The detector activated in the first room in 9 seconds, the room was untenable and very shortly after flashed over in under a minute.

The second burn is an identically sized and furnished room, the only exception being the presence of a residential sprinkler head.

As I have said on my FB page, if this doesn’t illustrate the live-saving capability of residential sprinklers, I don’t know what else to tell you. You can dry things off after they get wet. You can’t unburn your family or your home. But I am obviously preaching to the choir. Therefore, it is important that you all share these videos to many, especially the non-firefighters you know. This is important information and these two videos pretty graphically demonstrate the difference.

While there is a significant amount of undeserved controversy regarding residential sprinklers, especially the myths of inordinate cost, the whole “Hollywood all-the-sprinklers-going-off-at-once” myth, and a number of other things, the reality is that with smoke detectors and sprinkler installation, more lives will be saved and fire loss will decrease.  It’s a no-brainer.  But it IS a tremendous cultural shift and most homeowners, not being accustomed to this type of protection device, are on the fence.  They will continue to be on the fence so long as we are pushing systems and others argue against them.  This is the time when we need to be the driving force to push harder.

Share the video.  This is a game-changer and we need to be behind it, at least if we really do ascribe to the notion that our first responsibility is the protection of life and property.

Posted by on December 4, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, Fires, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, professionalism, technology, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Credibility

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One of the biggest problems the fire service has is its credibility.  I received multiple e-mails over the past few weeks about a confined space training near-miss that in reading the information, I found to be pretty troubling.  Once again, it appears (at least from the published report) that training can get pretty hairy, especially when there is a certain amount of complacency among students and instructors.  But it goes to a deeper question: When training, at what point do we raise our hand and say, “Hey, something doesn’t seem right here”?

When we engage in fire, EMS, and rescue activities, we are participating in what is considered to be an extraordinarily dangerous setting.  In training, we have the ability to create scenarios that test our students, but we as course designers must consider the alternative outcome to successful completion of a task, and by that, I am referring to failure.  When someone is unable to complete a task, or the environment becomes too daunting, or unforeseen events occur, there has the be the ability to directly swing into normalcy (read: safety).

In burn buildings we provide extra exits and in high-line rescue training we continually monitor redundant belays.  Whatever the topic, we intentionally build our scenarios to consider the “what if?” events that might occur.  While crawling through an active 18-inch pipe might provide a “confidence building” exercise, what is the plan if someone gets stuck?  Or in the case at hand, weather creates a very real scenario?  Thankfully a greater disaster didn’t occur.  But while in confined space situations we must “train in representative spaces”, and nothing provides more realism than using the spaces themselves, we are also obligated to monitor those spaces and aggressively manage safety concerns for personnel.

When an instructor is telling you to do something that doesn’t seem right, there is also an obligation on the part of students to respectfully raise a hand and question the scenario.  Unfortunately, not every instructor out there is experienced or dedicated enough to insure that the proper learning environment is provided and adequately managed.  As real professionals, we need to not only do risk management on the emergency scene, but in training as well.  There are plenty of instructors from whom I have taken a class, only to walk away shaking my head.  If I am responsible for hiring instructors, I at least qualify them myself or seek the advice of colleagues who have worked with those people before.  Our business, however, is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs.  Look for credible instructors with a history of work when you are trusting someone with the lives of your personnel.  We kill and injure enough of our people in real situations.  There’s no reason to do the same when the urgency doesn’t exist.

Posted by on December 1, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, EMS Topics, FEMA, Fire Prevention & Education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, motivation, National Fire Academy, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,