I have been following with interest the discussion of a National Firefighter Code of Ethics.  The other day I saw that Ken Willette, the Public Fire Protection Division Manager at NFPA, blogged about the one written by the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firemen's Association this past year.  Being obtuse, like I often am, I had actually never gone to the FirefighterBehavior.com blog although I have seen some of the well-written articles that have come from posts on there.  Nothing like going to the source, huh?  Well, if you haven't done it, you need to go yourself, and when you are through, being the fire service leaders I sense you are, send your people there as well.

But this doesn't stop at the fire service.  In fact, as I have said many times before, there are lessons to be learned from a brotherhood of individuals who, as recently as a decade before, were considered to be the last bastion of integrity, honor, and valor in a society in which those values have been eroding daily.  The ever-decaying values in the fire service are an excellent case study, and many questions can come from how we went from where we were to where we are today.

And I am not suggesting that the entire fire service lacks these ideals; we just have not been very good at removing the elements from our midst who do not embrace those same values.  Well, our profession (and for the uninitiated, this refers to both career and volunteer professionals in the emergency services business) has been challenged by a number of external forces that, to the casual observer, seem to have affected the type of person we are getting to replace those who have gone on to other places.

Emergency response, paid or not, is very much a value-driven occupation.  Just because you show up and put out a fire or lug someone to the hospital, is irrelevant, despite the arguments that we are not customer oriented.  If anything, our business is all about the customer, because frankly, we tell people all the time that we can replace their material objects, but we can't replace the people.  We say this is the reason we rescue first and not salvage first.  But ironically, we have many of the same people saying that we shouldn't consult with our community in the spirit of partnership, or that we know better than they do what they need, or even more cynically, that their observations regarding our service and the way we do it doesn't even matter.

Therefore, there is a profound need to make sure the people we bring in not only have read and signed a memo telling them what our ethics happen to be, but that they LIVE these ethics.  That they BREATHE these ethics.  That they BELIEVE in these ethics and that they are proud to associate with others, a brotherhood of others, who feel the same way.

A while back, I happened upon a rollover in another jurisdiction while off-duty, and stopped to see if they needed any help. The driver was already on the way to the hospital, and the crews were just picking up debris, but I know a lot of firefighters in that jurisdiction, so I was really just chatting before heading on.  In the corner of my eye, I saw a firefighter pick up a phone on the ground.

I don't know about you, but my cell phone wasn't cheap, and they aren't indestructible either.  Plus, even if it is just damaged, you could still get the contacts off of it, etc.  But the firefighter opened up the phone, laughed to himself, and THREW the phone into the damaged car.  Not gently, mind you, but enough that it broke.  Since it wasn't my jurisdiction, but everyone there knew me, I walked over and picked up the now damaged phone, then handed it to a trooper.  I glared at the guy on the way by, but I didn't say anything. But I let him know that this was unacceptable, at least in my department.

I won't say that we don't have any of those types in our organization, but as Capt. Tom and I were saying the other day, the balance has been strongly tipped in favor of the "good guys" for a while now, and we continue to drum our organizational culture into those who don't get it.  But these values don't come naturally to some and frankly, do you even want to take the chance of trying to drag a member to that place, or should we look first for those with the right stuff, and then TEACH them to be a firefighter?

If I were advertising, I would say that if you revel in someone's misfortunes, or if you like the power of being a uniformed public official, or if driving in total disregard of others appeals to you because you have lights and siren, you probably shouldn't apply.  There's nothing at all wrong with chasing the adrenaline, but it certainly needs to be kept in the perspective that you will take on a challenge to help others, not to wish it on people so you can get your fix.

If we really believe in our brotherhood, our profession, as a calling rather than just a job, we need to take a look at who we introduce to the team. So long as we continue to permit those who are among us to soil our ranks because they fill a spot, we will continue to tarnish the image we used to be proud of.  I, for one, prefer that when I go to see my kids at school, they consider firefighters to be worthy of admiration, rather than another person they can't trust.  There's a lot of that going around lately, let's not let it happen to us.

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Now, I do read a lot and listen to podcasts, etc. and I will check my quotes with a deep internet search to make sure I haven't stolen someone else's ideas, but I'm pretty sure I said this stuff at one time or another.  I also left off anything I paraphrased (I hope) and added some stuff that exists in unpublished posts (there are a few dozen of those).  Believe it or not, we here at FHZ have standards.  They are low, but we do have standards.  

So here you are, from the beginning of FHZ, some of the more memorable ones:

• "When I give you an order, I want to see it done, or your dead body where you died trying to do it."
• "Never eat more than your mask can hold."
• "I am not your friend, I am your boss. If you want to be friends, that's okay, but that doesn't change the fact that I am your boss first."
• "The company officer is the designated adult supervision in the station. Act like it."
• "There won't be a group hug at the end of this. I don't do Kumbaya."
• "When I call for a resource I'm gonna give you type and kind. If I call for a Lincoln-ful of Panamanians, I don't care where you got it, just give me the closest one."
• "Let's put this in terms you can understand: Confined space rescue is nothing more than HAZMAT on a rope."
• "Being a truckie requires resourcefulness. You are presented with a problem no one else knows how to fix and you fix it with what you brought to the party or what you can swipe. After that, it's all magic."
• "Individuals have given themselves the freedom to make poor decisions, then be let off the hook because we 'shouldn't judge them', or because their mommy didn't hug them as a child, or whatever the victim story is this week." (Okay, I just used that one again the other day).
• "The base cause of indignity is usually the result of inconsiderate behavior." (Oh, and that one is new. But I liked it).
• "Conflict in life is inevitable. Conflict escalation and intractability is not." (Alright, that one is new as well.  Back to the old stuff).
• "There's enough ugly going on around us right now without our own people bringing it down on us."
• "Each of us should be serving as a positive example of how to do the job, volunteer or career, and without acting like a bunch of amateurs and whackers."
• "The important part in our lives, really, isn't necessarily what we can fill up our minds with at every moment, but about creating space to let more in."
• "There are a few things that you should raise the stakes for, like your faith, your family, and your country.  But when faced with an unwinnable scenario and a profound lack of resources, sometimes it is best to save what you can save and live to fight on another day."
• "Where t = tempo, r = resources and f = frustration: increasing t multiplied by decreasing r = exponential increase in f."
• "The taxpayers in your community ultimately decide what level of service they want.  If they are insistent that giving you no resources is okay, then they have to be educated to what extent that investment will reap disaster.  Risk is proportionate to return."
• "There are other sides to every argument that get squashed by the rush of the ADD crowd to comment.  Don't fall into the trap of the unenlightened.  Think before you post."
• "I can think of no rational society that thinks it is okay to screw the disadvantaged for the benefit of the privileged.  Taking advantage of the less fortunate is simply bullying."
• "When we use the phrase 'customer service", if that's not appealing to you, try saying it like this: 'doing what is right for our neighbors and the people who visit and work in our community'.  That should be a little more pleasant."
• "Successful coaches match schemes to personnel, not vice-versa."
• "If you are going to successfully implement change in your organizational culture, there should be a reluctance to be where you were and a desire to get where you are going."
• "I'm pretty sure that when my ticket , I'm not going to be quoted saying something profound, poetic, or heroic.  It is likely going to be something that can't be repeated around children or the faint-hearted."
• "If we really want our industry to recognized as professional, it requires consistent conduct that is professional."
• 'Legitimate power, in the sense of leading others, is limited to the amount of leverage the followers will permit."
• "Tansformative leadership 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 set the example to others."
• "Our business is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs."
• "Perhaps if you guys are going to fight fire like you are in the '70's, you should be paid like we were then too."
• "If as a team, you can't agree on the destination, someone needs to get out of the car. Ultimately, getting to the destination requires assessment, negotiation, understanding, cooperation, and ends with commitment."
• "More often than I care to, my 'command presence' comes out at inopportune times, like when I am talking to my wife (she doesn't like it), my kids (they're not crazy about it either), or my colleagues (they probably think I'm insufferable anyway)."
• "If you fail to illustrate a clear picture of who is in charge, someone else will come in and fill that drawing in for you."
• "Sometimes the best we can do is to pin it down to the neighborhood of origin, if that's what was burning when we got there."

Since at some point perhaps I'll add another page of these for the next years, if one of the sentences I uttered strikes a chord with you, point it out to me and I'll add it.  I'm all about customer service.  Until next time, thanks for reading.

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Who among us has not experienced anger at the inconsiderate moron who fails to pull to the right when we are well behind them, permitting us a free lane on the way to some emergency?  Even in your personal automobile, how about the idiot who not only signals they are going to take a right turn, but then shoots across to two lanes of traffic to make a left?  Like he couldn't just make the wrong turn, make a u-turn, and make things right?

Individuals have given themselves the freedom to make poor decisions, then be let off the hook because we shouldn't "judge" them, or because their mommy didn't hug them as a child, or whatever victim story they happen to choose this week.  The reality is that while reacting negatively to those who act in error is not acceptable, neither is the act that sparked the reaction in the first place.  Perhaps if our nation's law enforcement would start hauling off people who run red lights; who make erratic and unanticipated turns without use of a signal; those who drive too slowly in the passing lane, who fly down the shoulder to cut to the head of a merging line, or those who fail to pull to the right when an emergency vehicle is asking for the right of way, perhaps you might see a considerable decrease in road rage.

The base cause of indignity is usually the result of inconsiderate behavior.  Someone flaunts the rules and disregards the normal values of society, and the enraged individual is angry at the injustice of the situation.  I would be willing to bet that if anyone could write a ticket (not that I am an advocate of that), you'd see a lot less road rage.

Why?  Because if there were a non-violent method of resolving the conflict, I would be willing to bet that people would take that option.  The problem is that there is no resolution.  The enraged individual feels as if there is no way the situation will be resolved, they feel the injustice of the situation, and they act out in frustration, sometimes regardless of the consequences.

Now let's take this a step further.  Think of a non-driving situation in which you were pushed to the edge…Was this reaction a result of powerlessness, of frustration evolved from conflict in which you were victimized and felt no method to resolve your issue?  Perhaps it was an automatron manning the phone at your credit card company, or the cashier at Wally World, or the cable guy who doesn't show up when he says he will.  You percieve a lack of power to change the situation and that lack of control becomes overwhelming.  Over time, you may even be willing to act on it, in such a possibility, even inappropriately.

So what is the solution for our version of road rage?  Education?  Humorous attempts to enlighten the inconsiderate sometimes work, as in this fine example from the Tuscaloosa Fire Department. Other attempts like this one from Eugene, Oregon and this one from an agency I can't read on their final slide aren't as memorable (IMHO) but still get the message across.

But the more in-depth solution would be for individuals to maintain less distrations in their vehicles (phones, texting, and radios come to mind), and more overall awareness (simply paying attention to the fact that you SHARE the road with others).  And likewise, the way for you to avoid conflict that cascades into an intractable situation would be to step back for a second and understand the other person's perspective, and recognize that your escalation of the incident, although it may very well be warranted, is pushing you and the other party toward a battle that someone is going to lose. 

Conflict in life is inevitable.  Conflict escalation and intractability is not.  Be one of the first on your block to be the voice of sanity and work to understand, not to react.

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SC-TF1 Demobilizing From Chalmette, LA after Hurricane Katrina, 2005.

I was pretty self-conscious about that decision, even though nobody knew who answered each question and nobody would have known it was me that graded us so. I actually thought about it long afterward, in an attempt to understand in my absolute certainty with 10 seconds on the clock, that we deserved the highest mark on a standard grade. It was, frankly, a little presumptuous of me.

The quick answer is that we don’t deserve an “A”. We are definitely customer oriented and we are definitely aggressive firefighters who use best practices and manage our risk appropriately. We are definitely on the leading edge of EMS delivery and while we are not THE organization by which all should be measured, many would be doing pretty well to do so.

But while we are definitely making huge strides and we have many accomplishments, we aren’t where we feel we should be. That is universally agreed upon in our organization. There is just too much to do, and while we are hitting the high priority items, there are so many things we want to do, and have begun doing, but there are only 24 hours in a day and finite resources otherwise at our disposal.

It is for the same reason, perhaps, that I should instead embrace the criticism of some in the knowledge that the minute we stop reassessing our service we become complacent. Don’t believe for a second that I don’t take the criticism personally, because although I shouldn’t, I do. Just as you know all the idiosyncrasies of your own children, you’d never stand for anyone else criticizing them. And, after 29 years of being part of the core individuals who pushed, pulled and shaped what is now known as our department, I have very little patience for the particular individuals who have come along since with a lot of criticism and no substantive contributions. My personal take on it, in fact, is that we have a list of people who would be happy to take their jobs.

Our line of reasoning, however, should be to embrace the constructive criticism that can be drawn from some of the comments. We should always perform self-critique, but self-critique is not self-immolation. We should always be pulling lessons from where we are and where we want to be, and the reason why we aren’t where we want to be. But this isn’t an effort to tell us what a bad job we are doing, but ways in which we need to improve.

The minute we begin to believe we are Number One in the county, the state, the region, or the nation, and we begin to believe we are “The Best”, we (all of us) tend to believe we can’t learn from others or from ourselves. It also demeans the rest of those who do an excellent job providing service with the resources they have in the community they must serve. Of all things, though, it’s pretty presumptuous again to suggest that we are the best at anything other than delivering the emergency services on Hilton Head Island, because really, that’s all that matters.

My own personal vision for our organization is to be one of those departments that others hold up to say, “This is the gold standard. This is how we want to be”. We continue to make leaps in that direction. We are, though, our own worst critics. We need to always be looking out for better ways to improve. Daily, we must try harder.

The effort must be placed on continual improvement. “Zero defects” is a pretty lofty goal, but in our business, zero defects may be the difference between life and death, between going home in the morning or going home in the hosebed of the rig under a pair of crossed aerials.

Never get complacent. Never believe you are the best, at least not for longer than it takes to get to the desired result, then to take a breath, look around, and say, “Where to from here?” The moment we stop, we die. We should always resolve to do better each time we are presented with a new challenge and to dig out whatever lessons we can observe from our current situation. There is no time to dwell on it, though. Digest it, make the adjustment, and move on.

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I happened to be listening to a podcast of TEDTalks, in particular, the disabled activist Caroline Casey speaking about looking past limitations. It is really a motivating talk when you listen to it and I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, but the point she humorously makes is that often, the limits on what we can do are ones we have put there ourselves. If we don’t know we have limitations, there’s really no saying that we can’t do something. This of course assumes that whatever it is that you are trying to achieve is possible within the laws of physics; for example, I don’t know if I can or cannot lift a Yugo because I have never tried, but something tells me that it’s not likely. I know I can’t overhead press a Suzuki GS750E, so logically I know certain limits.

But in achieving our dreams, the amazing thing about the human mind is that if we don’t know how to do something, and we are innovative enough and curious enough, we can take what resources we have and solve problems. After all, mankind has been doing this since the invention of the wheel, and our creativity continues to evolve daily with each new thing we know (and each thing we don’t).

As leaders, we have to not just eliminate barriers for our subordinates’ success, but to avoid putting ideas of failure in their head as well. I can think of a number of occasions in my life where I was discouraged from doing something because the individual themselves saw it as “impossible” or “unrealistic”. I know of times where my own vision was belittled by people whom I should have been getting encouragement from instead.

There is a difference between coaching or mentoring to consider timing and resource allocation, or simply looking at alternatives, and complete undermining of your dreams. In my own case, sometimes I wonder what those people say now that I have made some of those dreams possible?

Failure is something to be expected when we are stretching forward. We reach until we slip and fall. But success comes when you learn to recover from failure. If you have to be propped back up every time you get knocked down, it doesn’t build resilience, it builds dependence. A key secret to success is to appreciate the failures for what they are: a lesson. Develop ideas based on those experiences and get back on the road again.

We need to understand that dreams are what positive change is made of. If we aren’t focusing on the hurdles, we won’t be worried about clearing them. And if we happen to hit one of those hurdles, we keep our eyes on the goal and figure out what it takes to get there. Look to the finish line and reap the reward of success.

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Hilton Head Island Truck 6 working in Palmetto Dunes.

Since I was the lifer truckie captain and one of only three in the department who had even sat behind the wheel of a TDA before (I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I got the job), I got to shop, spec, purchase, equip, and train the company in our new concept. We brought in an expert who was likewise, a lifer truckie, and learned to drive the TDA the old fashioned way (drive it around the parking lot for a while).

My observation was such that, as an educator, there was probably a more effective method of developing drivers for this specialized piece of machinery. When we were doing research on writing a course on driving tillers, I found a shocking lack of information (at that time) on them and ultimately, a few colleagues and I developed the coursework from which we certify our personnel to drive. This, to satisfy the naysayers, also involved INTENSIVE driving of the vehicle: beachfront parking lots during summer, night driving, driving in the rain, and lots and lots of situational stuff. Needless to say, when we were done, that first round of drivers was pretty proficient.

Lately we have been finding that there is a desire for some to want to reduce the requirements for TDA chauffeurs and tiller operators and I expressed my opinion that this was not the way to go. Our organization does all kinds of stuff in our community in conjunction with our customer service outlook, as well as respond on emergencies. Time is very valuable, but I also know of a long and distinguished history of TDA mishaps that each time point to a missed element of discipline and training. There are basic laws of physics that really come into play with a tractor-drawn aerial that don’t in your basic straight frame aerial, and I have been less than tolerant of relief drivers who don’t understand that.

So you can imagine my interest when I found out about this video collaboration between the Raleigh and Seattle Fire Departments as can be seen here:Raleigh and Seattle Collaborative Training Video I have been watching to see what lessons we might get out of the Raleigh TDA rollover and it seems as if we will have a very valuable tool for educating not only TDA drivers, but all firefighters as well.

But while this could evolve into an entire lesson on driving tillered apparatus, the discussion I want to actually have is that there is a wealth of information out there that you all have the opportunity to obtain. We find too often that people are unwilling to accept the observations and experiences of others and instead “reinvent the wheel” regularly, wasting time and money in the process. But these two departments saw needs and worked together to produce a valuable teaching tool.

There is no shame in finding out what mistakes (or positively, what efforts) have been previously made in our business and asking questions about he good, the bad, and the ugly. This is called research. We ask questions to determine an answer to a problem and rely on science and experience to make decisions. The problem is, it requires effort and it requires being candid about the issues. But no progress gets made without learning about what went right and what went wrong.

Check out the video and tell me what you think. I have already viewed it a number of times and take away something new each time. We are fortunate (and thankful) that no one was killed in this event. And it goes without saying, I thank both departments for their sincere effort in making the job safer. But the lessons learned are no good to anyone if we keep them locked up in a closet. Share the knowledge, collaborate, and learn from one another.

Note: I meant to add this link as well and failed to do it: The Fire Engineering article that spurred my interest. I like to give credit where credit is due.

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We tend to think that one set of characteristics is independent of the other, when in fact, there are those who have learned to develop all of these qualities. Rhett Fleitz, over on Fire Critic, posed the question, “Who will be our new leaders in the fire service?” Who are tomorrow’s Brunos and Yvarras? Our Downeys and Dunns? The Brennans and the Brannigans? What did these people possess that we, perhaps, do not?

Maybe things like charisma, or an innate knowledge of what ideas stick and how to sell them to others? Or perhaps it is simply a passion for their ideas? Is it that they cared for others so much that they were/are compelled to share all of their riches, which in their cases were their vision of something better than the status quo?

If you look at my list, you’ll note that some of those names are no longer with us and some still are. While legends may grow after someone passes away, none of the individuals identified in my short list became legendary only after their demise. In fact, when they left us, they were very much in the leading edge. Those on the list who are still among us, although retired, are still sharing their passion with us today. They could easily have gone to hang out at the pool and sip Mimosas, but they still can be heard and seen, sharing their vision, and probably will up to the day they too leave us (hopefully nowhere near soon).

When you think about who these new visionaries are, do you say to yourself that they should be instruments of conveying today’s knowledge or are they those who share the idea of what it could be if we all apply ourselves? Because of today’s ability to reach out over the internet, I’d suggest there may be more “candidates” for those “positions”, simply because we were limited, in the early days of my career, to those who were able to come to me, or I to them. Now you can find an expert on every click of the mouse.

What constitutes the next leader of the fire service? Which qualities break someone out from the pack? You tell me. As far as I am concerned, we have lots of leaders now, and we have none. We should all be reaching out to exceed even what we perceive is our potential, understanding that the only limitations we possess are the ones we have given ourselves or gave permission to others to place on us. Until we can look past what is and look toward what can be, we will remain right here in our own existence. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” If you want to be the next leader, it’s yours to reach out and grab.

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We are all interconnected; how so remains to be examined. We are part of a bigger whole.

Capacity building can be defined as “activity which strengthens the knowledge, abilities, skills and behavior of individuals, while improving institutional structures and processes such that the organization can efficiently meet its mission and goals in a sustainable way.”

For organizations, capacity building may relate to almost any aspect of its work: improved governance, leadership, mission and strategy, administration, program development and implementation, identification of revenue streams, diversity, partnerships and collaboration, evaluation, advocacy and policy change, marketing, positioning, planning, etc.

For individuals, capacity building may relate to leadership development, advocacy skills, instructional abilities, technical skills, organizing skills, and other areas of personal and professional development.

When I began to write this article, I was thinking about a different direction than the one I shifted to this morning. I happened to be listening to Bob Edwards this morning, as I do routinely when I am driving around. He was interviewing Tom Shadyac, best known as the director behind movies like Ace Ventura. I’ll let the I Am video tell the story, but in short, he had a mind-opening experience as a result of a bike accident and the subsequent recovery, and it inspired him to make a documentary which seeks answers to deeper issues.

The point in his interview that really got me was this: We have been taught over the course of our lives when faced with a problem to ask “What is wrong?” when we should really be asking “Why is this wrong?” Shadyac suggests a more metaphysical approach to our cultural issues which revolve around more cooperation and supportiveness and less competition and strife.

When I applied this to what I had begun to write, it occurred to me that maybe we (emergency services and in society as a whole) are going about this all wrong. Our continual inability to work together to foster positive change is likely deeper than even we originally suspected. If we continue to go after each others’ throats in the vollies vs. career, East vs. West, Fire vs. EMS, safe vs. unsafe battles which rage daily in our business, how can we ever expect to achieve any respect from others outside emergency services, much less endorsement on issues we can all agree on.

It seems to me that the KSAs we need to teach are farther removed than basic operational issues, the KSAs we need to emphasize are our greater connection throughout the entire emergency services industry, how we need to get past the things that divide us and unite about things we can agree on and change.

We talk about “brotherhood”, but what really is brotherhood anymore? You have brothers in career shops bashing brothers in vollie houses because of a number of reasons. Shouldn’t we simply agree that we both do a dangerous job, made more dangerous by the bean-counters limiting our abilities to obtain cutting edge technologies, the best training, and sufficient staffing?

I realize that I have indeed been asking “why” things are wrong for a long time, while many of my brothers were and are still focused on “what” is wrong. I just guess I needed someone to point that out to me.
The capacity building in ourselves, in our organizations, and within our industry is essential for our continued survival. Einstein said, “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

I’m suggesting that a good place to start is in a society where there are those who have a core value of service to others, a society in which the greater good is supposed to be placed above that of the individual, and where characteristics of selflessness and courage are valued attributes, not hindrances. If there is any established society in which those morals are daily sought and in which we insist they are founded upon, it would be the society made up of fire and EMS professionals.

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We best memorialize our brethren by remembering the lessons they teach us.

Susan’s credentials as a leader were impressive.  She came on board not long after our department was in the throes of a major overhaul of our command staff as a result of retirements and going on to bigger venues. But while her impact on our organization was large, her time with us was short and to be quite candid, the changes she endeavored to make didn’t quite stick the way they should have.

I guess one of the reasons I never finished posting (because the post actually went on from here) was that it kept sounding like a eulogy and that’s not what I wanted to do. This issue isn’t about me or anyone else who is still around picking up the pieces, but about moving forward, transitioning, living through a traumatic event and learning how to move on.

I dragged this back out again from my “drafts” pile because for the better part of yesterday, I was trying to catch up on my workload and making pretty decent progress. I think I’m only backlogged to November now (that’s LAST November). Things came to a crawl, however, when I began to tackle the next priority on the list, which was (is, because I’m not done) a “Line of Duty Death” guideline (LODD, for my non-fire readers). While Susan’s death was not an LODD, it was very much about a loss to our fire department family. I have always been impressed by our ability to rally, and of course, the amazing memorial that was virtually shot from the hip.

We can always look back in amazement at what we instinctively got right and make notes about what we probably could have done better at. Her family asked us to coordinate the services and a few stalwart colleagues/friends jumped in there and did a pretty damn good job organizing and contacting and negotiating to create a memorial worthy of commemorating Susan’s impact on our lives. While there’s none of us that wouldn’t have wanted to fill Yankee Stadium for her, we did a good job of filling the venue we had, and the service was both tearful and funny, the way she probably would have wanted it.

But the moral of this story is that when we lose someone dear to us, we have a need to commemorate their life. The deceased are deceased and while it is my belief that we honor them by having a ceremony, and it is also my belief that they are taking in our feelings and understanding how much they meant to us from a better place, when it comes down to it, a lot of that may be more about us processing our own feelings and trying to get us to move on to the next phase of our lives.

I have said before, and again in this post as well, that if we really care about leaving a legacy, we should consider the culture we develop as a result of our leadership of others.

What better memorial to another than to recognize that our beloved was such an important part of our life that the traditions they instilled in us, the commitment to excellence, and the dedication to service so ingrained in our culture, that we refused to let that value die long after that person was gone from this mortal coil. Unfortunately, when I think back on it, I think maybe we might have failed Susan.

With some substantial challenges on our horizon and after talking to others within our organization about a renewed commitment to improvement and service, I have to meditate a little on what that truly means and how to go about facilitating that change among the people I am responsible for mentoring. As a chief officer, one of the hardest things you have to do sometimes is admit to yourself that you have let your vision be narrowed by petty issues. As a chief officer, your vision can’t be obscured by the trees; you need to view the entire landscape.

My job must be to focus on positive strategic change. I have company officers who must translate that change into daily tactical objectives. If they can’t do that, they have to do some soul searching themselves, because the purpose of the officer on a team isn’t to be one of the gang, it is to lead the team. It is the job of the officer to work with other officers to form an effective cadre of other leaders and to be above pettiness themselves. When you make the choice that your badge will have bugles on it, it’s time to leave the past behind and focus on the future. And if you ca’t do that, then you need to admit that it might be better to return to the gang. No one ever said leadership was easy.

We have many people in our lives whom we love in their own special ways. All of the assembled brothers and processions of fire apparatus, all of the pipes and crossed ladders and other powerful traditions are nothing if we can’t be true to ourselves and appreciate that our calling is to serve others. Service to others is the hallmark of our tradition. People would not revere firefighters if not for their long-standing tradition of selflessness, of commitment despite adversity, and of bravery in the face of death and destruction. If we truly want to memorialize our loved ones and our brothers, we need to re-dedicate our careers toward self-improvement, education, and dedication, as well as to teach and mentor those who are behind us in the ranks.

Don’t make saying goodbye a hollow promise of honoring the deceased. The funeral is just the beginning of a new life without that person standing next to us. If they really mean something to us, we will consider the lessons they taught us and create action instead of words.

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So I am left to wonder, does someone actually sit around and come up with some of those bizarre paragraphs?  Is that a job somewhere?  Is some mother distraught because her child, who she cared for and sent to a decent college is sitting around typing “jeans will advance concoction electric authoritatively patanol over the counter”? (I didn’t dare cut and paste it and thus have whatever link it is hanging out on my site).

I’m assuming that people actually click on some of that, which is why they send it out.  Otherwise, what is the point?  It reminds of of the point I was slowly getting to, and that’s whether or not a message of enlightened leadership is actually getting out to the leaders of our emergency services.  Why does it seem that we have so many in our midst that just don’t get it?

I was having a long discussion the other night with Ron Richards (withthecommand.com and Task Force 1 Training) and his wife, Linda, about the need for our industry, career and volunteer, to begin to agree on some real issues, or else we will continue on being the doormat we have been for decades.  I was pointing out that a lot of the problem rests on the shoulders of chiefs and other officers who have no vision beyond lunchtime, much less for the future.  Ron equated what we do to missionary work.  It’s like we are going out into the unknown, reaching out, and ultimately (hopefully) inspiring some others to also take up the cause.

As with those spam messages, I wonder if what we are saying sometimes falls on deaf ears.  Are we proclaiming the vision of something that can never be, because vested interest and egos will always keep firefighters fat, dumb and happy? Should we revel in the presence of the whackers and the unprofessionals, knowing they won’t likely be competing with us for our own jobs?

I take comfort in knowing there are others like us out there, and those who may not know they are yet, but will need to have the shade pulled up so they can see the light.  We will, of course, continue to do just that.  We need to show people that what we are telling them is true.  Our industry, the fire and rescue services, is on the brink of a sea change.  There are widely-accepted technologies and best practices that are being used daily out there that won’t see the inside of a fire station for at least another 10 years.  It’s a sad state of affairs, but with continually rising costs and continually shrinking budgets, we will have to continue to slog on.  And the only people we can blame this on is ourselves, because we failed to draw the right picture for others to understand where we were going and where we needed to be.

Be a missionary of change.  Illuminate the paths of others, so they can see where they are going.  Help those along who need a hand.  But of all things, strive to do the best job possible for your citizens.  They deserve it, and frankly, they are why you exist.  Treat them like it.

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