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FHZ On The Road – Upcoming Classes through Task Force 1

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.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers 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: Ballardsville, Binghamton, Canyon Lake, change, class, Command 101, Command for Company Officers, Crestwood, education, EMS, Fallen Angels, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, FOOLS, Hilton Head Island, incident command, incident management, Incident Safety Officer, Kentucky, leadership, Louisville, management, Mick Mayers, New York, opportunity, Ron Richards, South Carolina, task force, Texas, Training

Credibility

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.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers 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: change, education, executive fire officer, FEMA, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, National Fire Academy, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, research, risk reduction, South Carolina, Training

Successful Coaches Match Schemes to Personnel, Not Vice-Versa

Hilton Head and Bluffton, SC firefighters training on structural collapse.

When you don't have the resources internally, develop partnerships.

Successful coaches don’t force a system down the throats of their personnel without a very good reason. Instead, through careful evaluation of skill sets, they point their personnel toward positions in which they will have the greatest impact.

I’m a huge football fan. I’m impressed by teams that are able to recruit and develop personnel to fit their particular schema. But there are also those who try to take a scheme they have bought into wholesale and refuse to adjust based on what their personnel can and can’t do.

If you wonder about what I’m getting at, look at it like this: If you are a fire chief in a small town or suburban department and insist that your department uses tactics employed in the big urban departments, I would suggest that you objectively evaluate the success you have with that and consider using different tactics. Truly urban fire departments can bring resources to bear quickly. Urbanized areas often have great water supply and relatively short response times. In a lot of departments around our nation, we don’t have an unlimited amount of companies to throw at an incident. We don’t have great water supplies everywhere. As a result, we must find alternative delivery methods.

If you fail to admit this to yourself and choose to ignore the need to develop other abilities, you will continue fighting the same battles with the same results. Develop vision and understand that there are other ways to do the job you do and to provide the service desired by your community, by getting them to help solve some of these issues. Open up some planning sessions to the public and solicit ideas. See if the people you serve have ideas that can provide resources you didn’t think were available. If anything, the participants will enjoy learning more about what it is we do, as well as to educate the public on the things we really need.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on November 23, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: Bluffton, change, customer service, disaster, economy, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, football, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, regional, resources, response, SC RRT-4, SC-TF1, South Carolina, team, Training, US&R

Be Proud, But Humble

I work for a pretty damn good fire and rescue department. Take this link shared with you all from SCONFIRE. You like that? That’s us. And by us, I mean my department, the one I’ve worked with for the last twenty-eight years. And in two other links, you’ll see that this is us too, “Going Green“, and here, where we are going “High Tech“. Props, as always, to Grant at SCONFIRE for sharing these stories.

There’s a lot more. But I’m not here to brag. I’m here to tell you that while “pride goeth before a fall”, pride is also necessary to motivate your personnel, and a little pride can go a long way. If you are going to implement change in your organizational culture, there should be a reluctance to be where you were and a desire to go where you are going. You can quote me on that. But pride has to be tempered by a few things, reality being one. Knowing that even the best are fallible is another.

It isn’t easy. We have had our bad days just like everyone else, and we continue to have bad days just like everyone else. We too have people in our department who, given a million dollars in a briefcase, would be upset that it wasn’t on a silver tray. I certainly don’t view everything with rose-colored glasses, although some people might believe that to be the case because I’m not talking about the negatives, but discussing the positives. We have challenges and I have personal challenges. But instead of seeing these as roadblocks, I see them as opportunities.

If you know me well, you know that I am actually a deep-seated cynic. But I have been places where I have found such turmoil and trouble that I know I have absolutely no right to complain. Unfortunately, I have been in a lot of these places. Conversely, I have been in places where they have got it right. They may not have every resource they ask for, but they make the best of what they’ve got and they remain hopeful and optimistic, knowing that each day brings them another little piece of the puzzle they can work toward completion.

There’s a fire department in a neighboring community where the Fire Chief used to be my chauffeur, a long time ago. This guy gets “IT” and he has done everything he can do to infuse “IT” into his people. When I ask his personnel how things are going with “Big Daddy”, I have never heard a single one of them complain. They are upbeat and positive about their department, about where they are going, and about the leadership. They make things work and they have fun doing their jobs. And that Chief isn’t just letting people come to work and play checkers either. They train often, they do all the jobs we do short of ALS transport, and all kinds of other things. These people have a lot of pride in their organization and it shows.

I am extraordinarily proud of my department and most of all, of the people we work with, and the people we work for. The community here is generally pretty proud of their department also. We get a lot of letters of thanks and praise. We get awards. Our Town Manager pretty much says we stay off his radar, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not all sunshine and roses and it’s important you know that.

There is being proud and there is being delusional. While we are very honored to have our team and the resources entrusted to us, we also realize that at any time, at any instant, things can go wrong. We realize that one saved building isn’t a far stretch, maybe nine or ten minutes from being a total loss. While our community relies on the entire system to be good at what we do (through education, prevention, protection, service delivery, and customer care), one slip in the well-oiled chain can wreak havoc on the entire machine.

Not that this is a good time to be paraphrasing Brian Kelly (the head football coach at Notre Dame), but he tells his players that when they are on the field, they are 1/11th of the team. If everyone does their part, things will work according to plan. When someone doesn’t, someone else has to do MORE than their job to take up the slack. We can be as proud as we want, but if one person lets us down, we are all toast. For those reasons alone, a little humility will go a long way when things don’t go as expected.

We tell people in our organization all the time, if you screw up, own the situation. Raise your hand and say, “My bad” and we’ll do what we can to fix the problem together. None of us, most of all, me, is perfect. We’d better be ready and willing to say, “I’m wrong, I’m sorry” when it is warranted. Our informal motto is, “Do the right thing”. When you have that kind of an outlook at all times, it can solve many equations.

If your own organization is reaching and it seems frustrating, know that everyone, including the Phoenixes and the FDNYs and the Metro-Dades and the Fairfaxes all have their days. Just like our department has, and I’m sure your department has. The element of success, however, is to ride out those days as an intact team, absorb the problems, fix what is necessary, and move forward. Don’t dwell on the problems, learn from them and move on.

Even the best have their moments, but if you take the time to reflect on what you have accomplished, realize how far you have gotten, and look forward to the trip ahead, the pride in that journey is a significant motivator to keep the team together. Pride acts as one of many force multipliers. Like any other tool, use it carefully.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on November 9, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development, US&R • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, rescue, resources, SC-TF1, South Carolina, team, Training, US&R

Perception

We all have a job to do.

When it comes down to it, we don’t really know what’s in the hearts of anyone else, do we? All we can do is read what people write and listen to what they say and watch their face to see if we are getting anywhere. The internet provides a place where anyone can feel brave and say what they want to say behind the anonymity of a computer terminal without fear of reprisal.

It’s those who feel the need to draw lines in the sand wherever they go that are probably the most disturbing. Is it fire vs. EMS? Career vs. volunteer? East Coast vs. West Coast? Rural vs. Urban? European vs. North American? We all have a job to do and the job has different elements depending on where we are, what we are dealing with, and how we perceive the issues at hand. Why fight about it?

If we were all the same, I could see being able to say who is better, but it’s the equivalent of comparing apples to elephants. There are similarities in certain facets of the business, but really, as we have said on here a hundred times, emergency service delivery is a very specialized business in your unique community. There aren’t too many tenders wandering the streets of Manhattan, and conversely, there aren’t many six-man truck companies in rural Arkansas. Saying one is better than the other is ridiculous; they don’t compare.

Anymore it seems like the nameless and faceless just want to stir up controversy for the sake of stirring up controversy. Of course, it’s easy to stir up controversy if you have no fear of reprisal. There used to be a certain argument that the controversy was there to open up minds and to inject fresh ideas, and given some recent posts I have been watching, I am inclined to say that I saw no new ideas or the championing of best practices. I didn’t see people fighting injustice with their secret identity. Instead I saw bullies and provocateurs making illogical statements and specifically baiting others, just to get a rise out of someone.

It’s a product of our society, I guess. We can all be intimately connected yet have enough distance between each other to feel safe. People bemoan how uncivil society has become, but forget that when we were all cooped up in our little neighborhoods, if someone acted in a manner contrary to the social mores, they became quickly ostracized. Living in a community with others you had to get along with meant that associating with provocateurs wasn’t safe. Now we can align with people who espouse all kinds of wild ideas and don’t fear anyone, because really, how will anyone know?

Firefighting and other public safety personnel were always respected because honestly, these people were part of our community too. We didn’t do things that hurt others because we felt a certain connection to them. We went to school and church with them. We were likely related in some form or fashion. Our parents knew one another. These days, there’s enough distance that you can be the bully you always wanted to be and hide your 95-pound weakling body behind the monitor. If you treated people like that in your old neighborhood, you’d likely have the crap beaten out of you.

I believe there is a certain amount of merit to having a pseudonym, if it is used for good, and especially if you know that saying the right thing will have detrimental consequences. But I don’t see so much of that these days as the other, the troll who just wants to make spurious statements and not have to back them up. There’s nothing I love more than reading through a thread of meaningless diatribe to find out the idiot on one end is some Junior with the wacker-pack and a keyboard.

If you really want our industry to be recognized as professionals, it requires conduct that is professional. It requires discussion and exposition of ideas, but it doesn’t have any room for intolerance or illogical thought. We must remain open to the perspective of others, regardless of whether they are the aforementioned Junior or the saltiest jake on the truck. But being respective and considerate of other ideas doesn’t mean that we have to lay down and sing Kumbaya if someone is being a troll. Maybe we need to call some of these people out, or even better yet, ignore them, and perhaps they will go away. We all have a responsibility to project what we desire in our society as a good example, and to guide the poor examples either toward enlightenment or toward the exit. In either case, it requires action, not ignorance.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on November 3, 2010 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Fires, government, leadership, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution • Tagged: career, change, conflict, controversy, customer service, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, internet, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, South Carolina, terminal, troll, volunteer

Increasing Tempo and Decreasing Resources Equals Frustration

If we all pull together, there's no telling what we can achieve.

We have, in emergency services, always been in the business of doing more with less. It’s our creed. But there comes a point where we are expecting the outputs to exceed the inputs, or we are shoving more input in than we can possibly output, and in either case, something is going to blow. This can be written:

Where t = tempo, r = resources and f = frustration: ↑t + ↓r = ↑↑f.

When we reach the result ↑↑f, it has been often expressed with an expletive and a raised middle finger. To illustrate, let’s think about this like a mall parking lot, shall we?

In the preferred scenario, we have a goal and in order to achieve that, we have to put something into the process to make it occur. If we have our theoretical parking lot, so long as the number of cars that go into the lot are equal or less than the number of cars exiting the lot, there won’t be a lot of pain. However, when the balance tips and the number of cars entering the lot exceed the number of cars exiting, there will be quite a deal of anger, especially if the input of cars continues to exceed the available number of spaces and a bunch of mouth-breathing numbskulls drive around the lot aimlessly, exponentially adding to the confusion. In normally high-performing organizations, situations like these can evolve into frustrating moments when we continue to expect more and more for less and less, without considering that what we have is a definite resource issue. In those finite resources, of course, we are referring mainly to time and funding.

If I were to build you a house, and money was no object, time was no object, and you didn’t care what it looked like, I would have absolutely no problems putting you in a home. If money were no object I could buy what I want; pay myself what I want; I could hire people who have built homes before; and any number of resources I could possibly need, I could get, if you know what I mean. Likewise, if time were no object, I wouldn’t worry about how long it took for permits, or whether or not the subs were there on time. And of course, if you didn’t care what it looked like, I could build you a tent and charge you several million dollars.

When we begin to place limiting factors on the outputs, there occurs a correlating increase in pressure. As managers, it’s easy to delegate. There are plenty of managers out there, however, who delegate without consideration for the resources needed. It doesn’t do us any good to keep throwing more plates in the air for our subordinates and expect the outputs to remain consistent. It’s the theory of laminar flow: the more pressure you add, the more chaotic the environment and the less effective the output. You need to either decrease pressure, add capacity, or increase the size of the discharge.

The most challenging part, however, is remembering that the personnel you most trust with pulling off clutch moves are the same ones who tend to get loaded and loaded until they reach a snapping point. These are your high performers who won’t dare tell you “no” because they really want to succeed and to help you to succeed as well. It’s important to discuss the workload with these individuals and if you find you have to back off the heat for a while, make it happen. They’ll appreciate your recognizing the situation and in allowing them to adjust their pace, may be able to come back stronger in the long run. But keep beating that same horse and I can reassure you, it might take a while, but when it does go down, it won’t be peacefully.

Your job as a leader is to continually evaluate the situation and adjust. If additional resources exist, you can add these, but unfortunately, that isn’t a likely scenario. So it comes down to heat if we want to increase the outputs. As leaders, we have to constantly assess whether the heat we add to the problems is sufficient, or too much. If it is not enough, things will go at their own pace and may never be accomplished. Too much heat and you run the risk of backlash. But the right amount of heat creates change. And if change is what is required, you are going to be the one with your hand on the throttle. Manage it wisely; it’s a temperamental machine sometimes.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on October 12, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: burnout, challenge, change, conflict, customer service, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, frustration, girls lacrosse, heat, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, motivation, officer, opportunity, parking lot, planning, politics, professionalism, resources, risk reduction, safety, South Carolina, team, tempo, work

The Disincentive for Responsible Reporting (Tax and Spend Socialists)

Take a deep breath. There, that's better, isn't it?

I don’t even know where to begin with this discussion except to offer my apologies for using a derogatory term to describe one side of the issue and failing to come up with a sufficiently derogatory term for the other side. When I decide to offend, I think I’m an equal opportunity offender, because like I stated, I’m not a proponent of either camp. I think for myself. And for the comment from one individual who suggested, “This and the many attempts to drag the tea party into the mud show how desperate you guys are”. I am not “you guys“, because I certainly don’t believe in the alternatives either side has presented me as being responsible or for the good of the people. Given the rhetoric on both sides, I’d be embarrassed to be in either camp.

Likewise, it appears I have been the subject of misinformation. While I am well-versed (and abhor) the quid pro quo tax-and-spend mentality of the liberals and bureaucrats in government, the extreme in the other direction, given discussion I have had with friends and colleagues who have expressed to me their support of their ultra-conservative views (and defending the Tea Party Movement) has been one of scorched-earth budget management and widespread privatization of almost every aspect of governmental service. However, as has been expressed in comments regarding my last post, that is not the platform of the Tea Party Movement. Of course, this is pretty difficult for me to embrace, because there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can consistently state anything to me about the Tea Party Movement other than their anger at the status quo. So other than, “Vote the bums out” and “Obamacare is going to cost us jobs and decent healthcare”, both statements of which I think are pretty extreme in themselves, I haven’t heard anything that causes me to get warm and fuzzy when I think about these individuals taking office.

So since I now have your rapt attention and expect to get plenty of hate mail from the OTHER side of the fence, maybe the two poles will come together to listen to what I have to say without finding it necessary to accuse me of unprofessional or crass behavior.

When I speak of “lock-step” marching to the party line on EITHER side, it is the mindless reliance on sound-bites and partial information because I think many people have become too lazy to think for themselves. Thus, this article. Because like I said, the fault I had in the last article was 1) not coming up with an equally sensitive descriptor of another point of view and 2) not having an accurate view of the platform of the other side I chose to illustrate my case. Because really, there are many more than two points of view and to suggest that these extremes were the only extremes would be grossly oversimplifying the issue.

Believe me or not, I had no intention of pushing anyone’s buttons and I’m sorry for doing that. It did, however, reveal to me the obvious. There is a disincentive for responsible reporting and you all have unpleasantly illustrated my argument with a gold frame.

I have been writing on the internet since before there were blogs. I am not, however, a reporter. Much of what I speak of on the internet is anecdotal or observational. I do, however, write technical articles and papers independent of FHZ, and my expertise is in research and strategic planning. So while one of you chose to express your feelings about my “lame” article, I’d say that I’m not hurt, in fact, I’m smiling a little to myself because the only comments I ever hear about how lame something is happens to be when I’ve tweaked someone.

Since I can view the number of “hits” on my page, I take a particular interest in my “outlier” posts: those which show me wild spikes in readership. I take great pains to present both sides of many issues. Anyone who actually KNOWS me knows that I am very concerned in getting multiple points of view and understanding the entire issue. I am not an “emotional poster”, or one of these clowns that has a conspiracy theory about anything coming down the pike. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it), I have a pretty stable and respectful readership that makes rational and sound comments based on their own experiences.

With the exception of the “Roto-Ray” article several months ago, those outlier posts have consistently occurred when the headlines or lead paragraphs have involved controversy. It is clear: rational and reasonable discussion is not what people want to read. With few exceptions, people want sensationalism and anger. It’s no wonder the internet isn’t safe anymore. People are willing to post damn-near fiction in order to get traffic. What does THAT say about society?

I don’t have any interest in writing titillating articles and reveling in a flock of readers who are only coming by to see what awful thing I have to say about someone or something. I don’t rant. And this is neither MSNBC nor Fox. When I talk about balance, I mean it. But I would like to have more readers, if anything, because what I have to say, I think, should be said. I would like to think that when I write, instead of creating hate, readers say, “Wow, that’s something to think about”.

I don’t apologize at all for suggesting that both extremes are wrong. There are many more of us in the middle than on the fringes. We are not all zealots and we certainly don’t all believe in the vast right or left wing conspiracies. Those of you who do are often just unhappy people itching for a fight. Those of us in the middle lean to the left or the right because we do see some values in one or the other direction of thought, but most sensible individuals realize there’s a certain value in compromise and consensus. Let’s go back to the sandbox, shall we?

Any of you who have ever played in a sandbox know that there are sandboxes where personalities dominate. In some cases, a bully has taken over the whole sandbox. In some cases there are two opposing forces. In many cases there is one force, the force of sharing and collaboration. If you had three sandboxes side-by-side and you were choosing which sandbox to put your children in, I’d be willing to bet that none of you would choose to put your children in sandbox one or two. So why would you choose to live in a society that encourages those behaviors and a grander scale?

Firehouse Zen is not for the weak-minded. I am calling my readers to be responsible and ethical and balanced. I ask you to take other points of view into account, if for any reason, it may reinforce your own beliefs. I’m not asking you to embrace opposition, I’m asking you understand it. In doing so, is where we grow.

Since I have the attention of those who just want sound-bites, let me tell you, there is a wealth of information on the internet that will make you a better person. We don’t all have to flock to these negative sites and we don’t all have to be at war with each other. Just as in the situation in South Fulton, there are other sides to the argument that never came out when the ADD bloggers began blasting out accusations and rhetoric. Don’t fall into the trap of the unenlightened.

If you read the first article and still hate me, I’m okay with that. But I ask you to re-read it and see that it wasn’t directed one way or another, and admit that to yourself. If you don’t care to come back, I’m okay with that too. And if you think I’m unprofessional or crass, I ask you to read my other articles and see if you still believe that to be true. But I’m not about to apologize for telling you all, it’s not always about winning or losing, sometimes it’s about surviving the game. Instead of fighting with each other, we should be pulling together to solve our most pressing challenges. There are too many awful things going on out there that we could solve together and maybe we’d feel just a little better about one another. Of course, if you choose to stay, I’d like that too.

Let’s reward insightful and responsible discussion and avoid the lunatic fringe. Let’s work together rather than apart, and let’s step away from the negativity. I’d just as soon do that myself and it’s my hope that you would too.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on October 9, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution • Tagged: change, chaos organization, customer service, disaster, disaster management, economy, EMS, EMS Topics, failure, FHZ, fire rescue topics, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, Funding & Staffing, government, Hilton Head Island, insurance, Kirschenbaum, leadership, management, marketing, Media Relations, Mick Mayers, motivation, news, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, resources, risk reduction, South Fulton, subscription

Subscription Emergency Services – Your Classic Tea Bag Scenario

These aren't free.

In one corner, the people who think that what the South Fulton Fire Department did was reprehensible. In the other, those who think that you need to “pay to spray“. In the classic Firehouse Zen outlook, let’s go to the root of the problem. Here we are in a brand new age of doing more with less. It’s our creed in emergency services.

The beauty of this all is that while there are those who want to limit the “reach” of government, we have to remember that the point of having government involvement in the first place is to protect us in our vulnerable moments. I am neither a tax-and-spender nor a teabagger. I don’t march in lockstep to anyone’s platform. I have an open mind and I evaluate where things are beneficial to my community and things detrimental, and balance the risk vs. a reasonable cost. It doesn’t seem to me that either of the extremes are acceptable answers.

This is a complicated issue and it can’t be solved by just glossing over the sound-bite material. There are departments who have been doing the subscription thing for years. Personally, I suggested to some funding-challenged departments a number of years ago that perhaps you could do a “soft-landing” subscription: you pay (in advance) for spray, but if you don’t pay (in advance), you REALLY pay. Like 500% of the subscription rate, charged to the insurance company. Something tells me the insurance companies would be insisting you pay or you don’t get insurance. Something also tells me that if you fail to pay in this scenario, they WON’T be paying anyway. But subscription service, while it seems like a logical solution, is fraught with peril. There are just too many “what-ifs” to make it a workable solution to the whole.

We do have a responsibility to the community to protect life, property and the environment. But we are painted into a corner when we can’t raise revenue to sustain our operations, be it a fairly low cost solution or the full-on urban response solution. Thus we return to the risk vs. benefit assessment each community must undertake before deciding, “Okay, we don’t want paid providers” or “We are going to shut down companies”, or “Our risk is low enough that we can make it with an all-volunteer force”. This is something that has to be decided locally, but by responsible individuals who aren’t just looking at the bottom line. There is nothing wrong with any of these scenarios if they can be applied effectively. The problem is that when they are not, and the decision is made to do this anyway, it is often done with catastrophic results. You know, of course, who gets left holding the bag in that case, don’t you? (That would be us, in case you didn’t get that hint.)

The elected officials of your community are charged with more than just appearing ad nauseum on your TV screen for several months leading up to November, although for some, it’s the only time I ever see them. They are charged with making decisions that benefit the community and uphold societal standards. I know of no society who thinks it’s okay to screw the vulnerable at the benefit of the privileged. Well, I take that back- I know of no RESPONSIBLE society who thinks that’s okay. For any “leader” of a community to say, we’re going to go with a subscription fee for service and it’s okay to opt out of it at the risk of losing everything you have, it seems to me like you are taking a chance that this could go terribly wrong. Sending someone a letter to confirm they are “not in” doesn’t sound too cool either (I have had too many personal experiences with undelivered registered mail to have confidence in that solution). I think if everyone was paying the fee and suddenly, someone wasn’t, I’d have someone give them a call and make a face-to-face confirmation to find out what the problem was. Can you not afford it now? Are you saying you are okay if we don’t respond? I really think some follow-up is required here before saying, you are now on your own.

What may have seemed like a good solution has become national news, but it didn’t have to be. Kirschenbaum in Chaos Organization and Disaster Management suggests that the whole social aspect of disaster response was overtaken by a bureaucracy concerned with job protection and cost reimbursement years ago anyway and this whole event pretty much emphasizes his point. But when the community insists on having service but is unwilling to pay for it, other solutions must be found for funding. In this context, “helping neighbors” for purely altruistic reasons has been trumped with who is paying for service and who is not. This takes the whole emergency services as a business concept to a very predictable level. But there really is balance to be achieved in every situation. The challenges facing us in communities like Oak Park, IL and Xenia, OH illustrate there is such a thing as when the “fiscally conservative” become unreasonable, but compelling. When we insist on the gold standard and our community can only afford the aluminum version, we expose ourselves to this kind of rhetoric. I’m not saying that’s the case in these communities, but the situations making national headlines there only encourage community activists elsewhere who already think a scorched-earth approach to cutting the municipal budget is appropriate. Our job as leaders is to foster innovative and efficient organizations while maintaining a responsible budget. Again, balance is in order.

While we use the words “customer service” as a way to describe our efforts, it again goes back to doing what’s right for our neighbors and people who visit and work in our community. While there are those of us who are paid to do this, we have to remember that it is a service we are paid to do often because the volume and type of emergencies we are called to solve exceed the community’s readily available resources. Or maybe it’s because we don’t care enough about our neighbors anymore because we’re so wrapped up in “me”. Regardless, until people begin to give away fire apparatus, permit us to operate without insurance, and clothe us in turnouts out of the kindness of their hearts, we have to pay for this stuff. Therefore, every community, like it or not, has to endure funding these endeavors, through taxes, donations or subscriptions. It’s up to you how you do it. But it’s a requirement that it be done.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on October 8, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Funding & Staffing, government, insurance, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution • Tagged: change, chaos organization, customer service, disaster, disaster management, economy, EMS, failure, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, Kirschenbaum, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, resources, risk reduction, South Fulton, subscription

Vest-Wearing Yard-Breathers

I am one of them, so be nice.

You have likely heard others say, “Discretion is the better part of valor”. This is actually a misquote. In fact, Shakespeare’s Falstaff said: “The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav’d my life.” You have to understand the context in which Falstaff said this, which was after playing dead to escape being killed. His justification was that words like “honor” and “valor” will get you nothing once you’re dead. Falstaff’s suggestion implies that feigning death in this situation, which was a cowardly act, was defensible because what good are those terms if you are dead?

There is a certain argument made by people in our profession that indeed, having a safety mindset is, well, cowardly. There is a belief that the goal of the reflective vest-wearing, “yard-breather” population is to deprive each and every one of you out there of a draped casket and a bagpipe escort, that ‘tis much better to serve you and your company up as cannon fodder and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. If you want to meet the objective of a LODD funeral, I suggest that at least you do it for a good reason. Unfortunately, given the statistics, that’s the least likely way you’ll go down in our business.

While there are excesses in every aspect of our lives, and I’ll grant that the safety officers sometimes come up with some really less-than-fun approaches to our jobs, you aren’t serving any purpose to get killed in training, except to inflate the LODD death statistic every year. If you happened to be one of the valiant 343 who died saving the equivalent population of several small cities, to me, you are a hero. If you happen to die because you refuse to buckle your seat belt, to me, less so.

We must make snap decisions daily that involve life and death. Sometimes we make good decisions and sometimes, things don’t go as expected. In the eyes of some, discretion suggests cowardice, but to me, discretion suggests a good command of resources and appropriate application of force to create leverage, thus defeating an enemy. Napoleonic conflict didn’t go out of vogue because it was effective; instead commanders realized the solution was impossible if there were a finite number of live bodies available. Thus, there was a practical need to change their approach.

If I may appeal to your rational side, if safe practices are really just sucking the life out of you, then try thinking about it from the perspective of your survivors. When you go off half-cocked and do something you think might be “heroic”, the rest of us often have to clean up the resultant mess. You may be off to Valhalla or whatever it is you believe in, but the rest of us earthbound souls have to pick up where you left off, get the kids to school, pay the bills, go to other calls, etcetera, etcetera. Like it or not, when you tap out 5-5-5-5 on us, life goes on down here. If you want valor, talk to a mother supporting several young children on a firefighter death benefit, or those same children who must go on and now won’t get to see Daddy at Christmas. Those individuals represent valor to me.

Discretion is, in truth, the better part of valor, if you are of the belief that there is more to life than another parking lot. Sometimes it takes more courage to push on. If you can’t see that for yourself, put yourself in the shoes of those who have to deal with the aftermath. If you’re not going to be safe for your own sake, do it for your family. There’s nothing heroic about making dumb choices.

While the vest-wearers may have a job we don’t like as much, in essence, they are there to protect ourselves from ourselves. We have to pull back on the reins sometimes and that goes against what some of you all might like, but honestly, we need a much more mature attitude from everyone on the team when it comes to approach of our most dangerous situations. Like we football coaches say to the youngster who has just done his best T.O. imitation in the end zone: “Act like you’ve been there before.” If we can all exhibit calm, cool, professional behavior, not only will we conquer every emergency, but we might live to talk about it later.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on September 20, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: change, customer service, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, football, Hilton Head Island, incident management, leadership, LODD, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, NIMS, officer, opportunity, professionalism, rescue, resources, risk reduction, safety, South Carolina, Training, vest, yard-breather

How Far Outside Your Box? Frontiers Around You

When this was new, do you think they were saying, "It can't get more modern than this!"

I hate to borrow a line from a commercial, but it got my attention the other day: “People say there aren’t any more frontiers; but there are frontiers all around you.” The challenge to “think outside the box” was a unique way to describe innovative thinking in the ’80′s, and it was so overdone that everyone cringes when you say that phrase now. But when you are considering paradigm shifts and defining stretch goals, what better way to say that you are reaching out of the walls that confine your thought?

I was driving down the road the other day and thinking to myself, if there were a way to simply will ourselves from Point A to Point B, like the “Transporter” does on Star Trek, what need for roads? We wouldn’t need a car. We wouldn’t need sidewalks, or bridges, or doors for that matter. Think about being in the road construction business or the bridge building business, or in the auto industry, and one day, there were no need for your service. Your skill set, once valuable, was useless. What then?

There are a certain amount of people who advocate EMS as a method to save firefighter jobs when fires cease to happen. Conversely, there are those who say there will always be a need for firefighters, because fire will always be a problem. Perhaps instead of limiting our vision to these options, consideration must be made for what will we do to reinvent our industry wholesale. What if robots could be trained to do our jobs? I’d bet that as late as ten or twenty years ago there were people in the auto industry who thought that there was no way a robot could produce a decent automobile: Now we have robot-assisted surgery. How much father off do you think it will be before they are making interior attacks?

Anyone who demonstrates an obsession for the status quo and fails to think about the future with an open mind is only setting the table for their eventual obsolescence. Even what might sound like a stupid idea isn’t always too far-fetched. If you fail to consider the opportunities, you are missing a piece of the puzzle.

From the technical aspect, you might be able to guess at any number of possible eventualities. I’m interested in the nuances of leadership and command and what changes are in store for us there. While many think about the possibility of fighting fire without water or providing radical prehospital medical interventions, perhaps you should consider what would happen if we turned the way we lead upside down. Or if we were MORE of a military-style agency, like if we were brought into a branch of federal government. Or if everyone was paid. Or if everyone was volunteer. There’s no end to “what if…” because while the first few answers might not be plausible ones, they may lead to a prize-winning innovation.

Instead of making statements, every day you should be asking questions. And while not all change is good, if you don’t consider the effects of certain factors on your organization as they might occur, you might be surprised when they change despite all your best efforts. As leaders, if we fail to keep an open mind and reconsider every approach to what it is we do, while we may not fail today, we do a disservice to our organization. Doing things the same way day after day may seem “good enough”, but if you are caught flatfooted when things change overnight, don’t be surprised if you are left standing in your box while everyone else is running around outside it. Where are the new frontiers? They surround you, if you reach far enough.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on September 14, 2010 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, firefighting, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, motivation, officership, Patient Management, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Technology & Communications, Training & Development, US&R • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, education, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, frontiers, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, obsolescence, open mind, opportunity, paradigm, planning, politics, professionalism, research, resources, robot, short-sightedness, South Carolina, status quo

Customer Service: A Bad Concept?

I was thinking about customer service in our profession and considering recent conversations by some of our colleagues recently who reject the term. A bit of enlightenment came to me while listening to a reading to a segment of the radio program This I Believe.

The subject was Ruth Cranston, author of World Faith: The Story of the Religions of the United Nations. She spoke of achieving the insight that all of the world’s religions, despite their differences, were united in very similar tenets of how to live with our fellow man. Even when there is constant disagreement with how we go about our daily lives, she posited this about the commonalities of religious belief:

They [the world’s religions] taught the unity of all life; the interdependence of all men; love and service to fellow man; help, not exploitation, of the weak and backward. They taught nonviolence and non-injury. They all taught purity of life and of motive, simplicity of life too, and that true riches are within. They taught the worth of individual man and the ability of every man to rise to higher states of development than we are now experiencing. They taught the immortality of the soul and the building of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Her suggestion was that despite the worship or belief in which we practice, we experience several common denominators that should bring us closer together rather than farther apart. While a lot can be taken from that paragraph, it seems that like I say constantly in my forum here is that we as emergency service providers have more commonalities than differences. In fact, those of us who are true believers in what we do as a profession probably understand that the phrase “customer service” is just a name we put on a concept in order to define it.

Of course, the belief of a higher calling to serve is about those who are truly in this and believe in this as a profession of service and enjoying the benefits of the occasional adrenaline rush, in contrast to those who are in this for the adrenaline rush and enjoy the occasional effort to serve, and even then, if that subject comes up at all. I say that because it is my observation that a majority (if not all) of the problems we have in emergency service can be traced back to those who fail to see this career, whether you are paid or volunteer, as one in which we should serve rather than to be served. It is this entitled mindset, that we are automatically due respect because we wear the badge, which causes problems.

The term customer service is probably pretty cynical, when you think about it, because it might suggest to the casual reader that the ideal we seek is all about making sure our profession enjoys the financial benefit of such service. In fact, as emergency response personnel, the term “customer service” embraces the concept of all that is considered good in mankind, in that we realize the worth of others and we seek to serve those in need of help, despite their social status. While we can quantitatively point out that having a customer service attitude benefits us in public support, there should be a much more altruistic reason for our embracing that belief.

There are two schools of thought in the “anti-customer service” camp. One, of course, is that the public doesn’t have a choice, therefore they are not customers. The second goes along with my statement that what we do is so much more than a client relationship. I have argued that the public does have a choice, as Chief Alan Brunacini did much more so before I have here. But the latter discussion bears some serious consideration. Is the concept of customer service too simplistic? Customer service could be construed as providing a real effort only when we stand to gain from that interaction. It might be perceived that the service we provide is done only because we expect a return on investment.

While remembering conversations with Chief Brunacini as he advocated the benefits of customer service mentality as a method for obtaining taxpayer support, I also recall that he never said that the concept was exclusive to that expectation. If you remember, the overarching mission was to “Be Nice”. While that’s good for marketing, it’s not something you can force down people’s throats and expect it to happen magically. He advocated a cultural shift in his leadership that was summed up in two simple words, therefore easy to remember and easy to implement. The customer service mentality, likewise, was easy to relate to.

Our job as leaders is to communicate our mission. That communication requires not only our shouting it out there, but the return acknowledgment that understanding has been achieved. The mindset of “customer service” is palpable. We understand it and we know what is good customer service and what is bad. We can easily empathize with a customer who is frustrated with a certain way in which their matter is being handled or appreciate the sincere gratitude experienced by a customer who is receiving excellent service. For the purposes of defining an accepted approach to interaction with the community, it helps to be able to frame those interactions in a manner in which we are familiar. So while, yes, our delivery of service is much more than the interaction of a salesperson and a client, it provides us with concrete objectives by which we can measure our outputs. It is pretty easy to say, “Fire Went Out” and check the “Good” box. It is much more difficult to say, “Obtained Confidence of Taxpayer”.

Our job can be seen from a purely pragmatic standpoint, one in which we have been tasked to provide a service and we must efficiently produce results. Or we can say that our job is that of serving humankind with compassionate and ethical assistance when they are most vulnerable. In either case, the ultimate measurement is the same; as Cranston implied, reinforcing “the interdependence of all men”; loving and serving fellow man; and helping, not exploiting, the weak and needy. It is our charge to insure whichever path we choose, we do so with the understanding that we are there to serve.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on August 30, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, funding, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: Alan Brunacini, Be Nice, change, customer service, disaster, education, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, planning, politics, Ruth Cranston, This I Believe, World Faith

What Does It Take To Be A Firefighter Anyway?

Being a firefighter is real work and not for the faint of heart. If dirt bothers you, go get another job.

We should make getting into the fire service at least as hard as trying to get into the NFL. If everyone wanted to be a firefighter when they were growing up, most of us also probably wanted to play football. The NFL has all kinds of hurdles to cross to get a job there: the Wonderlick, the combine, scouting, etc. In some fire departments, all you have to do is fog a mirror, and even then, I wonder if that is even a requirement.

When all hell has broke loose in our lives, who better to see than the fire department? If the people we are recruiting can’t even solve the simplest of daily problems, what makes us think that at 0200 with the roof falling in on us that there will be sudden improvement in judgement and reasoning? It again goes to my post of the other day about being cognizant of what we do and don’t know. Some of these folks are so sure of what they think they know, that it makes them dangerous to those of us who know that we can’t possibly know everything.

Thus the survival instinct of the crustiest among us: situational awareness. We know that with Murphy lurking around every corner and maintaining a skeptical eye on most every situation, we aren’t entirely surprised when things go wrong, because we figured that they would anyway. It’s like some of the newer guys I talk to think that just because they studied it at the Fire Academy, it is going to go like the plan at every incident. I don’t know how you teach someone to be a little less optimistic, but if we can figure out how to do that, we might get some of the problem licked.

But that isn’t all; there’s something to be said about the mentality of “heavy lifting” that escapes some of our new hires around the nation. They seem to think that the problem is solved when we arrive and that it’s all going to be blood and glory. Then they become disenchanted when they’re mopping up vomit off of Mrs. Smith’s kitchen floor after the rig has taken her to the hospital. Our job requires us to tough it up and do what is necessary, whether we like it or not.

A little less bitching and a little more effort would go a long way. Your truck isn’t running perfectly? Well, sorry: For years I held apparatus together with duct tape and superglue. Suck it up and do your job. If something doesn’t work, roll with it. I took a lot of pride in knowing that I could do whatever job necessary with whatever I had with me, or at least knowing where I could make something work in the meanwhile. Nowadays it seems like if the least little thing goes wrong, people are throwing their hands in the air and giving up.

So here’s what it comes down to: We must figure out a way to test individuals for resiliency and determination, while also measuring their ability to understand that if they want the glory job, they should have probably worked harder for that baseball scholarship. There is no glory in our job. Put away the wacker lights and the Bad-Ass Firefighter t-shirt and know your role. If you aren’t out running calls, be grateful that you get to have a night of sleep and that no one became homeless last night because their house burned. And if glory and fame is what you want, go form a posse and hang out with Lindsey Lohan or something. We’ve got a job to do.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 26, 2010 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, firefighting, Firefighting Operations, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, motivation, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: customer service, education, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, resources, Training

Evolution And You

You can choose to keep your head in the sand or come up for air. It's really YOUR choice.

In an uncharacteristic Firehouse Zen moment, I’m going to share some not-so-heartwarming news with you: If you fail to evolve, you will die. It’s not all about cheerleading and mentoring. Some of this motivation has to come from the subject themselves. If you are not intrinsically motivated, you can only be kicked in the head so many times before it’s time for us to move on to someone who genuinely WANTS to succeed.

I am inspired by this post from the New York Times that discusses what is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence. In essence, some people are so stupid, that they don’t even recognize that they are that stupid.

It’s like the contemporary fire officer who continues to discuss his or her lousy computer skills. Do you know one? While twenty years ago, it might not have been a big deal, but virtually everything we do these days as a company or chief officer requires a certain understanding of how to complete forms, create documents and memos, and to analyze data.

I don’t know of a single department in the nation who is still using a typewriter to perform these tasks, although I’m sure someone will pipe up and claim that distinction. Unless you are some superstar fireground tactician, I don’t know anyone so gifted that they can forgo the skills required to cover the administrative requirements of the job, and those skills include basic computer use. Claiming you can’t work a computer just doesn’t cut it in the 21st Century; if you are so confused by a word processing program that you can’t manage to put out a coherent memo, it might be time for a career change.

But this isn’t a rant about not being able to use a computer. The point is that as times evolve, so do our jobs. You can complain about it and moan about it all you want, but the expectations placed on us as leaders require us to understand and manage change. You may not be an early adopter, in fact, you might be the last one dragged kicking and screaming to the next level, but at some point, you must make the change or expect to become irrelevant. As a company officer, your redeeming skill might have been that you could last the longest in a smoky room without puking your guts up, but now that we have methods to skip that desired attribute, you’d better polish some of your other abilities up soon else you will be yesterday’s news.

We must constantly evaluate our knowledge, skills, and abilities and determine what we can do to evolve. If we fail to do that, we are dooming ourselves to obsolescence. If retirement is within your sixty-day window, that might not matter to you, but if you plan on hanging in for the next few years, I suggest you learn more. You have to be smart enough to realize you don’t know everything and certainly not so stupid that you think you do.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 24, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, General, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, professionalism • Tagged: ability, career, change, computer, contemporary, Dunning-Kruger, education, evolution, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, knowledge, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, New York Times, obsolescence, officer, Opinionator, opportunity, planning, politics, research, risk reduction, skill, Training

Dedication to Customer Service

How dedicated to serving your public are you? We seem to pay a certain amount of lip service to “serving the public, 24/7, 365″ in our mission statements. I always hear how proud we are to “serve”, but do we draw the line at putting out fires? Carting them to a medical facility? Or are you in an organization who will put someone back in bed or stop a leak until a plumber can get there?

I hear about all-hazards response all the time, but do we draw the line at “hazards”, or do we raise the bar a little? While I don’t advocate anyone in our jurisdiction calling 9-1-1 because they need help completing their tax return, if a situation really does affect our customer that they had to dial that number, aren’t we charged with understanding how this is perceived as an emergency before saying we won’t help?

My wife owns a flooring company. While a floor product delivery may not constitute an emergency issue to you, to her company, when a customer needs a product someplace at sometime, if it isn’t there, it creates issues that may effectively stop the completion of the project, be it a remodel or new construction. This week, a delivery had to go from the manufacturer directly to the project location in another state. To the trucking company, excellent customer service was a non-issue: After neglecting to send the materials in a truck with a lift gate, they decided, “Oh well, you’ll just have to wait until we can get a truck to do that later.” Later being three days later.

They had a pretty blase attitude about the whole thing, despite the fact that they were contracted to deliver something, they had an obligation to deliver it at a certain time and place, and being the subject matter experts on shipping, should have probably realized that they weren’t going to just hand-carry 3900 pounds of product off the truck (especially since they had to use a fork-lift to get it on there). Then to compound the issue, they weren’t very careful about how the product was loaded and they damaged some of the pieces. Again, “Oh, well…”

Dedication to customer service requires a “can do” attitude; it might seem to be outside your scope of practice, but depending on what your marketing strategy happens to be – and make no mistake about it, your mission statement and vision is your marketing strategy when you are fighting for ever-dwindling tax funds or donations – your organization will be faced with very specific situations in which you will have to stretch your resources to “make it happen”. In our case, we rented a truck, picked up the material from the trucking company and delivered it ourselves. The customer was completely thrilled.

In my wife’s company, we hope our efforts will be recognized in customer loyalty and a willingness to pass the word on. In emergency services, we hope that the care we take with each challenge is shared loudly when budget time or the annual fundraiser comes around. You can draw the line where you choose, but in these times of limited funds, can you afford to ignore the added value of extraordinary customer service? It is extra effort that will distance you from the rest of the pack. When a decision must be made between funding an analysis of the migratory path of earthworms in your community and cutting firefighters, that’s ammo you can’t afford to ignore. The next time you are drooling over your wish list and realizing you can’t afford things, remember the choices you made as to where you drew that customer service line.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 18, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, Funding & Staffing, General, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, Patient Management, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: change, customer service, education, EMS, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, media, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, planning, politics, resources

Power Is Like A Flame

Power is like a flame. If you hold it too tight, it can smother. If you hold it too tight it will also burn. And like fire, it can be beneficial, or conversely, it can hurt others. It needs fuel, oxygen and a source of heat and likewise, power needs fuel, fresh air, and energy or it can’t be sustained.

When you get power, give it away. You’ll be surprised at how fast it returns to you. In fact, the more power you give, the more it comes back. If you empower those around you, they are eager to return the power to you. Those who hold power close to their heart and fail to share it are doomed to see it die off. If you fail to empower those around you, they begin to resent your power and want it for themselves, and when they get it themselves, they see your example and won’t share it, much less give any of it away.

Those who are confident know that their power actually comes from others and are comfortable with that. In doing so, people are comfortable with handing it to them, because they know it won’t be used against them. When you give power, you gain trust, and trust is the most important element in any relationship, especially with the people you hope to inspire.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 12, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, professionalism • Tagged: change, conflict, education, encouragement, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, flame, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, Mick Mayers, motivation, power, sharing

Your Fire Department Bucket List

The ladies dig the sunset at Bryce Canyon.

Recently I spent ten days on a working vacation. Beginning in Las Vegas, I fulfilled my attendance at the NFPA conference and the moment I closed my computer, we hopped in a rented RV and hit the trail for Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon National Parks.

This tour of the Southwestern US being on quite a few of my friends’ “bucket lists”, it got me thinking: what kind of emergency service organization would be on someone’s “bucket list” of an organization people want to be affiliated with, or have serve their jurisdiction, or to just go and visit? Or like the list of “any four people you’d like to invite over for dinner”, what four influential fire and emergency service rock stars would you like to invite to the station’s kitchen table? Who would you like to have sit in, grab a coffee, and just talk about their vision, or war stories, or just talk crap?

Let’s hear from you all: What departments do you think are “bucket list” worthy departments? Why? Who would you invite to your station? If they’re still alive, do they KNOW you feel this way? (You’d be surprised; some of these guys out there aren’t above hopping in the truck and showing up). Fill me in and share some names of the fire service people you admire the most. Okay, this is the interactive part: don’t be shy, just use that ol’ comment button over there and let fly. See you in a little bit…

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 10, 2010 • Filed under: change, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, leadership, motivation, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: Bryce Canyon, bucket list, change, customer service, education, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, Grand Canyon, Hilton Head Island, kitchen table, marketing, Mick Mayers, Zion

The Weekly Weasel – Your Jealous Eyes

Stand back, mortals. I've got this under control.

Stand back, mortals. I've got this under control.

Remember Shakespeare’s Othello? Iago is envious of Cassio, who has recently been appointed as Othello’s lieutenant. Iago then plants “evidence” of an affair between Cassio and Othello’s love, Desdemona. In the end, people get killed, suicides occur, and the plot is exposed. Your basic Shakespearean tragedy, as it were.

From the start, Iago tries to convince the audience that he loves Othello. So it is of this saga that I am reminded as I enter into a meeting with “Lt. Iago”. His need for a meeting revolves around his concern about how personnel might be losing respect for “Lt. Cassio”. Of course, Iago brings this situation to MY attention because he is “genuinely worried for him”. To say I am skeptical would be a gross understatement.

While Lt. Iago’s discussion has ever the slightest hint of merit, I sense the underlying reason for the issue being brought up in the first place: envy. Iago wants to be in that rock star category like Cassio is. Iago doesn’t have any hope of this because people don’t like to work with him. You want to know the reason why? Because of moments like these. If you screw up, it’s not a learning moment, it’s a chance for Iago to prove how good he is and what a dumbass you are.

You see, Iago is a star performer in his own right. He’s smart and driven. Although ambition is a good thing, stomping on the fingers of everyone you are climbing over doesn’t earn you any sympathy when you fall. Occasionally even, someone reaches up and yanks you down as well. Iago simply doesn’t know when to rely on his own record of accomplishments rather than to resort to innuendo and plotting. Iago, hero to us all, brings the problem forth in the name of “upholding our high standards”. While I have much bigger issues to worry about, Iago has saved the day from the trivial. His subtlety is truck-like in its dimensions.

Envy is characterized as a resentment of circumstances, an emotional and behavioral response toward a perceived relational threat. Jealousy and envy have over the ages gone hand in hand. Often, the words describing the two feelings are interchangeable. But while jealousy is a protective reaction to a perceived threat (to a valued relationship), envy is better characterized as ill will toward someone who has something the other wants, but feels that because of unfair circumstances, they do not have. Thus, Iago and Cassio.

Iago wants what Cassio has; respect. Cassio has respect from the masses because he is hard working, dedicated, and knowledgeable. Cassio also has his own issues, but he addresses his issues and deals with them. Faced with issues, Iago assumes that everyone else is an idiot. Cassio solves problems; Iago points out the weaknesses of others. Of course, I could fall prey to the temptation to tell Iago, “Hey look, Cassio has problems too”. I would hope you realize this isn’t a good idea, even though it could illustrate that yes, on the face of it Cassio is a superstar, but we all have our own issues.

How do you deal with someone like this? The first order of business is to not give in to it. While you must listen yet filter out the crap, the time that is spent listening to Iago is worthless from the standpoint of convincing him to get with the program. He needs to get re-focused on doing what he is good at and spend less time worrying about what everyone else is doing.

If Iago is simply venting, it is one thing, but if he is actively spreading rumors or creating problems, as the supervisor it is imperative to deal with facts and to get the rumors out of play. Short of keeping Iago at arm’s length, I don’t know what else you can do other than to watch out for him. Today it’s Cassio, tomorrow it could be you. Unless you’re like me and wouldn’t mind going back to the truck company, it’s hard to maintain objectivity when you know someone is gunning for you, especially someone like this.

My best advice, don’t be like this person and stand clear of anyone like him. Always treat them fairly, but suspiciously. Never give them an opportunity to stick it to you, no matter how tempted you might be. Iago isn’t your drinking buddy, he is a man of opportunity. If you provide the moment, don’t be surprised if your chip gets cashed unexpectedly and you’re left holding the bag.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 8, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: conflict, customer service, education, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, Hilton Head Island, leadership, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, Othello, politics, Shakespeare, tragedy, Training, Weekly Weasel

To My Facebook Friends

The other day I succeeded in putting a U.S. Army SAR Technician together with a state US&R asset in Tennessee. I supplied my girls’ swim instructor names of friends who have run the Chicago Marathon. Later in the evening, I was contacted by a friend who had another friend needing examples of state mutual aid agreements. Years ago, not only might I not have known the people to put these friends in touch with, but I might not have even known the people asking either.

While I created Firehouse Zen to educate others, my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Firefighter Nation accounts have become essentially my “research sources”. The more minds I can get exposure to, the more likely it is I am going to get an idea from somewhere, or be able to answer a question, or just generally help. While there are still a few skeptics, I know of many who find this new frontier exciting and intriguing. It is apparent that electronic media and social networks have really begun to find a place in the emergency service world, if used correctly.

Knowledge is most certainly power; your network is the essential element in communicating that knowledge. It used to be that you would have to attend dozens of conferences a year to connect with others, now I can do it from the desk in my office, or on a good day, on my porch with my toes in the pool. Day after day, social media is revolutionizing our industry. The more people you can connect with, the more likely you are to have an answer if called upon.

Although these applications were designed for socialization, many of us realize the utility of having access to names from all over the globe. These contacts are not only from within our ranks but from business, NGOs, military, and a host of other classifications we once didn’t have ready access to, people who may have faced similar challenges and can provide insight, or people who might at least know a source for further inquiry. While there are downsides, there are upsides we haven’t even begun to touch on yet. I continue to add pretty much anyone who asks to “friend” me, mostly because I’m not looking for exclusion, I’m looking for inclusion. I want anyone who wants to gain access to what I know to be able to, and likewise if they have something to share with me, to be able to do so easily.

So here’s to you, my Facebook buds, my LinkedIn compadres, and all of the rest of you out there who provide me a secure base of information, education, and friendship. And to those of you who aren’t yet, feel free to come by and friend me, because while today you might have something I need, hopefully someday there’ll be something I do to return the favor. Reach out and meet some people. Like they say at Disney, “It’s a small world after all”.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on July 2, 2010 • Filed under: change, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, General, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, professionalism, US&R • Tagged: change, customer service, education, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, US&R

Risk vs. Reward and Patient Advocacy

An OLD shot of Savannah's LifeStar landing for a Hilton Head Island F/R medevac.

The SC-TF1 Director copied an article to our command staff that I found interesting. It ran in Popular Mechanics titled Unacceptable Risk (I couldn’t find a direct URL for it, so here’s the pdf: HelicopterCrash).

Our organization allows paramedics on scene to request a medical helicopter evacuation with a minimum amount of oversight by the medical control physician. Being a paramedic myself, I know when to call for a flight and when not to. I am not about to call for a chopper to take a patient to a hospital for a broken foot, and likewise, I am intelligent enough to be able to assess a patient and opt to fly them to a hospital that has the resources to help my critically injured victim. I am appalled at some of the case histories where someone was flown out for a routine (very routine) injury and consequently, I know of agencies who simply won’t call for a flight, regardless of the need for it.

How bad of a medic must you be that you can’t tell the difference between a potentially life-threatening injury and one that can be transported by ground to a hospital? If I’ve got an altered patient with a potential head injury, I know they need to go to a trauma center. So what if I have to go on an out-of-jurisdiction transport to the trauma center- it’s what we do.

Regardless of whether or not the aeromedical evacuation of a patient is risky and may or may not have tangible benefit, the decision must come to this: What do I need to do for the best interest of the patient? I don’t care if you don’t like the way they look, or they stink, or you are tired. When you became a medical response professional, you probably took an oath that involved a statement like “Above All, Do No Harm”. Our jobs involve making sure our patients not only get care, but that it is the right care, it is not care that is provided at a huge cost because we were too lazy to do our jobs, and that the patient’s rights are maintained in their treatment and transport to a medical facility (or not).

Just as I wouldn’t make you take a treatment that could possibly kill you in order to cover my ass, ordering a helovac for a finger amputation isn’t in my first line of thought. And I know I curse and fuss when I DO call for a chopper and a spot of rain on the pilot’s windshield causes them to scrub the mission, but you know what? I’m a big boy- I’d MUCH rather you err on the side of keeping your crew and my patient safe and I’ll deal with the fallout otherwise. But to just say, “All patients go by air” or much worse, “No patients go by air” is ridiculous.

Maybe like everything else, we need to stop applying a broad brush to a situation and do our jobs, by appropriately assessing our patient, determining their logical needs based on mechanism of injury, observable findings, and our experience, and make a good call as to what to do with them. If we ca’t do this much, it’s no wonder we continue to have to convince people we aren’t just “ambulance drivers” but real, live, medical professionals.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on June 28, 2010 • Filed under: "accident prevention", Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Health & Safety, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, News, Patient Management, professionalism, rescue, safety, Vehicle Operation & Ambulances • Tagged: accident, education, EMS, fatal, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, helicopter, medical, trauma

Keep It Short

Try not to cram EVERYTHING into one package.

The essentials, crammed efficiently into a manageable package. Think of it as "concentrated excellence".

I’m trying to determine what my readers want (and don’t want) in the way of improving FHZ. Unfortunately, I get intermittent feedback from you all, so I have to rely on hits to tell me where I am and am not. One thing I have noticed: when I have a short post, I get more hits, thus, these must be things you wish to read (or have time to).

In the spirit of continual improvement, I’ll post more often but shorter. So I’m going to set a goal of saying what I have to say in less than (or close to) 700 words. If it takes more than that, maybe it needs to be broken down into digestible chunks. We’ll see how that works, but I have no desire to decrease the quality. I’m looking to bring what YOU want to the blog but to stay within my niche. We have plenty of bloggers on here to share their own particular specialties. Until I get this straight, bear with me and let me know what it is you are interested in (knowing I am focusing on leadership and change issues and keeping things ethical and G to PG-lite).

As a result of the subject matter I deal with, it is pretty hard to keep things short; my goal is to frame social issues within our industry (and outside it) in a context we can all understand. I tend to use a lot of examples and metaphorical discussions to do this, while encouraging visionary and innovative practices. I’d say we want to re-invent the way we lead in emergency services, but we can’t even define emergency services on a daily basis. So feel free to say your piece, tell me what you think we need right now. Stay safe; know what is going on around you at all times and let’s all go home in the morning.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on June 26, 2010 • Filed under: EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership • Tagged: blog, brief, change, conflict, customer service, education, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, opportunity, Training

Bravery In The Line Of Fire

Mark Glencourse’s recent decision to end the Medic 999 blog has certainly struck a sympathetic chord with many of us in the emergency services blogosphere. We all tread the finely defined line of sharing our experiences for the sake of educational and informational purposes on a regular basis knowing that we are one troll away from internet chaos and either a loss of our jobs, public lynching, or worse. There’s a reason many of us require authorization before your comments post; one ill-phrased comment can be the same as someone throwing a road flare into a packed movie house. Next thing you know, people are yelling at each other, getting ugly, going after whomever happens to be in the way, then voila- all consumed, the masses move on to leave you, the theater owner with your smoking rubble pile (i.e.; your life and career, or what’s left of it). It’s a tough crowd sometimes.

Plenty of blogs exist just for the sake of venting. The origins of the web log are in a diary format and meant as a way for the blogger to share his or her feelings and observations with others. My site was meant to be different, just as I would bet the rest of the blogs on the FireEMSBlog Network were. Mark’s efforts were pioneering like many of the rest of my fellow bloggers. Many of us saw this format as a way to immediately reach the masses with timely messages. But not only that, I think Mark set an example of a blogger that took the high road consistently, so much so that he and Justin at The Happy Medic were able to inspire Thaddeus Setla to team up for developing the Chronicles of EMS series.

While Mark and many of us chose to blog openly, for a long time I used to get a little frustrated sometimes with the people who choose to hide behind a psuedonym. Looking back on it, sometimes I wish I had stayed anonymous, since the longer I do this, the more I realize it’s probably not a bad way to be able to say your piece without being taken out at the esophagus. While I publish any comment for or against my views, except spam, there have been a few unnerving moments when I would read a comment and know a potential spark was heading toward the hot zone. The nature of my blog keeps that to a minimum, but I have read others that have turned pretty emotional.

The subjects of change and leadership cover some dangerous ground. You can be courageous and try to influence positive growth, but from time to time, leaders get attacked, especially if what they say is unpopular. Just ask Gandhi, or JFK, or Martin Luther King, Jr. how dangerous leading can be. While on this site I haven’t gotten into what I consider the “daily grind”, I have discussed some best practices that apparently don’t sit well with everyone. Some of my long-time readers might remember the series I began on credentialing that went south when a few individuals disagreed with my assessment of the current landscape. Not only did they choose to attack me, but my employer as well (they were pretty good natured about it, considering, which goes to show how supportive my bosses are of this endeavor). Likewise, I got an e-mail recently from someone I consider a friend, who, having read something I wrote, took it as an attack on him. Nothing could have been father from the truth. While there were others involved in the situation that I felt deserved some well-placed rage, I never meant to question this individual’s commitment or bravery. But like everything else, when you are enmeshed in a situation, no matter what side of the fence you happen to be on, sometimes the firing gets a little too close. If you happen to be standing nearby when the grenade goes off, just supporting the leader may blow up in your face, no matter how much you wanted to help and how good your intentions.

So to keep this from going on much too long, I’m reminded that I wanted to tell you all this story: I recall an event from my recent past where I was doing my station rounds; a firefighter, who obviously saw my “certificate book” years ago, when I happened to visit his station pulled out his similarly crafted three-ring binder which makes keeping track of certificates a little easier. While mine is pretty full after thirty years in this business, this young firefighter had a pretty impressive start and I congratulated him on the many trees that were killed in pursuit of personal excellence. Of course, this event became the equivalent of a measuring contest and soon the other crew members were bringing out their own versions, ranging from a file folder to what looked like a scrapbook. Thus, the Zen Master saw a little teaching moment.

I wished I had my book at the time, but when I took all of the other books and stacked them on top of one another, they made a nice pile. The crew members were laughing a little nervously (okay, where’s the chief going with this?) when I made a BIG deal out of this stack. Then I turned to the bunch and pointed out that while this was quite an assembly of awards, the entire pile was worth NOTHING if the knowledge and experience that the stack represented wasn’t shared, either by teaching, relating it to others, or simply by setting an example. Mark got that idea early on and decided he wanted to share his ideas, albeit in a method that many don’t understand or even try to appreciate.

Medic 999 was and remains an excellent blog. Mark did a great job with it and he deserved the honor of Fire/EMS Blog of the Year he got last year from a popular vote. As I mentioned earlier, Mark and Justin’s story of reaching out to one another across the pond and a continent (depending on which direction you flew, I suppose) was inspiring and certainly newsworthy. And above all, the situation he finds himself in now, I have been close to before and there but for the grace of God go I. I’ve been fortunate to have an employer who, while keeping their distance and reaffirming their legal requirements to maintain privacy, have also been supportive of my need for creative expression (so long as it is done off-duty and on my own computer). It is here in which we have our last leadership lesson of the day.

Every now and then I have to endure an occasional comment from the “less-than-enlightened”; or “LTEs”, as I like to call them. Like as in “Battalion Chief Lite” or “Firefighter Lite”- you know, looks like one, MAYBE tastes like one, but we all know somehow, when you turn it to the side, you see it is just a facade (or like in beer, it never tastes as good as what it is advertised to be). When you have a lot of these Lites hanging around, it really makes it hard to do your job. While it gives those of us a never-ending source of material to write about, these individuals can quickly make your life miserable and wear you down. If they are your boss, they can make it impossible to be innovative and visionary. I have been fortunate to work with people who realize the power of knowledge and desire for us all to share (appropriately) what we know. Others aren’t quite as fortunate. If you find yourself in the position of being the big cheese and you have some real go-getters, do you want to be known as the chief that took off the leash and encouraged facilitated excellence? Or do you want to be known as the Stalinist who shut down all original thought, suppressed creativity, and required everyone to march in lock-step? In this day and age, we should all be reaching out to not only understand where we have been, but where we need to go. Mark was reaching ahead of himself, not behind. If you can honor his decision to make the choice, the best way is probably to learn from his experience, share it with others, and to strive for excellence. While you may not be able to choose to blog, you can teach, you ca mentor, and you can certainly patronize those of us who can bring it to you.

Good luck, Mark. Vaya con Dios. Visit often and know that I’m hoisting a drink in your direction. Cheers and thanks for leading.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on June 25, 2010 • Filed under: education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, Training & Development • Tagged: change, Chronicles of EMS, comments, conflict, credentialing, employer relations, EMS, enlightenment, fire, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, freedom of speech, Happy Medic, innovation, leadership, management, Mark Glencourse, Medic999, Mick Mayers, politics, Setla, Training, trolls, understanding

Tolerance

Take the time to understand others' points of view.

Take the time to understand others' points of view.

There is a great deal of controversy on the internet at any given time, but the postings between people we should be working with are getting to the point where they are troubling. Heated rhetoric, personal attacks, and just out and out anger are more commonplace now then ever.

I posted this on my Firefighter Nation profile the other day in response to some of the discussions I have seen on other blogs lately. If there’s anything I learned from doing research, is that even the military has come to understand that if combatants don’t appreciate adversary culture, they are likely to make assumptions that could jeopardize their mission. As a result, enlightened commanders take the time to immerse themselves in cultural education and counterintelligence to fully comprehend the aspect in which an adversary may approach a problem. As a born cynic, my first viewpoint was that the understanding could be utilized to manipulate weakness or strength to be used against one’s adversary, but as I have grown older (and hopefully, wiser), I have found that in conflict management, many arguments could be simply defused by just toning down the language and accepting others’ viewpoints for what they are: opposing viewpoints.

This text was shared with me by a friend some time ago, but I wanted share it with you all in the hopes that maybe it could provide some perspective:

(Paraphrased from Dhammavadaka):

Remember always that you are just a visitor here, a traveler passing through. Your stay is but short and the moment of your departure unknown.

Speak quietly and kindly and be not forward with either opinions or advice. If you talk much, this will make you deaf to what others say, and you should know that there are few so wise that they cannot learn from others.

Be near when help is needed, but far when praise and thanks are being offered.

Take small account of might, wealth and fame, for they soon pass and are forgotten. Instead, nurture love within you and and strive to be a friend to all. Truly, compassion is a balm for many wounds.

Treasure silence when you find it, and while being mindful of your duties, set time aside, to be alone with yourself.

Cast off pretense and self-deception and see yourself as you really are.

Despite all appearances, no one is really evil. They are led astray by ignorance. If you ponder this truth always you will offer more light, rather then blame and condemnation.

Maybe some of you will take this for what it is worth and be a little less likely to fight with one another. Maybe you will continue to disregard any advice toward making peace with your brother firefighters and EMTs. But maybe if some of us kept our mouths shut and listened more, we might learn something. And further, maybe we need to be tolerant with some of the newbies and try to encourage their learning.

There is always a place for understanding the culture and approach of others, because you can then frame your discussion in terms which they can understand. Be more open to ideas and accepting of others, and in the end, you will reach them because you can appreciate where they are coming from and they will appreciate that you took their sides under consideration.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 13, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, motivation, News, officership, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: adversary, change, conflict, Dhammavadaka, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, opportunity, opposition, politics, research, risk reduction

Squirrel In The Middle of The Road

Our job entails more than responding to emergencies.

Our job entails more than responding to emergencies.

The other day I was sitting at Coligny Circle, which is a pretty busy spot on our Island. I was actually trying to get some work done using the Town’s open WiFi connection there, rather than watching squirrels running out in the road. A long time ago I wrote (in my first blog ever, over on FirefighterNation.com) about how some people make decisions like a squirrel decides whether it is going to cross the road: first this way, then realizing impending danger – that way – then thinking maybe that was a bad idea – this way…then the awful crunch of tire meeting squirrel.

Now as some of you know (who have been following me for a while) I’m not crazy about squirrels. But while continuing to battle with the squirrels in my yard and despite my general impression that they are just rats with bushy tails, I still don’t really wish them any harm. While I would not come to a screeching halt to avoid hitting a squirrel with my car, I’m certainly not going to swerve to hit one, and I’ll even slow down to give them the benefit of doubt. But just because I don’t really care for them, I still at least respect them as an adversary and I would never go out of my way to hurt them.

Well, it’s like that with you all and my other fellow beings; I respect you and your thoughts, I pray for your souls and your enlightenment, and I’d never go out of my way to hurt anyone. I’d even avoid doing so if I could. But at some point we will come to a critical intersection where your indecision matches up with my desire for forward motion and we revert to that law of physics where an object in motion will continue in motion unless acted on by some outside force. Are you getting it?

I have little to no patience with the status quo, especially if staying with the status quo serves no purpose. I was remarking this morning to a friend that many “leaders” are afraid of the unknown because they don’t know how the unknown is going to treat them now or their legacy later. It may be that the future holds them to account for their inabilities, their failures, or their inequities. The status quo provides comfort. The status quo provides reassurance. If we know that the future is the status quo, we can control that. Everything else is shrouded in mystery.

If you live your life afraid of what is about to come, you will be afraid to take any chances. If you live your life afraid of what is about to come, you will be cautious to the point of avoidance when an opportunity arises. If you fail to take a chance when an opportunity arises there will be no growth. While there are places for leaders who simply maintain peace, if your world is in constant turmoil, as a leader you must strive for change. If your world in constantly evolving and you fail to grow with it and improve, you will go the way of the dinosaurs. Or even better, the way of the indecisive squirrel.

If we weren’t losing firefighters from preventable cause, or if we didn’t have technologies that would help us to save lives and property more efficiently, or if we had leaders that were fully prepared to lead others in providing emergency services, we wouldn’t need to change. If we had a fully efficient EMS system in every community and adequate layperson interventions in place, and lives were improved by rapidly delivered patient care, we wouldn’t need to change.

While there are those who continue to promote equilibrium, the time is not now for equilibrium. Equilibrium suggests that things are okay, and things are clearly not okay. We must as leaders continue to strive for improvement. We must encourage and motivate those who follow us in order to build a better customer service delivery model. When things have improved not by what “seems” like improvement, but based on objective, measurable data, then and only then should we be comfortable resting on our laurels. Our job entails more than just responding to emergencies. It entails responding to community needs and assisting our neighbors. That assistance comes in many forms, but the agencies who get it will be survivors, and those who don’t, well, I think you can figure that out yourself. It’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”.

When the squirrel decided he wanted to cross the road, it was because he had an objective to reach on the other side. Staying on one side of the road meant the objective would not be met. Going after that objective involved a certain amount of risk. The squirrel may or may not have considered that risk before making his decision. We are not squirrels. We hopefully have enough brainpower to determine whether the risks that we take are worth the rewards at the end and make the right decisions. And if we rush out into the stream and find ourselves challenged there is also a risk in changing direction that we need to take into consideration.

As emergency service leaders, we must ensure that the decisions we make are based on objective, unemotional criteria involving what is best for the people we serve. No tradition supersedes our prime directive of service to others. Any decision we make must consider the ultimate mission: protection of life, property, and the environment. If we remain locked in on the present and base our actions on serving the status quo, we don’t achieve that mission and we will have failed. Our failure has consequences; unfortunately, in our business, those consequences often involve injury, death, or other severe loss. It is incumbent upon us to keep that from happening. But other consequences are pretty devastating as well like the elimination of overall budget, which can result in reduction or elimination of staff, programs, equipment, or whatever else you can imagine.

Challenge yourself and your team to remain vigilant to unmet needs, to consider means to remedy those needs, and to strive for continual improvement. If you don’t engage your vision, it is tantamount to going out into the road and freezing in the path. And we all know the ending to THAT story.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 5, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: budget, change, education, EMS, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, funding, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, risk reduction, squirrel, status quo

RESPECT

Making Friends In Australia.

Making Friends In Australia.

I thought this morning I missed the cutoff for the First Due Blog Carnival. Of course, as usual, I’m confused. The link was to The Handover EMS Blog this month being hosted over at 999Medic. Since I’m all about keeping with the spirit of things, I’m going to post anyway, this month’s subject being “respect”.

Now while I haven’t read the other posts yet (I don’t want to be led in a certain direction), I want to call attention to the issue that so many of us in emergency services are bemoaning the “lack of respect” for our profession these days. I’m going to make this short and sweet: you will never be afforded the respect you think you deserve if you can’t clean up the mess you have made.

We have continued, for decades, even centuries, to tolerate less than professional conduct from our “brothers”. We have failed to embrace better methods of doing our jobs. We have shunned safety over bravado. We have permitted people to lead us who lack education and enlightenment. We continue to resist standardization not for the sake of technical improvement but because “that’s not the way we do it here”.

This is as much about the fire service as it is about EMS. I keep seeing battles popping up all over the place about whether the fire service is the best place for EMS, or third party, or whomever. People, LET IT GO. Communities must evaluate what suits them best and do that. Different models work for different circumstances. Continue to fight among each other at your own peril; the divisiveness is staggering. We are in emergency services, all of us. If we continue to beat each other up, we all continue to lose. And when we lose, the community loses.

You want respect? How about showing consideration and professional courtesy toward one another? I went to comment on a blog yesterday and saw a terse statement about something along with a statement pretty much daring someone to reply. For people to have a difference of opinion is acceptable; for someone to be daring someone to comment so they can exchange heated words, well, it’s reprehensible.

I had the opportunity to speak with a visiting delegation to our Town from Brazil yesterday. I did a little research and opened up with a paragraph introducing myself and my position with the Town in Portugese. I likely butchered it, but these visitors were immediately smiling and laughing (at my Portugese, I’m sure), but it opened us up to dialogue. I spoke about the six weeks I spent on a similar exchange to Australia and the amazing experience I had and the memories I will have forever.

But what I spoke about mostly was how that experience made me realize that an entire world away, we were all really brothers and sisters. We might speak a different language, but it sure as hell doesn’t make them idiots. We have ideas and dreams and vision and it is muy importante that we share those ideas and dreams and visions and seek to understand what we can do not only to further our own goals, but to reciprocate, to help othters achieve their vision as well.

If we really want respect, we need to give respect. How many times have you heard that one? But so long as we go on with an entitled attitude, that the people we serve should be eternally grateful to us and bow down and kiss our asses on a daily basis, we will fail miserably to earn their respect. To them, we are just another expenditure in the municipal budget. We need to embrace a servant mentality, and even more so, we need to understand our own culture and how that interacts with the other cultures we deal with. I’m not talking about foreign culture; I’m talking about the fabric of your neighborhood and community, and in a bigger sense, our emergency service world.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 2, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism • Tagged: 999Medic, Australia, Brazil, change, EMS, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, First Due Blog Carnival, Handover, Hilton Head Island, Mick Mayers, opportunity, professionalism, respect, South Carolina

Mixing EMS and The Fire Service

Two of Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue's ten advanced life support medic units.

Two of Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue's ten advanced life support medic units.

When I hear anyone suggest that the merger of fire and EMS is a mistake because “firefighters lack the skills to provide paramedic care”, I am highly insulted.

When I hear the ex-chief of a metropolitan department regretting decisions to bring medical providers and fire services together, I wonder aloud how he can continue to stomach the fact that it isn’t the inmiscible nature of these professions that caused the problem but the culture that the “leaders” of these organizations permitted to continue and encourage.

I admit that I know people with what could be termed the “fire” mentality and those with the “EMS” mentality. But these individuals seem to be the minority now, rather than the majority. Fortunately, I work with a lot of people who have the “Fire & EMS” mentality; people who are open to the belief we can do both well, we can exceed at the skills, we can meet our customers’ needs, and we can enjoy the diversity that having two “jobs” rolled into one provides on a daily basis.

I happen to work in an organization that merged fire and EMS together in 1993. Prior to that, the two fire departments provided first responder service to our community to supplement the response of our local rescue squad. Ultimately, with the merger, we took all three of these agencies and combined them into an outstanding example of emergency medical service delivery. EVERY line employee is required to be at the MINIMUM a nationally registered EMT-Basic and of those personnel, over 40 of them are National Registry Paramedics as well. This doesn’t count each of our chief and administrative officers who were all certified EMTs as well, and also doesn’t count our Training Division officers, who are both NREMT Paramedics as well. Our organization provides a highly-recognized service to this world-class resort community and has incorporated 12-lead ECG monitoring and interpretation along with telemetry to reinforce our STEMI recognition program, among other programs like Island-wide AED promotion and education, public CPR and First Aid programs, car seat installation, and many, many other efforts. I honestly work with some of the most outstanding EMS personnel in the nation and I’d be honored to let them work on anyone in my family, which is good, because I live in this community as well.

I have had it with anyone who suggests that EMS should be the exclusive domain of the third-party providers, especially since, with rare exception, a good number of these “non-fire service” providers don’t seem to provide any better of a service than the fire department EMS providers. In fact, I know that our agency is an excellent EMS provider and is right now striving to be more than just excellent, but to be “state-of-the-art”. With leaders like Lt. Tom over at the EMS 12-Lead ECG Blog, and Pete at the Star of Life EMS legal blog, we have a very good chance of putting ourselves in the position of being innovators and setters of the gold standard.

I would never suggest that fire-based EMS is the ONLY solution, but there are a few dinosaurs out there who continue to insist that EMS can only be effectively provided by non-fire department providers. Apparently, stuffing themselves in their too-tight BDUs and hanging out at the local donut shop has occluded some sort of cerebral perfusion. I hope they are watching carefully as the rest of us, the people who desire to have community-based EMS delivered by competent and caring providers, regardless of agency affiliation, kick them to the curb.

Your agency can only be as good as the personnel you retain; if you continue to recruit people who can’t do the job, the community shouldn’t be surprised if the situation won’t work. Volunteer or career, you get what you pay for, and if the community doesn’t invest in good training, good equipment, good leadership, and good methods of keeping personnel, they shouldn’t be surprised if all they get is a crappy EMS system.

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Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on March 20, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, Patient Management, politics, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: change, education, EMS, EMS12-Lead EKG Blog, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, opportunity, Star of Life, Washington

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