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Recharging

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I am here in Granby, Colorado, doing a truck company operations course for a few of the Middle Park departments.  Other than our hosts from the Grand Fire District, we have some great guys and gals also from East Grand, Grand Lake, Wheat Ridge, Vail, and Kremmling.  This is the part of my job I love: getting people who really want to do this job to another level.  Everyone in the class seems to get "it".  Chief Ron Richards, who I am teaching with, has said before, "This is missionary work.  We are spreading the word about best practices, tricks of the trade, really, the art of fighting fire." 

Do you want to recharge your batteries?  Teach.  Take what you have learned and share it with others.  You don't have to be a certified instructor to teach.  Even the lowest man on the totem pole can learn something and share it with others. Sharing knowledge changes the world.

Posted by on August 19, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, Firefighting Operations, motivation, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Belated Father’s Day Tribute

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I probably could have posted this on Father's Day, but after the events I experienced this week, it's really good to see it in context.  I continue to believe that being a father is a very difficult situation to be in sometimes.  The other day, after being challenged by my daughter Caroline’s afternoon (and evening) at the ER, I was dealing with that and put the other two out on the deck to play.  We have a large kiddie pool, since I don’t have the time, money, or patience to deal with a real pool.  At one point, I noticed my oldest daughter Emma walking around with one of two Blackberry phones that were on our kitchen counter.  These were phones previously used by my wife's company, and she wanted me to extract the data from them, especially pictures she had on one of them.  Seeing this, I told Emma that they weren’t toys and to put them back, but being a little distracted dealing with Caroline, didn’t follow up on things.

Later that evening, while tucking the girls into bed, my wife found the second of the two Blackberries in my youngest daughter Honora’s bed.  The screen was waterlogged and upon opening the battery door, it was full of water.  In short order we found the other Blackberry similarly waterlogged.  The good news is that the children are still alive.  Hopefully we are not out $750 worth of phones and a whole bunch of important work pictures.  The phones will be sitting in rice for a few days and the culprits sitting in room restriction for a few days as well.

All children get into mischief and I weigh the situation against the likelihood that it wasn’t intentional and maybe someday soon we will laugh about it.  But the issue is that a certain amount of discipline must be leveraged to provide an effective and memorable lesson.  The discipline must be appropriate for the situation, and of course, past infractions have to be counted.  They haven’t been very cooperative lately, so this really upped the ante.  And while a spank on the rear might handle a quick tantrum or something like that, punishment for an event like this must deliver a life message and spanking won't cut it.  So room restriction it is, and while they are there, we want the rooms spotless. 

But as a parent, in this case, the effort is difficult.  My wife is going out of town for the weekend and I had some fun things I wanted to do with the girls.  I could easily change the discipline but what message would that send?  I want badly to go into their rooms and hug them and tell them that there’s a good chance I can resurrect the data, but after having specifically telling them the phones were off-limits, they disobeyed the order and everything ISN’T just okay.  Smiling and making nicey-nice is not going to help things any, except in the immediate moment.  Failing to listen to an order must bear repercussions.

People often remark about how good our children are and we take a lot of pride in that.  But they see the result of lots of second-guessing, mistakes and heartbreak, because that’s what being a parent is like if you are doing your job.  You struggle between doing what’s best to positively reinforce good behavior and what’s best to discourage bad behavior.  And bad behavior, regardless of fun plans and the desire to kiss and make up, must have consequences.  To not have consequences invites repeated poor performance.

Honestly, I have it easier than some people have it, because my kids are pretty good.  But it’s a continual cycle; they are good, and they make it easier to provide positive experiences.  When they are bad, we struggle with wanting to continue to be affectionate and supportive, even though we know that to act like everything is okay would not send the right message.

Caring leaders endure the same exact experiences.  If you choose, re-read what I just wrote and insert “leader” in the context every time you see “dad”.  As a command officer, I make decisions that on occasion, must be followed regardless of what those who are recieving end want to do, or feel like doing.  They may even want to question my decision.  In this case, there must be repercussions to disobeying a direct order.

Making discipline mean something is required to elevate the attention level of the subject.  Some people can be reached with something as simple as a look.  Some require the equivalent of a 2×4 across the head.  And enforcing discipline hurts for us sometimes as well because those decisions are based on experience and understanding of a particular situation, but those decisions are contrary to the desires of the "children".  Sometimes, despite insisting that what we say is right, our children disobey us, and discipline is invoked, in order to reinforce a message. Likewise with our subordinates.

I try to support positive behavior through positive reinforcement.  And when I have to administer discipline, I struggle with doing so, because, as a good leader, I probably care more than I should.  But I also know that I am fortunate to have good people who, given the chance, will make good decisions, and I like to think that is a continual cycle.

Consider this when you lead.  You are responsible for the welfare of the people who you supervise.  If you are the designated leader, you have to be proactive, and provide opportunities for success.  But when things don’t go right, it is not time to be everyone’s best friend.  It is time to do what is right and that involves, more often than not, making hard decisions that benefit all involved.  As I say often to my children, "I am not your friend, I am your father.  If we get along we can be friends, but I am your father first."  Feel free to insert "boss" in lieu of "father" in that statement as well.

My children will survive this event and live to tell about it, as will we.  But hopefully we will now have further understanding as to what is expected and the consequences of failure.  And in the same respect, when you have that moment with your charges, they should too.

Posted by on June 23, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, Firefighting Operations, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We Try Harder

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

I had the opportunity to be part of a test rehearsal for a web conference going on Friday. In one of the questions, we were asked, “If you had to give your department a grade, what would it be?” I was the only one who gave my department an “A”. Of course, when you see that you have made a choice like that, you immediately begin to second-guess yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by on April 27, 2011 • Filed under: "accident prevention", administration-leadership, change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, firefighting, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution, technology, Technology & Communications, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Article: Modern Approaches To Fire Suppression

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Picture from FireRescue1.com

Not long ago I was asked by Jamie Thompson over at FireRescue1.com to write an article on fire suppression.  While I wrote it a few weeks before, it published yesterday.  But yesterday morning, before the newsletter with my article  came out, I was reading the FireRescue1 article on the Chinese water cannon and this inspired my morning “message to the troops” to be about innovation and change.  Of course, the point of my article was about innovation and change, so it was good timing.

I have been having some pretty in-depth discussions lately regarding change as related to technology.  There are people who feel like all of this technology is overwhelming and distressing and changes should be avoided.  There are those who think technology will solve all the ills of the world.  And then there are many who see technology as being a useful tool that when applied to the right situation, can produce wonderful results, and conversely, be misapplied and create major disaster.  Some think that there should be more emphasis on the basics, which would supplant the need for technological shifts.  And there are those like me who see potential in these changes and wonder how we could harness the power of both to provide safer and more effective service.

While the water cannon discussion illustrates an interesting discussion on technology, the comments reflected several differing opinions, and while I noted that there was a lot of discussion about what it wouldn’t do, I only saw one serious commenter reflecting on what it might be able to do.  Many think that innovation stops at invention.  In fact, innovation can really be considered having a new birth there.  Because once something is invented, there are usually a few individuals out there testing it, finding out its limits, and trying to envision what this new development might mean to them.  And they tweak and refine and experiment, and then, voila, we have a new way of doing things.

Innovation has plenty of effect on your daily life, but you have to take some time and appreciate that effect, because we tend to take it for granted.  How many things were invented that aren’t necessarily used for the original intent?  In the fire service, we take things all day long and make them do things they probably weren’t designed to do (which isn’t always good).  How much better would our organizations be if, instead of looking at the problems, we saw the challenges and rose to solve those issues instead?  If we took into consideration the changes we have made and came up with ways to even improve farther on those ideas?

While honing our technique is desirable to improve performance, as one commenter on my article suggested, and he goes on to suggest that CAFS and other fancy things can’t overcome poor technique, I agree in part and principle.  But I disagree on a different level, that is, from the aspect that if we have good technique AND technological improvement, we can have an exponentially beneficial effect on solving problems.  Good technique AND good tools create a force multiplier.

Solutions for problems are all around us; we just need to take the time to find them.  Knowing where we come from is important, because it helps us to understand where we want to be.  But abandoning good technique for promotion of good technology is NOT the answer.  The answer lies in both, and knowing that in order to improve our condition, we must take advantage of all of the opportunities that come our way, if not to stretch out from that point, to know that this is NOT the way to go.  We all must experiment and learn and understand.  But most of all, we have to be open to the ideas and see them with clear vision.

Posted by on February 2, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, General, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, safety, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Residential Fire Sprinkler Comparison

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s The Minimum

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If you didn't have standards, this might be your first out engine. Swan River, Queensland, Australia 2002

If you didn't have standards, this might be your first out engine. Swan Creek/Emu Creek Bushfire Brigade, Queensland, Australia 2002

Authentic Neapolitan pizzas are typically made with tomatoes and Mozzarella cheese.  Genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of high-protein wheat flour (type 0 or 00, or a mixture of both), natural Neapolitan yeast or brewer’s yeast, salt and water. The dough must be kneaded by hand or with a low-speed mixer. After the rising process, the dough must be formed by hand without the help of a rolling pin or other machine, and may be no more than 3 mm (⅛ in) thick. The pizza must be baked for 60–90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) stone oven with an oak-wood fire.[4] When cooked, it should be crispy, tender and fragrant.

Those were just a few of the standards for an authentic Neapolitan pizza (published on Wikipedia), as recognized and protected by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana.  Likewise, most of the things you take for granted in the world, with the exception of things like knock-off Rolexes, are constructed from materials meeting standards, are built to certain standards, and if they carry any kind of guarantee of quality or workmanship, must meet performance standards.

Unless your organization is living in a 1950’s time warp, the people in your community, when they call the fire department for help, expect help for many things that exceed the scope of “firefighting”.  Regardless of whether your community is staffed with a career or a volunteer department, there are increased expectations on the level of service being provided.  I can rationally argue the need for standards on a number of different levels.  I will, however, only provide you with this one today; it’s the minimum.

If you want to call yourself a firefighter, there are certain things you should be able to do.  If you cannot do these things, you run the risk of hurting yourself, not to mention others.  You also run the risk of making an emergency greater than it was when you arrived.  As a reasonable and prudent individual with a duty to act, you agree that your “job” (as a firefighter) entails certain knowledge, skills, and abilities to allow your organization the ability to advertise a product. What that product is in your jurisdiction could be limited to fighting fire or could be all-hazards, or anywhere in between.

Your community, in supporting the “fire department”, does so with the understanding that you are what you say you are.  The community defines that expectation; if their only expectation is that a group of bubbas show up to put out a fire when it occurs, then maybe you don’t need to meet a standard.  If that’s the case though, when insurance companies decide the risk is too great in your community, don’t be surprised when the citizenry can’t get coverage and they hang you (or your chief) in effigy at the town square.  And that may be getting off light.

Minimum standards, among other things, define.  Since a group of individuals representing different aspects of the world affected by a certain thing decided and agreed on a definition, and that group is recognized by the others affected by that thing, the definition becomes a standard.  I could write a standard on constructing nuclear plants and declare it the minimum standard, but since I have no authority or expertise in doing so, my standard would likely be considered meaningless and useless.

For those who aren’t in favor of standards, I’d suggest that it’s not that you aren’t in favor of standards, but what is in those standards and how they came to be.  If that’s the case, I’d say that before you make any proclamations on a standard being a “bad” standard, you seek to understand how that definition came to be and how it happens to be the minimum.  In many cases, I’d bet that you’d find that others wanted a much stricter or more restricting definition and the end result was what everyone on that committee agreed was acceptable for use or was prudent.

Like I tell the people who work with me, don’t complain about anything unless you tried to do something about it.  If you don’t like a standard, feel free to get involved.  But the long and short of it is this: standards exist for at least one primary reason, and that reason is to define what something is.  In the absence of any other meaningful definition, if something close fills that void, that standard will be the one that defines the subject matter.  You can be angry about it if you like, but if you don’t like it, change it.

In the meanwhile, if it’s an accepted standard, you can assume you’ll have to meet it.  You can say all day that you choose not to meet certain standards, but if you are like me, you will understand that to not do so will leave you open to a number of things, including liability.  The only way to escape it is to lay that decision on the people who are at that payscale: the politicians. But that’s a blog post for another day.

Stay safe and do the best you can with what you have.  But remember, the standard is what defines you.  If you have no standard, you have no definition, and in that case, a monkey can do your job.  Even pizzas are made to standards.  If having no standard is what your community believes to be okay, then know that you ultimately get what you pay for, and if your community doesn’t support a department with minimum expectations of members, they shouldn’t be surprised when everything within the city limits are a smoking ruin some weekend.

Posted by on July 28, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, credentialing, education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, motivation, NIMS, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, safety, Training & Development, US&R • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What Does It Take To Be A Firefighter Anyway?

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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.

Posted by 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dedication to Customer Service

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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.

Posted by 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back To Work

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The Road Warriors at Bryce Canyon (or as they consider themselves, "The Wonderpets"As some of you may have realized, I was on a vacation. While the first days involved attending to the business of the NFPA Technical Correlating Committee, of which I am a member as a result of my chairmanship of NFPA 1006, the remainder involved a jaunt by RV through some of America’s National Parks and Monuments with my wife, her sister, and my three young children.  My wife and “Aunt Patrice” were pretty self-sufficient, as many adults tend to be.  The three young ones, however, do require supervision (hopefully you all recognize this as being said tongue-in-cheek, since they are three little girls, ranging from 4 to 9, and each of them is already convinced they know WAY more than Dad).

While the supervision of children isn’t that much of a stretch from my real job (supervising firefighters), it does bear discussion here, since it doesn’t seem that all fire officers have the same understanding.  Supervising my children involves primarily looking out for their welfare.  It involves insuring they don’t plunge headlong off of one of the many steep overlooks of the Grand Canyon, and that they don’t shove an entire roll of toilet paper into the RV toilet, both of which could result in a disaster requiring lots of paperwork.  This actually sounds much like my work at the fire department as well.

Watching children involves logistical functions such as scheduling and insuring they have the right materials for the job, which in my case involves a lot of distraction and could involve duct tape and beer, were it not for the intervention of my wife and Aunt Patrice.  Likewise, I could probably fix most of my problems at the fire department with a lot of duct tape and beer, but I know laws prohibit the former and policies prohibit the latter, so I have to actually use the skills of negotiation, coaching, mentoring, and apparently, parenting.

So you see, my job as a father (and sherpa) doesn’t differ really much at all from my job as a Battalion Chief.  When you put it in that perspective, seriously, you realize that the people you work with and for require your insight and creative application of problem solving to make the day go safely and effectively.  Sun Tzu once said, “Treat your subordinates as you would your beloved children, and they will willingly die for you when you give the order.” While I don’t desire that from either my subordinates or my children, you get the point that if you apply the skills of GOOD parenting to both your children and your charges, they will hopefully respect and obey your orders, and do what is necessary to achieve success.

While my leave was really only marginally scarred by a Philadelphia loss to Chicago (where, coincidentally, Aunt Patrice is from) and the constant updates on the games from she and her friends, I had a great time and actually look forward to singing “Here Come The Hawks” for Fire Daily on the World Wide Web.  I got to somewhat enjoy the final game from the comfort of the Maswick Lodge in the beautiful Grand Canyon and when it was all said and done, I said to my children (who Patrice convinced should all be loud, raucous Hawks fans for my benefit) that you know, it’s just a game. When I walked out onto each of those vistas of Zion, Bryce and of course, the Grand Canyon, I realize that ultimately, none of it really matters unless you build something out of all of these experiences, and share them with others.  That’s really where leadership falls into the grand scheme of things, and if we can’t enjoy the sunsets and laughing at ourselves from time to time, what good is it all?

I’m glad to be back at work.  Enjoy your day with your people as well, and remember, it’s all in how you choose to look at it as to how things will go for you and your team.  Maintain a positive perspective and even the big things can be made right again.  Be safe.

Posted by on June 15, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, fire service, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Weekly Weasel – Installment 2

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ladder talk webI’m so happy that the Weekly Weasel seems to have intrigued some people, so let’s have another go at it. Our subject for today is the officer who sets a less-than-stellar example for his personnel (don’t worry, I have some “her” stories too, coming up).  This weasel is going to go by the name “Lt. Bubba”.

In Lt. Bubba’s head, he is an excellent example of leadership.  He has managed to cram his fat butt into his too small uniform pants for a while now (reminding me of trying to stick 11 pounds of crap into a 10 pound bag) and his cheap cologne and immaculate hair might cause one to think he is concerned with his image and how he is perceived by his subordinates. If this were truly the case, Lt. Bubba should probably re-evaluate his daily actions rather than his appearance, as this brings me to a short discussion on leading by example.

While it would seem intuitive that subordinates will perform to the level that they perceive their officer to be performing at, it is also true that newer members to a team will perform to the level that the senior members of a team are performing at.  Likewise, an entire organization’s attitude will ebb and flow along with the attitude of the chiefs.  There are, of course, always exceptions to this rule, because people are individuals, but just the act of watching someone who is engaged, inspiring, transformational, and positive will translate to the subordinates because they can see that this is the expected norm.

Lt. Bubba’s actions, however, are of an officer who is aloof, uncompromising, and negative, unless, of course, it is about some of his “heroic” actions taken during one of the many (many, many) war stories he likes to tell.  But once done eating his bear claw and reminiscing about the good ol’ days, it’s back to his office, where the door goes shut and one can only assume the amazing transformation of the organization that is going on in there (which is probably more primping, reading the latest girlie magazine, and of course, a little Solitaire on the computer, rather than anything productive).

His personnel, in the meanwhile, are milling about aimlessly.  They might get some training, and they might not. They will probably clean up around the station (because Lt. Bubba insists on a clean station, so long as it isn’t him doing the cleaning) and wash the trucks, but to me, most of this is just a replacement for checkers, because it certainly isn’t meaningful effort.

If coached and mentored correctly, personnel often manage to reach a high bar because they are interested in doing well unless there is a factor which causes them to do otherwise.  In Lt. Bubba’s case, it is his laziness, and although the clean station and the grooming seem to indicate a well-organized team, it is just a facade, because his personnel aren’t prepared to go out and do anything other than what he tells them to do, and certainly not prepared to think through a problem and solve it.

When personnel are unable to hit the bar, it is key to determine that cause and root it out.  This can be done through counseling, encouraging, remediation, or the less preferred method, discipline.  If individuals can understand when deficiencies occur and self-adjust, it is certainly a more pleasant method of doing so, but in the event that they can not, that is where the supervisors must step in.  Lt. Bubba is so busy doing as little meaningful as possible, that his personnel are adrift and might or might not get the direction they need.

In organizations with high standards and expectations, the community can sense this commitment and get their heads around that, supporting the organization with good response in the “letters to the editor”, and comments at the weekend BBQs around town.  This is what happens when you have good people, good training, good equipment and apparatus, good rules and guidelines, good staff support, and most importantly, good leadership not just from officers, but from the core leaders- the troops.

Lt. Bubba is all about the window dressing.  I know chiefs who say, “Well, there’s nothing I can pin on him.  His station is clean, his people are always in uniform, and they come in at 0800 and go home at 0800.  Exactly what is your problem with him?”

Well, when I put Lt. Bubba’s people on the fireground, they are constantly looking at others for direction.  Every order must be spelled out in exacting detail, because they don’t understand the difference between strategic, tactical, and task level decision-making.  They too are aloof and ask no questions, and don’t understand the inner workings of an incident, and when faced with a problem they have never faced before, are like deer in the headlights, because they have no critical thinking skills.  On medical calls, it is the same way; they don’t do anything unless told to.  I suspect that it is less a motivational issue so much as it is a failure to comprehend what the next step is in a certain event and to perform proactively.

As a leader, it isn’t just about making everything look good today, it is preparing your troops for tomorrow.  I mentioned this at length in my post the other day.  Lt. Bubba is big on window dressing and little on substance.  This appeals to some chiefs because they think, “Well, he stays out of trouble and he looks good.  I’m okay with that.”  Unfortunately, his personnel are working in a transactional leadership state and need to develop their own thinking skills, because when he is gone, they will not only fail to understand what they need to do, but they might just drift away in the process.

What kinds of techniques might be used to push Lt. Bubba toward coming out of the office and doing what is really needed?  What efforts must be made by his supervisors to develop a more effective team?

Be the catalyst for real change.  If you have a Lt. Bubba in your organization, the people under his command are starving for education.  They may not know it right away, but if shown the path to real teamwork, they might be the spark that moved that machine forward.  Progression and innovation come from original thought, not the parroting of rules.  Personnel need to be able to understand, so they can think for themselves when the time is present.

Posted by on May 25, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighting Operations, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Command Presents

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Hilton Head Island Fire Station 7

Hilton Head Island Fire Station 7

It’s that time of the year that we hear the word “presents” often enough to make your ears bleed, so I was wondering if my misuse of the word “presents” got your attention. Apparently it did, or you wouldn’t be reading this now.  Or maybe you didn’t notice.   If you didn’t notice, go and look again: when we speak of “command presence”, we speak of the characteristics of the person in charge to lead from a strong, visible, and decisive point of view, not “presents” like a gift.  Having strong leader-like characteristics  as part of your daily personality could be a “present”, if your job is to be a leader.  It also could be very annoying to the people around you.

According to my family and friends, acquaintances, and the Myers-Briggs (and every other psych profile I’ve ever gone through), I exhibit decisive, directive behavior as part of my normal personality.  More often than I care to, my “command presence” comes out when I’m talking with my wife (she doesn’t like it), my kids (they’re not crazy about it either), or my colleagues (they probably think I’m insufferable anyway).  This just goes to show you there is a time and place for everything.  Explaining to your daughter the intricacies of math, for one, is probably not a good time to be strong, visible and decisive.

Likewise, when you are leading firefighters into emergency situations, it is not a time to be easy-going, reserved, and willing to compromise.  There are those out there who are; they are also the ones with crews free-lancing, poor accountability, mixed commands, and poor coordination.  These are also the ones who get people hurt and killed.

While you don’t have to be the second coming of Field Marshal Rommel, you should understand that the fireground or rescue scene is the place where only one person can be in charge.  Coupled with the observation that leadership abhors a vacuum, you can probably understand that if you fail to establish a clear picture of who is in charge, someone else will.  It’s not the act of having a fist fight to decide who that is; the only person who can be in charge is the legally responsible incident commander.  How that decision is made is pertinent to the laws of your jurisdiction, but if you have someone who can’t command, they probably shouldn’t be in that position.

All too often, I see failure in company officers who are “best buds” with their troops on a daily basis, and then can’t understand why there’s so much chaos on their incident scene.  It is simply because those people don’t necessarily see you as the “alpha dog”.  To them, you are just another “member of the pack”.  Other members of the pack don’t call the shots, the alpha dog does.  And like I said, if you aren’t filling that role, someone else is.  That person will also be the one that when things go south, everyone turns toward for the answers.

In this time of giving, give your subordinates a lesson in leadership.  Your leadership should set a positive example, a role model, if you will, for your aspiring officers.  Command and control is important on the emergency scene and failing to work with that does not instill confidence in the abilities of the IC.  It is essential that not only do your charges see you as a leader on the scene, but in the station as well, for if they do not, on the scene is a bad place for them to convince them of that.  Make it a “present” to the people you are responsible for teaching and watching over.  Give them the tools to lead others, and they will hopefully show you that they trust your leadership, and when the time comes, they will walk on that path as well.

Posted by on December 10, 2009 • Filed under: command, Command & Leadership, education, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, leadership, Major Incidents, officership, professionalism, rescue, safety, US&R • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

The Fixers

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How can we help you today?

Are you a fire department or are you an EMS service?  Do you do both?  The knee-jerk reaction I sometimes get was one coined by a previous chief, “We are an EMS agency providing fire service”.  In fact, it sounds so clever that there are a vocal few who like to throw that out there time and time again, like they were the ones who originally came up with the concept (they’re paramedics, so they’re a little biased, I’m sure).

Something I said in a much earlier blog bears repeating:  customer relations are essential for any department operating in this day and age.  There are those who continue to disagree with the use of the word “customer” when referring to those who use our service.  Respectfully, I also continue to insist that just because they don’t walk into your shop and buy something doesn’t mean they don’t have a choice in using your service.  Taxpayers may not be able to change providers, but with enough votes, they can radically change your organization.

The world can change overnight.  If you think the current model of how we provide service is going to last another 200 years, think again.  As our customers become more educated and expect more innovation from government, look for them to insist on ways we can do things better.  We need to continuously and constantly evaluate our direction and possibly even reinvent  our concepts in order to stay out front.  Good customer service revolves around recognizing the needs of our customers and using our skills, abilities and past experience to improve service quality and to provide excellent service.

As has happened over really the last thirty years, our industry has evolved into one that defies definition, one that more and more reflects all-hazard response.  I’m going to go on record to say that I’m even confused as to what to call us anymore.  There’s a famous paragraph in Report From Engine 82 (Dennis Smith) that I’ll paraphrase, because I can’t remember it exactly.

In this city, when you turn on a wall switch, you may or may not get a light.  When you turn a faucet, you may or may not get water.  If you pick up a phone, you may or may not get a dial tone.  But everybody knows that if you pull the handle on that red box, you WILL get a fire truck.

The purpose of my poorly remembered paraphrasing of that statement was to illustrate that times have not changed from when the book was published in 1972; just substitute “call 9-1-1″ for “pull the handle on that red box”.  But what we have become has, as we become EMTs and HAZMAT Technicians and Water Rescue Technicians and etc., etc.  I read “Report” cover to cover when it first came out (I was eight- I’m a good reader) and the context of that paragraph has stuck with me forever.  Dennis Smith points out in his story how the fire department was used to handle plumbing issues, to handle overdoses, and to handle pretty much anything up to and including, things that happen to be burning.

So back to customer service; what is our mission?  Why do we exist?  If your answer is, “To protect people from fire” or “To help the sick and injured”, I’d suggest that maybe you should reconsider all of those calls that don’t meet that definition as distracting you from that mission.  If you’re anything like me and the organization I work for, I’d say that not handling those calls is probably counter to the needs of your community.  And what your mission should really be, is defined by those needs.

When someone dials 9-1-1 (or whatever they dial in your community), they do so because they have a problem they can’t handle themselves (or should I say they don’t know how to handle), they don’t have the resources to handle the problem, and they don’t have anywhere to turn for an answer.  Obviously, you are saying, “Well, if my pipes are leaking, why wouldn’t I call the plumber?”  Again, think about the ENTIRE situation.  Maybe they can’t afford a plumber.  Maybe they can’t find a plumber to come out.  Maybe they are totally freaked out by the situation and not thinking clearly.  There are many answers to the question, but the long and short of it is, they trust YOU to help them solve the problem and YOU are the people they call.

So what I’m telling you is that our job REALLY is to respond to a request for help, gather facts about the problem, analyze the options, apply a solution, and ultimately, stabilize the situation.  We may not FIX the problem, but when we leave, things should at least be stable.  We really don’t need doctor-wannabes or adrenaline junkies for our job, what we need are people who can look at any situation and understand the situation, then apply creativity using the resources at hand (either on site or on that BRT you brought) to stabilize their situation.  And further along that line, we’re not asking these individuals to rebuild the house, we’re asking them to stop the forward progress of the damaging element (or disease process or whatever it is) and return some means of order to chaos.  We’re not building a piano here, we’re improvising and hopefully we’ll come out with something that can at least pass for a musical instrument of some sort.

What should our business be called?  What is it that we do?  How can we possibly have meaning in our life if we don’t have a label or title for our life’s ambition?  When I hear of the trash guy being called a “Sanitation Technician”  or a dog-walker a “Pet Care Specialist”, I wonder what title really defines what it is we do.  What it really comes down to is that everyone recognizes the title for your job more than you could ever know.  When someone asks me what I do for a living, I answer, “I’m a Firefighter”.  The knowing look on their faces and the subsequent questions about my job, my worst call, my most stupid call, etc. confirm for me that most everyone understands what our job is really all about.  Now the bigger goal is to get those of us who do it to understand that as well.

Posted by on November 12, 2009 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, firefighting, Firefighting Operations, HazMat, leadership, Major Incidents, Media Relations, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism, rescue, revolution, Special Operations, Training & Development, US&R • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,