"Despite the lives at stake, the recommendation to improve radio interoperability for first responders has stalled because of a political fight over whether to allocate 10 MHz of radio spectrum … directly to public safety for a nationwide network, or auction it off to a commercial wireless bidder who would then be required to provide priority access on its network dedicated to public safety during emergencies," says the report, whose authors include 9/11 Commission chairmen Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean.

I distinctly recall the shouts of support from the American public for firefighters everywhere after the Towers fell, and how shocked people were when we let them know that one of our biggest problems is communications interoperability.  Then, in 2005, when Katrina blew through, the politicians were adamant that we needed the tools to combat this problem of communications interoperability.  And here we are, in 2011 and the politicians still will tell us one thing and do another.

Congress seems to find the time and support to help out their fat cat buddies when times are tough. Banks and corporations get bailed out and corporate big-wigs continue to get record bonuses.  In the meanwhile, public servants I work with get lacerated over getting a miniscule pay raises over the last three years, like these firefighters, cops, EMTs, teachers, and city administrators are sitting at home, counting the dough in their offshore accounts and laughing maniacally.  Really? And many other people, not just our brothers, are losing benefits, taking furloughs, or worse, losing their jobs altogether.  

It makes me sick when I see our politicians sucking up to the ones who shout the loudest on the right or the left while forgetting there are many more of us out here in the middle who are just trying to get by.  These are the same individuals with the nerve to take government pensions, government health care, and government paychecks, the whole while saying "government is bloated".

This proposal was meant to make our job safer, to improve our ability to save lives, and to combat disaster in our communities, but instead, our politicians want to continue to discuss the possibility of awarding the block to a commercial wireless company who, of course, stands to make billions off our first responders and probably still give us communications that suck.

If you really want to get mad about something, find a battle worth fighting over.  I'm throwing you the ball now, you are supposed to swing at it.  Here's one: Call your representatives today and tell them what you think of their continued stalling and their greedy tactics.  We need support.  This would be the support the politiicans continually promise us when the news cameras are on them and they're hawking their platform on the graves of firefighters, cops and EMTs.  It's the same support, of course, that is quickly forgotten when the lobbyists show up and when the big money is up for grabs.  

If you don't know who represents you, try this link: ContactingtheCongress.org.  It makes it easy for you; there are phone numbers and comment links.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Or better yet, get some balls and tell your representatives what you think.  Your representatives are supposed to be representing you.  Instead of taking a few minutes away from your valuable Facebook time posting an anonymous rant against a brother who had a lapse in judgement caught on video, try venting against the real enemies: the political hacks who tell you they support you but can't work together to fund necessary things like fire departments, fire education, and firefighters.  Here's a message you can send them: If they want that photo op with dirt on their face, shovel in hand, and helmet on their head, tell 'em they have to earn it first.  Support the brotherhood.  FTM.

By the way, as a quick aside, this photo is of a "Gino's Giant".  That has no bearing on the article except that Gino's isn't either of the two Fast Food Joints discussed here.  And, of course, as a matter of disclosure, I worked for the Gino's corporation back in high school.  But I digress… 

There's this giant megacorporation I'll call Fast Food Joint "M". There's another Fast Food Joint we'll refer to as "C".  Last week I went into "M"; Between eight people on duty, not a single one, not even the cashier, even acknowledged my existence.  They made eye contact, but there was no effort to recognize that a customer was waiting alone at the counter.  Ultimately, the cashier shuffled over to the register and looked up; not a "Thanks for coming, what's your order?" or even a grunt.  Made my order, which required repeating twice.  Then upon getting the order, of course, it was wrong.  Returning to the counter, there was one person ahead of me.  They were also getting the same treatment, but it was taking even longer.  I stood there with my bag, hoping that just one of all of these people would realize, "Hey, we must have made a mistake, let me see what is going on", nope, nothing.

At "C",  the place was packed; yet there are five employees.  Everyone is hustling, taking orders and turning orders around.  The manager is even involved and as customers come up to ask for refills, she is also covering those as well.  I am spoken to by several of the employees, asked about my order, and thanked when the order is processed.  But it takes a little longer than expected, as it appears they are training one of the people in back.  The bag comes and it is correct, but I get an apology anyway.

Fast food management doesn't seem to encounter anything like this level of service at any "M" I have ever been to.  At almost every "C" I have visited, however, I sense that they have a higher purpose and they pride themselves on what is turned out.  At "M", there is plenty of hype from the corporate HQ and there are expensive promos and new restaurant styles.  At "C", the store is nice enough, but the focus is on polite manners, courteous service, and good food.  Personally, the experience at "C" is much more enjoyable.

I have gone to visit fire stations and when I walked in, other firefighters have stared at me like I was from Mars, but none ever took the time to ask me what they could help me with, or why I was there, or even to just say "Hi".  I have been in some memorable houses where I have been given gold plated tours of the facilities, coffee, offered dinner, and all before I even identified myself as a firefighter.  I realize that this last situation is pretty unreasonable, but I don't even expect that; I just ask that you address my being there, ask if there is anything you can help me with, and engage me if I happen to show an interest or have a question.

The "M" experience is not one I would ever tolerate in any of my stations.  The "C" experience is more like it.  The last time I checked the news, we, that is, the collective fire service, have a problem with getting the things we need to do our jobs.  Our staffs are being cut, stations and companies are being closed, and funding chopped.  Actually, the only thing that seems to be increasing for municipal fire departments is taxpayer frustration at what is considered an overfunded concept, coupled with what is perceived as having no tangible benefit.

Based on my consumer comparison between "M" and "C", if these were fire departments, which of these do you think I might choose to fund?  The surly, uncooperative, and overstaffed "M"? Or the pleasant, courteous, and efficient "C"?  You can polish your image all day long with fancy marketing and spiffy stores, but ultimately, if your own people don't get the concept, you are wasting your time and effort.  As leaders, we need to focus on improving the attitude of our people.  The culture of your organization, if you want to survive these lean times, should be focused on improving attitudes and making "service with a smile" the norm, not the exception. 

Consider the events in Holyoke, MA over the past week or so. If the action you are about to take would cause undue embarrassment to you or your organization, or your family and loved ones, would you still do it? If your action was the cause of something that makes the front page, or the national news, and it's not something you are proud of, would you do it? If the action you are about to take would invoke criminal or civil penalties against you, would you still do it?

What happened here was a very innocent practical joke on the part of an interim chief.  I feel badly for him and I really don't believe this chief to be an idiot (as some have stated) or a criminal (as others have), or even a bad guy.  I don't even know the man.  But what he did, especially in the anti-public servant climate within which we are currently suffering, was not exercising good judgment.

There is nothing about this incident that suggests that anything happened here other than an attempt at a little levity, albeit at the expense of violating the laws about calling in false alarms.  Am I judging the man or his actions?  No.  I don't know all the facts, although they seem pretty apparent on their face.  Do I understand the mentality?  Yes.  I have moved a fire engine parked at the supermarket to the other side of the parking lot along with a few other practical jokes. But the next blog post will be all about THAT angle regarding leadership, so stay tuned.  I don't believe anything other than that this was a practical joke gone wrong. 

But in light of this incident, maybe instead of testing someone's physical fitness, their aptitude for reading a sentence, or the many other things we should be testing and aren't, maybe we should put at the top of the priority list, a test for maturity.  Because other than the only test that seems to be important in some departments these days – that would be the ability to fog a mirror – we insist on knowing all these important things about how much someone can lift, or how fast they can run stairs, or how fast can they calculate 2+2 and we miss out on what seems to be the heart of our industry's problem.  If you haven't picked up on it, that would be a test for whether or not the individual we are about to hire or promote is capable of objectively separating their inner teenager from the responsibilities of adulthood.

Again, lest you think this is all about pranksterism, there are actually many examples of where a certain level of maturity is important, and why it's not a good idea to have people associate with us that think it is okay to video someone lighting fireworks out of your ass.  The public perception these days is swinging toward the "bunch of overgrown kids pretending to be important" side and away from the "upstanding citizen who is here to keep us safe" side.  While some of our colleagues might not see that as being important, the public, when choosing to spend their hard earned dollars, are really not interested in sending money in the direction of waste and frivolous behavior.  They want to be reassured that the individuals to whom they are entrusting their tax dollars are responsible, thoughtful, and perceptive.  People who are making the news wire for setting fires, calling in prank false alarms, stealing from treasuries, and any other number of violations of society, are NOT considered as being responsible, thoughtful or perceptive.  In fact, if this is news to you, haven't you probably ALSO been the ones complaining because the public doesn't love you anymore?  Acting like you are still a member of Delta Tau Chi is not okay when you pin bugles on your collar (and I am the number one Animal House fan, remember?)  Sophomoric behavior is best left to sophomores. 

There are a number of us who are frustrated with the eroding public trust that comes about when certain participants in our field act like a bunch of day care refugees.  The failure for some to consider the ripple effect their actions have on others is incredible.  We are in a real struggle to define the fire and emergency services.  There are daily reports of communities downsizing departments, "renting" them out (that would be privatizing them), or simply reallocating funds that would have been spent on fire and emergency services to other competing interests.  We are at war here for our very existence, and every negative report is used against us, implicitly or not, to give rationale as to why we (fire and emergency services) shouldn't get the support we need.

There is no need to comment that I'm sucking the fun out of the job.  Right now, we need to be working harder than ever to save our standing in the community, be it as a career or volunteer professional.  We definitely don't need our own people shooting our efforts in the feet.  Fun is when we can come out of a good worker safely, with a smile on our face because we did a good job; or high-fiving in the nurse's lounge because we just pulled an asystolic patient out of their nose-dive and they are sitting up talking in Bed 2.  Fun is when we are on the training ground joking around with each other while resting after a particularly challenging evolution.  

Grow up. Fun doesn't come unless you earn it.  It's not fun being a loser.  You can have fun all day long, but in the end, if you haven't accomplished anything, you're just one more clown among many.  When you are truly professional, you can work hard and have fun at it too.

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

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

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

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

People love to hate hypocrites. When a person or a group allows their reputation to be portrayed as one of honor and good, and then that trust is betrayed, then their actions can be seen as patently hypocritical.  Those are the people who do things like run on a platform of family values, only to be shacking up in South America on taxpayer funds.  Or doggedly pursuing impeachment of a President for being adulterous while engaging in their own adulterous affair. Or the religious who rail about the wrongs of homosexuality, only to be having a few of those relationships on their own.  One of my least favorite college football coaches, who has led under the premise of being forthright and wholesome after his claims that he knew nothing; Well, maybe he knew a little more than nothing.  And of course, there is this Weiner saga that continues to keep playing.  

Since the firefighter is held to be an example of virtue, bravery, and service in the name of the community good, when one of us fails, we can expect it to get serious play.  And in this day and age where so many people are looking for heroes, when we get it wrong, we get it wrong in a big way.  The backlash continues to flow as it seems like from one day to the next, one or more of our own pulls a new rabbit out of the hat and ends up with their mug shot splashed across the front page.

I also like to read the comments in the stories as Statter and Firegeezer where a number of our brethren sanctimoniously proclaim the fallen as garbage and a disgrace to the uniform.  But really, here's where it really gets ugly.  Check out the comments on this article from the Las Vegas Sun.  You can also check out the whole story there as well, but one look at the comments and you can see that the idea of the public singing our praises as "heroes" has been replaced by angry, bitter tirades against what we do not only while not running alarms, but even while providing our service.  And I don't even know what it is that these guys may or may not have done to draw this kind of fire.  I don't know that they did anything wrong or they have just found themselves poorly positioned in the center of a taxpayer backlash against spending.

Just yesterday, my own organization happened to be fighting a decent sized brush fire in a residential area.  With all of the coverage of the devastation in the Arizona wildfires you'd think citizens would be praising a fast, aggressive response; instead, at least one TV news report (not the one cited) pointed out the "inconvenience" of residents not being allowed to their homes until the fire was declared under control, and I corresponded and talked with a few people with very similar complaints.  Fortunately, all of my interactions were positive and once explained, the individuals were at least a little more grateful.  But what we have always taken for granted (that the citizens see us as positive, upstanding members of the community), has been replaced in many jurisdictions as our being selfish, lazy, and out-of-control.

There's enough ugly to go around right now without our own people bringing it down upon us.  It is up to each and every one of us to weed out those who continue to give emergency service a bad name with their negative attitudes, their arrogant behavior, and their me-first mentalities.  The good name and the "hero" portrait of emergency service, like it or not, came about because we put it on the line for our neighbors, we genuinely cared about our community and serving others, and because we were always seen as hard-working, blue collar people.  When a firefighter said something, they shot straight, but it was said with concern and compassion.  We have always been about getting the job done, no matter what, no matter how dirty or dangerous, but without bitching or complaining or pointing out each others' faults.  This is not how we work today.

Let the politicians, TV preachers, Wall Street CEOs and the other scumbags be the hypocrites and punching bags.  Each of us should be serving as a positive example of how to do this job, volunteer or career, and without acting like a bunch or amateurs and whackers.  Man up (that includes our sister firefighters as well) and do the job, and while you need to educate the public in what we do and how they interact with us to provide a team approach, don't call attention to yourself for doing it.  Just do the right thing and we'll all be fine.

And since we all understand that complacency in the fire service is a topic on which everyone is reminded to guard against,  it happens routinely, and to the most unlikely of subjects.  I myself have been shaken out of complacency, years ago, with a near miss, and vowed to never repeat it.  But time after time, like water wearing away at a stone, repeated non-events lull us into the belief that the next one will just be one more in a long line of non-events.  When the long shot pays off, it can be a doozy.

Just as we get complacent on alarms, the public sector fire service has become fat and happy in the belief that no one would dare upset our world by privatizing it, merging it, or re-sourcing it.  We are firefighters!  Everyone loves firefighters!  No one would dare go against us.  We are heroes, after all. Well, just read this article on FireRescue1.com. These issues, although we have been saying they were coming for years, are now upon us.  If you don't believe it, look around.  The public is sick of hearing about firefighters milking their pensions, taking questionable disability benefits, stealing from their organizations, and lighting fires.  We are no longer pristine.  We have permitted the scum bags to infiltrate our ranks.  We are fair game.

Times are tough.  People see us as having while they don't.  If there is anything more energizing to the haters, it is the thought of "heroes" becoming the "anti-heroes".  It is the foundation of expose and justice denied that calls for every Geraldo wannabe to man a video camera and find the next Watergate saga.  If there is something delicious about failure, it is much more tasty when the shock of failure is accompanied by the role a trusted individual has in creating it.

Change is near on the horizon and while there are those of us shouting it from the rafters, it seems like there are many who continue to ignore the warnings.  What you believe to be true today may very well be heresy tomorrow.  If you fail to evolve, to get your stakeholders involved in your mission, or to understand the changing tide of support, you may well be clinging to the remains of what used to be while the rest go sailing down the road.

Just as we preach to our new firefighters that complacency kills, so should the vested leadership of our collective organizations be warned: complacency will be the demise of what you currently hold dear.  You can appreciate change and master it, or let it master you.  One way or another, it is on the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lifted from the Canyon Lake Fire & EMS Facebook Page

I’m afraid my strategy for capturing the interest of the uninitiated has fallen through, so I’m going to have to return to preaching to the choir.  I guess it’s just as well; I’m not sure I want the lunatic fringe stalking around on my site anyway. It just so happens that I’m in the heart of Texas as I write this, talking about leadership to a class of firefighters at Canyon Lake Fire and EMS.  There are also a few from the Bulverde and Spring Branch departments and they seem like a great bunch.

I have had the opportunity to speak a little about what we should be doing as leaders, as well as what we shouldn’t be.  But regardless of how impressive our team is, we are probably all cursed with at least one individual on our team who simply doesn’t get it.  By saying they are “on the team”, it’s really only in the sense that they are assigned to your team and you haven’t found the way to move them along yet.

There are people out there who are surprisingly reluctant to get with the program.  Its as if they have some delusion that if they buck the system long enough, regardless of their piss-poor attitude, archaic methodologies, or lousy work ethic, some sea change will sweep down and save them from the rest of us.

While in my early days I was not the officer that I am today, I still have always said, if you stay off my radar, we can get along just fine.  While that may be an invitation to the slackers to do what they do best, in fact, the slackers find ways to get right up there in my sights and hoist a billboard pretty much saying, “Come and get me.”

I believe that if we give people our expectations, provide them the resources necessary, and provide feedback as they move along, we can get excellent results.  There are those, however, who are more interested in seeing how far they can push the boundaries.

If we (that is, the team) have a shared vision of excellence and we have a good plan to get there, and doing so is for the benefit of those we serve, and we have the approval of those people as well, what on God’s green earth would make anyone otherwise think that it is okay to steer the team in another direction.  My take on it is that if you are that unhappy, just go.  Find some other idiots who want to sit around and be negative and hang out with them.  I can think of plenty of places to find people like that, if you are looking.

I realize that I don’t have the greatest ideas and to some, they might even sound crazy, but at least I HAVE ideas.  I think, therefore, I am.  Those of us who, instead of sitting around bitching, come up with ways to solve problems, while we may always be chasing at things, we are at least moving forward to do so.

This group here in Texas is very fortunate.  Chief Wherry and his staff seem engaged and professional.  They have a bunch of attentive people who are polite and respectful.  The Canyon Lake department is a relatively young department and they don’t have a lot of baggage.  That being said, they are a department with a lot of growing to do and while the foundation seemed to be intact before we got here and will hopefully be strengthened by the time we are gone, it really comes down to what they do with what we have now given them.  From the best I can tell, I think they will be just fine.