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Evolution And You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by truck6alpha on July 24, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, General, change, education, fire service, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, professionalism • 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 truck6alpha on July 18, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, Funding & Staffing, General, Media Relations, Patient Management, change, customer service, education, fire service, government, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Attachment to Before

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The more flexible you are, the more likely you will weather the storm.Attachment is when you believe that things can or should remain one way forever.  Things are in a constant state of change.  Just as you change, so do the people around you, and your organization, and your community, so your relationship changes too.

Change is never easy, but if you can accept that it is inevitably occurring and embrace the change,  transition can be easier.  People put too much emphasis on remaining constant.  There is an impermanence in everything.  People come and go, the environment we operate in is constantly evolving, and new ways of doing things are discovered every day.  We can hold on to the past forever, but it won’t change the fact that the rest of the world is moving on around us.

Effective leadership requires us to understand the changes and be flexible with them. Effective leadership requires us to understand ourselves to find why we resist certain challenges.  If we can be open to possibilities and willing to explore them, we can solve anything and do anything.

Posted by truck6alpha on July 6, 2010 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, General, change, education, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To My Facebook Friends

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by truck6alpha on July 2, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, General, Media Relations, US&R, change, education, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Turtles, Circumstances, and Change

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Hilton Head Engine 7Just this week, not only on our relatively quiet haven of Hilton Head Island, but right here in the community in which I live (Palmetto Dunes), comes a story which has become national news.  Before I knew it would be on CNN and everywhere else, I read in our Island Packet this article on a romantic proposal gone wrong, and the subsequent death of sea turtles.  Now while I never really thought I might read in the same article anywhere, the words “sea turtle”, “romance”, and “death”, you really might be wondering, “What does this have to do with the fire service?”  I can reassure you that it does. 

 

How it does is that it clearly illustrates the law of unintended circumstances.  I’d be willing to bet you that no one involved in this story desired to kill off 60 turtles and had no idea that their simple luminary tribute to the sanctity of marriage would touch off what ended up on the AP news feed.  But as a result of something they did, or might also be the case in our situation in fire and emergency services, didn’t do, there was heartache, conflict, and even injury and death.

 

Actions are taken in our fire stations and on emergency scenes on a daily basis that sometimes go badly, and I would venture to guess that 99.9% of actions that resulted in poor outcomes were purely unintentional.  However unintentional these actions (or inactions) are, though, our actions may have wide-ranging impact on our entire organization.  Our actions or inactions may not even be noticed today, or could end up as front page news.  We must constantly be vigilant of the actions we take and how they affect our current situation, and even more importantly, our team, our agency, and our customers.  What may seem insignificant to us may end up costing someone their life later.

 

Working together as a team, we have to have the courage and the ability to say, “Hey, that doesn’t look right” to our colleagues, and they should also be able to say it to us.  It’s a basic tenet of crew resource management.  Fostering this attitude in your team requires cultural and social change, especially in our traditional paramilitary hierarchy.  Our most important role in this concept is awareness of the things we do and importantly enough, to do things right, as well as to be open to the suggestion from others that we should be doing something differently.

 

Being in the position of a transformational leader requires more than being right, it requires us to be open to the idea that we might not be.  As part of a team, when we make a mistake, we must strive to understand what occurred and what the results were, so that we and others don’t repeat that mistake.  When we mistakenly lay off blame we don’t really learn from the mistake. 

 

I had a driver once who had a minor accident with the apparatus we were assigned to.  It was obviously a result of a failure for someone else to do their job.  But he owned that situation and every time he pulled out of the station from then on out, I noticed him looking to insure it never happened again.  It is imperative for us to understand our shortcomings (hey, I have many), own them, and resolve to do better next time. 

 

I’d say that if that couple ever does decide to re-visit our Island again, they’ll never forget to blow out the candles when leaving the beach.  It’s called a watershed moment,  In our lives, it is one thing, but when we have one of these events occur while operating as part of a team we are tasked with leading, it is a requirement that we critique it, learn from it, and resolve to not let it happen again.

Posted by truck6alpha on September 25, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, General, Media Relations, change, customer service, education, fire service, leadership, officership, professionalism, revolution, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Case For Credentialing – The Argument

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SC-TF1 in Chalmette, September 2005

SC-TF1 in Chalmette, September 2005

As discussed in the last post, there are those who are against credentialing, for their own reasons.  Because I have had plenty of discussions about the subject, I think I have the discussions channeled into four groups (and if you have a different argument, let me know, because I don’t want to miss anything on the subject).  I plan to talk about each of these in a little more depth, but I wanted to at least put the parameters of the argument out there.

First, we have the genuine thing, the spontaneous bystander, who sees a need for action, then does something about it.  The discussion I have heard so far from this camp is that there should be nothing that would stand in the way of people who just have a desire to help their neighbors and do the right thing.  Quarantelli discusses the social aspects of emergent response from spontaneous bystanders in Katrina, but also in the Guadalajara gasoline spill and fire.  Plain ol’ people like every other neighbor you ever had saved lives, and were not agents of the government, had no training, and only did so in the effort to help others.  There’s something very beautiful in that, but call me skeptical, I see a lot of response from people who claim that is their motive, but I’m not seeing that altruism coming out when they’re out operating the video camera or taking souvenirs, rather than manning a sand-bag line.  More about THAT kind of person later.

We also have the disaffected group/person I call the “outsider”.  Having been one on a few occasions, I can certainly empathize with their cause, but I don’t necessarily sympathize with their way of handling things all the time.  Often, these are people who have a lot of training, or maybe come from somewhere where they had a lot of training and experience, and the place they are now in life won’t make room to allow them in.  There are dozens of reasons we will discuss, but there are also some issues regarding the credentialing side of things that would STRENGTHEN their position if they were in fact, truly qualified but being marginalized.

Then there are those who are currently the jurisdictional responder but are afraid the light of truth will expose that their organization/agency is not following industry standards, or that they are not ready, or are failing in any number of reasons.  These people really don’t have much sympathy from me in regard to their argument against credentialing.  However, there might be some discussion that merits a look.  I’ll reserve my judgement for now.

And finally, there are the thrill and glory seekers.  They might be there for the attention, they might be there for the notch in their gun, or they may be there to profit by defrauding the response community.  So as of now, this is where I stand and these are the arguments I want to discuss at first.  There are in some, compelling ideas.  There are in the others, no possible way you’ll be able to get me to support their theory.  But we’ll talk about them and I’d love to get your thoughts on the subject.  See you in a few.

Posted by truck6alpha on May 30, 2009 • Filed under: DHS, FEMA, General, Media Relations, NIMS, USAR, command, credentialing, planning, politics, professionalism, rescue, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Case for Credentialing

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Side of an OFFICIAL SC-TF1 vehicle in Louisiana during Katrina.

Side of an OFFICIAL SC-TF1 vehicle in Louisiana during Katrina.

I’m about to launch into a multi-part blog to discuss the merits of credentialing.  Right now I am aware of some opposing arguments to the requirement that disaster response personnel have credentials, particularly when it comes to those who routinely offer their services after a disaster but are not necessarily part of a response entity.

At this time I am dealing with the multiple phone calls for information on a group calling themselves “Urban Search and Rescue“, located right here in my own community.  From what I have been able to tell, they were featured on a local television interview the other day and managed to get a request for assistance out there, but failed to provide a working telephone number, as well as having bad links on their webpage.  When people found they could not reach this entity, I’m guessing they “googled” the terms “Hilton Head Island Urban Search Rescue” and believe it or not, that gets a few hits for me and my phone number.

When I say there’s some confusion, you bet.  When I tell the bewildered caller that, yes, I’m the Deputy Director of the South Carolina Urban Search and Rescue program and the Vice-Chairman of the State Urban Search and Rescue Alliance, but I have no idea who ”USARK9″ is or what their credentials are, you can imagine the rest of the conversation.  After all, they have seen their official looking vehicles, I have heard they walk around town in official looking uniforms, and apparently, according to their website and some discussion from the media, they’re doing a good job of self-deploying all up and down the coast, but I don’t know who they are.  I must be an idiot.

But this isn’t a discussion about them; this is a discussion about how when we don’t know who you are or how you got here, it makes it a little problematic when we are trying to put you to work, or eventually, trying to feed and shelter you (because invariably, these “assets” don’t come with the support they need), a la Hurricanes Andrew, Floyd, Katrina, et al, the World Trade Center, and any number of disasters that happen on a fairly regular basis.  It is a problem when we can’t account for you, it is a problem when you can’t work within a command structure, and it is a problem when we think you have one capability and it turns out that you do not.  It is also a problem when uninvited guests show up and get hurt, then want compensation.

The blog will discuss my perception of the problem, opposing viewpoints as they have been made know to me, considerations and existing knowledge, and hopefully incite some discussion.  As you may or may not realize, I have a pretty open mind.  So don’t be surprised that I agree that there is a need for spontaneous bystander rescue (although it makes me a little uneasy) and I agree that there are genuinely altruistic people and agencies out there who desire to help and have problems fitting into the picture. 

Anyway, as usual, I have a lot going on, but I’ll lay out the discussion further and ask you to chime in if you have something you’d like to say, and I’d expect to add the next blog in a day or so.  Rome wasn’t built in one blog, after all.

Posted by truck6alpha on May 29, 2009 • Filed under: DHS, FEMA, General, Media Relations, SAR, US&R, USAR, motivation, politics, professionalism, rescue • Tagged: , ,

It's a Zen Thing

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edited-chalmette3-79This isn’t a very insightful post, but in light of the outstanding traffic we have been getting now with links on Dave Statter’s STATter 911 blog, FireGeezer.com (at least they promised the link this week), FireRescue1.com’s The Kitchen Table, and of course, the fine people (Dave) over at FirefighterNation.com who got me started in this endeavor, I felt it was a good idea to reintroduce the concept here as well as make a few other statements.

First, welcome.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, Firehouse Zen isn’t your basic fire service blog.  Where some fire service sites are wonderful, necessary internet tools (the previously named sites, as well as VentEntersearch.com, VentingThe Roof. com, and FirefighterHourly.com), they also have a lot of news updates and hot issues.  Unfortunately/fortunately I have a lot on my plate, so trying to tend a site like that would kill me.  Plus, these other guys do them so well, why try to add another?

No, Firehouse Zen is about the ESSENCE of leadership, of commanding well-trained, disciplined, professional emergency responders in modern-day disasters.  It’s more about opening your eyes up to your potential and the opportunities you have to learn and change.  It’s all about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and understanding the whole picture.  Thus, the “zen” part of things.

Case in point- yesterday, I was trying to explain to someone the logic in trimming our departmental budget in this uncertain economic environment.  They were pretty positive that any trim was a bad one.  When I pointed out to them that they needed to look at the total picture, they just weren’t buying it.  I said, “Falling fifty feet is going to hurt whether you land in water or on the sidewalk; the difference is that landing in the water will sting for a while, and landing on the sidewalk is more of a permanent issue.”  They still weren’t getting it.  Well, Firehouse Zen probably isn’t going to help this person.  They don’t see the forest for the tree they are standing in front of.

So, if you ARE one of the people who get IT, I hope you add me to your RSS feeds, or link to me, or favorite me, or whatever it is you need to do to come back.  I fixed the “comments” issue, which of course, was something I checked off on that kept anyone from commenting unless they had commented before.  That’s a problem if no one other than me has ever commented before.  So, it’s fixed.  Otherwise, I hope you enjoy my ranting and know that I am truly interested to hear your perspective on things, so long as you can do so in a civil manner and with mutual respect. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a lot of questions, and sometimes those questions help me to understand things and people a little better.

It’s a Zen thing.

Posted by truck6alpha on February 3, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, General, change, fire service, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism • Tagged: , , ,

It's a Zen Thing

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edited-chalmette3-79This isn’t a very insightful post, but in light of the outstanding traffic we have been getting now with links on Dave Statter’s STATter 911 blog, FireGeezer.com (at least they promised the link this week), FireRescue1.com’s The Kitchen Table, and of course, the fine people (Dave) over at FirefighterNation.com who got me started in this endeavor, I felt it was a good idea to reintroduce the concept here as well as make a few other statements.

First, welcome.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, Firehouse Zen isn’t your basic fire service blog.  Where some fire service sites are wonderful, necessary internet tools (the previously named sites, as well as VentEntersearch.com, VentingThe Roof. com, and FirefighterHourly.com), they also have a lot of news updates and hot issues.  Unfortunately/fortunately I have a lot on my plate, so trying to tend a site like that would kill me.  Plus, these other guys do them so well, why try to add another?

No, Firehouse Zen is about the ESSENCE of leadership, of commanding well-trained, disciplined, professional emergency responders in modern-day disasters.  It’s more about opening your eyes up to your potential and the opportunities you have to learn and change.  It’s all about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and understanding the whole picture.  Thus, the “zen” part of things.

Case in point- yesterday, I was trying to explain to someone the logic in trimming our departmental budget in this uncertain economic environment.  They were pretty positive that any trim was a bad one.  When I pointed out to them that they needed to look at the total picture, they just weren’t buying it.  I said, “Falling fifty feet is going to hurt whether you land in water or on the sidewalk; the difference is that landing in the water will sting for a while, and landing on the sidewalk is more of a permanent issue.”  They still weren’t getting it.  Well, Firehouse Zen probably isn’t going to help this person.  They don’t see the forest for the tree they are standing in front of.

So, if you ARE one of the people who get IT, I hope you add me to your RSS feeds, or link to me, or favorite me, or whatever it is you need to do to come back.  I fixed the “comments” issue, which of course, was something I checked off on that kept anyone from commenting unless they had commented before.  That’s a problem if no one other than me has ever commented before.  So, it’s fixed.  Otherwise, I hope you enjoy my ranting and know that I am truly interested to hear your perspective on things, so long as you can do so in a civil manner and with mutual respect. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a lot of questions, and sometimes those questions help me to understand things and people a little better.

It’s a Zen thing.

Posted by truck6alpha on February 3, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, General, change, fire service, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism • Tagged: , , ,

Wishing Everyone a Safe and Joyous New Year

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card-61

Here’s to hoping you have a great new year; that 2009 is more prosperous and engaging than 2008.  Here’s to enlightenment and amazement at learning new things.  Here’s to finding out more about ourselves and others so we can be better people.  And mostly, here’s to hope; when I look at the picture we used for our Christmas cards this year, knowing that when you have hopes and dreams that everything done right has meaning, I know that when we do things right we do them not only for ourselves, but for one another.

Posted by truck6alpha on December 30, 2008 • Filed under: General, Uncategorized