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Here’s Something To Be Mad About

For all of you who scream insanely when a firefighter is missing his gloves on a Dave Statter video, why don't you get mad about this? This is a paragraph from an AP article featured on FirefighterNation.com.

"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.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on September 2, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, politics • Tagged: 9-11, AP, change, Commission, communications, congress, customer service, D-Block, education, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, interoperability, Katrina, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, representative, US&R

It’s Official- Our Government Is Broken

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The events of last week have finally spurred my commentary on our political scene. I guess I should say that it wasn't necessarily the events, per se, but the fact that while waiting for my wife to get out of the grocery store after Mass, my 10-year old daughter was asking questions and voicing her frustrations with our elected officials. I'm not pointing fingers; there's plenty of that to go around. But when a fifth grader can perceive the gravity of how flawed our political process is these days, we have major, major problems.

One of the most telling things she pointed out to me as I listened in awe, was that she could realize that we have "leaders" who are more interested in their ability to get re-elected than they are about running our government. I asked Emma where she was getting all this and she indicated that she has been watching the news and overhearing conversations, and it was pretty plain to her that while our representatives are supposed to be working to keep our country great, they instead are spending their days and hours accusing each other of who screwed this mess up.

Here's news for you: you all screwed it up. WE screwed it up. We allowed special interests, the media, and most of all, zealots on both sides of the aisle, to hijack our government. I was listening to something the other day that stated that the Federal Election Commission, which is made up of six individuals appointed by the President and with the "advice and consent of the U.S. Senate", has been pretty much limited to people from either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party for a long time. I tried to look this up to see if I could find if that were true, but did not see it anywhere. However, it isn't surprising to me that it, like so much of our government these days, is about whether you are a Republican or a Democrat.

Likewise, if you want to run for anything more than a local council seat these days, you need to be either a Republican or a Democrat, or plan on coming up with the money yourself. While that might sound like an okay idea, these days, the support for a run at political office requires funding that is grossly out of control. Media gets their cut, through advertising. There are consultants and poll interpreters, and people are needed to print signs and to make phone calls and to chat voters up on the Internet. Since that money has to come from somewhere, there is a certain amount of leverage that donors can exert in order to help a candidate get elected, and anyone who suggests that to be anything else but true is simply delusional.

And if that isn't enough, We, the People, aren't represented by people like us anymore. We are represented by career politicians, ones who have no idea what the cost of a gallon of milk is, or have never had to sweat out their bills themselves. They have people to do these things for them. The amazing healthcare and retirement benefits these federally elected officials get are way out of our league, which is ironic, because these are the same people who have been voting down insurance reform and banking reform. And who is getting stuck in the long run? Us.

Emma pointed out to me a big problem: "Dad," she asked, "So why won't they do the right thing and try to work together?" And I indicated that if they did, they'd likely alienate the people who voted them in there in the first place, and when they went up for re-election they would likely lose. She thought about that a while and said, "I thought you told me that leaders are supposed to make hard decisions sometimes, even if people don't like them afterwards. I thought you told me that leaders have to be brave and try to do what is right for everyone, even if it means that they have to sacrifice?"

I smiled a little, but since I'm not trying to raise a cynic, I explained to her that sometimes people get sidetracked, and even though they may have the best intents, sometimes the decisions are very, very hard. And I told her we need to pray that our leaders make decisions not based on what they gain out of the decision, but based on what is good for the Nation. But I also reminded her that we don't always know what is best, so we have to hope we remain open-minded and willing to work cooperatively, rather than to fight with everyone.

She seemed to like that answer and she was quiet for a while. But while I was putting on a brave face, inside I was wondering, what has become of our government? Why would supposedly mature individuals choose to take our nation to the brink of insolvency, then once done, stand around and point fingers at one another instead of working harder to try to fix this mess? I heard conservative political heads talking this morning about how this situation is President Obama's fault, and I remember (I guess that is a long time ago and hard to remember) that the recession started when President Bush was in office. Back when we had all the problems with the banks and insurance companies, I heard lots of blame going around, but my memory is that the fat cats have been getting fatter for not one, not two, not three, but at least four presidents ago when so much of the financial industry was deregulated. And likewise, there is plenty of pork going around and plenty of waste, but the things that get threatened for cuts are programs like Medicare and Social Security, but I don't hear suggestions like "stop funding for other countries, especially ones who hate us", or "cut funding to try to win the hearts and minds of those who would rather see us dead". Or maybe, "stop providing corporate welfare and get the big businesses to pay their taxes just like small businesses have to".

Our priorities have gone out the window. We, the People, are more interested in who wins "American Idol" than who our elected officials are going to be. The public is so under-informed about what our elected officials actually stand for and they could care less. It's too much trouble to click on individuals than to vote a straight party line because really, what difference is my one vote? If any of you can't see where we are going, we can go ahead and put it into perspective for you. Take the time to write your elected officials and make a suggestion for something you think is important, or in support of legislation that you think will improve our country. The test is actually that I'd be willing to bet that a significant percentage don't even know who their elected officials are.

If you REALLY are a patriot and REALLY care about this country, skip flying the flag on your car and do something really meaningful. Get to know your elected officials and make sure they are actually representing YOU, whatever political party or preference you happen to be. And by know them, I mean, be a total pain in their ass until they realize that they don't represent Acme Chemicals or whomever is hosting that huge fundraiser this weekend, but you, your spouse, and your kids. And call them and e-mail them frequently. If enough people do this, perhaps, just maybe, our officials will finally understand what their jobs are: to act like adults and work together to keep our Nation the greatest in the world.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on August 9, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, leadership, politics, rebellion • Tagged: anonymous, Bush, change, conflict, congress, debt, editor, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, idiot, leadership, letters, management, marketing, media, Mick Mayers, moron, motivation, nation, Obama, opportunity, politics, professionalism, representative, senate, vision

You Can Quote Me On That (Before 2010)

5 comments

I was driving down the road the other day and thinking, you know, I too could have a list of quotes, just like the real writers have. So in the interest of filling up a page of useless knowledge, I went back to FHZ from September of 2008 to December of 2009 and I also threw in a few notable statements I made way back on the old Firehouse Forums as a member of the IACOJ, before some of you were born, I think.

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.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on June 29, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, leadership, Line of Duty, Major Incidents, motivation, officership, planning, politics, rebellion, Rescues, revolution, Special Operations, Training & Development • Tagged: change, conflict, credentialing, customer service, disaster, economy, education, EMS, FEMA, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Forums, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, IACOJ, incident command, incident management, kind, management, marketing, media, Mick Mayers, motivation, NIMS, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, quotes, resources, risk reduction, safety, South Carolina, team, Training, type, vision

The Antidote To Road Rage

1 comment

Being a reader of FHZ requires you to maintain an open mind. Even if you don't agree with both sides of the issues here, understanding the contrary view permits perspective and in some cases, deeper understanding of the root causes of things we consider trouble. For an example, consider the recent road rage incident that seems to have piqued a considerable amount of interest. While I in no way sanction what was done, nor think it was a mature or acceptable way to handle the situation, realize that in many cases, feelings of frustration manifest themselves in angry, retaliatory behavior.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on June 26, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion, safety, Training & Development, Vehicle Operation & Ambulances, Videos • Tagged: anger, change, conflict, consideration, customer service, Dave Statter, driving, education, empathy, EMS, eugene, FHZ, finger, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, go right, government, Hilton Head Island, idiot, inconsiderate, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, moron, motivation, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, red lights, risk reduction, road rage, safety, South Carolina, STAT911, tips, Training, tuscaloosa, understanding

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 Michael "Mick" Mayers 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: 2005, accomplishments, aggressive, challenge, Chalmette, children, complacent, conflict, constructive, continual improvement, contributions, core, criticism, crossed aerials, customer oriented, customer service, emergency, EMS, FHZ, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, firefighters, Firehouse Zen, gold standard, Hilton Head Island, idiosyncrasies, Katrina, leadership, leading edge, Louisiana, management, Mick Mayers, Number One, opportunity, professionalism, resources, risk reduction, safety, SC-TF1, self-critique, self-immolation, South Carolina, SUSAR, Training, US&R, USAR, web conference, Zero defects

The Way of The Chief

7 comments

The chief who is resolute, brave, and strong is capable of leading fire companies into battle. The chief who is intelligent and visionary is capable of developing the department. Chiefs who are strong and brave, while possessing intelligence and vision, are capable of leading thousands.

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 15, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: Alan Brunacini, blog, Brennan, change, charisma, charismatic, conflict, Dunn, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, fire service leader, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, Francis Brannigan, Gandhi, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, passion, politics, professionalism, resources, Rhett Fleitz, team, The Fire Critic, vision, Yvorra

Shut Up

7 comments

Do you know what this is? No? Then shut up.

According to my children, “shut up” ranks up there with the worst of the “bad” words a primary school child is forbidden to say. Not too long ago, I used that phrase and here again today, “shut up” is the only rebuttal appropriate for a comment I was reading on a major media site.

This post has nothing to do with the actual article, though. In fact, my viewpoint on the situation is irrelevant. The reason I am saying “shut up” is that in a lot of comment and “letters to the editor” pages, the compulsion for someone to take away any doubt that they were an idiot outweighs any prudence or embarrassment that they are, in fact, an idiot.

What gate opened up to motivate these morons to chime in with their obvious, ill-timed, or just plain stupid observation? And to make things even more traumatic, in a lot of the news, the victim’s privacy and anger over the event, the hurt and embarrassment visited on the perpetrator’s family, the shame felt by coworkers, colleagues, etc. far outweighs the absolute insanity of “anonnumus” posting that “maybe it was the victim’s fault”, or “Obama’s birth certificate” was involved, or our mystery writer expounds on their experience being similar to when their front porch fell and killed all their dogs.

Apparently, none of this outweighs the need to be a public dunce. Perhaps part of the problem in anonymity is that people feel compelled to say what they think, which in this and more than a few other cases, isn’t much.

Back to us, though. I did see a similar reaction to several April Fool’s posts on FireRescue1.com. In pulling the page back up tonight to link at it, I’m amazed that seven days later there are still people who don’t stop, read the whole article, then read to see what others have said, before posting their own completely moronic response. “Shut up”, remember?

While the headline drew me in that day and my initial reaction was “WTF?” I was happy that I take a lot of what anyone says at face value anyway. Of course, I then took the time to read the entire article and got all the details prior to opening my mouth, or in this case, tapping out a comment that would expose my ignorance. You would think that the Mayor’s name in the one article might tip you off. Instead, a few of our own read what, two sentences, and type.

I can appreciate the pent up rage and frustration felt by those of us trying to maintain a positive image of our business. And I too see red at some of the statements made by politicians, the media, and others. But before posting your manifesto, do us all a favor and save us the embarrassment of having to explain the joke to you.

I guess the same could be said about my blog, but if you will take careful notice, I rarely write a rant. Want to know why? Because first, unless I am there, I don’t have all the facts. So I prefer to read things and believe there is probably more to the story. Secondly, even if what is said or done is really inflammatory, I give credit to the writer for putting their own personal spin on it, regardless of whether the bias is intentional or unintentional. So sometimes the headline is being written to draw us in and sometimes, it’s to pick a fight. And certainly not least, I believe that there are plenty of places on the internet you can go to if you want controversy, or negativity, or anger. I’m trying to provide a forum. I ask for people to embrace ideas they don’t necessarily agree with. You don’t have to own it; I just want you to look at it.

Before going off on someone, perhaps these people should write what they think, then save it. Walk away and if you still feel compelled to share it, then do so. But think about what you say, especially when all you plan to say is stupid anyway. Your fifteen minutes of fame may be your only fifteen minutes. Make it count.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 7, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, fire service, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion • Tagged: anonymous, Bush, change, conflict, editor, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, FireRescue1.com, government, Hilton Head Island, idiot, leadership, letters, management, marketing, media, Mick Mayers, moron, motivation, Obama, opportunity, politics, professionalism, shut up, vision

The Capacity Building Exercise To Change All Exercises

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

Our industry is in dire need to undergo extensive capacity building. Capacity building is the assistance provided to societies which have a need to develop a certain skill or competence. More recently, however, capacity building is being used to facilitate innovative approaches to social and environmental problems.

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.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on April 4, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Technology & Communications, Training & Development • Tagged: abilities, Ace Ventura, Bob Edwards, capacity building, change, conflict, cooperation, customer service, education, einstein, emergency service, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, I Am, knowledge, KSA, leadership, management, metaphysics, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, research, resources, risk reduction, safety, skills, South Carolina, team, teamwork, tom shadyac, vision

Saying Goodbye To A Friend

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

I actually started writing this post six months ago. It’s probably not like you’d think. I had my initial moments of grief when a friend and colleague passed away late last year. But after that, like one of us has said, “It’s like I keep expecting her to walk through the door any minute.” It’s like she went away and we haven’t really come to the belief that she’s gone.

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.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on March 28, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, In the Line of Duty, leadership, Line of Duty, LODD, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution, safety, Training & Development • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, death, education, EMS, FHZ, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, lessons, LODD, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, planning, professionalism, South Carolina, Susan Williams, understanding, vision

Missionary Work

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Apparently, Firehouse Zen has become the choice blog for commenters with naked pictures of Miley Cyrus and those who have a career selling makeup brushes. There are quite a few other interesting comments that seem to get trapped in the spam filter (Thank God for spam filters, by the way) and yet I waste my time looking through those comments to see if somehow, someone got snagged inadvertently. It has happened several times before and I’d hate to lose a valuable insight because of whatever criteria spam filters use to trap those comments anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on March 16, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rescue, Training & Development • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, professionalism, resources, Ron Richards, South Carolina, Task Force 1, vision, withthecommand

I’m With Stupid But Not Right At This Moment

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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.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on March 9, 2011 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, firefighting, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: Bulverde, Canyon Lake, change, conflict, customer service, EMS, FHZ, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, professionalism, resources, risk reduction, safety, South Carolina, Spring Branch, Task Force 1, Texas, Training, vision

Haters Need Not Apply

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Sometimes we have to make decisions in a fog. But not always. Take the time to see the whole picture.

The brotherhood of fire and rescue is but a microcosm of the greater part of society. In turn, a visit to any un-moderated site will reveal that the general public isn’t any better about being civil, so we probably shouldn’t put a whole lot of worry into the declining civility among people who profess to be part of a brotherhood. It’s just become a norm of our victim society that it’s okay to be self-righteous and it’s okay to go after anyone who doesn’t think like us.

You would think a group of people who profess brotherhood as a redeeming value would be a little slower to throw one of their brothers under the bus when something goes wrong, but as I mentioned in the Tuscon post, that is obviously not the case. In the event that an individual within our ranks does something completely against the grain of our collective morals, like set fires or engage in child pornography, I am entirely understanding about the emotion involved in that rage. It is proportionate to the offense. But since I’m sure you all have heard of cases where the other side of the story ends up being a compelling explanation, we need to take care and exercise caution about expressing our condemnation, because, as we command officers tend to say, the truth actually lies somewhere between Points A and B.

I’m not a hypocrite by any means; I am right there with you. I just happen to also take a little bit of time to rein in my passions a little. If you were standing next to me at the moment I got the news of a “firefighter declining to respond to an incident”, I’m sure you’d have seen another side of me. However, the luxury of the internet is not only real-time event coverage, but the ability to pause before re-communicating your opinion, especially since unless you were there, it is your opinion and based on conjecture, not on tangible evidence. You might not be able to take back what you just blurted out of your mouth, but you can certainly check yourself before clicking the radio button. Very few of the stories I hear are actual prima facie cases. Since these stories unfold so quickly, we often find that there is more to the story that doesn’t get revealed due to the emotions choking the lines of communication.

It brings up the topic of this page, however, since some of the e-mail (I typed in “e-mal” in my draft – was that a slip?) doesn’t seem to agree with me and of course, there are those who can hide behind their pseudonyms in the comments. While I am sure the act of someone failing to go to an emergency challenged our beliefs in what was good and right about our profession, on lesser occasions, the anger and vitriol for say, someone not wearing their gloves in a picture, is a little over the top. And I say “a little” in my most sarcastic tone of voice. Some of the comments from the peanut gallery are also those who, given their profiles, probably haven’t seen too many incidents more challenging than a dumpster fire, and even then, they weren’t even in charge of that.

Individuals these days, in this moment of instantness (you like that?), are quick to react instead of reflect. They simply don’t have the patience for the whole story. They want their news, their blogs, their everything instantly and then they act on that information accordingly. In a time-compressed environment, there is only a moment to digest what we have heard and then to regurgitate it so that we can be the first to make a comment. The first to comment must be the best informed, right? The self-appointed subject matter expert? The one on the inside, right?

For me, I see it in the type of readership I get here at FHZ. The comments are usually thoughtful and agreeable. I post every comment, pro or con, so long as it isn’t spam. And although I may not agree with you, I consider your perspective on the issues as valuable and enlightening. But I get the impression that the few individuals who have seen fit to be trolls (with one notable exception) haven’t read farther than the first paragraph anyway. Anything over 140 characters for a lot of these individuals is a lot of wasted time reading.

We don’t do controversy here on this blog. We are interested in a bigger picture. If it is an event that is truly worth discussing and there are alternate points of view, we engage in another time-wasting effort: dialogue. We ask questions. We pose thoughts. We engage in critical examination. We remain open-minded. It’s a little too much for some people, I am aware, but it keeps the riff-raff out.

The readers of this blog generally have proven to be those who I could sit down and have a beer with and talk about something other than the fire service, or have a conversation about the fire service in say, the context of a retail business, or a day care, or the University of Life. They can see things for more than what is printed on the face. They possess deeply considered ideas or are able to see that there are advantages to listening to the opposition. The readers of this blog are those who I consider to be the hope for emergency services to evolve out of the tar pit of whackerdom and rise to the level of professionalism.

If you know of someone who operates on a different playing field than the norm, send them here and ask them to say their piece so we know they are here. But most importantly, we are looking for readers (and commenters) who have ideas to share and innovative ways of looking at things. Just because the issue appears to be obvious, it isn’t often the case. We want to talk with REAL leaders, those of you who consider enlightened leadership to be a desired trait, not a hurdle to our position. We need engagement, not brick walls. Haters and groupthinkers need not apply.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on February 24, 2011 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, firefighting, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, safety, technology, Technology & Communications, training-fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: anger, brotherhood, change, command, communication, conflict, controversy, customer service, dialogue, education, EMS, enlightening, environment, FHZ, fire, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, firefighter, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, groupthink, Hilton Head Island, instantness, internet, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, politics, professionalism, pseudonym, public, rescue, society, South Carolina, subject matter expert, truth, tuscon, victim society, whackerdom

But Wait! There’s More!

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There is more to what we do than just "fighting fires".

In a fit of laziness, and believing fell well that I was smarter than any ol’ blogging software, I tried to use a previous blog to shortcut the addition of categories and tags. Of course, this resulted in my changing forever the URL of that post and with my already poor memory, forgetting the previous one so I could revert to it once again. And no, I already tried just going back to a previous version.

Thus our Zen lesson of the day: When it may seem like you are saving time, often, it costs more time to fix when you screw it up. This, however, comes back around to the reason for the post to begin with.

As I said in “Hogs To The Trough“, we have been our own worst enemy. We have failed, on any number of levels, to “sell” our message to the people who need to hear it most. Getting the message out requires effort that some of our brothers and sisters simply don’t see as a priority. We are, as I have heard so many times before, the “only show in town”. I’m pretty sure the refrain to that is, “You have no choice but to call us when your house is on fire”. This has been the argument of the Anti-Customer Service crowd for a very long time. In fact, since before some of you little nippers were born.

If we were doing such a great job, this would be a no-brainer. Cut emergency service spending, people die. Well, if that were absolutely true, I’d bet we’d be hearing a lot more screaming from the public. While I believe strongly that cutting emergency service spending does result in a greater flirtation with disaster and mortality, the realization from the public is, we cut emergency service spending and guess what? No one died yet.

These are the same people who, when faced with the addition of a traffic light at the busiest intersection in town, cry and complain in the newspaper and at meetings about the inconvenience, only to cry and complain about the lack of public safety consideration when a family of four dies at said intersection. Then, of course, that horse has already fled the barn, but by God, there’d better be a traffic light at that intersection before the weekend or heads will roll.

There are no switches for turning on the message or turning it off. If you aren’t preaching the Gospel daily, the audience doesn’t hear the message when everyone is shouting and it’s too loud to hear. Our presence in our communities has to be a daily event, so that when you are silenced, it is deathly quiet, and people realize, “Hey, something is wrong here.” If you are saving homes and businesses from fire through your prevention message and excellent response and mitigation, you need to trumpet that to the rafters, and regularly. If your community sees a benefit in early recognition of cardiac arrest, advantageous placement of AEDs, and the presence of a well-trained, well-equipped tiered medical response, you need to share that.

There are no shortcuts to this. Communicating the message of the value of your organization must be done constantly. This isn’t a one-individual task either; it has to be at the very heart of your organizational culture, that service to the community isn’t just a good idea, it is the core of our existence. When we fail to provide an excellent service, the taxpayers will remember it come budget time. If we piss off the masses, they will be the first to stand silent when we are losing personnel, apparatus, equipment, training, and every other enhancement, because frankly, your existence is invisible to them. Given the choice between funding you and not funding you, if the effect is only a subjective loss (just because you SAY people will die, doesn’t mean they will), they are more willing to take the chance of not funding your needs.

My wife owns a flooring retail and installation company, KPM Flooring, here on Hilton Head Island. She is the sole proprietor. She has a vision of what the organization represents to her customers. She doesn’t wait for you to read her mind to find out what that vision is. She doesn’t wait for you to come in looking for tile or a beautiful area rug to show you what things could be like in your home. She creates (herself, I might add) advertisement that portrays her company as being “sophisticated”, “classy”, “exclusive’, “original”, and “innovative”. Those words are in quotes because these are comments we have gotten from people who have viewed her website or her print advertisement. And you know what? They have found this to be true and have told their neighbors, families, friends, etc. We probably advertise less than Brand X, but where we advertise and the message we send says: If I want a really classy look to my home or business, I need to go to KPM Flooring.

Getting your message out requires you to have an idea what you want your message to be, first. Many emergency service organizations haven’t even decided upon that concept yet. They are happy with the status quo. The status quo doesn’t require a bunch of effort. There’s a certain comfort to saying, “We’re okay with the idea the public thinks we are a tax burden, but they don’t have a choice. You know, because PEOPLE WILL DIE.”

We don’t want to change. If we did, we would do it willingly. As Pumbaa said, “You have to put your behind in your past“. Or something like that. If we really do care about serving the public, we will get on board in getting them involved to find out what it is they need, and providing service for that need. When we can do this, the community won’t PERCEIVE that they have a need for us, they will KNOW they have a need for us. And when they do, you won’t have to worry about budget cuts again.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on February 11, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, firefighting, funding, Funding & Staffing, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: budget, Camden, change, conflict, council, customer service, depression, disaster, economy, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, Gary, government, Hilton Head Island, layoffs, leadership, Lion King, management, marketing, media, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, past, planning, politics, professionalism, Pumbaa, resources, risk reduction, South Carolina, team, vision

Hogs To The Trough

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I have heard a constant refrain for a few years, as you have probably heard too. With the economy the way it is, the constant drum beat sounds from those who want to radically downsize government, and there is a certain irrational cry from those who resent firefighter pensions and salaries.

A while back, Captain Schmoe over at Report on Conditions spelled it out best (but for some reason I can’t find the specific post), illustrating that our collective hubris has signed our own death warrant. When Fred Taxpayer sees one of the brothers trucking down the road in his Gasguzzler 6000 pickup, towing a boat with three engines on it, laughing because he only works one day out of three, it doesn’t sit well. Especially when that same individual is scraping to make ends meet, can’t figure out where he’s going to get the money to feed the kids, and might not even have a retirement anymore. Do you really find their resentment unfounded?

Recent firefighter layoffs in Camden and Gary, while extraordinarily tragic, illustrate a fundamental issue: people generally aren’t lashing out at the politicians, they are blaming the Union. And while that may very well be unfounded, it is happening, and that is a tangible reality. Why should we care? Because we did it to ourselves.

It’s not a matter that we do or don’t deserve decent salaries and good benefits, it is a matter of our failure to educate the public, to work with them and include them as part of the solution. After all, it was their own elected officials that agreed to these contracts in the first place. They can argue that they did so at the point of a gun, but the reality there is actually that these benefits were often hard-fought for and given grudgingly, so whatever these individuals were able to obtain, it wasn’t exactly handed to them on a silver platter.

Furthermore, like those of us in departments that don’t enjoy the fruits of collective bargaining, we are all lumped in together with the stories like the one illustrated above as a prime example of why we don’t deserve this compensation. I, for one, live in a nice home. But its a home my wife and I ate a lot of waffles and PBJs to save for. We have three children to put through college, but so do a lot of people. I drive an eleven year old truck with 130,000 miles on it. In no way should this be construed as complaining. I don’t make a fortune, but I think it is a fair salary for what the community gets from me, and although I wish I made more, I also understand the realities of the situation. And I have friends that are firefighters who have the truck and boat and etc., but they have in one case invested wisely, in another case happened to parlay their talents into a lucrative side job. Yet another one though, has squandered his money and overextended himself. So it is, just as it is everywhere else, the same.

When we engage in bragging about how good we have it, we’d better consider the consequences. There is a backlash that still rages on against our existence, and it doesn’t stop at the career folks either. If the public percieves that your service doesn’t have value, they will cut it back to where they feel it deserves to be funded, plain and simple. The other parts of public service enjoy a certain paranoia about the public, where those emotions about losing those services are much more tangible. Lose the trash pickup? No cops? Sewer backing up? They will choose and what they will choose is to fund that which they are the most concerned about losing. Since you don’t have fires next door every day, nor does everyone in the neighborhood end up in the back of the ambo regularly, do you believe that when we’re lining up to get our share, that there’s a reluctance to cut our budgets? Not often. The public may complain a little when they see on the news that the Mayor shut down the fire station on the corner, but that sentiment is usually over by the time American Idol comes on.

We can’t continue to take for granted that the public knows why we are there or what we do, or what would happen if we lost manpower, equipment, or other tools. This is the time to insure that the buyer is aware of what they are being sold, and is happy with the return they continue to make on their investment. Yes, that’s called marketing and while that might be a dirty word to some of you, it too is a reality. You can choose to ignore the need or you can get up and do what is needed. We can’t wait until stations are being closed and people are being laid off to insure the message is shared. Anything after that is sour grapes. We can’t scream “people will die” if we didn’t do anything to reinforce it in the minds of the population ahead of that moment.

To the general population, our indifference to their situation while flaunting our current compensation packages is a lot like Marie Antoinette telling starving Parisians, “Let them eat cake”. And you know how that story ended. The backlash against government spending isn’t going away and if we don’t evolve, don’t be surprised to hear this story repeated over and over again until we do. Would you rather change under your own terms or change at the end of a pike? It’s your call.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on February 8, 2011 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, fire, fire service, funding, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, economy, education, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, resources, South Carolina, vision

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 Michael "Mick" Mayers 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: CAFS, change, conflict, customer service, disaster, economy, education, Elkhart, EMS, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, FireRescue1.com, foam, force multiplier, Hilton Head Island, hose, innovation, invention, Jamie Thompson, leadership, management, marketing, Mick Mayers, motivation, nozzle, officer, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, research, resources, risk reduction, safety, South Carolina, suppression, Training, vision

Power of a Foot

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Recently one of my colleagues spent his last day on the job. He is retiring to take on a nursing job as the clinical lead in an emergency room. He got the impetus to do this as a result of his long career as a paramedic. Ironically, years ago he came to be assigned to my command as a firefighter who had been through a few officers, had some not-so-stellar career moves, and was being given this chance to salvage things. At a point somewhere along the line, he came into my office and asked for my blessing for him to attend paramedic school.

Years ago in my department, I got the nickname of “The Hammer”. My natural leadership style isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. When Kevin wanted to get my signature on his application, I was working diligently in my office with the door slightly ajar. The people who have worked with me for years know I want my door to be open, but it’s really just to give the impression that it’s open. It’s not.

Of course, here comes ol’ Kevin, with a skip in his step and a Training Program Request for me to sign. I glare over the top of my glasses at him and I don’t say anything. The look is generally sufficient, or so I’m told. Kevin slides the paper over for me to sign. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.

Leaders take chances on people, even when they aren’t ordinarily inclined to do so. While at the time I didn’t really consider him to be that great of an EMT, much less paramedic material, we laugh about it now. As it turns out, he had a real aptitude for medicine and has an unbelievable bedside manner. After medic school came nursing school and now this endeavor. I am very proud of his achievement and so I sent him a note to tell him that I’ll miss him, but I’m always okay with someone moving on to the bigger and better. I got a really meaningful note back from him thanking me for putting a foot up his ass back in those days. Things have definitely changed, as he is now a well-respected veteran of the department and a fixture in the community. We have had a lot of laughs and some not-so-funny moments over the years, but while others were willing to overlook the issues, I was not.

When applying for the Executive Fire Officer program years ago, one of the questions asked, of what contribution to the fire service was I the most proud of? Without even a moment’s thought, I know it is to see the successful people for whom I have served as a leader, mentor, guide, teacher, and coach over the years. Of particular pride are those who are now doing the same thing for others, especially when I hear one of their students/employees say, “Oh, you’re the Mick Mayers they were talking about.” Hopefully that’s good, but I at least know something is sticking someplace.

If we don’t stretch our own expectations of others, they won’t grow. I don’t for a minute believe my daughters could be captains of industry right at this moment, but given the rest of their lives, I can see them being whatever they want to be. Likewise, the people we are charged with bringing up through the organization, they might not be chief material today, but given the right motivation, feedback, and direction, someday they could end up being your boss (I have one of those situations now) or someone else’s boss. And if you truly worked your magic with that individual, that’s okay.

Leaders must constantly consider the potential of others and understand that while they may be very raw right now, this moment is the one where you get to build and form and create. This is the moment in which you truly leave a legacy. Buildings will crumble and fall, apparatus will become obsolete, everything physical you build could one day be dust. But the lasting edifice, the one that stands throughout time, is when you create a learning environment for your people and you help them to grow. When they’re getting pinned with those bugles and grinning at you wildly, you know that you have left your mark on the world.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on January 27, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: change, education, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, South Carolina

The Sword

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As I quoted Musashi recently, a warrior must “have a taste for both pen and sword”. And while there is a frequent need for statesmanship, the soft skills are sometimes not fully appreciated unless you can bring some smackdown to the table when pushed. There is a very good reason why I don’t discuss the other aspect of leadership as much. The reason is because too many of us are familiar with that side of the house and frankly, too willing to lay it out there when things go wrong. There is a much more stringent call to educate disciples of enlightened leadership on the discipline of using the stick only when and where it is needed.

Clausewitz suggests famously, that prior to waging war, we must fully understand how we intend to wage war and to what extent we will go to achieve victory. A scorched earth mentality is fine for truly epic battles of wrong vs. right but you will eventually have to live with the outcome. If you choose to lay waste to someone’s career because they got on your wrong side, you must realize the consequences of that decision and as said before, use the power you have to help others, not to hurt them.

I would like to believe that extraordinary leadership will help you retain whatever role you have in your world, but the realities don’t always favor that outcome. Therefore, you must always consider that leadership is dangerous ground. Someone, someplace, is going to perceive that your victory is their loss, and they are going to want to defend their territory. You must be prepared to not lose, or know when not to engage so that you can live on for another fight. Leading is not for the faint of heart.

A non-combatant leader must have some sort of a “sword” in order to be truly effective. The prospect of dealing with adversaries can be likened to dealing with any other belligerent and while physical conflict isn’t an option, the strategies needed to survive even these kinds of battle require similar tactics. Therefore, to succeed, you too must also cultivate your “weapons of war”.

In the business of leading others, that sword is often your reputation and your ability to make things happen, which is often the outward manifestation of political clout. While the politics could be those of the community or your internal organizational politics, if you have none at all, let’s see how things fare for you the first time you do something unpopular and your adversaries decide they’re going after your head. You’d better start off by having ground to fight for.

You can achieve political power in a number of different ways, but the one that is most utilized by ethical leaders and especially by those who are seeking to develop power (in the absence of having legitimate power) can be through networking. The more allies you have in your corner, the less likely that someone with a beef is going to pick a fight. And when they do, it’s nice to know you have backup. Where can you obtain these kinds of friends? You can get involved in local nonprofits, you can volunteer to take on less than desirable projects that will help the organization along, you can teach, or you can get involved in public outreach for ypur organization. In all of these cases, you get out and get seen as a face for the organization and people begin to recognize you as a doer.

When you lead, you are often alone at the front of the pack. Being alone and in front means you are a visible target as well. And when things meet resistance, or trouble is found along the way, the leader is the one who has to deal with it first. But knowing there is a pack behind you gives you strength and courage. It makes you realize there are people to fight for. And most of all, it is those individuals, who are in your corner, who cheer you on and remind you that you are indeed fighting the good fight.

Enlightened leadership requires open-mindedness. But while you can be receptive to others, others will only be receptive to you if you have something they want. The power you have is in your sword, the power of your team and the others who know you and support you. It is up to you to use it wisely.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on January 24, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, government, leadership, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism • Tagged: clausewitz, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firefighter Nation, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, Musashi, officer, opportunity, politics, professionalism, strategy, Sun Tzu

The New Year: The Object of Power

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Orwell said:

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Once empowered, as we discussed before in this blog, what would you do with it? Use it to beneficial means? Punish your detractors? Lift the world?

Legitimate power, in the sense of leading others, is limited to the amount of leverage your followers will permit you. Granted, you can dismiss those who don’t agree with you in some cases, but the shouting never goes away. The powerful may believe themselves to be so, but the mighty can at once be chopped down by the feeble. If you doubt that, there are hundreds of stories in which this can be shown to be true.

I’m not impressed because there’s a bridge named after you, or a building, or even a document. Maybe if your image is imprinted on currency, that might change things. But the truly powerful are so because they have empowered others and that lasting image of mentorship, of fostering knowledge, of truly leading others, because others have granted you that privilege, well, that is real power.

Only the truly transformative and engaging leaders can provide that kind of experience, where their vision is communicated and moved forward by others. This is a concept that transcends professionalism; it is embracing leadership as a calling. Do you want to be an ordinary leader, or one that is powerful? Leadership at this level 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 to set the example to others.

Happy New Year. Lead on. We’re watching.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on December 31, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: change, conflict, dictator, education, empowerment, FHZ, fire service, Firehouse Zen, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, Orwell, planning, politics, power, professionalism, quote, South Carolina, transactional leadership, transformational leadership, vision

Credibility

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One of the biggest problems the fire service has is its credibility. I received multiple e-mails over the past few weeks about a confined space training near-miss that in reading the information, I found to be pretty troubling. Once again, it appears (at least from the published report) that training can get pretty hairy, especially when there is a certain amount of complacency among students and instructors. But it goes to a deeper question: When training, at what point do we raise our hand and say, “Hey, something doesn’t seem right here”?

When we engage in fire, EMS, and rescue activities, we are participating in what is considered to be an extraordinarily dangerous setting. In training, we have the ability to create scenarios that test our students, but we as course designers must consider the alternative outcome to successful completion of a task, and by that, I am referring to failure. When someone is unable to complete a task, or the environment becomes too daunting, or unforeseen events occur, there has the be the ability to directly swing into normalcy (read: safety).

In burn buildings we provide extra exits and in high-line rescue training we continually monitor redundant belays. Whatever the topic, we intentionally build our scenarios to consider the “what if?” events that might occur. While crawling through an active 18-inch pipe might provide a “confidence building” exercise, what is the plan if someone gets stuck? Or in the case at hand, weather creates a very real scenario? Thankfully a greater disaster didn’t occur. But while in confined space situations we must “train in representative spaces”, and nothing provides more realism than using the spaces themselves, we are also obligated to monitor those spaces and aggressively manage safety concerns for personnel.

When an instructor is telling you to do something that doesn’t seem right, there is also an obligation on the part of students to respectfully raise a hand and question the scenario. Unfortunately, not every instructor out there is experienced or dedicated enough to insure that the proper learning environment is provided and adequately managed. As real professionals, we need to not only do risk management on the emergency scene, but in training as well. There are plenty of instructors from whom I have taken a class, only to walk away shaking my head. If I am responsible for hiring instructors, I at least qualify them myself or seek the advice of colleagues who have worked with those people before. Our business, however, is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs. Look for credible instructors with a history of work when you are trusting someone with the lives of your personnel. We kill and injure enough of our people in real situations. There’s no reason to do the same when the urgency doesn’t exist.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on December 1, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, EMS Topics, FEMA, Fire Prevention & Education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, motivation, National Fire Academy, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: change, education, executive fire officer, FEMA, FHZ, fire service, FireEMSBlogs, Firehouse Zen, government, Hilton Head Island, leadership, management, Mick Mayers, motivation, National Fire Academy, opportunity, planning, politics, professionalism, research, risk reduction, South Carolina, Training

Successful Coaches Match Schemes to Personnel, Not Vice-Versa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be Proud, But Humble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perception

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We all have a job to do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fixing The Unfixable

4 comments

Even the strongest, when faced with constant exposure to the elements, can be destroyed. Pick your battles wisely.

It happens from time to time that my inner cynic works its way out and is usually capped with a phrase I like to use in moments like these, “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”

Despite being positive and embracing enlightened discussion, there are occasions where no matter what you do, no matter how well-intentioned you are, you can be overwhelmed by the short-sighted. Call it a failure to appreciate the venom behind those served by the status quo, give the numbers of idiots a certain amount of wiggle-room, and you can be sure that they will find a way to hurt you. People who sincerely want the situation to remain the same and will do anything to keep it that way, will use character assassination, marginalization, threats, and on occasion, harm, to keep real leaders from instituting change.

According to Chongyam Trungpa Rimpoche, “Rishi is a Sanskrit word which refers to the person who constantly leads a straightforward life. The Tibetan word for “rishi” is trangsong, which means “direct” and “upright.” So this term refers to someone who leads a direct and upright life by not introducing new complications into their life situation.” When a leader who exhibits these traits comes into our lives, we need to embrace them. However, more often than not, our leaders have flaws, just as we do. Unfortunately, these flaws are often used by the contrarians to gain a foothold and steer those on the borders to their own side. If the weak-minded are unwilling to look at what is best for the mission and unable to side with those on the side of right, there isn’t likely any saving them anyway.

There are situations where the individuals involved simply deserve themselves and until a leader can rise to the position and have the necessary backing, there will be no improvement in the condition. It is at these times when things will continue to be so bad that it will require things to get even worse before someone is given the power to make things right. In those cases, a total recalculation of culture is required, which won’t happen without a major offensive with enough firepower to establish an indisputable beachhead. At this level of failure, however, it often requires people to die first.

There are situations in life where the smart thing to save your self, your sanity, or everything you worked for, is to walk away. There are situations where trying to save a completely dysfunctional organization is like trying to use a hand-pump to stop the Titanic from going under. If you find yourself in a situation like this, it requires a serious gut check, and a realization that you can’t fix the unfixable.

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 lack of resources to fix the problem, sometimes it is best to save what you can save and live to fight on another day. As a leader, strive to become rishi and when you are met with your failings, try to resolve them through truth and acceptance. In this you will make yourself less assailable. But ultimately, even the rockiest and most imposing shore can be destroyed through the constant battering of the waves. Be resolute, but not to the point of total loss.

Posted by Michael "Mick" Mayers on October 25, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, motivation, News, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution • Tagged: change, conflict, customer service, FHZ, fire service, government, Mick Mayers, politics, professionalism

The Disincentive for Responsible Reporting (Tax and Spend Socialists)

7 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Subscription Emergency Services – Your Classic Tea Bag Scenario

11 comments

These aren't free.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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