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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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At every opportunity, I formalized my training by attending as many fire schools as possible with some of the finest firefighters in the nation.  I have had the chance to talk HAZMAT over beers with Greg Noll, and likewise talk Rescue with the late, great Chief Ray Downey.  As a young officer I got to hang out with Chief Brunacini for the day when he was teaching on the Island.  And later in my career, I have had the amazing honor of working side by side as a committee officer with Carl Goodson, one of the finest leaders I have ever met.  I have had many other, lesser known, but quite inspirational and educated instructors and mentors along the line.  I have also worked directly for and with chiefs of local departments who continue to share their immense knowledge and insight with me.

Of all of these, however, until I met Chief Harry Diezel, who at the time was the Chief of the Virginia Beach Fire Department, I didn’t really have a vision of what my future in the fire service would be. What’s funny about it is that he was able to inspire a young officer candidate in sixteen hours of a seminar, by exposing to him to the potential of emergency services from an entirely different model than ever envisioned.

I have always had a strong work ethic and I thought I was a decent officer.  While was insistent on my crew being well prepared and well trained, in my early years as a company officer, my battles with management were often visible, bloody, and engaged head-on with no regard to the bigger picture.  Think “irresistible force meets immovable object”.  I knew I was good, I had swagger, and I had total confidence.  I was moving up the food chain rapidly because I was a John Wayne, no-nonsense, this-is-the-way-to-do-it kind of officer and in the ‘80’s, this was the personification of the model company officer.

As you also might have suspected, in the ‘80’s the notion of taxpayers as “customers” in the fire service was not widely accepted.  In fact, it was meeting pretty serious resistance, as it still does in certain areas.  I was no exception to the norm.  When it came to dealing with the public, I enjoyed delivering the emergency service, but as far as I was concerned, if you weren’t with us, you were against us.  After all, as taxpayers, you don’t have a choice in how emergency services are provided, do you?  If an issue came up in regard to providing fire protection, our take was, “Just listen to us, we know what we are doing, and we’ll tell you how to do it correctly”.

So when I had a chance to sit in a room over two days with Chief Diezel and learn about “paradigms” (BEFORE they became a cheap buzzword) and to learn about thinking with new perspective (again, before “outside the box” became clichéd), it was revolutionary.  When we talked about political strategy, it was fresh air and realization of a whole new approach toward selling service delivery.  When he suggested we read (and understand) “The Art of War”, not as a study in warcraft but as a guide for strategic living, it was before anyone else was suggesting any of these options.

Looking back on it, the things we talked about that weekend were shown to us as being “fresh” ideas ten and even twenty years later.  In some communities, when I come in and discuss a “vision for emergency services”, sometimes I get blank stares.  When I ask an officer candidate in another department what he or she sees in the future of emergency services, and they answer, “New trucks” or “more people”, I’m wondering why someone hasn’t tried to get them to see that our industry is affected globally, not just at city hall.

Harry got at least this one officer to embrace change, to accept that there might be alternatives to what we perceived as being the sole answer, and gave me the spark to explore and understand.  When I had the veil of ignorance lifted, it was like an entirely new beginning to my career.  I took classes on psychology and sociology to better understand the people both in the organization and in the community that I would have to motivate.  I enrolled in programs that were sponsored by the chamber of commerce and attended seminars offered to private businesses, and began to serve on boards and panels.  I realized in the ‘80’s that networking was a key element in political survival and marketing your organization wasn’t a bad thing.

Of all things, Chief Diezel got me to see that people do have a choice.  They may not have the ability to decide what agency comes when they call for help, but they have a choice in who is employed in that agency.  They also have a say in whether or not you get the apparatus and tools for the job, the fire stations to put the apparatus and tools in, and whether or not you get people to put on those resources.  These people also have the ability to put people in office who support you, and they can put people in office who will make your life miserable.

I have resolved to share this wealth with others through Firehouse Zen.  I have a vision of emergency services reborn, of revolutionary change in the way we operate and in the way that we engage the public to minimize injury and loss.  There are so many “leaders” out there who still have that veil over their eyes and have never understood the potential of a fully engaged organization.  Until they do, their department is condemned to being ordinary and marginal.  If there’s anything in this world I don’t want to be, it’s ordinary and marginal.

Learn to really be at the front of the pack and learn how to guide and push toward a goal of really effective service delivery.  More importantly, though, find someone who needs guidance, some young officer, and mentor them.  Give them the gift of vision and foresight and help them to prepare for all of the changes that will surely come in next generations.  Nothing you have gained is worth a cent if you don’t share it with others.

Thanks, Chief Diezel, for unwittingly inspiring me.  It was a great weekend.

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I was thinking about the use of RFID, or “radio frequency identification” for you non-geeks out there.  Now while we have discussed the use of RFID for personnel accountability (which you could embed in your credential we have been beating on about over the last month and I have decided to let rest for a bit), where as you pass through a checkpoint at an incident, the RFID chip would log you in, plus pertinent data, and make it much easier to manage the locations of your valuable assets (that would be your people).

But another application that private industry and the military have used RFID for is for logistics management.  For a while I have gone on in our department about the use of bar coding to produce a reliable determination of asset location (if you can’t scan the code, the item is obviously not there).  But in the case of RFID, what I was thinking is that you could have a portal- like at the bay doors- that would scan your vehicle, with all of the RFID-chipped tools and assorted equipment, and tell you what was there and what wasn’t.  While you were at it, you could actually tell WHICH item it was; for example, the generator on your engine is Acme Fire Department Generator #3.  Well, Generator #3 is due for maintenance.  Or Generator #3 was swapped out at your last preventative maintenance cycle and you actually have Generator #21.  And your Maintenance/Logistics folks just happen to be looking for Generator #21 because it has to have a whatsit retrofitted.  You see where I’m going with this?  You could actually know if Engine 1 went out the door with everything on it or not.

If your department is anything like my department, and your firefighters anything like my firefighters, you are asking, “isn’t this going to be expensive to replace when we break the chip?”  You all know that if you put a firefighter in an empty locked room with two ball bearings he will break one and lose the other.  Well, if this stuff is ruggedized enough for the military, it’s likely that it will last at least a week in a fire station.

The sad part is, like I said, this is stuff that has been out there for a while.  But do YOU know about it?  Can you advocate for change and improvement if you don’t know what kind of change and improvement we are capable of?  What other ideas do you see being used in everyday life that have an application to our jobs?

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