If your organization doesn’t value altruistic leadership, after a while, the enlightened will get so worn down from beating up against that wall that they will give up or move on.  There are plenty of places in which this environment exists, and while I like to think that eventually good triumphs over stupidity, I know plenty of cases where not only did the “leaders” fail, but they dragged down the whole organization in the process.

In one case I am familiar with, the CEO was not only beating down everyone around them, but performing criminal acts as well. His more worthwhile subordinates were trying to save the company but those whose interests were to save themselves only managed to prolong the inevitable.  In the real world, judgment doesn’t come swiftly from the heavens to reward the just and to punish evil.  This company slowly and painfully went into default and ultimately, the people hurt the most were those who tried to keep the place afloat to the bitter end.  Life isn’t always fair.

But if anything can benefit from transformational and altruistically motivated leadership, it is indeed the organization.  The reason is that regardless of how well you perform, crises will occur over time, and the organizations that weather those challenges best are ones that are value-centered to begin with.

Entities who are untrue to their expressed values find that when a storm arises, there is ambiguity in how to right the ship.  Those who see that integrity isn’t necessarily rewarded will lean toward the solutions that cover their asses the best.  There is discipline in transformational behavior, in that people take actions based on the greater good, or for the right reasons, rather than based on self-interest.  People enmeshed in a mercenary culture won’t be manning the lines when there isn’t anything left to reward them with, they’ll be sneaking onto the lifeboats.

When as a leader you can point at certain values and say, “This is what we expect you to do, regardless of the situation”, you can expect that the people who are on board will act accordingly, especially if you personally hold those values to be true.  If you don’t adhere to those values yourself, don’t be surprised if your followers act exactly as you do.

Morale, it is said, is the great force multiplier.  Transformational leadership can exist in a culture that doesn’t value it, but unfortunately, if it doesn’t get the chance to root, it dies on the vine.  If you say you value excellence but settle constantly for mediocrity, mediocrity is what you will get.  If you say that you value innovation and settle for the status quo, be prepared to see stasis.  If you say you value integrity, but the back stabbers and ass-kissers are the ones who get promoted, you can be reassured those will be the characteristics of those who desire promotion.

The only way to develop transformational leaders is to demonstrate that you value transformational leaders.  If individuals see that altruism is acknowledged and rewarded, they will act accordingly, and they will begin to develop those characteristics not because they are rewarded, but because they realize that it is the right thing to do.

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I was giving Zach Green from MN8 Foxfire a tour of our department when I got a call from Lt. C down at Station 7.  There is some construction going on next door to the station.  The landscape contractors brought in some trees to be planted; in one of them, a nest had been built. Two baby birds were subsequently dropped onto the burgeoning garden forming in the shadow of the new cell phone tower.  

What do people do when they have a problem they can't readily solve? They call the fire department.  Since a fire station happened to be right next door, the contractors brought the helpless creatures to Engine 7's house.

Armed with their extraordinary problem solving skills, the crew came up with the right answer. They called a vet to get some advice and found that one was willing to take the birds in for us. The call to me was for  advice as to how they could carry out their plan, since the vet was in Bluffton, outside of our jurisdiction.  I told them to manage with what they had and to let me think about how to make things work out.  I was returning to my office at Station 7 anyway and told them I'd talk to them in person shortly.

When I arrived, the guys were huddled around their little project at the watch desk, feeding the birds worms.  They had a syringe and a catheter and were dripping warm milk gently into the two tiny birds mouths.  And they had a hot pack under a warm towel keeping the birds comfortable.  Solutions like these don't come readily to people who aren't engaged in their jobs.  These three firefighters, three guys who I wouldn't describe as "huggy", were tending these infant birds with all the gentleness of my 11 year old daughter, with real concern for their outcome.  

Was it their job to do this?  No.  Was it a challenge, especially since they didn't know what to do? Yes.  Did it fall into the scope of our mission?  No, but it was the right thing to do.

There are those who would argue that our resources are better spent elsewhere.  They might say that we have a responsibility to the community to provide fire and EMS coverage and this was detracting us from that responsibility.  I would argue that this was not the case.  I would also argue that the ability for our people to show compassion for even the most helpless of beings demonstrates to me a willingness to do the job we are charged with doing, while sharing our organizational values.

Transactional leadership has no place here.  What benefit did they get from these efforts?  What tangible bonus came as a result of taking in these birds?  There was none.  These firefighters did these things because they care.  And caring is an extraordinarily important part of leading altruistically.

Our organization has established integrity as one of our principal values.  Some describe integrity as the desire to do the right thing even when nobody is watching.  It would have been very easy to just get rid of these birds in the dumpster, or to tell the contractor it wasn't our job, or to tell them that they needed to call Animal Control, or any one of a number of excuses people can make for not doing what is right.  I wasn't around, I never would have known.  But that isn't the way we operate around here.  Our leaders, almost to a man, can be trusted to make good decisions even when they aren't popular or convenient or in the job description.  They know what we expect, they understand our shared values, and they set the example of leadership by demonstrating these values in their daily actions.

What examples of leadership tell you a person cares even when it hurts?  Can you look at yourself or at other leaders and say that the organizational value of integrity is continually upheld? When people act with integrity, it is often because their leaders have demonstrated their own insistence on acting with integrity.  When leaders don't demonstrate these values, the troops say, "Who cares?"  Of all the values an organization holds, it is the ones that the followers see their leaders demonstrating that they place importance on.  If you don't act like it means anything, you shouldn't be surprised if the troops don't feel the same way as well.

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I won't keep you in suspense that long, as I am not a suspense writer.  He ended up succeeding and retiring about ten years later on his own terms, more or less.  The reason why? Because after I had my conversation with him and outlined my expectations, he was surprised that nobody had ever really sat down and had a similar assessment of his contribution to the organization.

Here was somebody who in his early years did the things he needed to have done, he took his tests, he maintained his certifications, but he wasn't your superstar employee.  He wasn't the one showing up at a half-hour before clocking in, or joining special teams, but he was doing a decent enough job and I won't say he was simply filling a spot, because he was indeed better than that, but he wasn't a rock star either.

As it happens, our department back then, and in the form we are now, happened to have a lot of rock stars.  Not that there was or is a problem with that, but as supervisors, we have to be careful that while we have high expectations of individuals, we are reasonable in their ability, both physically and mentally, to manage and succeed at that level.  If not, we may need to adjust.  We might need to be a little more realistic and of course, we may need to go to the Bag O' Tricks and use a different means of motivating this individual.

He had a high sick leave ratio, simple enough; is the problem an actual medical problem, or does he need to go to employee assistance to seek solutions to personal problems?  Regardless, I was the first one to literally say: "You have a sick leave problem.  We need you here at work.  If there is a health problem, we need you to go to a doctor and get it resolved.  If there is another problem, we can help with that too.  But otherwise, we need you to be here on your assigned day for the assigned length of time. Period."

That might not translate into "altruistic" leadership to you, but remember, sometimes we are too close to our own problems and need to have someone else put it into perspective for us.  But if you fail to address the issue, don't be surprised if the issue keeps occurring.  Sometimes people need to be pointed gently in a direction, and in this case, he got help.

These issues also carried over to some of the other challenges as well and we were able to resolve those as well.  The issue of some of the previous leadership styles, which you might want to understand, involved having inconsistent supervisory expectations.

Department wide, and this has carried over into our current existence, we have always had very high expectations.  But what it really comes to, if you dig deeper, is not necessarily an expectation for "Supermen", but an expectation for others share our organizational values.  This doesn't translate well to all of us, and there are those of us, myself included, who get mixed up a little in what it is we want from our people.  It really comes down to this: I don't need you to be the best firefighter or best medic in the world.  I need you to have the attitude that while you may be the best, that we put others first and we work together as a team.

I can teach you to be a better firefighter.  I can teach you to be a better medic.  I can't teach you to have a better attitude.  

Either you are receptive to my teaching you, or you are not.  Either you are receptive to being nice to our customers, or you are not.  

Either you are receptive to seeing that I am willing to trust you, or you are not. It is all a matter of attitude.

As much as I want my people to exceed, they have somewhat different values.  But so long as their work values are the same ones shared by the rest of the team, they should be okay.  I didn't need this guy to be a member of Special Ops, or even come out to some of the things we did on the weekends together.  I would have liked that, but the reality is that this individual was not a high achiever, and yet he was willing to do everything we needed him to do.  He was not striving to be an officer, he didn't want to lead teams, he wanted to fight fire, work on the ill and injured, and drive fire trucks or ambulances.  He was also okay with doing all the other more mundane parts of the job and with a smile on his face.  But he wasn't lining up to be the next chief.

This individual needed an officer who understood that.  He did not, however, need the other type of officer either, the one who given an individual who was not a rising star, was the absolute opposite and expected NOTHING from him.  He was not challenged, he could call in sick regularly without any repercussions, he did not train and any number of other problems.  This individual needed a leader who could switch tools in the middle of the job if needed.

Ultimately, we got his situation straightened out.  His sick leave was reduced to perhaps once a quarter, or less.  He actually was inspired by his colleagues to obtain additional certifications and he even showed up to some of the non-mandatory things we do. But the difference was, when we had an issue, we communicated.  We worked together to solve the problems and we were both receptive to each others' perspectives.  When you can have a relationship where both individuals realize their similarities and their differences, and you can agree to work together, you can achieve much.

Everyone is different. Even family members raised in the same home bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table, and the result of those traits, running up against the challenges faced by living day to day, multiplied by the opportunities to learn something and divided by the blown chances, all factor into the individual's attitude.  Humans are much too complicated to have a rote method of managing.

To say that all individuals will respond to good leadership is unrealistic.  While we have those who inspire us when we see them excel, there are those that you can give chances to and they'll exploit them every time.  But that is when another trick must come out of the bag. 

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Emma, my oldest, wants to know all the secret Daddy tricks to winning in Monopoly.  She is 11, so advising her on strategy probably isn't going to be really effective, but she is a smart girl.  She might even already understand strategy but doesn't realize it as such, after all, she is becoming a pretty good chess player.  I don't know that I want to teach her my outlook on it, though, because I can be quite the cynic.

The problem is that Monopoly is a game that relies on the roll of die, on the actions and inactions of others, and your intellect is maybe but a percentage of it all.  Don't get me wrong; you can blow it.  You can screw things up so badly that you are bankrupt before you have spent an hour on the game.  Others can sense your weaknesses and exploit them.  If Caroline or Honora were to play Emma (they are 8 and 6, respectively), she could have their money in minutes.  But if, for some wild chance, Emma were to roll badly and regularly enough, there is only a certain amount of control you would have and others, if they are perceptive enough, could eat you alive.

I have, however, played Monopoly before with people who were not interested in winning.  In fact, I have played before where the goal was to be the first one to blow all your money and interestingly enough, if everyone is giving you chances to make money, literally throwing it at you, it is still possible to "lose" the game.  But it sure takes a lot longer.

We all have employees, subordinates, or colleagues that no matter how hard we throw opportunities at them, they still manage to screw them up.  We all probably know of a few people who have been given a hundred second chances and they still manage to miss the boat. You really have to say to yourself, at some point, how many passes is this person going to get before someone pulls the plug?

I said before that transformational leadership really depends on the ability of the follower to understand it.  They have to see that they are being given opportunities to grow, you are willing to guide them, but to be transformational, they are going to have to do something with what they have got.  Altruistic behavior on your part is great, but for it to be transformational requires the recipient to have a clue.  In light of this kind of failure, you probably should have some ability to push them in a direction in which the lesson becomes apparent.

When you are a middle to upper level manager like a Battalion Chief or an Assistant Chief, you have to rely on your subordinate officers to do their jobs.  I have had varying degrees of enforcement apparent from one officer to the next before, and surprisingly enough, that degree of variance isn't obvious.  Likewise, just the nature of certain personalities sometimes are enough to provide compliance where another officer isn't able to achieve the same.

Case in point: Years ago, I had the opportunity to walk into our old administration building at the same time a firefighter was about to be let go.  I was a pretty new officer and I had seen how this individual wasn't a high performer, but I felt like I could at least give working on him a try.  I intervened with the Deputy Chief at the time and asked if I could have a shot at it, to which he agreed to permit.

We gave the individual a few days off without pay to reinforce their narrow escape from termination and I digested their personnel jacket.  I saw some patterns that were troubling, but I was young, full of energy, and I wanted to prove my ability to turn someone around.  I was also armed with a bag of tricks that come from a long enough period of observing leadership styles and lots of understanding of strategy.

When the individual returned and reported to me for the first time, I laid it all out for their benefit.  This individual had been on the department for a number of years before I had been hired, he was older, and he was skeptical.  I explained some of what had transpired, including the fact that they were very close to being sent packing.  I also reinforced that I was the only thing that was standing between him and the door at that point.

Granted, that kind of explanation for most people should trigger the reaction of gratitude, but in this case, it was more along the lines of resignation. "Why?" he asked me, "Do you want to 'save' me?  I don't even know you that well."  I told him the truth: I saw some of the "leadership" exhibited by his most recent officers and I felt like their approach was not very effective. I felt like my leadership style might make a difference and I was not interested in seeing someone lose their job for reasons not entirely their own.  "Plus", I said, deadpan, "If I pull this off, I'll probably be regarded as a star."  While I said it for a little shock value, he laughed pretty hard when I told him that.  He stopped laughing when I told him that I wasn't sure that I COULD pull it off.  I explained to him that without his efforts, I knew I would NOT pull it off.

And I wasn't sure, to be honest with you because in reality, it comes down to the effort of the individual.  But I was willing to try, so I expressed my views on what he needed to do to improve, I explained my rules and my modus operandi, and I laid out my expectations.  When I was done, I asked him if he thought he could manage all that.  He looked a little beat up, 

So I'll talk in the next post about how it went and hopefully you'll tune in for the outcome.  See you tomorrow.

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I got to talk to Capt. Tom (EMS12Lead.com) the other day after his return from IAFC's Fire/Rescue Med 2012 Conference.  After congratulating him on bringing home our spiffy new 2012 IAFC Heart Safe Community Award, he gave me a recap of the conference and some of the outstanding moments. One speaker he was enthusiastic about was Paul LeSage, author of the book Crew Resource Management: Principles and Practice. Chief LeSage, who retired as an assistant chief from Tualatin Valley, Oregon, is also a publisher, a clinical professor, and has a consulting practice.  

Chief LeSage spoke of "Just Leadership", which has a lot of the hallmarks of what we have been discussing here.  According to LeSage, the values shared within a "highly reliable emergency medical system" include actively seeking continual improvement and creating a "Just Culture".  As Capt. Tom put it, a lot of what Chief LeSage advocates as being a good leadership model starts with eliminating the "blame" culture, instead, creating a culture where errors and mistakes are used constructively to create learning.

These characteristics are right along the same lines as what we are saying is best: leadership should be, to the extent possible, transformational.  People should be led, rather than dragged, into understanding how challenges occur within our agency, and instead of beating people up, we should get to the root of the problems and address them, hopefully preventing a future issue.  This kind of leadership relies on crew resource management (CRM) and the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) models, each of which look toward problem solving as being a cultural issue rather than purely as a performance issue.

Years ago, I was fortunate enough to be a participant in the United States Marine Corps' Total Quality Leadership program where many of W. Edwards Deming's theories on quality control were adopted.  While the CRM and HFACS models are different, in that they look toward behavior and communication, I find that there are aspects of quality improvement through the "zero defects" approach that  also are quite similar.  All three of these models really do look at taking the problems from a scenario and finding ways to solve for them, while putting the emotional side of the situation aside.  After all, if problems aren't "blame" and instead are "observations" with clearly defined factors, if we use logic to remove our hurdles, people should respond more constructively.  Errors or mistakes are discussed with the intent of solving the problem, and lessons learned can provide excellent lessons for others, hopefully avoiding the same mistakes again.

There is huge requirement, then, to leave your ego at the door.  It is hard to admit you were wrong, or that you made an error, especially in cultures where there is an emphasis on competition and hierarchy. CRM says it is okay at crucial moments to question an order.  HFACS says that even the smallest mistakes have contributing factors that must be considered in the pursuit of solving them.  These are principles that are not fully embraced even to this day in the firehouse.  "You mean the Chief made a mistake? Nonsense!"

Take a moment and look over some of the links I have provided, because they give you a little perspective on the next issues we will cover.  There is an undercurrent present that you must understand.  

• The boss is not always right. Ego needs to take a seat.
• When safety or catastrophic failure is at stake, ANYONE should speak up.
• More eyes on the problem mean more chances of coming up with a successful outcome.
• The vast majority of people who make mistakes don't do so deliberately.  What can we change to insure success?
• Our situation requires constant analysis and reaction to the facts.

These are not embraced among your basic "dinosaur" officer.  These are, in fact, counter to the authoritative, paternalistic approach to leading that has been said to be correct for most of my lifetime.  These issues require a leader to do what is right, to take the best approach (even if it isn't their own approach), and they require the leader to serve others and to educate them.

Our understanding of what moves people to act intuitively and appropriately is evolving as we continue to learn.  Hopefully this series is doing just that for you as well.

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The definition of irony is the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. Situational irony occurs when the actions someone takes have an effect exactly the opposite of what was intended. In some cases, irony is present when someone has a certain strong belief or is known for acting a certain way, and is faced with the dilemma of having to embrace the opposite.

I have friends from high school who at the time, were probably stoned more often than not, and now they represent the best and brightest of the conservative right.  That's ironic.  Our past Governor, Mark Sanford, ran on a platform of family values and was fast to tell people how they should live their lives, yet his on-going affair was the complete antithesis of having a moral life.  That's not ironic, that's hypocritical.  But then he got caught, he became a butt of late night television monologues, and forever his name will  be remembered for the embarrassment he caused his family and our State: that's irony.

You will not become a transformational leader overnight.  You can't flip a light switch and become an inspiration. It sure didn't for me. I might not even be a transformational leader now.  Like I said yesterday, it is contextual.  The perception of whether you can inspire change is totally dependent on the receiver, as to whether you cause them to feel differently enough to change.  This is its own irony: Transformational leadership depends on your actions, but those actions may not ever make a difference to certain individuals. You can't say, "I did this, now you need to do that." At that point it is no longer anything but an exchange. Altruistic leadership is different. You can't push it; you have to pull and hope they follow.

Like I said, though, in looking back at my career as a company officer I see the entire range of leadership styles. From the beginning, like anyone else, I wanted to be a successful leader.  I looked at other leaders with awe and wanted to be like them. I started as a young go-getter, competing with others, trying to impress my colleagues with my technical knowledge, knowing I didn't have the street cred to immediately expect my subordinates to trust me implicitly. Watching other officers, I became all about "fighting for my guys", sometimes at the risk of completely pushing back against management.  I wanted badly to head to the top, to be the authority everyone went to when they had a problem.  

This, however, evolved differently after having been burned a few times sticking my neck out for others, and in a huge life change, I took a job at another department and saw a whole other way of leading.  A few of the officers I got to know and whom I respected greatly, were icons in the department and in the fire service around the state.  Each of these officers had their personable side, but each of them were not individuals you wanted to get upset.  They were as close to being those inspirational leaders as I had ever been and they ruled their companies or divisions like Patton at the front of the column. In my return to officership, I made it clear there was my way or the highway.  I earned the nickname "The Hammer", ready to come down on whatever or whomever was in the way of our progress, and not afraid of being the hatchet man, so to speak.

But as time went on, I started learning more about myself and exploring my own faults, my own strengths, and understanding that I was trying to be someone I wasn't most of the time, unwilling to see myself for who I am.  Ironically (again), my personality type is none of those other things: my personality type is the extroverted thinker, the ENTJ. The ENTJ is called "The Field Marshal", the organizer, the strategist. As I grew, I began to understand more about what I was comfortable with and that which I needed help with. I also began to realize that the "leadership" I was modeling was often based on another person learning from someone else who might have ben as clueless as they were.

These realizations caused me to delve more into the aspect of how to lead people, and how to serve rather than to demand. Of all of the things I thought I was doing right, had I been true to my personality as I am now, had I followed my gut instead of what I saw from other "leaders", I might have come to that realization much earlier.  But then, the experiences I acquired while I "found myself" have proven to be invaluable in and of themselves.

The most valuable thing I learned about myself was that I was just fine being who I am.  I could put my ego aside, because I am comfortable being me.  I don't have a need to impress anyone.  If you want to hear what I have to say, great, if not, there are others who do. If I become a Chief of Department, it wouldn't be for me anymore, but because I would want to influence even more than I do now.  But I could be happy being a tailboard firefighter right now because I have come to an important place, the place where I learned that the harder you reach for something, the more it will elude you.  I don't need power.  Power comes from within. I have it already.

We have been told our whole lives that in order to succeed, you have to compete. Perhaps there is another way, in that perhaps the more people you help, the more you succeed. Wouldn't that be an amazing irony in our world, if instead of standing on the hands of the people below you, helping them up the ladder actually got you somewhere?  Success can be measured in many different ways and success in leadership may not necessarily involve the best promotion or the most money.  Those things are nice, but I have seen first hand that when you put other people first, oftentimes you rise to the top.  It is an interesting dichotomy and something we'll go into further.

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I'll bet you didn't anticipate a Part 12.  Neither did I, but it seems to be a pretty popular discussion (from the hits aspect), although you wouldn't know it from the comments and likes.  So in order to see if I am engaging you, I'm proposing a question.

If altruistic leadership makes so much sense, if it would create goodwill and cause others to act positively, why is it so hard to do?  Why is it that we haven't just all jumped on the bandwagon and implemented these strategies?

I know it takes time to come up with an answer to some of these questions, so I don't necessarily expect a reply.  Perhaps that's the challenge of writing something that doesn't create a knee jerk reaction, that there is no spontaneous reply, no off the cuff comment that can be made.

It's like the difference between eating a donut and eating a steak.  The donut may taste good and cause a sudden jolt of energy in your body, but the steak tastes good in a different way, and will sustain you for at least a few hours.  This too, is the same analogy that can be used for the difference between transformational leadership and the others. Transformational leadership creates change.

I was questioned once about my leadership style in which an individual was simply not responding to my efforts, and as to whether my methods were truly transformational.  I can't say as to whether my methods are transformational: only the recipient can know that.  If my efforts at being a servant leader created the action I desired, then I guess we could say it was transformational, but even then, only if it created a sustained change in behavior.  Otherwise, my efforts were transactional: I was nice to the individual and they responded reciprocally- they were nice in return.  That doesn't indicate a sustained change.

Therefore, you may attempt to implement these changes in the way YOU lead, but it is the REACTION that says whether your efforts are transformational, transactional, or some other form of leadership.  Altruism should never be construed as enabling.  When my children want their milk at breakfast and demand it, and I respond by giving it to them, that isn't being altruistic. That is enabling poor behavior.  If my firefighters want a raise and they haven't earned it, giving it to them isn't looking out for their needs, giving it to them is reinforcing sub-par behavior.  The expectations are the same; the individual needs something, you are in a position to allocate that something, and you do so in an effort to develop a positive relationship.  The outcome, however, is completely contextual, and depends on the maturity, the competence, and the understanding of the recipient.

Back to when I was questioned about my leadership style: the person inquiring of me was making some pretty harsh statements about my ability to lead.  I was naturally not happy about it.  But whereas they KNEW what leadership was, or shall I say, they knew what defined it, they didn't UNDERSTAND it.  Just because you put good examples of leadership in front of someone, doesn't necessarily mean they are going to bite on it.  Some will and others won't.  You can work hard at modifying your approach, but if someone just doesn't automatically change, don't consider your attempts as failure.  YOU as the leader must make the first step of reaching out.  If the other person won't follow, or exploits your efforts, or fails to change, it certainly doesn't indicate you are a flawed leader.  It might very well indicate that you have a flawed follower.  And if your efforts result in success with you and don't for someone else, it also doesn't say that your leadership isn't transformational.  Followers will interact with the leader who inspires the change.  If they fail to respect their new leader, it doesn't say that they were incapable of change, it says that perhaps the new leader doesn't get what is needed to motivate that individual.

Donut or steak?  Immediate or sustained? You can tell people what the culture of your organization is, you can show them examples, you can print it on your business cards, but the moment the individual feels like they are in a different environment, they will change to react to that environment.  That is just a fact of life, that people reflect their surroundings as THEY perceive them, and if you don't get that, you don't get leadership.

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While Capt. Tom at EMS12Lead.com might not be trumpeting his success, I will do it for him, as well as for the rest of my colleagues at Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue.  This week we received another honor, the IAFC's Annual Heart Safe Community Award.  With a lot of pushing and pulling from Capt. Tom Bouthillet, and a lot of support and cooperation from other notables, including Fire Chief Lavarn Lucas, Deputy Chiefs Brad Tadlock and Ed Boring, Capt. Eric Lainhart, our medical control docs, Bo Sherwood and Van Gaube, and of course, Kelly Arashin, we received the award in recognition of the system we have in place in our community.

Between our bystander CPR education efforts, placement of automated defibrillators in the community and our advanced life support response system, individuals experiencing a cardiac event have a significantly better chance of survival than in the past. If an arrest is in progress, we dispatch additional Fire/Rescue companies, where all the line personnel are trained in use of the "pit crew" concept, to maximize the efficiency of assigned resources and to deliver a very high standard of care.  

It doesn't end there: our Fire/Rescue personnel have a number of tools we can use, including 12-lead EKG monitoring with transmission capability and the ability to provide therapeutic hypothermia if indicated.  Our system is also capable of identifying possible STEMI patients in the field and setting off an additional chain of events.

Our delivery of the patient at the Hilton Head Hospital Emergency Department is just one more step.  There, they will have already been alerted by the teams in the field and depending on the situation, have either already brought in a cath lab team, or are prepared to continue therapeutic hypothermia through as needed.  We have a great relationship with our emergency department personnel and we all work together as a team to provide the best possible chances for a positive outcome.

What's more is that the pertinent information is documented and shared through the CARES Registry, where we will be able to extrapolate data needed to help us improve our service.  We have identified methods for communicating good performance as well as performance requiring remediation.  And above all, the system is delivered daily by nine Fire/Rescue companies with extremely professional, caring, and knowledgeable personnel, all of whom are aware of the importance of excellent public service.

When we factor this in with our recent CFAI accreditation, which we have maintained through three cycles, we are pretty proud.  But even more impressive is that our personnel have maintained their positive attitude and professionalism despite comments made about their integrity by certain individuals in our community, rather than those individuals stepping back and defending what they should have known to be true.  Our entire force maintained this very same quiet professionalism even when held to a 1% salary raise last year (and that was not across the board) and no increases in years before that, not because they were afraid to speak out, but because they heard the concern of the community, especially with the economic situation being what it was, and they were willing to accept that and soldier on, when they had every right to be vocal and upset about the situation.  These personnel have also maintained their quiet professionalism among other challenges as well, challenges that will remain unsaid by us, because that's the kind of people we have.

One of the primary things we say to guide our people is to always "do the right thing".  If that means stopping and helping someone change a tire, or picking you up off the floor for the seventh time that week, or loading up your kids in the rig to take them to the hospital when we are transporting you because you have no family available, we do what it takes to make our "customers" happy.  And we say customers because it isn't just the taxpayers; we serve the visitors, the workers, the homeless, anyone we deal with.  They may be patients today, or the may be the homeowner on another, or the occupant, but to us, they are people.

We have an extraordinary amount of pride in our department, but a lot of humility as well.  I talk about all of our personnel because I am proud of them, but they don't go around bragging about it, so I am happy to tell you all about them.  We have very high expectations of our people, but we have fun too.  And while there are plenty of bad moments, the good definitely outweigh the bad.  The difference is that we try to let everyone in on the decisions (to the extent possible), we listen, we try to get them the tools they need (but they aren't spoiled, our budget didn't budge but a single digit percentage from last year), and we do things safely, with a lot of common sense applied rather than emotion.

So while we will be celebrating this new award, we already realize, it is recognition for what we have done.  For us, what we have done so far is never good enough.  We will continue to push forward and improve from where we are today, to keep looking at ways we can tweak this or adjust that to make our organization that much better.  We do not rest on our laurels.

If you get a chance to come to our Island, make sure you stop by a station.  EVERY station and Headquarters is open to the public and we encourage visitors.  We will always take the time to show someone the trucks, or to take a blood pressure, or just to talk about what we do.  We are an all-hazards response agency who takes the job very seriously and we like sharing what we do. Thanks to all of you at HHIFR; you all make me proud to be affiliated with you. 

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So yesterday's post asked you to walk a mile in the shoes of the person calling for help.  We may joke amongst ourselves about some of the more ridiculous-seeming alarms we go on, but those wry comments on the failure of someone to be able to say, shut off the water to their house when there is a broken pipe, should be kept among us as much as possible.  Just because we have been graced with some common sense doesn't mean everyone has and I'm sure there's a day when you'll need help and hope nobody is making jokes about you as well.  Today, however, let's talk about when leaders fail to make good choices.

In keeping with the spirit of the lead paragraph, some people don't even realize they need help, and instead of pointing at them and laughing, we should be showing them the way toward enlightenment.  I don't think that all people who make poor decisions do so out of maliciousness; I really think that poor decisions often come about because of feelings of insecurity (the subject is afraid they will look bad), ego (subject believes they are right), misinformation (subject does not have all the facts), and for other reasons.

Take, for example, this situation shared with us through Dave Statter's site at STAT911.com, where a non-firefighting Fire Commissioner is making a big deal out of not being permitted to use emergency warning lights on his POV. The decision was made to not renew the permit required for this commissioner to have warning lights on his personal vehicle.  The commissioner made interesting comments to the media about the situation, basically threatening the officer, who happened to be exercising some common sense.  The facts of the case are pretty much immaterial; this is an internal issue that has become widely publicized because one individual feels like he didn't get his way.  From the website Courant.com:

The standoff started in January when Rickis, then acting chief, decided not to renew Davis' state-mandated permit to use flashing blue lights on his vehicle, even though he's had the lights for years.  "It was against the law [for Davis] to have it," Rickis explained. "You have to be an active firefighter. It had to be done."  Davis, 64, a Blue Hills Fire District commissioner for 13 years, acknowledges that he retaliated by taking away the department-issued SUV that Rickis uses to respond to fire calls.  "My dumb-ass assistant chief took it upon himself to discontinue my permit," Davis said. "I took his vehicle away because he had no authorization to do what he did."

Just because you THINK you have power, doesn't mean that it is automatically so.  Here is a Fire Commissioner, involved in a petty fight with an officer because he didn't get to leave the blue lights on his car.  If this commissioner had REAL power, he would not have been in the position to have this happen.  There would have been mutual respect between he and the Assistant Chief, good communication, and this may not have ever come to light.  Instead, we have conflict.

Frustration is more often than not, borne of perceived powerlessness.  Frustration leads to many problems, problems that cascade away in the opposite direction from sanity, while traveling through anger, retaliation, and often enough, violence.  As a leader, by having mutual consideration for others includes engaging them in conversation, in understanding their situation, and being able to discuss differences with at least some respect or even just professional courtesy.  The commissioner might very well have a good reason for having blue lights on his car (but aside from the "power" trip it sounds like he gets from having them, probably not).  This guy sounds like he has a real problem with people "not respecting his authority".

While all challenges can be solved by communicating and working together, there are plenty of barriers to communication, and there are plenty of reasons people can give for being irrational.  If you are dealing with someone who can work with you to solve problems, you can avoid issues like these pretty easily.  If not, you have a lot of work ahead of you.  In fact, it may even come down to your having to leave that environment if things get bad enough.

If you always make the "right" decision, you will always have the force of "right" on your side.  This commissioner is so delusional that he thinks that people will listen to his ranting; the Assistant Chief has the power of reason on his side.  Like I said, not all the facts are probably presented here, but even if the commissioner did have the ability to do something to the Assistant Chief, he certainly isn't going to be able to do so now.

Might does not make right.  Doing what is best for the people you serve, your real bosses, does.  If you make decisions based on what is truly good for the community, if tried in the court of public interest, you will always prevail.  The challenge is that this can sometimes be a tricky line to walk.

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Another excerpt I wrote a while back sat in my "draft" box, but it is appropriate for the discussion right now:

I said a while back that we all know what good customer service feels like and we all know what it’s like to have bad customer service. Professionalism begins at using our skills, abilities and past experience to improve service quality and to provide excellent service not just to the taxpayers, but to our colleagues.  If you don't like the thought of referring to these others as customers, that's okay.  Just think of them as human beings who need your help, because really, that's exactly what they are.  How you label them is your choice.

Our personal mission must be to exceed at helping people when they need help.  Why they call us is pretty much immaterial; if they didn't need help, they wouldn't have called for it.  It may not seem like an emergency to you, and in some cases, it may not even be an emergency to them.  But they had a problem, they didn't know how to solve it, and they turned to the one group of people in the community with a stellar reputation for helping people.  That would be the fire department, in case you hadn't guessed.

Our job is to come in with a fresh perspective and a certain amount of expertise to make things better.  I have heard from a number of people that this "customer service" attitude cheapens what we do.  I don't know a better way to put it, but to have the mentality that the service we provide is there and if you don't like it, too bad, is not doing right by the people you serve.  Regardless or not of whether it's the only show in town, that's certainly not the way we should be interacting with others.

You've probably heard it said a thousand times, "consider these people like you would if it were your mother" or "your son" or "your daughter".  That's not a bad way of looking at things either.  But maybe the best way of looking at it is, "What if it were you?"

The Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", in case you don't know it) these days is more and more apropos.  Today's society as a whole seems to forget that maxim at every turn.  If anything, we in emergency services should be the examples of that message to anyone who sees us on a daily basis.

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