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Desire

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Once there was a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and his position in life. One day he passed a rich man's home.  He saw all the possessions and the important people lined up to visit. The stone cutter became envious and wished he could be like the merchant.

To his surprise, his wish was granted; he suddenly became the rich man, enjoying luxury and power, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself.  While the material things were interesting, he became dissatisfied. Before long, a high official passed by on the street, carried in a sedan, accompanied by an entourage and led by soldiers banging gongs.  Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow before the procession.

"How powerful that official is!" he thought, "I wish I could be a high official!" 

With that thought, he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan, feared and hated by the people all around.  At first, the crowds paying him homage were flattering, but before long he grew bored. Because it was a hot summer day, he became uncomfortable in the sedan.  He looked up at the sun, shining proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence.  

"How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining down fiercely on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers.  In time, a huge black cloud moved between he and the earth so that his light no longer beat down on everything below.  

"How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish I could be a storm cloud."

The he became a storm cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone.  But he soon found he was being pushed away by an unseen force and realized it was the wind.  

"How powerful it is!" he thought.  "I wish I could be the wind!"

Then he became the wind, blowing off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him.  But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it – a huge, towering rock.  

"How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish I could be that rock!"

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth.  But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed.

"What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him, the figure of a stone cutter.

Posted by on May 6, 2012 • Filed under: change, leadership • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Know Your Enemy

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Who is your enemy? In the study of conflict, an adversary should be understood.  Adversary is, believe it or not, a better term for your opposition.  While in some cases it may SEEM like constant opposition, there are moments in which your adversary may be able to teach you a lesson. Instead of spending time hating our enemy, we should channel that energy to see if it can make us stronger.  By looking at oursleves from the eyes of an adversary, you can examine weaknesses and vulnerabilities.  Having identified those, you can grow from there.

It takes a strong will, sometimes, to stomach some of what your adversary might say.  But even in their eyes, there is probably a glimmer of truth.  In regard to competing interests, my wife likes to say there are three sides to the story: Person X's story, Person Y's story, and the truth in between.  Your own perspective is sometimes clouded by self-interest, ego, experience, or just pure, raw emotion.  When faced with conflict, the best place to examine for a solution starts in examining your own heart.

I have mentioned before that knowing your enemy has advantages, not just because you might be able to anticipate their actions and reactions, but because by looking at challenges with a different set of eyes, you might see your way toward a peaceful resolution that is win-win for all involved.

Open your mind, listen, and learn.  You can spend all day hating after you get all the facts, but when faced with conflict, the time to make things work is before things get bad, not after they escalate. 

Posted by on February 9, 2012 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, leadership • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Right Stuff

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I have been following with interest the discussion of a National Firefighter Code of Ethics.  The other day I saw that Ken Willette, the Public Fire Protection Division Manager at NFPA, blogged about the one written by the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firemen's Association this past year.  Being obtuse, like I often am, I had actually never gone to the FirefighterBehavior.com blog although I have seen some of the well-written articles that have come from posts on there.  Nothing like going to the source, huh?  Well, if you haven't done it, you need to go yourself, and when you are through, being the fire service leaders I sense you are, send your people there as well.

But this doesn't stop at the fire service.  In fact, as I have said many times before, there are lessons to be learned from a brotherhood of individuals who, as recently as a decade before, were considered to be the last bastion of integrity, honor, and valor in a society in which those values have been eroding daily.  The ever-decaying values in the fire service are an excellent case study, and many questions can come from how we went from where we were to where we are today.

And I am not suggesting that the entire fire service lacks these ideals; we just have not been very good at removing the elements from our midst who do not embrace those same values.  Well, our profession (and for the uninitiated, this refers to both career and volunteer professionals in the emergency services business) has been challenged by a number of external forces that, to the casual observer, seem to have affected the type of person we are getting to replace those who have gone on to other places.

Emergency response, paid or not, is very much a value-driven occupation.  Just because you show up and put out a fire or lug someone to the hospital, is irrelevant, despite the arguments that we are not customer oriented.  If anything, our business is all about the customer, because frankly, we tell people all the time that we can replace their material objects, but we can't replace the people.  We say this is the reason we rescue first and not salvage first.  But ironically, we have many of the same people saying that we shouldn't consult with our community in the spirit of partnership, or that we know better than they do what they need, or even more cynically, that their observations regarding our service and the way we do it doesn't even matter.

Therefore, there is a profound need to make sure the people we bring in not only have read and signed a memo telling them what our ethics happen to be, but that they LIVE these ethics.  That they BREATHE these ethics.  That they BELIEVE in these ethics and that they are proud to associate with others, a brotherhood of others, who feel the same way.

A while back, I happened upon a rollover in another jurisdiction while off-duty, and stopped to see if they needed any help. The driver was already on the way to the hospital, and the crews were just picking up debris, but I know a lot of firefighters in that jurisdiction, so I was really just chatting before heading on.  In the corner of my eye, I saw a firefighter pick up a phone on the ground.

I don't know about you, but my cell phone wasn't cheap, and they aren't indestructible either.  Plus, even if it is just damaged, you could still get the contacts off of it, etc.  But the firefighter opened up the phone, laughed to himself, and THREW the phone into the damaged car.  Not gently, mind you, but enough that it broke.  Since it wasn't my jurisdiction, but everyone there knew me, I walked over and picked up the now damaged phone, then handed it to a trooper.  I glared at the guy on the way by, but I didn't say anything. But I let him know that this was unacceptable, at least in my department.

I won't say that we don't have any of those types in our organization, but as Capt. Tom and I were saying the other day, the balance has been strongly tipped in favor of the "good guys" for a while now, and we continue to drum our organizational culture into those who don't get it.  But these values don't come naturally to some and frankly, do you even want to take the chance of trying to drag a member to that place, or should we look first for those with the right stuff, and then TEACH them to be a firefighter?

If I were advertising, I would say that if you revel in someone's misfortunes, or if you like the power of being a uniformed public official, or if driving in total disregard of others appeals to you because you have lights and siren, you probably shouldn't apply.  There's nothing at all wrong with chasing the adrenaline, but it certainly needs to be kept in the perspective that you will take on a challenge to help others, not to wish it on people so you can get your fix.

If we really believe in our brotherhood, our profession, as a calling rather than just a job, we need to take a look at who we introduce to the team. So long as we continue to permit those who are among us to soil our ranks because they fill a spot, we will continue to tarnish the image we used to be proud of.  I, for one, prefer that when I go to see my kids at school, they consider firefighters to be worthy of admiration, rather than another person they can't trust.  There's a lot of that going around lately, let's not let it happen to us.

Posted by on February 4, 2012 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Command & Leadership, customer service, leadership • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Waste Of Time

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I fell asleep at my computer last night.

I am working on a project that has pretty much occupied all of my time over the course of the last three shifts. I think, in retrospect, that the reason that I am having to embark on this dreaded project is simply that a great number of people failed to understand that their actions or inaction created a mess that someday would have to be unraveled.

The mess doesn't even go back a short while.  When I say a great number, I am talking about numbers probably nearing a hundred.  Anyone close to this project that knows that I am talking in circles and understands the scope of this project might disagree with me, but I see the failure in my own interface with the situation, and I see the failures in many others who permitted the condition to occur, knowingly or not.

In a microscope, closely examining one piece of the puzzle, you might not even notice the problem exists.  But when you step back and look at the larger picture, you can see it is definitely crooked.  There are warning signs printed all over this and frankly, they were ignored. But they are insignificant when you step back even farther and realize that any problems we face today could have been avoided had individuals assumed some responsibility and did the right thing early on.

One of the principals in this project called out everyone else on the team and with good reason.  I say that because he is absolutely right; the system failed us.  Or to be clear, we failed the system, because it wasn't all to be blamed on the way we manage these situations.  Instead, key stakeholders ignored critical information.  They felt like status quo was acceptable. Or perhaps they felt inadequate to address the most pressing challenges.  I told this individual that while the historical aspect of how we got to this place is important, just to put the picture in perspective, who to blame is irrelevant. The situation is what it is and you can't unring a bell.  We must look forward.

Those of you reading this might assume you know what I am referring to, but I am suggesting to you that you re-read it and ask yourself, "What am I doing that is creating this same situation today?"  Because if you are honest with yourself, there are any number of issues I have to deal with that follow this chain of events and I am sure I am not alone.

I have quoted my father on any number of occasions in this regard, probably the quote that will stick with me for the rest of my life: "Do it right the first time."  Had we addressed the issues when they were small, had we fixed the leak, had we prevented the spark, had we communicated the concerns, if we had done any of these things, would they have corrected the problem before we got to this disaster we now embrace?

Let go of your concerns for a moment and realize that a drop of water contributes to the flood that sweeps away your home.  Everything affects everything else and that ripple becomes a wave, given the right conditions to grow.  Don't be part of the problem; solve the issues before they become a nightmare to untangle. 

Posted by on January 28, 2012 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, leadership, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Zen Zone #36

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Without direction, water takes whatever form it wants. If undefined, it remains undefined. If channeled or directed, it gains energy. If focused, it creates power.

Leadership is like water. Without direction, a group of people are aimless and disengaged. Given form, they find forward motion. When focused, there is power.

It raises a significant question: What form do you provide to your people to create energy?

Posted by on December 7, 2011 • Filed under: leadership • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Engagement

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One of the blogs I follow is "The Stupid Way", which is written by an Irish lad who began practicing Buddhism and is currently living and teaching in Japan.  In a discussion on "Buddhism and God", Pete writes:

I’d always found it hard to believe in the idea of a God who had somehow created the universe from outside. So for me the Buddhist idea of God and the universe being the same thing was easier to accept. But Nishijima’s answer didn’t quite satisfy me. If God is the universe and the universe is God, then who made the universe? This, of course, is the big question. I don’t know why I wanted to ask Nishijima about it, because there's no way he could know. But I him asked anyway. He told me the Buddhist idea is that the universe has always existed.

While I am a practicing Catholic, I am open to the idea that there are ideas and practices in other religions that might extend into my own practice of faith.  Even more so, I find also that sometimes the things I learn from other religions or beliefs help me to understand my own experience with God, as well as in leading, following, dealing with conflict, etc. 

This ties into our discussion here in that I was meditating on the concept of culture change and I was struggling with the idea that a radical change in culture in an organization that is considered successful, seems even more frought with difficulty. If the culture is good, and if it exists because the nature of those involved in it is good, why should we consider change?  And why wouldn't you want to change things?  After all, we should be endlessly improving and moving forward, so even if things are good now, shouldn't we agitate for change so that we remain fresh?

If the culture is who we are, and we are the culture, how do we change that? Why do we want to walk away from something comfortable and working to go to the hard, cold unknown, where we can't even begin to know or understand what lies ahead?  

The answer to those in successful cultures is that we change because that IS our culture. 

Posted by on November 19, 2011 • Filed under: change, leadership • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Source of “IT”

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webDSC01964I think I may have found the source of “IT”.  It is a passion, a desire to elevate whatever you do to art form.  A few weekends ago I got to see it first-hand; in the form of a fourth-generation Iranian American rug importer, a sixty-year old rock musician, and a business owner/mother of three.

A few years ago, I was paid one of the highest compliments I ever experienced from a fellow fire service professional.  I was first beginning to blog and this professional said that he wanted to get to know me better because ANOTHER fire service professional who had read my posts told him that I was “someone who gets IT”.  I was pleased to hear this, but it piqued my curiosity as to what was truly “IT”.

So what is “IT” with a capital I-T?  In my opinion, IT is the headwaters, the origin, the core.  The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching describes IT as being the “unnamable source”:

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named is not the eternal name

The unnamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you only see the ramifications.

Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

I was honored to visit with an importer of fine rugs, rugs that transcend flooring; rugs that are truly art form.  As we sat together on stacks of his family’s recent creations, I interviewed him about the origins of 200-plus year old rugs that surrounded us, accompanied by pictures of great-grandfathers and grandfathers gone by.  The rugs on his walls said more about the craftsmanship and artistry of a century of skilled designers than the many awards, in fact, the most in the industry, gracing his foyer.

I happened to attend a concert by a musician who, even after his 60thbirthday, refuses to mail it in.  I have seen thirteen of his performances over 10 years and I have never seen him take a five minute break while playing over three hour sets and jumping, sliding, running, cheering, etc.  His work ethic, he has said, can be directly attributed to his love for what he does and the examples of his working class parents.  He knew from early on he wanted to be a rock musician.  In fact, in his autobiography by Dave Marsh, he is credited with knowing as early as high school what exactly it was he wanted to do, how he committed his efforts to learning his craft.  His mother, knowing how much he wanted this, bought him a guitar when he was sixteen, which was a major sacrifice on her part.  Talk about return on investment.

A woman who, undeterred by others with less vision, put together a company to reflect her exacting eye for detail and has been considered a leader not only in her industry, but in her community as well.  Despite the lack of effort put in by others around her, she would stay at work until eight or nine in the evening trying to keep the company afloat.  She did this not out of necessity (other than keeping her job, as she had no financial stake in the company), but out of loyalty and a desire to help her colleagues remain employed.  When it was just painfully obvious that no matter what her effort, the owner would not regard her with the respect he gave to yes-men and poor performers, she left with no protection and established her own enterprise.  She is now employing others and giving to others through her efforts and her company is considered to be a standard of excellence.

Although I know only the stage persona of the musician and the rug importer has been an acquaintance for years, I know the woman as my wife, Kathleen.  In watching and somewhat studying each, I find that there are some constants in their success; those of an incredible work ethic, a devotion to what they do as art form, and a dedication to doing what is good and right in contrast to those who only do for themselves.  They also have high standards for themselves and hold themselves and the others around them to that ideal, and in doing so, elevate everyone close to them.

People become good at what they do as a result of passion.  They choose to learn all about that part of their lives and focus on learning about what is considered good and right in their profession and they know to avoid the things that are not.  They don’t associate with the things that are considered amateurish or petty, but live in the now and they note what is new and innovative, and they reject that which is not, or they weave it into something revolutionary.

When you chose this thing, firefighting, as a calling, be it career or volunteer, did it seem to be something to pass the time or was it something to invest in – and by investing, mean your time, your patience, and your passion?  Do you find yourself now in the ranks of the unconsciously competent, doing the job so well that you are on a whole other playing field than others? If so, maybe you have finally reached the unknowable, but if you are like me, you probably find yourself a lifetime student of the game.

“IT” is the unknowable, the unreachable, but it is the usefulness of the darkness.  It wants to be filled and even like in a cave, where you shine in a light, that light only illuminates what you happen to be looking at.  Yet there is the whole rest of the cave, the outer reaches unable to be covered by the light, and even with more light, there will continue to be the areas covered in shadow.  To completely illuminate the cave and to see everything is going to require an entirely amazing amount of light that we probably can’t even imagine, and even then, there will be dark places.

When you get “IT”, you understand that.  You know that there will always be more to learn and no matter what amount of light you bring in, there will still be more to learn and different sources to learn it from.  There is a certain amount of humility in someone who understands this, because they know that even in the least likely places, they might find more to comprehend.  Continue to remain open to all and you might begin to see anew.

Posted by on November 28, 2009 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,