Photo by Tim Olk

My article for the Firefighter/EMT Safety, Health & Survival Section of  the May 2012 issue of IAFC On Scene: Expanding Command Ahead of Demand.

If a mayday operation requires rapid, concise decisions and actions to increase firefighter survivability, then when should command be expanded—before or after the mayday is called?

We know that our work on the fireground is complex, dangerous and chaotic. We know that building and maintaining effective command and control is essential for successful and safe operations. We also know that fireground operations demand that we have a heightened sense of awareness, the ability to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and the skill and will to make critical decisions, and do so fast.

But how do we accomplish that, especially during a mayday situation, with limited or no command staff?

Read the entire article here.

Do you have adequate staffing and resources to handle a Mayday operation? Is your command staff ready to manage the risk and make the decisions to successfully control a Mayday incident?

Andy Stanley

• Book: Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future
• Podcast: Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
• Leaders should ask themselves 3 questions:
• What would my replacement do?
• What would a great leader from another time or place do?
• What story do I want to tell?

Soledad O’Brien

• Book: The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities (Celebra Books)
• Leaders must be ready to have the “uncomfortable” conversations.
• When you read other leaders’ writings or letters, what “words” stand out? Their words will describe who they really are.

Dr. Roland Fryer

• Website: The Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University
• How do we make life better for those who are less fortunate?
• If the U.S. has better education and technology available, why do we score lower than other countries who have less?
• Who does it right? We should find them and follow what they do. Figure out what they do and do that!
• Some ways for better education:
• Spend more time doing it
• Find the best teachers and use them
• Use data to alter the pace of instruction
• Have high expectations
• Use short term learning and testing
• Hold leaders accountable
• Test the fundamentals early and often

Marcus Buckingham

• Website: TMBC
• Leadership is about “authenticity.” It’s not a model, it’s idiosyncratic.
• What’s your leadership edge?
• Advisor: You are practical
• Connector: You are a catalyst
• Creator: You make sense of the world
• Equalizer: You are level-headed
• Influencer: You engage people and convince them to act
• Pioneer: You are optimistic in the face of uncertainty
• Provider: You sense other people’s feelings
• Stimulator: You are the host for other people’s emotions
• Teacher: You are thrilled by the potential you see in others

Angela Ahrendts

• Website: Burberry
• Leadership should build a culture of trust and intuition. The combination will lead to more choices and better execution.
• Keep asking:
• What is our brand? Is it relevant? What’s best for the brand?
• How do we unite the team? How do we connect with everybody?
• How do we keep the organization healthy, motivated, and inspired?

John Maxwell

• Website: The John Maxwell Company
• You need to transform yourself to transform others. What are you doing to develop yourself?
• 3 laws from the Laws of Growth
• Law of Intentionality – What is our purpose?
• Law of Awareness – We must know ourselves to grow ourselves.
• Follow the 3 R’s:
1. Requirement: What do I have to do?
2. Return: What do I do well?
3. Reward: What do I love?
• Law of Environment – Grow in the right surroundings.

Tim Tebow and Urban Myer

• Website: Tim Tebow
• Urban Myer: Leadership is raising the level of the people around you.
• Tim Tebow:
• How do you lead when you are not in the game? Be ready!
• Don worry about what you can’t control; focus on what you can do.

Dr. Sheena Iyengar

• Book: The Art of Choosing
• Choice is our ability to exercise control over ourselves and our environment.
• Effective leaders see choice through others’ eyes.
• Effective leaders are choosy about choosing.

Patrick Lencioni

• Website: Table Group
• Book: The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business
• The last and most important competitive advantage that remains untapped is “organizational health.”
• Healthy organizations eliminate politics and confusion.
• The 4 disciplines that help organizations get healthy:
1. Build a cohesive leadership team
2. Create clarity
3. Over-communicate clarity
4. Reinforce clarity

Choices are about intention. What choices will you make today?

From the movie Beauty and the Boss, 1932.

Recently, I listened, with great concern, to two different questions about the same subject, a failure to communicate. On one occasion, I was part of a management meeting where the attendees were asking, “Why don’t they understand what we are doing?” Another time, while talking to people I supervise, they asked, “What is going on?” This roadblock, or maybe wall, in communication is a huge problem and affects everything. So what can leaders (even a mid-level leader like me) do to break through this wall? You can increase your “face time” with your people and build trust; to show you care.

Leaders, you need to get out from behind the desk (and get away from the continuous meeting table too; by the way read this book: Read This Before Our Next Meeting) to visit, mentor and socialize with your people. Communicating in person, as opposed to email, memo, and policy has always been and still remains extremely important, even more so in today’s complex and fast-moving world.

Everyone has their idea for a definition of leadership. Books, articles, and seminars tell us that leadership is, “the ability of an individual to influence others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization.” Here’s my take on leadership, “Leadership is influencing people to act by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while working to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.” That is not done from behind a desk or in a meeting.

Effective personal communication is no small task today, especially in very large organizations. With customer and community expectations increasing, issues with completing training and countless other factors, everyone feels a heavy burden, both physically and mentally, that no one is immune to.

Within our fast-moving culture, we have come to a crossroads with regard to communicating with our people. What happened to the talent of one-on-one, face-to-face mentoring? Email has made the communication process faster, but it’s hindered, to some degree, our willingness to get out from behind the desk and talk. It’s hard to show you care about them and are interested in their problems in an email. Relationships and trust are not created from emails!

I believe we need to put more emphasis on face-time communication. Technology (email, social media, videos, etc.) alone does not create change, relationships with people do (relationships provide purpose, direction, and motivation). Leaders, you must talk, talk, talk! And then listen, listen, listen!

Leadership involvement, getting out there and leading your people from the front will increase awareness and maximize performance. The ongoing demands of today’s world require that leaders communicate well and often. You cannot provide the right kind of leadership needed from behind a desk!

What needs to happen in your organization to improve communication? How can you help make it happen?

Organizations know they need flexible thinkers with innovative ideas and a broad knowledge base derived from exposure to multiple disciplines (training, education, and experience). But most focus more on compliance and technology in place of a broader academic background that includes reading, writing, and speaking.

I played a small part in a recent class for newly promoted officers at our fire department where “critical thinking and problem-solving skills through reading books, in-class presentations and other hallmarks of academic courses” made a noticeable difference in officer development in our organization (kudos to Captain Mike Ellis). I witnessed thought-provoking questions and real debate that led to better learning.

In his book, Going Pro: The Deliberate Practice of Professionalism
Tony Kern makes this point: “Get off the recurrent training cycle by embracing “growth-based” development of knowledge skills and abilities that exceed job expectations.”

Our ambiguous and complex world demands a new mindset – one that can keep up and think on its feet!

Read, learn, lead. It will make a difference!

What is your organization doing to help members develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills? How can you help make this happen?

Learning has changed dramatically over the years.

The times they are a changing, and people and how they learn change with it. We should follow Dylan’s advice when he sings, “you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.” Every organization today, especially those operating in high-risk environments, must pay more attention to how their members learn, designing and delivering training and education that works for everyone. That’s how “learning organizations” are created.

Janet Wilmoth writes in her article in Fire Chief Magazine this month:

Now, a multimedia tsunami is available to viewers in their homes and offices, on their computers and smartphones, and in their vehicles with live and on-demand programs. And we expect the same entertainment and engagement in any program or class, online or at a conference.

Training in the fire and emergency response services has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, both because of increased technological capabilities and the increased demands on the fire service.

Denis Onieal, Superintendent at the National Fire Academy is quoted in the article:

Earlier this year, National Fire Academy Superintendent Denis Onieal said that fire-service instructors today understand that they are working with adult learners and can’t use the teaching methods traditionally used with children. “Great fire service instructors know that adults need to be engaged in their own learning — they’re poor passive learners,” he said.

Wilmoth concludes the article with:

A good instructor knows his students, his topics, and the most effective way to deliver his message or lesson before heads bow and focus shifts to texting or e-mails.

Here’s my response to the article:

HOW do firefighters learn? It depends on each and everyone one of them, individually. What we teach is important, but HOW we teach is vital, and it’s all audience driven. We don’t want to teach just an understanding of firefighting but the ability to do it. Along with building the skill of the body, the mind must be trained to observe, orient, decide and act. Building knowledge, skill and ability requires two things: 1) the student knows their own learning needs (where they are and where they need to go); and 2) the teacher understands the student’s learning needs and is able to adapt to them. In a group setting, this means hitting all the students’ senses for learning (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and I would also include a sense of time and intuition). So, in reality, ALL OF THE ABOVE (Powerpoint, slides, handouts, hands-on, videos, and writing (something we don’t do enough of)) should be used. It just depends on the audience.

If our real goal is to train (condition) everyone to be ready for any situation, and to be more decisive, deliberate and correct in their actions, then we should use every training method available to reach everyone in their own way.

Read the entire article here.

A Related Article:

Dr. Denis Onieal on Higher Education in the Fire Service.

US Airways Flight 1549 crash in the Hudson River

The behavior of leaders and the development of good leaders is more important today than ever before. Decentralization has spread decision making responsibilities across all levels of the organization. Rapid change and greater uncertainty in the world means that the role of leaders and the challenges they face are more ambiguous. Michael Useem, University of Pennsylvania professor and author of several leadership books and articles, suggests that, “Leadership matters most when it is least clear what course should be followed.” However, many people believe that leadership is just a position, or they confuse it with management. There is a difference.

So, What is leadership? How do leaders lead, and why do followers follow?

On the fireground, what makes things real for you as a firefighter? What gets your heart racing, your blood pumping? Fire and angry, black smoke surrounding the house on arrival? Bystanders on the scene screaming that someone is still inside? Or the sound of “mayday, mayday!” over the radio at the height of an operation? Any of these can put your brain into overload—naval aviators call this “helmet fire.” Everything you experience during stressful situations will tax your ability to handle the crisis—but a mayday call will take you to your limit. So ask yourself this question: Whether you’re the downed firefighter calling the mayday, a member of the rapid intervention crew (RIC) responding to it or the incident commander trying to get control of it, are you really ready to handle it?

Are you ready? Read more here.

• “We must do the right thing, and do the right thing right. That is as simple as it gets.” ~quote from a speech by General Schwartz, USAF
• The Six Domains of the New Professionalism – Weighted
1. Professional Ethics – 25% (do the right thing)
2. Vocational Excellence – 25% (do the right thing right)
3. Continuous Improvement – 20% (continue to grow)
4. Professional Engagement – 10% (focused on the customer)
5. Professional Image – 10% (attention to detail and pride in our profession)
6. Selflessness – 10% (keep our egos in check)

And more to come ……..

Here’s some brief notes from the first few chapters.

• Single unprofessional acts cascade as negative force multipliers into the system with the strong possibility of an exponential impact.
• Individuals and organizations remain uniquely empowered to perform to higher professional standards, and in so doing, create a peer-to-peer positive force for change.
• Mediocritters are critters of mediocrity. When they meet reality, they under-perform, and in the aftermath, blame others for the situation.
• Elite performers (Level III Performers) say, I’m a pro because I am doing all I can to be the best I can and further the objectives of my peers, my organization, and the industry as a whole.

More to come ………

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links on this page are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

In the article, I identified three critical factors that were attitudes and attributes that all firefighters with the right mindset shared: an intimate knowledge of and passion for the fire service; a professional attitude that includes understanding the dangers of the job, practicing situational awareness and being able to respond to stressful events; and accepting and following operational procedures.

After listening to The Right Mindset for Success on the HBR Ideacast, I was reminded of another critical factor that contributes to firefighter excellence. It revolves around their minds and how willing they are to grow them. The more-talented firefighters have a growth mindset. In other words, they are always learning. They believe that basic abilities are are developed over time and learned from experience. These firefighters are not just focused on the outcome, they know that the process is what makes the difference. They look for and like a challenge.

The less-talented firefighter, on the other hand, has a fixed mindset. They believe that their talents and abilities are fixed traits; they believe they already have what it takes (hard to believe, but some do think that). Many firefighters can fall into a fixed mindset because of their time on the job (years versus experience), success (they promote fast), or they may just be afraid of making mistakes or venturing out of their comfort zone (really? there are no “comfort zones” in firefighting!). The firefighter with the fixed mindset is more focused on outcome and how they look.

How can we encourage a growth mindset in others? Easy, just set the example. The message we send is really important, and should be practiced, not just said (Listen to what they say; Watch what they do). As leaders, we should send the following messages everyday:

• We value passion, dedication, growth and learning
• We don’t know it all and we don’t expect you to know it all, but we do expect all of us to be ready to learn
• We expect all of us to stretch beyond our comfort zone and take reasonable risks
• We value process here; we’re not just looking to check another box on a To Do list. We want to get things done right and in the right way.

I’ve had a Latin phrase on my email for years now that says it all for me, Ancora Imparo (I am still learning). Isn’t that really what’s needed for the right mindset?