Some "honest" observations about our lives, our jobs & the fire service

"Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is."
— Sir Winston Churchill

"What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things."
— Margaret Meade

"When something important is going on, silence is a lie."
— A.M. Rosenthal

During a recent trip, I got some writing tips from Mike Brown (our Mike Brown, not the Mike Brown who got tossed out of FEMA), particularly about writing in multiple dimensions. After several minutes of listening to Mike, I think he saw the stupid look on my face and explained what he meant by "multi-dimensional": telling parallel stories simultaneously, perhaps two or more in a single text. Mike then asked me, "What would happen if a meteor flew overhead, dropping a cosmic dust on the fire department that forced everyone to tell the truth for at least 48 hours?" What would the ramifications be? Then he suggested I write about that, and do it on several different levels to make the article more entertaining for the readers. So, here goes nothing:  

This morning, a cosmic event occurred, and a mysterious cosmic dust fell upon the fire service. As a result, for the next 48 hours, people in your department must tell the absolute truth about themselves, their peers, their supervisors, their subordinates and others. Well, the first truth is that I'm not smart enough or skilled enough to write in multiple dimensions or draw you into the story with converging tales, so I will simply say it happened — sorry, Mike.

Honesty is a tricky thing. Company officers must understand that telling the truth is critical to their leadership character and values, but at the same time, they must be smart about where, when and to whom they tell the truth.

SINCE THE COSMIC DUST IS FALLING... 
I must first tell the truth about myself. First, I can be an egotistical, arrogant SOB sometimes. Get me on a roll about something I'm passionate about, and there's no telling what might come out of my mouth. This behavior can be both my greatest strength and greatest weakness.

Second, I have a habit of speaking my mind, sometimes in a not-so-appropriate setting. This is sometimes followed by heated discussions with peers and superiors (at least in rank), which is followed by me taking a time out. I've also been know to embellish stories from time to time; it seems the fire got bigger, the rescue more complicated and the risk greater as time went on.

The point: We all hide a bit of the truth about ourselves. Think about it: The man or woman you know on a professional level many times is a far cry from the individual you'd know if you stripped away all the trappings, buffers and bravado that I and many others put forth in public. You might find people whose professional lives seem incredible while their personal lives are in shambles.

As a company officer, you must understand that what you see in the mirror might not be what others see, and that can be a real ego buster if it becomes a pattern. You must be as open and honest as possible with people, but in turn, you must be able to accept other people's honesty about their perception of you. As leaders, many of us don't want to see ourselves through the eyes of the people we're supposed to be leading. Listening to others, even your subordinates, about your performance is critical to your growth as a leader and a supervisor. This is sometimes a very painful experience, but in the long run, it stops all of us from repeating dangerous and damaging patterns of behavior or actions that undermine our leadership. As a leader, you'd better understand the truth about yourself, because the people you are leading sure will.
 
TWO KINDS OF TRUTH
Company officers generally encounter two kinds of truth as part of their job. The first is documented truth about knowledge, skills and abilities, which is based on an accepted level of performance that everyone can understand. When you tell someone about a performance issue, you must support your argument with evidence of what they did wrong and how they should correct it. You want your members to understand the need to perform and that certain personal traits and social actions affect their teammates.

The second kind of truth: personal truth, or how you perceive someone. This is a trickier area because it is often based upon your personal experience and expectations or discussions with others This kind of truth often leads to the "agree to disagree" compromise between people. The one thing we must remember: Personal truth is not absolute. What I consider incompetent behavior may be viewed by someone else as an admirable trait and excellent behavior. To be an effective leader, you must understand and accept this.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FIRE SERVICE
Since cosmic dust continues to fall, I will discuss some unpleasant truths about the fire service and what we, as leaders, can do to change it for the better.

Firefighter fitness: Tragically, we lost 106 firefighters in the line of duty last year. The vast majority of these individuals succumbed to cardiovascular or cerebrovascular accidents. Firefighting and EMS are endurance sports, and yet organizations still simply pay lip service to our physical conditioning standards, unions fight any attempt to establish physical standards for fear of job loss, management refuses to purchase equipment or support physical therapy programs, and labor and management fail to cooperatively enforce existing standards. As a company officer, you must understand how important physical fitness is to your success and the success of your team.

Incorporate physical fitness into your daily routines, and make it a priority. Also, be smart on the fireground; be aggressive, but know when you don't have the staffing, time or resources to attack, and never be afraid to be aggressively defensive when it comes to sending your members home at the end of their shift.

Staffing: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what it takes to run a fireground, lift a patient or accomplish what must be done during working events. And still there are departments, politicians and chiefs who run two-person engine companies. Sure, we have an NFPA staffing and deployment model; rumor has it the IAFF, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International City Managers Association will use an independent evaluation group to reach a conclusion about what we really need to complete tasks on the fireground.

OK, I'm in, but after spending more than 30 years on the fire and rescue ground I can tell you that most of us already know what it takes. Sometimes, staffing and deployment models are decided well above the company officer's pay grade. Not all departments are going to have four-person engine companies, so you must be able to adapt their tactics and strategies to your staffing and deployment models. Let's face it, a company officer who shows up on a fire with three engines and a truck with only five to seven people has to function on the fireground much differently than someone who shows up with 20 or 30 firefighters on the first assignment. You simply might not be able to do what needs to be done, so be as aggressive as you want to be, and complete as many tasks as you can.

• The "Two In, Two Out" Rule: Our political solution to two-person engine companies has been the "two in, two out" rule. If you didn't learn anything about rescuing firefighters from the Brett Tarver incident in Phoenix, or any other RIT situation, the "two out" are simply two more people to kill when the event occurs. Some departments still consider the driver/operator and the command officer as the two out; we hold two people outside while two others struggle to advance lines and search inside with only 50 percent of the crew they need. So we under staff, make up some nonsensical standard to politically cover our rear ends and declare victory — and in the end, we're still not doing what we need to do to protect our people, serve the customer and accomplish our tasks. In fact, in some ways we may have given our members and ourselves a false sense of security. The truth for the company officer here is that you might not always have an RIT, and that two in and two out will strip your ability to aggressively apply manpower to a job. In some instances, you will be required to establish the "two in, two out" rule or RIT at the expense of other tasks, especially when no immediate threat to life exists. You must understand this going into the job, and be able to adapt to it. The truth is that not every department can afford to staff a RIT and still have people to do the basic tasks necessary to run a fireground.
• Survival skills: Several fire departments spend an inordinate amount of time learning about WMDs, but ignore the training necessary for maydays, firefighter down, saving our own or whatever you want to call it. I cannot think of anything more dangerous than our own people trapped, disoriented or lost in a fire building. If you survive these events, it's because of what you do in the first few minutes, yet several departments have not taken the time, made the effort or committed the fiscal resources to train every member of their department in critical, life-saving skills. I bet if you polled volunteer and career departments nationwide, you'd find less than 30 percent of them have committed to this training. As a result, you might have to take it upon yourself to train your team in these critical skills without any departmental program in place, which might require you to get the training yourself so you can bring it back and pass it on. This takes time, effort and constant practice, but you must make it a priority.
• Training: Take a look at the recent near-miss statistics, and you'll notice an alarming trend: Most of the incidents were due to poor judgment, tactics and decision making. Could it be that we are failing to train our first-line officers on the decision-making skills needed to do their job properly? How many departments have an active officer training program that begins at your first promotion and continues until you retire? Leadership is failing in the fire service because we rarely provide resources at the local and regional level to train our newest officers. How many volunteer companies require minimum qualifications for officer levels that must be met before you're allowed to be voted on for officer positions, or is your ability to lead and make decisions based entirely upon how much you're liked? How many career departments and volunteer departments run officer development programs that are prerequisites to getting your job or getting promoted? I would bet the number of organizations committed to building, training and developing new leaders is embarrassingly low. And we wonder why we have problems on the fireground, around the fire station and in basic organizational support. These problems will continue at all levels of the fire service because we don't train our officers, and we will continue to suffer deaths and injuries because of poor decision making. The truth:

You might not ever get any leadership or officer training from your department.  If you are truly going to lead and do what is necessary, you may have to spend your own time and money to get the training. And if you do this, expect some people to become upset because you're changing the status quo.
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH
As the last bit of cosmic dust falls, I'll leave you with some thoughts on the truth — you might consider these as you go to work tomorrow, or when reading past and future "Company Officer Development" articles.

• Sometimes truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.
• Sometimes truth is based upon social and anthropological norms developed over thousands of years (ask anyone who has been to a Muslim country how different their truth is from ours).
• As human beings, we bury ourselves in our own truths about how well we're doing, what makes us who we are or who we are in the eyes of others.
• Sometimes we underestimate ourselves, failing to see the truth of our actions and undermining our own self-esteem.
• Often, the truth hurts because it exposes our frailties. We see ourselves as strong individuals standing on the front of the ship with our Viking helmet on, sword in hand pointing the way, while the people we are supposed to be leading see us as sitting in the sheep pen, hiding behind the sheep.
• If you listen hard enough and intently enough to yourself and to the people around you, the truth comes through loud and clear.
• If you have faith, courage and the ability to recognize your failings, your character flaws and your lies, you can see the truth.
• We don't need a meteor to sprinkle dust on us for the truth to exist. It's always right there for our viewing pleasure in full color; we simply choose to ignore it or to portray ourselves differently than we really are. When we do this, we put ourselves in positions not suited for us; we falsely elevate ourselves and end up walking around the house breaking all the mirrors because we don't want to look.

IN CLOSING
In January, I decided to transition this column to someone new, motivated and still actively involved in the fire service. I think it's best to keep a fresh perspective on officer development, leadership and management support; it's time to give someone else a chance to help raise the kids and examine the truth. Besides, my impending nomadic lifestyle will make it impossible for me to keep the editorial schedule necessary to meet my obligations.

So, the final truth is that this is my last "Company Officer Development" article. Many people are jumping for joy right now (I know who you are), knowing they will never have to bear the brunt of these editorials again and hoping that the meteor not only dumps dust on me, but also hits me square between the eyes! I just completed "Buddy to Boss: Leadership Secrets of the Fire and Rescue Services," which is with the publisher right now, so I'll let that speak for me for a while.

To that end, I somehow convinced Captain Ray Gayk from the Ontario (Calif.) Fire Department to carry on this section of the magazine. Warning: Ray got hit with the same meteor dust as it flew over the left coast, so I trust Ray to tell the truth about officer development, organizations, processes and people — but he can leave me out of it.

Chase Sargent retired in December 2005 as a division chief/paramedic for the Virginia Beach (Va.) Fire Department after a 30-year fire-service career. He is recognized internationally as a consultant and instructor for fire, EMS and special ops teams — as well as owner/partner and president of Spec. Rescue International. A prior member of the NFPA 1670 Technical Rescue Standards Committee, he is well known for his straightforward, common-sense approach to teaching new and seasoned company officers how to become effective leaders. Chase now works as an independent contractor for the U.S. government and teaches at the bomb school in Sicorro, N.M., as well as the Blackwater Lodge. He maintains his certifications by riding backward as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic.