Put that shit in check

When will we get over ourselves?  The need to protect our egos seems to be outweighing the need to protect ourselves and our brothers.  It seems to be beyond our own wit to realize that we need this thought process.  We need to get beyond our own egos and spend our time solving the real problems. Not spinning our wheels on the same old stuff over and over.  3 times in recent months we nearly lost someone from over aggressive tactics.  A firefighter attempts to enter a burning front door.  Into an environment so hot his radio starts on fire and he sustains burns.  A Lieutenant at a defensive fire over an hour into it chainsaws a door open to better attack the fire and has a wall fall on him.  A fire fighter 15 minutes after the call to defensive enters 9 feet into a building and falls through the floor.  All for what?  If an environment is so hot your radio starts on fire how tenable is it for the residents?  What are you risking your safety for exactly?  If you are at a defensive fire the decision has already been made that no risk is to be taken.  None, what-so-ever. 

 “Where is the blame to be laid?” is the likely question the administration is now asking.  Leadership, or the lack thereof I say and of course egos.  It’s the leadership that trains our people on a day to day basis.  It is the leadership that guides on the fire ground.  It is our job to show the way and instill confidence in the firefighters that the decisions we make are the right ones.  We cannot watch our people every minute of every day but we can arm our people with confidence and the knowledge to make the right decisions on their own.  The only way to do this is through training every day in any way possible. 

 Now don’t get me wrong.  I will never beat or train the ego out of a fire fighter. Never happen.   What I can do is overpower it with logic and sound decision making.  We need to find the dial.  The one that can turn up and down our level of aggression.  We need it at times, shit, our job requires it really.  But we cannot forget when we need to turn it up and when to turn it down.  When life is at risk we risk a lot to save a savable life.  Dial at ten.  Flames out every window?...Dial at 0.   Teach that deep breath.  Think about what you are about to do and who will be at risk when it goes cow shit and you need saving.

The Third Eye

Over a long enough timeline I suppose we could learn all there is to know.  In the meantime I feel like all we can do is take it one piece at a time.  Now, that statement is a simplistic way of breaking it down.  Like all simple statements it requires a deeper depth of knowledge to live it every day.   What I meant to say really is that we only have a limited amount of time to train.  I have figured out that it’s not enough time to really get it all done.  What we need to do is focus our training time to be the most effective for the most people.  Well, I only have 3 people to train.  So I have the luxury of focusing on one person if I want to and the team won’t suffer in the long run.  All training is valuable even if it’s focused on one person, as long as it’s a group event.  Don’t get me wrong I still need to make the most of my limited time.  The only way I found to do that is using every tool available to me.  The video camera has turned out to be one of the best.  Looking at everything we do in the third person in a quiet room with no distractions is invaluable.  In the moment you are so focused on what you are physically looking at with your eyeballs you don’t see the real lessons passing you by.  Vehicle extrication for example.  My entire company is highly skilled in the use of every extrication tool.  They can set up and put into action all the tools at our disposal.  The video camera isn’t going to teach us to handle our tools better.  We can see that in the moment as we use them.  It did teach us that my plan was not made clear in the beginning and caused people to stand around and that caused them to put that heavy tool on the  ground only to have to pick it up again 30 seconds later.  We saw a lot of wasted motion in the video.  Pick it up, put it down, walk over there, walk back.  All because they didn’t know what I wanted next or what the endgame was going to be.  The question came up how do I quickly share my vision on a deeper level than just saying cut off the roof and peel open the door.  2 inch medical tape was the answer. Yup, tape.   I put tape on each pillar where I want a cut.  If and when you pick up a tool it’s yours for the duration of the extrication.  The cutters and the spreaders never shall part.  The Tape allows a man with a tool to move from one cut to the next without delay.  Now what I’m talking about here in this example isn’t the blaring obvious mistakes or procedure errors.  Those types of things you don’t need a camera for.  In order to take it to the next level and improve what we already do well you have to see it from the outside looking in.    Eventually that is the only way to get past certain sticking points or to see patterns.  We all felt that the drill went great and we moved fast and got the job done.  It wasn’t until we watched the video that we could see what was going on.  The point being really is that they watched the video and wanted to use it to take their skills to the next level as a team.   To try and piece together what went wrong after the fact gets harder and harder the more people you add to the equation.  A picture is worth a thousand words and a video speaks volumes.

What does that mean exactly?

People are our greatest asset. I hear that phrase all the time but what does it really mean.  Is it being overused to the point that the meaning has been lost?  No one is really able to tell me what it means to them.  At least what it means to them and not just some book answer.  Quantify that or give me an example I say and a weak response will soon follow.  I want you to think about it for real and come up with your own answer before you read on.  Now don’t get me wrong I believe in it.  I just seem to have my own definition that only a few share or care.  People….all of them are the departments greatest asset….tool, idea source, center of our chi, doer of things, maker of connections, teacher of our mission, progress initiator, the list goes on.  It’s how we as a department move forward.  As a leader I feel the responsibility to inspire my people to do all these things and embody the mission we live to support.  The next question you must ask is how?  How can we as a leadership core inspire greatness from our team members?  Firefighter’s, not just members, they have after all earned that title.  That in itself is the way we can inspire our people.  By respecting them for being right where they are.  Firefighters in the Seattle Fire Department.  Faith and belief in the validity of their ideas, thoughts and actions simply because they have made it here.  That no matter how long it’s been since their probie year there is still a motivated firefighter inside all of them.  It’s on us to remind them why we are here every day.  To remind them of the importance of our mission to the citizens and to our fellow Fire Fighters.   I know what your saying right now reading this “That’s a bit naive Mike” or maybe it’s idealistic to the point of delusional.  None the less I strive to live by this.  I do it by treating them as assets every day I work with them.  Just because I have rank does not make me a better man then one without rank.  In the same light a chief is not a better man then me nor am I better than he.  I took a test to become an officer but it was more to see if I could dedicate myself to something than to see how smart I am.  Somewhere about halfway through the oral board it hits you.  I need to embrace these fake emergencies and accept them in a way that a boxer accepts a black eye.  Accept your people for all their good and bad.  Respect them for being here but inspire them to be more than just here.

Lessons, Learned and Taught

Lessons. That's what this Blog is about so it's only fitting that eventually I had to post about it. These posts are lessons that I learn while teaching and just going through the day to day. At times I think I learn more from my crew in a training session than I teach. It usually starts with a drill in the beanery and grows from there. Like our 10 at 10 for example. Now its supposed to be 10 minuets at 10 am but ends up being at least an hour if not 90 min. Now that can be good or bad at different times. Most of the time the whole crew participates, other days not so much. Whats important is reading the crew to know when to call it a drill. Really, if I find myself watching the clock, it's already over. On other days we just get a great string of videos and it's all of a sudden 11:30. It's hit or miss in a way but if you quit all together because of a few dud days we would miss out on the days we get a really good video and the discussion goes and goes. Those are the days we learn a lot about what we do and how we do it. The ideas and the tactical plans and the language of what we do. These drills and subsequent discussions set a tone for how we attack fire and work together as a team while attacking a fire.  It also starts slow when you first try it out.  Everyone seems to think they are on the spot. That if someone disagrees with their plan it's curtains for them.  Not true.  Everyone is either new and in the same nervous boat or on the next level not caring about egos.  The good and bad thing about the videos is that you don't really know if your right or wrong.  So the default on the inevitable disagreement is that we don't really know if your tactic is right or someone elses would have worked. 

Trust me on this one

What is it with firemen that they think they are the only ones with good ideas? You could be surrounded by 8 firemen and not one will have a bad idea. Just ask one of them and they'll tell you. Now try to get one to say that one of the other dudes ideas is just as good or even remotely the same idea and its time to slam on the brakes. You can call it hardheaded or sycophantic but in the end it's an emotional Alpha male response. We are so competitive that we stifle progress to serve our own egos. If 4 people each have the best idea ever (according to themselves) nothing is going to change. Not willingly at least. It seems to happen on all levels too...

As a firefighter assigned to a ladder company I wanted to know as much as I could about doing my job. Officers would come in and train on a very narrow aspect of the job but never really get down to brass tacks. Basics, like how to use a chainsaw or ladder placement. All of it skills based and I always felt unfulfilled after a training session. Especially if it required a lot of time and energy. I never really knew why I felt that way until I took my first week long training class out of the department. 4 instructors focused on a larger picture with a skill set to pass on. Each skill built up to a total package that could solve most rescue problems. It's what I had been missing all along. The bigger picture. Maybe my officers had it and just forgot to pass it on to me. Maybe they thought I already had it. The more likely scenario is that at one time in their career they had an idea about how to assemble a set of skills into a complete picture, drill or process and it was crushed or stifled. After it happens once or twice the well dries up on an individual level. The crew that gets shut down does the same. I present for an example a story:

I attended an out of department truck training class several years ago when I was still a firefighter. The week focused mainly on rooftop drills for flat and pitched roofs. After returning to my crew with a new systematic approach to rooftop operations I was all jacked up to show it off. I talked to my officer and he said "show us what you learned". Onto a roof we went and my buddy Jason and I showed off our new found knowledge. Holy Cow what a fiasco. We did the whole process and the first thing the driver said was "That was the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen on a rooftop". Now, I still think I have the best idea of the 6 of us on that roof and the driver has just told me it wasn't, in no uncertain terms. I wasn't going to back down so I asked him "What?" He replied "Just get up on the roof and cut a fucking hole Mike. Whats the point of cutting this hole and that hole and fucking walking all over the place? Just cut the fucking hole Mike" Now I'm insulted, as if I was the one who made this whole system up I had just showed them. So I yell back to him that "It's the only way I've been taught because you never showed me how you want it done. I had to go elsewhere to get training because all you do is bitch and moan when we go out and drill and then never even participate when we do go out!" To which he replies "Listen I've been cutting holes in roofs since you were in diapers and right now in my life I don't need or want to do this shit". In hindsight his reply was epic but in the moment I only used it to fuel the inferno on that roof. "So what the fuck am I supposed to do in the meantime. We don't go to enough fires to just learn from that. You can't find the time to show me, so I went somewhere else and learned and this is it. If you want me to do something different then fucking show me how!" At this point we are nose to nose and he has an ax in his hand that he's waving in my face to accentuate his every syllable. "You don't fucking talk to me like that or I swear to god I'll throw you right off this fucking roof!" My officer makes a move at this point to intervene and I snap out of it and start for the aerial to descend and cool off, not before some choice words between the two of us are exchanged that only make matters worse of course.

This is how new ideas are forged in my department. It's a dramatic example of the larger problem within ourselves. The utter disbelief that someone might actually have a better way of doing something. Trust in me and a willingness to at least try it was all I wanted from my crew. The system I showed them that day was eventually adopted by the entire department and is taught at our drill school today. The way we got there was not smooth in any way. In the end that interaction can teach a lot to new officers and firefighters alike. My driver didn't trust me enough to give any credit to the ideas I brought to the table. "The way we have always done it is just fine. Why change?" Is the feeling or thought or reply to a new way of doing something. We are handcuffing ourselves every time we do that. The free flow of ideas keeps us moving forward and leads us to even more new ideas. How do we take it to the next level? Ask yourself that every day you come to work. Every time you go to a fire for real ask yourself that. I'm not saying you don't already kick ass, we already kick ass most of the time but if there is a way to get even better it will take the collective group discovering and presenting that new way or idea to get there and most importantly it takes the group accepting this new idea in order to get to the next level. That free flow of ideas begets more ideas. If you shut down one member of the team what does that say to the rest of the team. If you wave an axe in someones face and threaten to throw them off a roof what are the chances he or anyone else on the team is going to offer up any new ideas in the future? Zero percent. Encourage your people to keep their head in the game by contributing to the think tank. Ask them how we can take it to the next level.

The Red Helmet Diaries Vol. 1 issue 1

Mike: We started out perfectly happy at 25’s on the truck. Aaron on the other hand has a need to let’s say …roam. So from the Truck to the Engine he goes. Leaving me the senior truckmen and only seeing him on the Aid Car every third or so shift. “I’ll stay on the truck thanks, what the hell are you thinking anyway” I say. In his words: “I’m looking for more”. A few years later he says “Let’s take the Lieutenants test.” Not a question mind you. Here he is “roaming” again. So I studied with him as more of a courtesy than an honest effort. Let’s be honest, he needed my help. Somewhere along that path I found my true calling. Buried beneath The Seattle Fire Departments thousand pages of policy and between the lines of every IFSTA book I found a reason to study and be a leader, guide, trainer, scheduler, sounding board, organizer, and the list goes on. Three years later here we are Lieutenants on the same shift in the same house. Just like the 8 years we were firefighters together, I am again now the one that needs the help.
The First thing I remember needing was courage. Steering and guiding firefighters requires a tremendous amount of courage. I never realized that they (me at one time) have a special ability to change the future. Like a superhero. Example; It’s 9 AM and I say “let’s get some inspecting done.” I wait for the response……It goes something like, “We should stop at Top Pot for doughnuts first to go over the route and buildings”. That seems like a reasonable request and I like doughnuts so I say “yeah”. 30 minutes later doughnuts and Coffee in hand I whip out the inspection binder. We review the route and everyone nods and agrees with a lot of pointing and page turning. I’m ready to get the show on the road at this point so I snap the binder shut stand up and say “let’s do it”. The response goes something like “Well, the inspections are way over there and we’re right by the store so we should do the shopping while we’re over this way”. The store is out of the way so I think yeah to save time we should shop first then go inspect. “OK, shopping. Let’s go” Like it was my Idea in the first place. Shopping done, back on the Rig, “OK, First inspection is….”. “Hold on EllTee. We should put the groceries in the fridge.” Damn, I think, why didn’t I think of that. “OK back to the station.” Like it was my idea again. Now we got the groceries in the fridge,
the binder is on the rig and I say “OK let’s do it.” “Hey EllTee what about lunch?”. It’s lunch time? What the hell is going on? The only explanation is it’s some kind of Jedi Mind trick. YOU WANT TO GO TO THE STORE….THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.
To go against the grain and make firefighters do what they don’t want to do takes courage. Conflicting goals I think is what they call it. There is a time to lay down the law and inspect and a time to get doughnuts. The conventional wisdom says that they will respect you for your organization and discipline on such matters as inspecting and drilling. The reality is respect is gained from a multitude of different aspects. Making firefighters do the boring jobs they don’t want to is not gaining you any real respect points. Respect I think comes from consistency in the everyday. It’s your vision that should drive this crew day to day and if you clearly define that vision and then stick to it, respect will follow. That is what takes courage. Every day have a vision and stick to it, as best you can.