The best course when you start talking about being prepared to do the job as a company officer is hands-on conferences and lecture conferences from reputable instructors, credible instructors. Boom.
SPEAKER_01Firehouse Vigilance presents the weekly scrap, a podcast dedicated to the never-ending fight against complacency.
SPEAKER_0240 more Firehouse Vigilance. You're going to feel some deja vu, Shannon. Weekly scrap, number 346. My guest tonight is one of my favorite speakers and a mentor to many, myself included, Chief Shannon Stone. Shannon Stone is a second generation 34-year veteran of the fire service who worked his way through the ranks. He is currently the fire chief of Midway Fire District in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Shannon teaches at various events across the country, and you should catch him any chance you get, specifically nuggets from the right seat. Man, I've taken so many notes from that class that it every time I take it, I take more notes. He specializes in teaching officer leadership, engine company operations. The man has done a lot, and I could go on and on, but I said I will say, welcome back, my brother, to the scrap for episode number 346. Thanks so much, man. Appreciate you having me on, bro. For those who don't know, we had just had a technical issue. So we're basically rerunning it from the top. And if you saw it already, great. If not, uh, here we go. Anything I missed in the intro? Anything you would like to add?
SPEAKER_00No, no. As usual, you make me sound much better than I am. I appreciate it, man.
SPEAKER_02The audience is here. They are fired up for the discussion. And audience, please get your questions ready for Shannon and myself. As always, Sam will be scanning the chat looking for your questions. And as a special bonus tonight, the Mr. Smooth Boar himself, Kyle Romagus, is in the chat looking for your questions. And so, yeah, let's do it. We will get to the sponsors. We'll get through the sponsors and then we're ready to scrap. So here we go. Newest sponsor, huge shout out to Fire Cold Plunge. I've actually got one. I use it in my garage every day since I've got it. I've plunged that I've been home. They sell to a lot of fire stations for a reason. They are built solid. Low maintenance, small footprint, and it stays at a freaking cold temperature. There's zero prep. After a workout, you can just jump in. After a call, you can just jump in and cool off. Firecoldplunge.com. Check them out. Everything in the fire service gets tested. Training, instincts, equipment. That's why Snaptight delivers fire hose that performs no matter the challenge. Durability, packability, kink resistance. Every line is tested before it leaves the factory because when you stretch a line, there's no room for guesswork. This April, they're bringing that same mindset to FDIC. Look for Team Snaptight on the show floor and around the city. They'll be there all week to talk hose, fire ground performance, and connecting with firefighters nationwide. Snaptight, American made, firefighter trusted. Firestationfurniture.com. They provide a complete line of quality furniture for your firehouse. They are firefighter owned and operated, and they understand the strain firefighters put on furniture and offer furniture that's built to last. Visit FirestationFurniture.com for more information. And of course, everybody knows I love Flame Decon. I love Terra. Get the nasty stuff off you. Decon yourself, shower within the hour, and wash your balls. And there we go. Sponsors are done again. And now we can officially get to the scrap. All right. People are excited. Okay, Kyle did want to make it clear. He is on shift and he said he would leave Shannon hanging if a fire comes in. He says he's out of here. Everybody else logging in. And Todd Edwards says he's actually America's coolest fire chief. And he gave you three fist bumps. So there you go. You got some you got some people in the in the in the chat ready to go. So back to where we were. I'm a little discombobulated, but we are back to where we were. Leadership. I love it when I send out my my questionnaire to the guest that's coming on saying, Hey, what would you like to discuss this? What would you like to discuss when you come on the scrap? And I always love when leadership is one of the topics and it's something I can dig into. But I especially love what you sent when you said developing the ideal promotional process to put the right people in the right seats. So I want to kick it off with that and throw it to you and say, What did you mean by uh developing the right promotional process?
SPEAKER_00You know, promotional processes, uh, I think most everybody can agree that they are way less than perfect, you know. Um more often than not, it seems like the process is in place not to promote the right person. And, you know, and uh I like many people probably throughout their career wanted to see that process improve. Um, but uh you know, you usually don't have the ability to really, you know, make a large swing. So take you back almost uh four years ago when I was a deputy chief uh hired in a midway. Um that was one of my goals was to create a process in which uh it gave the right people the best opportunity to promote. They they still have to compete to get it, but uh the idea was you know build a promotional process, each rank that, you know, cultivates the type of individual uh character-wise and skill set-wise for each rank, and that evolves as the ranks go up. Um and essentially creating a process in which, you know, punching the clock, doing your time, and having seniority will no longer get you promoted. Now, don't get me wrong, I I'm I'm I'm in favor of seniority. In fact, if I was to go over everything, all this seniority actually does play, you know, a small part in our promotional process. But uh the days of just doing your time and meet and minimum qualifications, and then you're on the same playing field as everybody else, at least in my organization, are completely gone. Um, and the whole premise was to build it so that we can hopefully, more often than not, put the right people in the right place, starting, but really the process starts before our promotional process. Um, it starts with our hiring process. And uh, you know, we we tell the hiring board that we put in there, which is made up of all ranks, that we want you to hire the person, not the qualifications. Um, we've passed very qualified people, firefighter paramedics, to hire young kids that are in the academy because, you know, we are doing our best to invest in a 25-plus year investment. And uh we can train you to be a good firefighter and a good EMT and a paramedic all day, but um, we're not in the business of raising um adults into better human beings. We want you to come in like that. And hopefully the goal is to professionally and personally, uh, you know, you become better. But uh we we look more at the character than we do the qualifications. And from there, when you get in, there's a clear roadmap uh for success if that's what you choose to do to move up. And if you choose not to, and you just want to stay at a rank, that's perfectly fine. And we welcome it because we have some very good firefighters of various ranks that that's where they want to be at. But essentially the process was built um with a lot of strategic timing and relationship building when I came in to build the trust. And and the the I tell people this all the time that the union is instrumental in every single thing that we do. I'm a I am a big union advocate. I have been since the day I came in. Many people that I've trained with over the years um don't realize, but you know, I spent a large part of my career um as a union president, about 11, almost 12 years as union president, working uh locally and at the state level. Um, so I have I have a big passion for that as I do training. And uh, it's not rocket science. If you want to succeed in building something in an organization, bring the people in with you. And it starts with the union president, it starts with the membership, it starts with building that mutual trust. And that took a year or two when I started the organization to where the timing was right, where we built a committee of individuals that were like-minded and a few that had some different ideas, that's important as well, um, to develop the process to uh put the right people in the right places. So, what did it look like? It started out with a whiteboard, and then it started out with a new rank. I said, okay, what makes the best driver? What do you think? And as an example, as an example, everybody said, Well, I'll tell you what doesn't make them is a four-year degree. That does not make a good, a good driver. We need them to focus on task-oriented type stuff. So we basically started breaking down and it and it's centered on a skill set, and then it's centered on character.
SPEAKER_02So I want to I want I just want to I want you to, there's a LUT here, but you basically put together a well, you said you took a year to build up enough trust uh or investing in the relationships, and and there you know that has to be there, the foundation of trust. But once you had the trust, you built a committee uh that then basically sat down with a blank whiteboard and started saying, what do we want for the rank?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. We still we started out and and and we we looked at the skill sets and then we looked at character traits and it centered around skill sets, character traits, and leadership. And I just got a big one, I'm a big whiteboard guy. So I just started writing all these things down in these categories. And once we went through everything, you know, leadership traits, trust, integrity, you know, um um you name it, all the stuff you would expect to see.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00At that, at that point, we decided we looked at it and said, okay, well, how do we measure these things? That's now that we take these and put these into a process, in which point they're measurable, um, so that we can hopefully ideally grab these these types of skill sets and these types of traits. Um things like uh, as an example, character, trust, integrity, attitude, motivation, how do you measure those? Yes. Like those are so so those are so subjective, right? So one of the things that we did that Midway actually was doing prior to me coming in there, and one of the very few organizations that I'm aware of that does it, we've just taken and made it a lot better, and we haven't carried a lot more weight is we do what's called pure perception evals. And basically, to long story short, there's five categories that everybody's measured at. It deals around trust, your skill set, leadership, motivation, training. Um, and they basically rank you on where you fall on the list of where who where the membership thinks that that individual should place on that promotional list. They essentially, your peers have a hand in deciding who's going to be their next leader, who's gonna be their next potential leader. Um for the drivers, the skill sets they determined was obviously the stuff you would expect to see. Uh, standardized driving courses, pumping evolutions, which tie directly into our training program to be qualified to do it. So it's a clear roadmap of evolutions. There's about 15 of them right off the bat that I have to be very proficient at that they can expect to be tested any of those. Um that carries around that carries, I think, uh, I brought my notes because I had to make sure I remembered it correctly. Sure. Um that carries about 40% of your score for the drivers, 40% period, and 20% a written test off of relevant material. We just don't pick random books. We actually pick books and chapters and specific pages out of books that are relevant to what they're gonna test on. And the whole thought process is if they go through the whole process and maybe they don't get promoted, at a bare minimum, uh, they were forced to get back into the information and practice their skill sets and learn things that they're gonna benefit and hope hopefully build upon. So if you take that same approach and you start building it for the company officer rank, which in our department is a captain, and you start breaking it down, we did essentially the same thing. Um, we looked at a peri valve, except the peri valve for the captain's rank carries even more weight. It's a 50% weight.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, your performance assessment, which includes two fire ground scenarios and an instructing scenario. And the reason those were picked was because we want people to be very strong on the most dangerous thing that we do, which is go on the fires.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00We want our company officers, we're cultivating a culture of instructing and mentoring and coaching. So we included an instruction portion in the promotional exam because when you make boss, you're expected to be the coach and the teacher. You're the one responsible for it. Now, don't get me wrong, you're going to delegate out the strengths, but ultimately the company officer is the one that's setting the tone and building that culture. So we built that into the promotional uh assessment as well. And a written exam. The written exam takes a little a little bit less weight. And some people would argue should it even be in there? I would say that it should be in there because there are certain things that we need to know. And again, we narrow that down to two different books, specific chapters out of the books that are relevant to the part of Florida that we're in, and then a lot of our operational SOGs that are relevant, not all of them.
SPEAKER_02So, what's the position on that? Like I if you if you know or if you haven't, your notes there. It's 50% on the peer review on that, and then how much is the assessment, and then how much is the book?
SPEAKER_0040% assessment, 2% break.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. I just want to make sure I had the numbers right. Go ahead. So I don't mean to, I don't mean to break your flow.
SPEAKER_00No, and on top of that, we've on each one of the ranks, we've identified we've identified bonus points that you can get. There's they're not a they're not a tremendous amount. We didn't want bonus points that was going to swing uh an entire promotional process. What we wanted was bonus points that are built in so that if they're if they're within a point of each other with the final score, that the bonus points could be the tiebreaker. And they include everything from going to conferences. You can get a max points for going up to two conferences within a 12-month period of the promotional process. Uh as you move up the ranks and company officer is an example, uh, you get points for going to FDTN. Uh, but basically we've we built a system that rewarded uh education and training that benefited that particular rank that they're gonna carry on throughout their career. So no longer are you getting points for being a CPR instructor or in our case, a hazmat technician, which don't get me wrong, it's good, but we don't do hazmat. We rely on the surrounding counties. So we don't want our guys hyper-focused on spending all this time of getting a certification that's not gonna be relevant to what they're gonna be doing most of the time. As you go up in the ranks, uh if you look through the point system, you'll see that the college becomes a big deal as you hit the battalion rank and it becomes a little bit of a big deal at a captain's rank. It's not really a big deal at the driver's rank. Why? Because we don't want guys focused on getting their bachelor's degree when they should be focused on learning how to drive pump and learning how to do the boss's job and be the right hand man of the boss, right? No, absolutely. Um so there's there's uh bonus points at the end, and then you move to the battalion, the the peer perception carries even more weight. It carries, make sure I get it right, it carries 70% of the score. And your other 30% of the score for your battalion comes from a professional portfolio review, which is basically measuring your career, what you've contributed, what your strengths or your weaknesses are. Um so we've made it clear that you really should care about your reputation and that you should be concerned about what people think about you. Not because you're trying to be the nice guy or someone that's well liked, but the reality is if nine out of 10 people say that you should not be the leader of a company or a leader of a battalion, they're probably going to be right. And I'll give you an example. Um, my chief, my then chief, uh Jonathan Kinzig, he and I were having a conversation about this when we were developing this process with the union. And I asked him a simple question. I said, listen, if we had a battalion exam today, right now, and let's say there's four or five candidates, and we took a vote in the fire department. Do you think that vote would be correct? And without hesitation, he looks at me and he said, 100%. I said, you know what, I think it would be too. You know, he says, that's how instrumental is that the peer evals are. Now, what some people will say is that um it's a popularity contest.
SPEAKER_02That's instantly, that's instantly my first like like red flag I want to throw and say, what do you say people who say, hey, it's just a who likes who the most? I say you're right.
SPEAKER_00It is. You know, depending on how you want to look at it. Trust me, in my experiences at least, um, and I've been watching this for over six years now, and I'm privy to it before I came in. Not one time have they promoted somebody that they didn't trust, they didn't rely on, and that they didn't want to be their leader. And trust me, there's a lot of nice guys that are that are really nice guys and fun to work with, but you don't want them to be their boss, you know. Um, so what we found is if you have a good reputation and you know what you're doing, you treat people well and you're morally grounded, and you put others before self, which is what our whole premise of our mission is and our organization, yeah, you're gonna score high. Absolutely. I love it. Could you put them close out over there? I absolutely go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I was just no, no, you're fine, Ron. Um, so yeah, I mean the process, and here's the thing. Here's here's the beauty about this is this this wasn't designed by by me, it wasn't designed by one person. It was designed by us and the union. And if the union didn't agree on it, um, and I use the word union because they represent it, if the guys didn't agree on it, we didn't collectively agree in the committee level about this, we wouldn't even be doing it. And I jokingly tell the union president on all the stuff that we do, because the union president is involved in the vast majority of the decisions that I make in the fire department. Not because I'm trying to appease the unions, because they're just so instrumental. And I'm always trying to find what I don't know. And many times they've got great perspectives, but I jokingly tell them all the time, I said, man, if we screw this up, man, you're going down with me. We're both going to take the blame for it. But but with that, too, you know, we're constantly talking about, you know, we're gonna make mistakes, you know, we may make decisions that aren't the best, and that's okay. You know, we need to work diligently to find out where those are and we need to fix them together. And when you're working hand in hand with the union, you have a great union relationship and a great relationship with the guys, it makes it so much easier because you're not backing into things. You usually are dealing with things up front proactively before they become, they become an issue. This whole promotional process, there was a lot of strategy and how I wanted to kind of roll this out. I had a good general idea of where this was going to land. And we landed probably on about 98, 99% of what I thought it was gonna land on. Not because I did anything to sway them. I just basically put everything out there. I asked the questions and I got answers back to what I was expecting to get back. Because in my organization, like many other organizations, they want the right people to promote. You know, they I never thought it was a I never thought it was the best process to have bare minimum qualifications. And you had a guy sitting in a rank for 10, 15 years, and he's going up against this guy that's been in rank for seven years, but this guy's been in a rank for seven years, has done 25 years worth of work to become better, yet he is on the level playing field with the guy that's done nothing but come in and punch the clock. And don't get me wrong, the guy punched the clock. I'm sure he's a good dude. Don't confuse with being a good person versus being a great fireman. There's a difference, right? That blend, that that playing field is no longer level for us. You have to earn it, you have to work, and you have to get there. And if you don't have the motivation or desire to do it, you're just not gonna do it. And that's fine too. I mean, it's okay. Like I love it. Everybody everybody's built differently. You know, we we embrace it at all different levels, but I can tell you in the in the short time we've had this promotional process in place, we're probably going on three almost four years. Um, yeah, I'm gonna brag, man. Every single person that's been promoted has been a home run. Um, so it's working out good for us, you know. We're a smaller department, so the peer reval is a lot easier to do. Like, sure, sure. And it could be problematic, you know.
SPEAKER_02No, I want to ask you because like like how like okay, so I'm just I'm I'm gonna pretend to be just a Joe Blow who's working at my department and saying, Man, this sounds amazing, but shit, if I tried that at my department, my guys would spit roast me and say, you know, what insert whatever firemen are gonna say. How long did it take you to get the trust to where you could approach this?
SPEAKER_00And what was there, was there an Asayers, or was it pretty much you know and I'm trying to I just picking um it's it took probably a good year and a half, two years before I even reached the subject. You know, I mean I came into the organization. I mean, you know, uh I I retired after 29 years in another county, uh city of Fallon Beach is where I retired from. And I I knew guys towards the Pensacola area because obviously I worked in Escambia County for years. So I did have some personal relations, but but you know, regardless, when you come in, you you're reproving yourself and you have to build that trust. So, I mean, it was a good, it was a good probably year and a half, close to two years of just doing other things to start building the trust before I felt the timing was right. The other thing too is that, you know, if if you if I didn't get the union involved and and all the guys involved, I don't really think we would have landed on anything close. I don't think I would have been successful. Um, you know, and I and I take that approach in just most everything we do on the fire department, you know. So if other departments were to take this, because I've had a lot of people reach out to me over the last year. Sure, true.
SPEAKER_02I can only imagine.
SPEAKER_00Um and I've shared it with them. But if you don't include the membership and you you don't have them be a part of it, you're certainly going to have a harder time getting the buy-in on it, you know, and when they help build it, it becomes important to them and they take value in it, not just because of the process, but because it's an organization that they care deeply about. So if you miss that whole element and actually building the process and you don't really think it through and be patient, you know, and and have the right timing, it can be it can be difficult because I can tell you this process would have been immensely more difficult in my last fire department. Um, especially with it being a city fire department. It was an older fire department, a lot more guys stuck in their ways. That's a different challenge, too. Sure. But the approach, but the approach one, you know, when you do it's the same. And if you really just want to get down to the fundamental basics of it, and this isn't this is a leadership thing, it's relationship building. It really is, man. Everything that you do revolves around the relationships that you build and how you respond to those relationships. That's either going to give you a platform to do things like this or it's going to totally erase the platform and not give you the ability to do it. Right. So from the time we started about a year and a half, two years to build the trust. And then we I think we probably spent a good solid year, you know, eight, nine months, close to a year, developing this in committee forms, starting with the whiteboards, starting with drafts, you know, we actually looked at portfolios for captains to try to accomplish things. We backed off that we took another route. So it was a lot of work. I mean, but you know, anything we're doing that you're going to make good almost always you're going to put end up putting a lot of work in. Did you find did you find that the the how do I word a word this the fact that you were trusting your people to evaluate who their future leaders were going to be did that empower them to take it more seriously or was was there still naysayers who were like oh this is a joke it doesn't matter that kind of stuff uh well here's the here's the here's the interesting thing the the percentages for the peerie valves went up drastically when we redid the process so they were much much less and that came from the committee that was not a suggestion that was not a suggestion of mine.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00If I'm being honest and I've told other guys since then guys on the committee and guys in the fire department that's exactly where I thought it should go. But I mean the percentages the point systems all of that was driven by the guys and a in a in a large group having discussions and what I what I essentially did is I helped steer the I helped steer the boat. I ask a lot of the important questions what are the traits how valuable is that how do you measure that how important is it you know do you want to capture that you know with the period is the only way out of if I would have thought about it or brought all my notes but the period will capture a lot of the things that the guy said were really important. Well you got to make a decision if you want to move on this a very subjective thing to capture this this is how you can capture or we're just not going to be able to capture it and we're going to go back to the old processes where it's going to be a check in the box you know yeah increase the percentage on a written exam who scores high who has a good day on that we know that's not the best way to do it. But ultimately after a lot of discussions and I just kept steering it we landed on a lot of these and one of the most impressive things with quite honestly was the percentage of the peri val. When I talked to my old my my old chief Chief Kansy we had conversations. We were both actually kind of surprised that the group wanted it that high um I was happy about it but I was apprehensive as if they were going to think that you know but um but it but it's um it's worked out good and uh I I don't have anything negative to say about the peri vals. I mean there's a you get a few grumblings here and there but you know I can tell you this the people who have scored well on them ain't never complained. So and the ones that have scored well on them the guys that have scored well on them every single one of them you know we're you know as as Kyle says we're in our trust tree so I'll just be honest with you every one of them that scored well on them were well respected well thought of well trusted individuals period there was nobody that scored high on that peer eval that had issues that everybody knew about that just was overlooked. Just looking away right yeah and here's why here's why you know it I mean you had an opportunity to have you know a voice in who's going to be the future leader of your organization or if you're a battalion chief who's going to be the future leader of the men that you're responsible and that you have the honor of leading yeah I would say that you know 99% of the time you're going to make the best decision you know if you give a shit about the fire service about what's best for the organization and the mission. And we haven't even got into it but when you build a culture of servant leadership, you build a culture of putting others first, you build a culture of preparation, you build a culture of understanding that every single day you're preparing to be our our best on their worst day, that it's a matter of time before you go to a call where our actions make a difference that mission weight and the culture that you that you constantly talk about and live and eat and breathe to the best of your ability that all plays into these opinions on these periods it really really does. Now if you took the peri vowel and you just plugged it into a a system where they didn't value the same stuff that our organization values and a lot of others do, then I would argue it it probably would may be that that you know popularity contest that you and I first talked about just putting a nice guy in there. So um but if you don't but if you have a culture that's happily decent going the right direction I just I don't see it happening man. I don't see it happening you know no I love it.
SPEAKER_02And and another thing I want to touch on this because it's so important to me. And I the first time I ever heard of this was Chief Hovelman and he talked about having the shop steward come into their command staff meetings so that they were so that the the shop steward or the union president depending on where you're at uh I I'd never heard the term shop steward so that's where I learned it. But the shop steward coming in and being involved in the command staff meetings and that blew my mind because I thought about my you know at my old job the an antagonistic relationship between uh the admin and the union was it was just default aggressive. And but you're the second person from a from a five people standpoint five trumpet sorry chief lasky uh five trumpet standpoint that uh has said you got to you know bringing them in and making them a part of the decision making maybe not decision making process but keeping them in the loop.
SPEAKER_00Well you know I I would I would say at times or for me at least you know I can't speak for other people but for me they they are a large part of my decision making process and what I mean by that is I'm not going and saying hey you know tell me what you think I'll you know I'm gonna take a vote on a decision but their their input their feedback is super valuable and it's super important that I get it. You know so this this is the second year as the fire chief that I that I'm going through the budget process. Previously as a deputy chief, you know my lane was operations. My goal was to get the money I needed to make sure I had the training and I could continue to operate and buy the equipment. Now obviously it's at a at the much higher level um and being the fire chief that you know I'm making the types of decisions how we're going to handle it. And one thing that we're doing differently this year that's never been done is our union president is involved in in the budget process. We have two separate phases we have the operational phase and the administrative phase the first phase we actually just started here this past week is it deals with the battalion chiefs, the deputy chief, the fire marshal, myself and the union president. And we're asking the union president to do the same thing the battalion chiefs do and that's forecasting out the next physical year and then the four following after that that we need. And at a bare minimum I just spoke with the new union president the other day and I said listen at the bare minimum you don't have to bring anything. I just I just want you there to understand the process. I want your feedback I want your questions you know and I want you to start learning about it so we can be even more transparent about what we do with the membership. And I said and honestly I said I'll tell you the same thing I told last union president is man listen you know I I am by far not the smartest guy. You know so I welcome criticism and I want to know because you know I worked super hard the last part of my career to know what I don't want to know. I'm intrigued to know when I'm going the wrong direction. So there's a deliberate effort it's not just a a smoke of mirrors to get the union president involved.
SPEAKER_02Right, right no authenticity I think is the key to building the if it's I mean because there's one thing firefighters can smell it's it's a it's a phony. I mean they they have the best bullshit detectors just built in uh they're hypersensitive to it. And so if it's not authentic you're gonna lose you're gonna lose more ground than you gain trying to be that way. But why and so I'll I'm gonna I want to I'm getting ready to transition to audience questions because there's a lot stacked up on the promotional process so I want to get them thrown at you. But I want to bring up one thing which is one of my absolute favorite quotes from almost I want to say almost any fire conference I've ever been to which is from you Nuggets from the right seat it is I'm gonna butcher your quote so I'm butchering it from memory but it's uh the most important thing is that my people are feel safe safe enough to tell me the things I don't want to know but need to hear. And that's kind of what you just encapsulated there. And so it's one of my all time all time favorite definitions for being a person in charge is if your people don't feel secure enough to come and tell you that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah you know and that takes that takes work right I constantly talk about it at at the department and I especially talk about the officers and and it's real simple. I have it written in my expectations and a handful of my other officers have the same thing and that is that you know I expect you to tell me what I need to hear that I don't want to hear right that I may not want to hear. I may put you the quote but you got the sense it's yeah it's the same thing. You know and I and I tell him I said I expect you to be deliberate with your communication with me. I said and I'm gonna be the same with you. And then when I you know obviously when I came into the organization I mean saying one thing is is one thing and doing is another and I and I started my relationship with the men in that fire department was that I'm gonna tell you a lot of who I am and what I would like to do. I said but listen I don't I don't even want you I'm gonna tell you but don't don't trust what I'm telling you. I just want you to give me an opportunity I said I promise I'll prove it to you. And for anybody who wants to you know work diligently to know what they don't know, you know, they got to understand there is this there is this process and phase and it does not happen quick. Even when you come into an organization with credibility and trust and and personal and professional trust through people and people who know people, you still it's like being promoted. You still just got to prove yourself all over again you know so you know by saying that it it took some time you know to to get you know my officers to do that. And you know and listen I'm not I'm not naive you know that there are guys that don't feel comfortable doing that. And that's perfectly okay. And the higher up you go the harder you got to work to do that. My goal was to give my battalion chiefs. Now obviously my deputy chief you know he's he's very he doesn't he done has no problem telling me his opinion when he doesn't agree with me. And I and the more that you do that the more opportunity is there because it's an opportunity for me to respond back in a way that I welcome it because I'm intrigued as opposed to being defensive and start shutting it down. But I think that's one of the things that that leaders in general whether it's at a company officer leader level or especially a chief's level is that uh well I don't yeah I mean I'll just say it maybe we just don't we don't get that part as good as we should we should be much better at it. You know if you don't know what you don't know how can you be a part of the solution you know that's what I tell the guys the union guys and everything else it's like you got listen I want to be a part my job now is to make sure that you guys are taken care of that you have the resources but listen I mean I don't see everything so you guys have to tell me what I don't know at times even when it's uncomfortable you got to like unless I jokingly tell them all the time it's unless you insult my mom and my wife or my kids I'm good. Like I'm not gonna get upset. You know you may hurt my feelings for a second but that's fine.
SPEAKER_02I'll get over it you know but you are and and in in the defense of a lot of people is that there's not a ton of fire chiefs that have that mindset or don't I will say it does not appear that most fire chiefs have that mindset or people I won't just pick on fire chiefs just people in authority. I don't know if it's just insecurity if it's ego or if it's imposter syndrome or some blended mixture of all three but there's like like seeking to fill in your ignorance gaps as opposed to just trying to trying to cover them up and and gloss them and camouflage them that's that seems to be a rare commodity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think it's a combination of a lot of things man you know another thing it's just very uncomfortable it's very uncomfortable man I mean you know it it it it treads on your feelings at times you know it really does you've got you have to do your best to be comfortable with some of those uncomfortable things you know and I could give you examples recently of things that have gone on that you know you know as I'm going through them you know they're hitting my emotional triggers and you got to learn how to control that pull it back as I jokingly say let it marinade let it sit off get the feelings off go back again because how you respond to that's really going to dictate whether you're successful in whatever you're trying to do. And it's it's our job as leaders to to build that platform relationship and respond in a way that people want to hear what we have to say. And here's the thing with with Chiefs as you go up and you know this is that you know a lot of times you're not gonna know that you're thinking you're communicating in a way and you're thinking it's being effective.
SPEAKER_02You know, but as soon as you walk back to the one side and they walk across the floor to the other side, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you don't know and they're not willing to share with you you know so if you're not diligently working to do that and have that relationship you know you you could be living inside this echo chamber or bubble thinking everything is good and dandy when when in fact it's it's not because even on a best day even on the best day you're still going to have those challenges right you know no without a doubt and I and I can only imagine the gulf that is created the far you know because I I stopped a battalion chief so I can only imagine the gulf it's created the farther up you go if you and and how much more diligence and deliberateness it takes to close that gap.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and it's it's a lot of it's a lot of work too which is probably another reason why yeah because you think because you you know it's one thing to have objective work that you have to do right you know whether it's probably budgets budgets and SOGs all the staffing it's another thing to have emotional work. Emotional work if you don't know how to manage that well will suck the life out of you. And that's what I think is the hardest part for a lot of people because it takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of work if you care about it it wears on you heavily heavily you lose sleep over it. Right. You know so maybe maybe that's a big part of why it's difficult too is that you know and and maybe that's why people have asked me before what what causes chiefs to be disconnected. Well I can tell you there's a lot of reasons and I know them a lot better now than I did, you know, when I was a battalion chief but I can tell you probably one of the primary reasons is because of that is because emotionally it's very very draining um and sometimes the path at least resistance in our personal life our professional life it leads us to that. So I I work really hard to try to avoid that to the best of my ability you know so far I think it's working but I mean I'm a rookie fire chief of the year end so you know I'm kind of the same position last time we did scrap I was I was like less than a year as a deputy I'm like four or five years I'll let you know how it's going lost it Samic Mike check working on it working on it we're coming back are we back we're back let me know we're back yeah YouTube is definitely having issues tonight so all right which which which which gives me a good segue gives me a good segue into getting to some of these questions from the audience because Shannon's been killing it with the topic and I'll lead it off with Kyle Romagus himself because he said chief you know I'm a nerd can you list some of the books that Midway uses for their promotional exams and if all rings have the same list uh they don't have the same risk the or the same list um for our our drivers it's pretty simple it's the state uh pumping book and there's certain chapters that we just don't do that aren't relevant relevant to us we have an aerial operations book um we have certain chapters that are relevant to the drivers out of John Norman's uh fire officer handbook as you move to the rank of company officer which is captain uh a large part of that test comes out of the John Norman's book again we we go in and handpick chapters we even have specific pages within chapters because the whole point is that we want these written tests to be relevant. We want them to measure things that they need to know you know again worst case scenario they don't get promoted they were forced into digging the stuff that definitely learning again. For the company officers we also have Dave McGrill's book because you know we're um unlike my last job uh we don't have a whole lot of high rises but we are mutual aid to Scambia County uh on Pensacola Beach and we're also mutual aid to uh Navarre Beach which ironically enough the first year I worked here we had a working high rise fire on the 17th floor of this little beach that I live at um so we have parts of Dave McGrail's book that are uh that are very important but they're handpicked and then we have probably 80% of our operational SOGs that's included in the test as well. And the reason 80% is because there's about 20, don't get me wrong, they're important, but we want them to dig into the meat and potatoes of the things they're going to be doing as a company officer. And the goal is not to create a test that's so hard that we can see who can get the best score. The goal is to create a relative you know a relevant test that that really measures it. And the the other thing that we've done too that some departments do, some don't is we do have a pass or fail on all of our written. So if you don't score 70 or above which I think is completely completely reasonable um then you don't move on to the next uh position on the on the the promo or the next uh portion of the promotional exam right on um and and and then the uh the battalions are they're a portfolio they don't have a written test or anything but that's uh yeah I believe that's the bulk of the books there you go there you go Kyle nerd satisfied Steve Mauch says uh how is the relevant material selected is it reviewed periodically and updated or based on this is how we do it which you kind of answer that which is this is how we do it selecting those relevant relevant uh chapters but is it we how often do you review it um you know I mean this process has only been in place a little little less than four years maybe four years that's right um every every test we've done we've taken a look at it and we've actually made minor changes and when we do that again union presidents involved like the union president I didn't mention this but the union president is involved in our promotional process from start to finish what I mean by that is that developing the test the written exam comes from outside companies the practical exams and the assessments are built in-house by the deputy chief and myself most likely the deputy chief moving forward those stay confidential the only two people privy to that information is me and the deputy chief period nobody else nobody in the administrative staff nobody in the fire department has access to it until the day of the test the day of the test on any of the exams the union president is there from start to finish from the written through the driving practicals through the captain assessments and everything else they're there from start to finish and at the beginning of those days we sit down with the union president we say here the here's the tests here's what's expected and everything all of our tests we have tons of redundancy built into them to really cover all bases when it comes to confidentiality use consensus we use consensus scorings with our evaluators our evaluators are all outside of what's called the South Santa Rosa Fire Alliance. So nobody in a local close by department is doing the doing the the grading so we have a lot of these processes put in place everything including videotaping everything we do to ensure that fairness uh is done to ensure complete confident uh confidentiality is in place where it needs to be in place to ensure that transparency is where it needs to be which is why the union president of union's heavily involved because he's been instrumental as we develop this process through the testing phase to identify some of our shortcomings which we've gone back and we've revised to include um some of the stuff that we've done our written test on that now that being said all of the written so if you were to like just to give you an example if you can see this sheet you can see all the chapters and everything all of that is built in to a standard operating guideline that does not change year after year. If it does it changes after promotional process so if you were wanted to test for captain you have a cut you have a clear roadmap of what it takes to qualify, what it takes to test, exactly the testing material you're going to be tested on down to the page so that if you can begin preparing for our captain exam that may be two or three years from now. So the goal was to create that roadmap from start to finish so that you don't get the 60 day notice or a 30 day notice and now all of a sudden you're scrambling to prepare for the test. Roadmap from the time we hire to the time you make the highest testable rank which is battalion chief if that's what you choose to do. But back to your original question um we we have been looking at it and that's probably going to be a thing that's going to be done every so many years. I mean no let me back it's gonna be it has to be that the fire service is so dynamic that it that it that if you don't do that you're gonna end up testing the guys on your relevant information. So the second part to that was well how do you how did you determine what it was well it started out with essentially me. You know I I know you know but my background is heavily in operations so I was very comfortable going through these and determining what books what chapters what pages and when I determined books we had a series of books. I made some suggestions they made some suggestions we ended up landing on the books you we didn't use all of them but there was a group of books that I wanted to use that I thought were going to be relevant. I was fine with any one of these books I just thought the best was coming out of it we ended up landing on that through a committee. So yeah it's it's an it's gonna be an evolving process uh and my goal is this is each year we just kind of make a little bit better you know um but I think honestly I mean I think it's one of the best processes that I've ever seen and and I'm not saying that because it's my department these are things that that guys like you and me and people probably watching this podcast have talked about for years but we never could do right no I would have killed to be able to vote on who who should promote like like as a as a backseat firefighter to be able to have an opinion on my opinion to to matter you know and yeah
SPEAKER_02Not just not just my vote for my friends or or or put down people that I had a problem with, but to actually say, no, I think he is representative of what I want this place to be like. And to have that matter, excuse me, matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's and that's that's the same thing that's that's been echoed by uh a lot of people quarterly is that same exact thing. Now, caveat to this. I work for a fire district in the state of Florida. There's three different types of fire departments, career fire departments. You have county, municipal, you have what's called private fire districts. The private fire districts answer to a board of five elected officials. Those five elected officials are my boss. Um, so I don't have the the layers that you have, like in my previous job in a city or county. I don't have an HR department, a finance department, I don't have city attorneys. I don't have to answer to a city manager that answers to a city council, that the city council is elected for things other than the best interest of the fire department. So I say all that to say this, that that, you know, the reason, a big reason why we could do this is because I because uh we work for a fire district um that has a lot more flexibility than a city or county. Like I said, if I was to try to do this in my last department in the city of Four Wall Beach, I think it would be pretty darn difficult because even even if we got buy off of within within the membership, which I think we would, at least on most, if not all of it, we would probably run into all kinds of red tape with the city when it comes to you, you know. I mean, Jesus, man, you everything everything is a liability. Sure.
SPEAKER_02You know what I'm saying? When you operate from a completely different parameters of of risk avoidance than that's what makes it a lot easier for us to do it, you know, where we're at for sure. That was actually one of Todd Edwards' questions. He was in chat and he asked about in today's environment, how important was it to get buy-in from HR, you know, and like you just basically answered his question by saying it's one of the things that you didn't have to worry about at your current organization.
SPEAKER_00Well, the HR, the HR for me at the time was the fire chief.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00And really, you know, he you know, when he brought me in there, I mean, he gave me my marching orders, and the long short of it was don't go in left field and you're good.
unknownRight, right.
SPEAKER_00Here's your guardrails, man. You know, so I mean, I had the I had to get his buy off too. Like I ran everything and I didn't move forward without it. But for me, when I was developing as a deputy, I mean we didn't have HR, but I mean it had to he had to he had to buy off on it as well because he had to answer to the board if anything came up. But uh, you know, it worked.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it was actually I do got to point out Kyle Romacus did say comes from the guy who was double demoted. And I want to say double demoted, promoted, demoted, I think, is how it is the process, if I if I remember the story right. Double demoted, promoted, rehired, demoted, fired, whatever. Okay, some of that was not true. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Still way cooler than me, though, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_02No doubt about one of the coolest cats you can meet. Uh yes, yes. 100%. The uh I wanted to ask you about you said it earlier, and I wanted to I wanted to dig in a little bit, which is uh the people who rank well on the evaluations, they definitely don't have a problem with it, which I know you said it kind of tongue in cheek because they're ranking well, but also because it's true. But what I wonder is what's the spin out for the people who rank poorly and how do their egos handle it? And I know you don't have a huge sample size, but I wondered how that works out.
SPEAKER_00Man, that's a great question, man. You know, um, I've I've seen a few guys here recently that I I think it's been beneficial to them. I think your eyes are open. It's like if you you know, I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to have a 360 eval done on you, you know. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I did it on purpose and I regretted it afterwards. Well, my ego regretted it afterwards, and then once once my bruised ego healed, I was actually able to grow. But yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that's a great analogy. A couple of the guys that have gone through, you know, and I've had conversations with them, you know. So, I mean, especially the ones, you know, that we feel, you know, have a tremendous amount of potential. And what I mean by that is that it, you know, when you start talking about putting the right people in the right seats, right? You know, part of my job as the fire chief, you know, as the deputy and down the battalions is to identify those that we feel that have the potential. And we, and there's a there's a lot of measurements, right? Everything from character to skill set to motivation to how smart they are, how they process it, how they deal with people. But obviously the ones you see have potential, you know, you're gonna feed them a little more. Why? Because they want to be fed a little more. You know, sometimes people jokingly say, Well, that's favoritism. It's not favoritism. Everybody can get fed the equal amount. All you got to do is express the interest and the motivation and come and we'll have those conversations. But in doing so, I've had conversations with guys that have gone through it. And I think it it's really kind of enlightened a few of them. And they were actually feelings were hurt, as mine have been on a 360 eval, you know, because your self-awareness is never completely what you think it is. Right. But once you, but once you're able to get past those feelings, you know, I tell this all the time to everybody. I tell it to my kids. You aren't talking to my three kids, you know, you bring one of them in, they're gonna tell you this. And I say it to firefighters all the time listen, man, you know, an adversity is where you're gonna be defined and is where you're gonna get better. And it's your choice, man. Every time you hit that wall, you hit that period valve that doesn't good do good, listen, get pissed off, have your feelings hurt, let it go off your shoulder, let it marinate, then come back and ask yourself one simple question. Is this gonna be a problem or an opportunity for me? Which one is it gonna be? It's your choice. Almost always you have an opportunity in front of you to choose. You just have to find it. So, where'd be the opportunity for this? For the guy to go, you know, I don't want to be known as that guy. I didn't realize, I didn't realize people really thought that at me. Well, listen, man, this is kind of the way they scourge. And if you want, would you like my opinion? Yeah, and I give them my honest, you know, direct, polite, helping opinion, followed up with some coaching and stuff like that. So to answer your question, I've I've I've had several uh, I've had a handful of guys actually do that and they really want to have conversations, they really want to get better, and they're usually really productive. And I and I help them and tell them, hey, there's some things you should think about. My doors come bounce anything off of me. And then you have some that just they don't really say a whole lot. Um, but I haven't we haven't had any um we haven't had any like I can't think of any like stories to tell you that are negative. I'm sure some people don't like it. But we haven't had any grievances, we haven't had, we haven't had people bitching and complaining, and other than you know, what you may hear occasion from firefighters is what we do.
SPEAKER_02But sure if they're not complaining, they're not firefighters. And uh I would say it's it's the it's what they're complaining about that you really have to evaluate and make sure that that that you have to look and say some things that's hey, that's what they're complaining about, we're in a pretty good place. But uh I I want to say, and this is not talking about your organization, it is talking about, of course, your uh promotional process. But I would imagine that hypothetically speaking, if someone was the person that got the bruised ego and said this system is bullshit, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I I'm sick of this. If if there's there's two types of people that are gonna score low in that system, it's the person that's gonna look at it and then grow from it, which is what the system is designed to to hopefully reward over time, and then there's the person that looks at it and goes, This is BS, this is their problem, not my problem, in which case the system is still doing its job by I don't imagine they're gonna score better than next time if they don't reflect and and do something about it.
SPEAKER_00Problem or opportunity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if you and if you think it sucks, I'm okay with it. Get involved. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, I love it.
SPEAKER_00I absolutely listen. If the union came back to me and the group came back to me and said we want to relook at it, guess what we're gonna do? They don't have to negotiate it, they don't have to bend my arm. If if the majority wants to look at it and they think we're going the wrong direction, I'd be stupid not to open it back up and look at it. Right along. Hence why I always have the union involved. You know, again, this ties for you have the culture and you have the morale and you you're doing things right and taking care of your people. We're not perfect, but you're taking care of your people. If they come up to you with a problem as a group and you ignore it, it doesn't make any sense to do that.
SPEAKER_02No, that's yeah. Uh Seth Drew, great question because it's kind of on topic of the 360 peer, well, directly on topic of 360s. Uh, after promotion, do you continue on with annual 360 peer e-books? And what are your thoughts on this?
SPEAKER_00No, we don't. We need to. Um, we've talked about it for like the last two and a half, three years, you know, and and um one thing I I've said this before, I totally underestimated when I kind of moved to the admin staff from a battalion role to the to the deputy of ops and so on, is there's so much uh administrative work that goes on, even to keep a small organization wheels turning, guys paid, benefits, you know, guys taken care of when they get hurt. There's just so many things. Um, and they're because we're so resource-light on administrative staff, especially in small organizations, things like that just get kicked down the road.
SPEAKER_03Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00But no, we don't. We need to. In fact, it's on my list to develop 360 evals this year because we were supposed to do it last year's quarter for our officer training. Um, because I've have experience with it. We did it in my last organization. I think it's beneficial if it's conducted the right way. Um, we don't yet, but that but that's in the plan. So maybe you know, the four or five years, I'm well, I'll be retired before, but maybe before that I'll come back and tell you how it works when we do it.
SPEAKER_02Is that a hard number? Are you in a drop that where it where it's guaranteed, or is that just a a throw in a dart and that's the likely number?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, with this department, I can do 10 years and they've got a a very nice pension. I just I have to do 10 years to get to it. Um, I I I've said the only way that I'm probably gonna stay, because I mean I'll be 59. Um, you know, so that'd give me almost 40 years. And uh, you know, I want to I want to enjoy the rest of my life and I want to spend every penny of my pensions and my investment with my wife. And I I said there's only two things that's gonna keep me working longer is is uh, you know, one, if if there's a merger in the South End, which there's been talks back and forth, and and it's not, it's really kind of just quiet right now. Um, but if if some reason that does happen where I could be a part of helping that happen, maybe. And then probably the most likely one if I do stay is that you know, my youngest son, uh Caleb, he just uh got hired on by Scambia County Fire Rescue, which is where I spent 14, 14 years of my career in Pensacola there. Um, but uh, but um I mean I I just put something on social media probably about a month ago when he graduated. Now they're in the now they're past the fire academy and now they're actually doing relevant training. But um he's talked to me a lot, you know, about well, hey, will you consider staying longer? Because I told him, you know, as whole things I want to take him to FDTN, take them to meet all you guys. And oh yeah, so you're gonna I see you're gonna be way better at the job than I've ever thought about being, you know, you know. So he is yeah, there may be an opportunity, you know. He works close to me. So I mean it just depends.
SPEAKER_02They'll be only two no family and and family on the job, man. I mean, family matters. Then you then you throw in young family on the job, and holy smokes.
SPEAKER_00Uh oh, he's eating he's eaten it up, man. I I love it. We've every every night we have a conversation, you know, uh include an hour before I came on with you about you know what he's doing over there. And I'll tell him that's the most exciting part is it's it's cool that you, you know, when you when one of your kids are following your footsteps, because I just want him to be happy and love whatever they do. And all three of my kids have found things that they're very passionate about. But it but it is super cool, you know. My youngest now that you know he's found something he wants to do in his adult life. But to watch how excited he is about the job that you, me, and so many people love. It's the best job in the world. And to see that in him, the how excited he is, that that's the coolest thing for me, honestly, because I can just see I'm like, oh, he's got it. He ain't got nothing else. This is what he wants to do, you know. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh Dragon coming at you, Chris, Dragon Scott, chief, on the hierarchy of organizational priorities, budget, staffing, inspections, etc. Where do you put training?
SPEAKER_00Uh, at the top.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, this guy, does this guy know you?
SPEAKER_00Is this is this a soft toss? Come on, come on, Chris. We just talking today, man, about come bringing. I was just talking to him today about bringing him out.
SPEAKER_02I think he was sending you, I think he was I think he was setting you up for uh to to knock one out. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, it's it's it's um, you know, one of the first things that's cut in fire department budgets is training, and it just absolutely makes no sense to me. It is the very reason we exist, like it's it. Like, and and everything should revolve around training. Granted, we we have to make sure we do all of other responsibilities, so I don't want it as an excuse not to do those, but my philosophy has been, you know, and continues to be and will be that training is our highest priority. You know, there's not many days during the week that some form of training uh shouldn't be done, you know. Um, so as far as funding that, that would, you know, if we had, you know, hypothetically, we come in and we had to start doing budget cuts and stuff, you know, there's gonna be a lot of other things I'm gonna cut before I'm gonna cut training. Um, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh Chief Dennis Roddy, first line fire service training coming out. She said, Is the promotional system successful because of the culture in Midway? And would this system work within any other culture? And I'm gonna ask a follow-up question after I let you field that one.
SPEAKER_00No, that's a great question. And and the answer is pretty simple. Um, if it if it had a completely different culture, I don't think it'd work. Right. I don't. I think our our culture cultivates it. Like our culture, our culture actually built it. That's probably a better way to put it. We really did. Like, you know, the the the group wanted these things because of our what they believed in in their culture, what they believed their mission was. Like I was saying earlier, you know, I said I've said this for years, it's in my class, and I I preach it at work, like we've got to be ready to rescue our kids, you know, and I and everybody says that, but that but it but that is the reality of it, you know, um that you know, we have a sense of purpose, you know, that purpose-driven culture that becomes important to you. So when you have that, then putting the right people in the right seats becomes extremely important. But if you don't have that culture, you know, and listen, in in firefighters' defense, to be honest with you, um, you know, there's organizations that create really shitty cultures, man. You know, I mean, I've seen it, I've been a part of it in other departments, you know, that that it, you know, I mean, they get to the point where they just survive and they they, you know, they hit a paycheck and and go home because that's the way that their organization is, because there's so much that's not in their control.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Those organizations, yeah, I don't think this would, I don't think it'd work at all. In fact, I think the unions, the unions would fight it heavily, you know, and and if and given their circumstances, a lot of them, I I can't say that I blame them.
SPEAKER_02Blame them. No, no, without a doubt. I I'm with you. Yeah, I can absolutely see that. Because one thing, the what the follow-up question I wanted to have is how much of this comes from, because I firmly believe in in I I know you can lead from any position, so that's not what I'm saying, but I firmly believe the culture of an organization is directed by the person at the top, and positive or negative, or by um what's it what's the word abdication, like just letting it become what it becomes. But how much of this leaves when you leave, how much of this was from Kanzig in front of you, developing it, setting you up for success, and how much leaves when you leave if you don't have a proper succession or or develop it if that if that makes sense, what I'm trying to ask.
SPEAKER_00No, it makes complete sense, and it's it's right in line with everything that we're trying to do. So, yeah, I did start with Chief Jonathan Kanzig. He he was the fire chief for 18 years, you know, close personal friend of mine. I went to high school with, and we started in two different in Fort Wallon together, and he went to City of Mobile, and then came back this way, and then you know, as luck had it, we ended up working back together. But he had already established a good foundation there, you know. And and when he was talking to me about coming over there, my original plan to retire was to go to Escambia and finish out some years there because I was in state retirement. Um, he basically, you know, said, Hey, I want you to come over and and do the things that you keep talking about doing. And one of the things that convinced me is they have that foundation, right? You know, so it it really, it really had a good match because I didn't feel like I was going into an organization where I could walk through the engine bay and they didn't understand the value of having your gear on the floor ready for the next fire. They didn't understand the value of the difference between a hooligan and a halligan, like that could have been more difficult. Um, so what what's my our purpose when he brought me in was success succession planning was to make it better. He um decided to retire earlier than what he told me. In retrospect, he told me that was kind of his plan. He just didn't tell me because he thought I wouldn't take the deputy job to desire to do this. Right. But now, now where we're at now, we're constantly talking about succession planning. We're talking about it, we're putting in our documents, and this goes back to the original question. And I wrote an article that my brother kind of pushed me on about six months ago, and is you know, it's called getting the right people on the bus in the right seats. And that is succession planning. So, my job now is to ensure that I put the right fire chief in a position to continue the culture, to continue uh the proactive fire and EMS culture, so that it's important that we're great and we're not good at the job. It's important to put a fire chief in there that cares deeply about the men, that makes decisions to ensure that they're taken care of, so those men don't have to negotiate for shit they already deserve, that we just automatically work with them and we make sure they have what they need in a very fair, responsible way and manage it. Also, my job to make sure, or the depth mine and my deputy's job to make sure they put the right deputy chief in there to continue the operational culture. Because what we do in my department that I think may vary in others, is that our ops chief is our ops chief. Like he is the last stop. If you go in there and you ask him about something operationally based, you're hard pressed for him not to have a good answer for you, unlike a lot of places. We we don't overburden him with administrative shit that has nothing to do with operations.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00His focus is operations and training. My focus is to strategically run the fire department and try to take as much off of I can at him so that he's out doing what he was doing this past week, doing three days of search training with firefighters, right? Um and then it goes down to the battalion level too, which is why we have a professional portfolio and we have the period of how do we put those people because the battalion, if we're doing it, if we're doing it correctly, we're putting the right people in the right places to eventually move into the right positions, right?
SPEAKER_02And continue to culture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the goal, and the goal is is to do better than than Jonathan did. And I and I and I've told the people below me, your goal, like I'm hoping when I leave here, you know, you guys say that I did a little bit better than him. And then, you know, when I'm gone, you know, and look back, you guys come in and do a hell of a lot better than I did. And in my last organization, which is the you know, I loved for the city of Fawalk Beach, you know, a super proactive fire culture, uh older type city organization, a small department. You know, we went to a handful of fires. The guys are really, really good at that stuff. Um, but they sucked at succession planning, which is why I'm not there, which is why nobody ever stays there. There's one thing I'll criticize is the city does not do a good job at that. So for me, you know, coming over here is like, well, I know exactly what I'm not gonna do and what I'm gonna work on. And then Jonathan brought me in and he was just talking about succession planning, right people, right places. This is what we got to do, you know. So it's it's super, super important. And then, you know, you talk about legacy, you know, my legacy of my kid, my kids are what they're gonna say about me when I'm gone. That's the most important thing. But if I'm gonna remove that out of the picture and say, what's the next most important? It's once I leave midway, they can look back and say, Well, what does that organization look like now that Shannon's gone? Right. Is it a is it in shambles because we put the wrong people in the right places, or did they somehow, someway managed to put the right people in the right places and the culture got better, the performance got better, and the way we take care of ourselves got better. Like that's the whole goal. So it's super, super important. And um, yeah, it's you know, it's it's a lot of work. I'm finding out now at this position with the planning and the stuff that has to go on with expansion and you know, and a and a generation with tiring out and a new generation coming in. It's it's definitely it's definitely work, but it's but it's a but it's a good problem to have, you know, it's it's a good thing. Don't get me wrong, you know.
SPEAKER_02So Rob Fisher coming at you. Rob F and Fisher says, as you moved from company officer leading the work up to fire chief, what belief about leadership did you have to unlearn? And how did that change the way you lead today?
SPEAKER_00Ooh, unlearn, man. It's a great one.
SPEAKER_02So a good friend of mine. That's the opposite of a soft toss, by the way. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a good friend of mine. Uh, her name is Ginny Craner. She's the fire chief of the city of uh Pensacola, the first female fire chief in over the 200 year history of that fire department. Great fire chief, well respected. And she had spoken at our gala this past year, and she said, you know, we need to learn, unlearn, and relearn again. And I was like, oh my God, that's good. Like I never come up with these quotes. Like I always learn from somewhere. But I'm I it reminds me of that when Rob said that. You know, what do you have to learn, unlearn, and then learn again? I'm I'm not entirely sure, other than what I underestimated was how much work it takes to be the leader that you want to be each rank you go up. Because every rank you go up, there is just more challenges and more layers. I I don't know, Rob. I mean, that's a good question, man. You kind of stumped me. Like, what did I have to? I feel like I'm constantly unlearning and learning stuff again. I mean, in the most basic sense, because things change so much. But if there's one takeaway from from when I was working on you know operations to the staff, uh I don't know, Rob. I guess I'll have an answer for you in South Bend in a couple months when I'm teaching. Will you? I that's I have to think about that one to really nail it down. No doubt. Okay. He did. Sorry, sorry, Rob. I failed you on that one, brother. I had to think about that.
SPEAKER_02I liked it. Um I'm looking through these questions here. I'm looking through these questions. I don't understand Steve's. Mauch, I don't understand your question too much. I uh you might reword it and try again. Uh looking here, what would you say to Chiefs? Uh okay, here we go. This is from Ed Berg. He's saying, What would you say to the Chiefs that are removing scores from rankings so they can place individuals in the ranking they want? He's asking for a friend.
SPEAKER_00Um I I just I disagree with it. I mean that's usually that's usually sorry, that's my killer dog. Um in my experiences that's usually a negotiated from management to union, where management wants to have the ability to to pick out of the top five or ten or whatever they call it. Now, listen, in the perfect world, I get it. You know, I'd like to have the opportunity to do that, but I think it opens so many doors for perception of unfairness. And I've seen it time and time again in my career. As a union guy, I've never been an advocate for it because it's come up multiple times and we have we have adamantly opposed it and we've never allowed it to happen because it because if you don't have the right person in that right position, then uh the right decisions aren't going to be made. And even if you have the right person, it's still gonna be a perception of unfairness. So here's what I would challenge those chiefs is to develop a process that you end up with the result that you want. And I think for us, that was our goal was we wanted to develop a process where I didn't feel like I needed to pick from the top five or the top three or the top ten or whatever it is. And and and honestly, I mean, I've said it earlier, like, I mean, you know, the people who rose to the top, the top, you know, handful of candidates that placed one through five or six or three or four, or whatever it was that was testing, I would have taken any of them. They were all good. Like, I would have had a hard time sometimes choosing which ones to to take. So, no, I mean I guess to wrap the question up, I mean, I'm not an advocate for it. I think there's a perception that can easily work against the leadership and and um the the quote unquote management side of unfairness. It's just to me, fix the other problem, and you don't need to do that, you know. But that's just my opinion. That's just my opinion.
SPEAKER_02No, it's great, it's great. Uh, I got two questions coming at you here, different topics. I like this one come from Kyle Piverall. He always asks good questions, but he said the majority of organizationals let me let me start. The majority of organizational slash policy changes normally comes from the admin level. What are street level things we can do to help influence this type of change and leadership style? So, what would you like to see? I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah. What would affect you from the street level is what I'm guess I would ask.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, a lot of times in organizations, man, there's a gap from the street level to the to the admin side, you know, and I think that's one of the things that's right. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the biggest problem. I mean, if you can fix that disconnect, you know, um you you can actually have that conduit of change coming up. But but you mentioned earlier, like leaderships, you know, it can be done at every level, right? And you can lead at every level, certainly, but you know, it really the the pulse and the pace starts at the top. At the top, especially in the small organization. So one of the things that we've done is we've created that conduit, that conduit of of that roadmap of the ability for the guys to bring stuff up. I mean, everything with from over-communicating the why behind what we do to we work hard on transparency, agendas, minutes, uh, battalion briefs, I mean, anything that goes on, you know, we have we have, you know, policies that require our officers to sit down with our firefighters to go over the officer minutes. They're required to talk to their people, that if their people have issues or questions or suggestions or concerns, to bubble them up at the officers' meetings to have those discussions. Um, anytime we're trying to make a major initiative in the fire department, um, we will put a committee together, not just to say we did a committee, but we we we sincerely grab people to try to help develop it. So if you if you can close that disconnect, and again, from a firefighter's perspective, that can be difficult because you don't control it. But if there's a disconnect, it can be it can be really difficult. Now, if there's a disconnect, what I could what I would propose to you is is to find somebody, you know, that has a seat at the table. You know, good company officers have seats at a lot of tables. Um, well-respected battalion chiefs have seats at even larger tables, right? So if you know these individuals, you know, you have relationships with them and you can have discussions with them to help kind of get things floated up, whether it's to fix a flawed policy to create something or to update something, that's probably gonna be your best avenue to do it if for some reason there's just a major disconnect from the ground level up, you know, find find the decision makers, man. You know, start to start talking to them. Then of course, we could go into a rabbit hole on that. You got to have credibility before you even get to that point. Sure. So if you're a six-year, a six-month, 12-month, 24-month guy, I mean, you you may just have to be patient, you know, to have credibility. I remember being on the job three years and was wondering if anybody was ever going to listen to me, right? You know, I was a 21-year-old kid too at the time, you know, 20, 21, whatever it was, I started really young. But but, you know, having that credibility at your level so that you, you know, can have those conversations where they want to hear your opinion. And and uh, and for us, we can be really impatient, you know. Um, sometimes it takes a little time to build that credibility up, to have those connections, to have people that have connections all the way up, especially again, especially when there's that large disconnect. So I don't know if that helped or not, but no, no, I think absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I think it's a beautiful. I mean, the major issue is the disconnect. Deal with the disconnect and work on your and focus on your what you can control. Seth Drew says, our recent talent pool hasn't met our standards for interviews or physical testing. What new channels or criteria are you using to find top-tier applicants?
SPEAKER_00Um, another great question. So here in the panhandle of Florida, um, state of Florida in general, but especially the panhandle, there is a shortage of firefighters. So, I mean, it's a great, you know, it's a great time to find a job up here. And the state's actually relaxing a lot of the qualifications where they're actually allowing other states to have reprocity coming in, which the state has never done because they finally realize there's a need for it. But what do to your question, what we do up here is we actually do a lot of recruiting out of the fire academies before they're they're actually certified. So in the state of Florida, you have to be a state certified firefighter, usually a state certified firefighter EMT or paramedic to really go to work anywhere to get your foot in the door. Um, so we're grabbing a lot of these young kids before their schooling is complete because a lot of places won't even look at you in the state of Florida, career fire departments, without already being a certified firefighter and at a minimum a firefighter EMT. So, to the point of your question, at the very beginning of uh the scrap, we talked about the hiring process and how important it is. We actively go find these individuals of fire academies. And one of the areas that we've had a lot of luck in is our lifeguard programs. We have some pretty top-tier lifeguard programs uh from Pensacola Beach to Navarre Beach, um to Fort Walton Beach to Destin, all the way to Panama City Beach. And these are top USLA programs that that breed really good athletic uh young guys and gals. We've had luck um kind of recruiting from that area too. But what we're doing differently is we're investing money and time in these individuals instead of hitting the easy button and just waiting for a certified guy to show up. Well, we got to hire him because he's certified. Now you're you're hiring somebody that does meet the standards. The other thing that we do too, unofficially, is you know, we do have essentially like a no-hire list. And what that basically looks like is that the hiring board of five people, you know, we we interview 30 people and five out of that 30. All five of the hiring board unanimously says this individual we don't believe will fit into our organization. They just get moved to the side.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00I didn't get moved to the side. We just when we get down to a certain point on the list, we make a we make a decision of when we're gonna test again. The point being is that we don't we don't bend our standards. We're not perfect. I mean, it makes sound like we are, we're not, but we just don't, and I won't. You know, we'll go out and we will spend more money and we will invest more time in interviewing and recruiting to try to get the right person, you know. Um, and then after that, we have a 12-month probationary phase uh phase, it's three phases. They go through quarterly tests, they're easy tests, or past-pass tests, but they have an evaluation and it's 100% subjective. And they have to meet standards on all like 20 criteria. If they don't meet one, not meet standards, they go to performance improvement plans. If they don't, if they don't improve, we ship them out. Um, so the vetting that first year is pretty serious. I think we get it right the vast majority of the time. I mean, since I've been there, we have, you know. Um, so depending on what state you're at or where you're at, that might be options that you can do. I mean, it works, it works pretty good for us, you know. No doubt. A little more time and money to do it, though.
SPEAKER_02I understand Steve Mounts' question now. I think I was just reading it wrong. He says, I may have missed it earlier, but aside from the book knowledge, is there a mentoring process built in for those looking to promote prior to being put in the seat?
SPEAKER_00There's not a formal mentoring process, but what we have developed the last six years is that every rank has got what we call a step-up training program. It's very comprehensive. So starting with driver, um, there's certain minimum qualifications that you have to have as a firefighter to be eligible to go into what's called the step-up driver program. Um, and then after that, it's a you you basically kind of give you a backdrop on it. You have to have a 40-hour state class from the state, 40-hour hydraulics class. Um, you have to be recommended by your company officer. Then, once accepted, you go into an in-house 50-hour driver academy class with the fire department. Then from there, you get a task book that you go out into the field, you're assigned your company, your captain, and your driver actually go through a series of training. It takes about six, five or six months of tons of comprehensive signed off, not just done it once, but do a competency. Once it's signed off, from there it goes to the deputy chief. The deputy chief actually goes through a test out process, which has two practical scenarios that mirror exactly what they're going to have when they promote for that particular position, different scenarios, but the same exact process. And then if you look at company officer and battalion chief, it's a similar process and a similar time frame. Um, the difference between battalion chief and captain and driver is in order for you to be eligible to be trained up as a battalion chief, you have to have the consensus of all three battalion chiefs. So we just have one battalion, you know. So we have three battalion chiefs. So if one battalion chief doesn't agree, then that person does not get a green light to test. So there is no free pass. So you have to have credibility and you have to have the reputation so that all three battalion chiefs say, you know what, I think Corley, I think he's ready to do it. Another guy says, I'm sorry, he just came off my shift. Don't take it wrong, but I don't think he's ready. He needs to spend more time. It does not go to the deputy from there. So we have we have built in comprehensive training programs that since I've been there, we actually created an incentive program because I'm gonna I'm gonna share something everybody that's gonna blow everybody away that's watching this. It's important to actually pay your people and take care of them.
SPEAKER_03What?
SPEAKER_00So we built incentive programs so that each time they get this qualification, they start receiving an incentive. In addition to that, if they have to operate in an acting position, so let's just say we got a guide towards bicep just three days ago. So we have to put somebody into an acting driver's position, then they immediately get out-of-class pay on top of their incentive pay. The point being is that we're asking an enormous amount from these individuals when it comes to training and preparation, because back to the question about 30 minutes ago, where does training lay as a priority for us? It's at the top. But along with that, you know, we need to make sure that we take care of our people by compensating them the best that in the fairest way that we can. This is gonna be an incentive that's gonna continue to increase as we increase the demands on our firefighters. So all the way through the ranks, we have these training programs, and that there is nothing about them that's easy. And what I mean by that is like, I mean, if you're into the job, they're easy, you're gonna enjoy them. But I mean, you there are certain benchmarks that you got to have to get to a place. You got recommendations, then you got to go through the process. And then on every single rank, with the exception of battalion, you got to be tested out and approved to ride up as a driver or ride up as a captain. Um, and that doesn't even make you eligible at that point. You still have to spend a certain time in rank as a step up before you become eligible to even sit in for the promotional exam of the next uh the next rank up. Wow.
SPEAKER_02So it's pretty comprehensive.
SPEAKER_00It's very comprehensive, yeah. And it's designed anyway intentionally because you know the the whole training aspect is that you know the you know, the gap between us getting hurt and killed on the fire ground is training, you know.
SPEAKER_02Check check check. All right, you got it. Sorry, I was getting an echo. I'm getting an echo on some something, but uh moving on. And we got more, I got a few more questions I want to get to because I love all three of these questions, so I want to get to all of them. What type of class? This comes from Jay Moses R. I'm not sure who his that name is, but Jay Moses R says, What types of classes, regardless of required cert, do you think are most important to promote to company officer?
SPEAKER_00Well, I can only speak in the state of Florida. Um honestly, man, for company officer, the the the best course when you start talking about being prepared to do the job as a company officer, I'm gonna I'm gonna move the leadership stuff aside, okay, because that could be a whole nother conversation. But let's just talk about the tactical task-oriented skills. Um is hands-on conferences and lecture conferences from reputable uh instructors, credible instructors.
SPEAKER_03Boom.
SPEAKER_00Most of them out there are, honestly, but for anybody who teaches on the circuit, they're going to tell you there there are some that you you need to kind of be aware of because they're going to mislead you. Um, the other big thing, and we're actually contemplating doing this, I think we're gonna end up doing it, is uh is FDTN. Um I can tell I'm a fan of FDTN and what Jim McCormick and those guys do up there.
SPEAKER_01100%.
SPEAKER_00Um we're we're talking about making the company officer class a prerequisite to sit in for the promotional exam for captain, which for anybody who's familiar with FDTN, you've got to go through the engine class to get to the company officer class. Um, we are small departments, so our budget's not crazy. So we funnel a lot of our money to FDTN each year instead of instead of going to FDIC. So we send a lot of guys up there. But I can tell you that, you know, FD, I told Jim this. I I had the really cool opportunity of going up there last October and and sitting in on the command class and just shadowing everything and really getting to see the behind the scenes. And I've known Jim for you know a good long time. Um, but as a young firefighter, I honestly just wasn't aware of FDTN. And man, I told him when I was up there, I said, I wish I would have known about you guys when I was in my 20s when you started this place. Because man, I could have been so much better. You know, because what they teach me. Those guys teach there. I mean, holy smokes. Those guys are the those guys are the um, they're kind of like the silent, I hate to use the word heroes. That's not what I'm looking for, but they those guys just fly under the radar and they teach up there because they just want to share unbelievable knowledge. And then the facilities they have up there where you can, you know, like the command, the combat class we were doing uh with the command, then they went to 35 working fires in like four days. You know how long it'd take me to get 35 working fires in the apartment I'm at now. Right, right. You know, and and I and I've told, you know, I've told my son this that, you know, he gets a year under and we're going, man. We're hitting all the series because that's so beneficial. So to Jay back to your question was what could it do? Well, I can tell you just in my personal experiences and guys that I know that are really, really good at the job, is the you know, going to conferences, immersing yourself in it, studying the lecture part. You have to understand the why behind what we do. Once you send understand the why, you can operate in the gray area. My brother used to say, he likes to say, you understand the black and the white, you can operate very effectively in the gray. What that means is if you understand the why behind things, the gray starts making sense, the puzzles start coming together. And then FDTN just provides, like, you know, if you could afford to go to FTN and over a period of time just start chipping away at those classes, the stuff that you will learn from those guys at the FDTN, you will not learn anywhere else, hands down. Now, I gotta say this though, I gotta caution you. Um, you got to pace yourself. Okay. There's a lot of guys that just immerse themselves so much into it that it has an it has an impact on their personal life and not to get into that. But there's a balance that a lot of of guys like us have struggled with over the years. Absolutely. And we usually don't figure it out until we're like deep into it and we realize that you know there's some things that that we sacrificed unintentionally. So I would caution you as you do that, you know, to pace it with your with your family life, your personal life, and everything else. But those two areas, I mean, if you're asking me, when it when it comes down to it, though those areas, which is why both those areas I mentioned are measured in our promotional exam because we feel it's so important. That's what's that's gonna that's really what's going to prepare you, I think, a lot for the company officer position.
SPEAKER_02Boom. And I like how you, I mean, because you said a whole other discussion, pushing leadership to the side. But I like what Kyle Romagas did say in the YouTube chat. He said, uh Nuggets from the right seat, he says from the back of the room, cough, cough. So I know you said I know you shoved leadership to the side, but if you can catch that class, it is worth it. Okay. Lou on 72. Lou on ladder 72. Let me be very clear. That is Rob Effenfisher. What leadership trait will the next generation of fire chiefs need that your generation didn't? See, Rob's getting cerebral on you, so I know he is, man. He's throwing he's throwing someone's um hard drop it in.
SPEAKER_00That's a load of question. It could go a lot of different directions. Um I don't know, man. Um this is gonna sound super basic and almost too basic. It's just care more about your men, like, and I know they do. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I've always been critical of Chiefs, and I think I have every right to be now that I've been in that position for a while, but we lose sight a lot of times, and and I think um, and I've said this for years, and I continue to maintain this philosophy as a fire chief, is putting others before self. You know, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I can tell you one thing I worked my ass off to do, you know, as a man and as a as a father and a husband, is to try to put others before myself. And I think if if fire chiefs um could focus on doing that more, I think they would be more impactful. You know, but but here's the thing if you if you haven't practiced that in your career, don't expect to do it as a chief. So that could be that could lead you into another rabbit hole. You know, a lot of times guys get promoted in our job and they're the wrong guys to get promoted. But part of the reason why they get promoted is because of of you know, half-assed promotional processes, and more importantly, organizations don't do a good job at encouraging people to move up. So the good guys stay at company officers, they stay at firefighters, and the guys that aren't that good just move on up. And before you know it, those guys are in positions that are making decisions that affect my life, your life, the organization's culture, the direction. You know, I mean, I've said this, you know, a handful of times, and my brother reminded me of my own advice before I took this job. If not you, then who, man? Like, you know, so I say all that that if you don't do it, practice it when you're younger. It's not like you're just gonna magically clip a chief and have an epiphany. You know, it's like, it's like, you know, I mean, your certain way as a teenager, you're probably gonna be similar when you're an adult, you know. I mean, um, but I don't know, Rob, you got some tough ones, but I would probably say that's one of the things that I've I've seen some chiefs out there, especially through our network, you know, over this stuff that are really good at it, but I've just seen so many. And all that, and I will say this, though, I'll say this, and maybe some local guys in my, you know, in the last county I'm working in is listening, like the tides changing, my friends, at least for us here in the panhandle. Like, you know, the county that I worked in before Okaloosa, which is, you know, sits between Panama City and Pensacola, um, the four wall and destin area, like there's a lot of career departments over there, and they're most most of them are pretty small, but they all work together. Man, the Chiefs that have been promoted over the last seven, eight years, they are home runs, man. Like, so I'm sitting here like I'm bagging on Chiefs, but in my own area, you know, we've got guys, you know, that are that are being promoted in all these departments in Okaloosa County that were that they were the movers and shakers like you guys, you know, and now they're moving up. So maybe we are starting to see a swing. Maybe we are starting to see some chiefs that are really wanting to put you know others before themselves and you know, and focus on building, you know, the training culture on what's important.
SPEAKER_02So it's beautiful. And I know I could like what your brother said, which you bring up, David James, DJ, one of my top, I always say one of my top like five Stone brothers of anybody named Stone. But uh, it reminded me of 343, scrap 343 with Chief Richardson when he was saying, there comes a point in your career when you owe it to the department, you owe it to the the men and women of the department to promote because it's time to give back, it's not about you anymore. And he said it in a much more eloquent manner, but that was the gist of it. And that one hit like that. So maybe that's maybe we're seeing that come around. All right, one more here, and this one's from JV81. He says, How do you stay grounded in the job while dealing with everything on your plate as the chief?
SPEAKER_00I go to fires. There you go. Not even a hesitation. Well, I mean, you know, I wish I could say I go to a lot of them. You know, we we work right outside of Pensacola. It's it's a newest suburban area. So, I mean, we we covered the entire south end of the county with two other departments. Um, so we do we do the guys actually go to a decent amount of fires given you know our our our uh demographics, but but in all seriousness, like you know, I've been asked that question before is I stay connected to things I absolutely love, you know. And I I I wrote a little article thing I submitted a while back, just kind of disappeared. But uh, but one of them was like that is I I I go to fires, I put myself in the environments that that motivate me, you know. Um, I don't have to go to fires. I have a deputy chief. I have three battalion chiefs. I'm surrounded by chiefs and other departments, but it's something I thoroughly enjoy doing. I make a deliberate effort to put me around stuff that uh that motivates me, grounds me, and reminds me of why I I do what I do. And and you have to, and I've definitely in the last 12 months, January is a year for me as a fire chief, so a little over 12 months. Um, I've definitely found out what's really changed perspective is I have to, I have to, I have to make a deliberate effort to do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because you get so you get so busy, you know. This morning I I I was up at five. I was got an exercise in. I was at work by 7:30, 8-ish. Around 7 30, I sat in front of a computer with exception of 30 minutes lunch until I left today at 5 30. I was just whooped. Yeah. But there were things I had to get done, but though that schedule just pulls you away. So you got to make that, you got to make that that deliberate effort. And, you know, and I still, you know, I've mentioned this before in other chats that I've had that, you know, on Fridays, I've learned this from a chief many years ago where I make rounds and I still continue to do that as the fire chief. Not as good as I was doing. I have got to get better at it, you know. But I make rounds and I sit down with the companies, the battalions are not allowed in and to be in the meetings or the informal meetings, and they know it. They know exactly why. They're cool with it. It's my opportunity to talk with them. No chain of command. Sometimes we just bullshit about what's going on. Other times they've got some, they got some some good questions. They know that it it stays with me. It doesn't go any further. I never throw anybody on the bus. It just helps me adjust my leadership sales. You know, it's an opportunity for me to talk with them and kind of have some coffee with them and and see, make sure they have everything they need. So that helps a lot too. It helps me get grounded, you know. I mean, I mean, firemen are, you know, I said this at a eulogy at a buddy of mine who just passed away a couple weeks ago. Man, it's a fireman of my heroes, man. Like I I love hanging out with them and sitting and sitting at the kitchen table and having coffee, you know, that's another way that keeps me grounded, you know. And I and I I do it because I enjoy doing it, but I do it. I see all the chiefs that I I grew up under that I aspired to be like would do that. And I just always appreciated them sitting around and just bullshitting with us and catching up and allowing us to allowing us to vent to them. So I would say probably those two areas is is what I deliberately do.
SPEAKER_02And you know, I can say that uh everybody loved the instant answer of I Go to Fires, and it was max points, max points, mic drop, mic drop, mic drop from the YouTube audience. So absolute uh 100% approval from the internet audience. So that takes me to one of my favorite questions I love to ask. I absolutely love this question. Book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. Doesn't have to be a firefighter book, but what books do you think firefighters should be reading?
SPEAKER_00Well, you you're gonna think I'm just trying to make you feel good, but the search book, the last one you did. Honestly, like, hey, you wrote in it. I didn't write in it. I don't know how, but I appreciate it. Yeah, it was pretty cool. But I mean, that that that right there, you know, we we bought a bunch of them actually when they came out and and put them in the firehouses, you know, because it's just it's it's just like tons of you know, it's it's like a it's like a book for the ADD firefighter. You know, you got one subject, you just go on to the next subject, you're on the next subject. You know, um, you know, aside from that, I say this every single time, and it's my opinion's probably not gonna change is that you know, I'm a I'm a big leadership guy, uh, you know, I because it the communication, you know, is and how you lead it just ties into everything we're trying to do. Like if you don't communicate effectively, then you you're not really gonna be successful what you do. It ties into leadership. And John Maxwell is a guy, you know, his books that I've read and kind of studied over the years, and there's so many things that that he teaches, you know. I've said this a million times, he he knows nothing about firefighting, um, but knows everything about human beings. You know, and he he has so many good leadership lessons. A lot of this other stuff he talks about is is um, you know, is faith-based, you know, so it really connects with me, you know. So I tell people when they're looking for leadership books is that uh any one of John's books, I think, are are really, really good. Um aside from that, man, there's there's there's a lot of there's a lot of good ones out there. But if I'm being perfectly honest with you, your book is the only one. Well, your book and Castros and Brush's book are the only two books I picked up probably in the last three or four years because I just feel like I've been overwhelmed. Like my free time, I believe it's not sitting and reading books on the weekend, unlike some of these other.
SPEAKER_02I just you know, I'm out doing trying to be deliberate and go to fires and and make your rounds. That's it. All right, no, a hundred percent. Hey, and I always I always say I was a big I I got to I'm proud to be a part of the book of search, but I didn't write any of it. I just I was just a facilitator, I was just a gas pedal, and so all the 44 authors, I think it's I may get the numbers wrong. 44 authors, 47 articles that made it happen, you and your brother included, and a lot of other great firemen who invested their knowledge into it. And and 100% I love it. Uh so thank you for that. And I had one more question because I said I was done, but there was one more that popped up, and it's from it's from DJ 850 Fireman or something on YouTube. But he says, What's it like having a younger brother who can surf better than you asking for a friend?
SPEAKER_00He you know, at this point in our life, he probably can't surf better than me. But for the but for the record, for the for the 40-something years before that, I surfed way better than him.
SPEAKER_02So way better. I wondered. I didn't know if there was, I wasn't sure if that was I didn't know I don't know a lot of DJs in the 850, but I was wondering. Okay, we do a thing called the Five Questions for Firefighters. It's been a while since you've done it, and the questions have changed. The the the rules haven't, which is there is no correct answer, just your opinion. And the points are arbitrary, passed out by me with the help of the audience. So, Chief Shannon Stone, are you ready for the I don't even know the five questions for firefighters version 5.0?
SPEAKER_00I'm ready, man. Hit me.
SPEAKER_02Number one, you can be anything in the world except be a firefighter. What would you choose to be?
SPEAKER_03I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say a surfer, a professional surfer, but that was my my my much, much uh younger years. You know, that's that's a really tough question, quite honestly, because this is the only thing I've ever known. This is what I absolutely love doing. You know, if I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be doing something, you know, entertaining people. You know, I love the water, fishing, boating, stuff like that. You know, I'd be retired. That's what I'm gonna do in four years, is exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be retired. Be retired. A whole lot of I'm gonna be I'm gonna be camping, riding motorcycles, you know, surfing, fishing, traveling. Right on. That's gonna be my other that's gonna be my other job other than the fire department.
SPEAKER_02That is his other job other than the fire department. And I meant to make I meant to mention this when DJ piped in. Uh he for to get the other Stone brother, episode 353, if nothing changes. Because sometimes I add a special episode. But if nothing changes between now and then, about two months from now, DJ Stone is coming on to discuss. So he will be coming back on the scrap. But that being said, back to the questions for firefighters. Number two, it's job town. It's time. You're in route and responding. Think of the scene from Backdraft where he slaps that tape into that cassette deck. What song are you playing while in route?
SPEAKER_00Something from Too Short. I know that sounds weird, but I grew up, man, I'm gonna grew up in the 80s. You know, I grew up with uh, you know, when rap came out. Right on.
SPEAKER_02So do you have one? Because there I the reason I asked for specifics is because there's a Spotify playlist, and your answer will get added to the playlist that people download and listen to.
SPEAKER_00So if you have I'm gonna tell you right now because I'm trying to recall it, but I'm gonna look at it and get it right.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And don't ask like sometimes on songs I can help out if they just give me a lyric or something, but uh here I am zero help. Just another day by too short. Just another day by too short. Beautiful. No, you get yeah. And the thing is is max points for too short. Probably one of the biggest uh requests we get is more hip-hop. And more old school hip hop can never hurt. Number three, so max points on the song. Number three, cold weekend at the station. Checks are done, training is done, food is simmering in the crock pot. You're in the day room. You I don't know how cold it gets in the panhandle, but it's a nice cold, I don't know, in the 50s, you know, there, whatever you call cold, but it you're clicking through the channels. What's the show? What's the movie that no matter how many times you've seen it before, you stop and finish that movie? What's that movie for you? There's two of them, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Uh, another rap related one Friday. That's a classic, man. Friday? I could Friday. I could re rehearse that whole and another one too, man. I mean, is uh it's backdraft, like you know, that came out in like 91, 92. I started in 90. Yeah, I don't know what it is about that. I mean, it's the you know, the characters, the firehouse, and it reminds me back when I was a young firefighter. Yeah, no, I've watched I've watched that a million times. So either one of those, you know, I just actually was watching Friday like last weekend, so for the hundredth time.
SPEAKER_02So I feel it, I feel it. Number four on the clock. This one we had to put a clock on because if we don't, people tend to go on and on and on explaining it. So the rules are answer it within the minute, not afterwards, don't tell us the explanations afterwards. Within the minute, you get one minute to put your four people that are your Mount Rushmore of the fire service and go.
SPEAKER_00Man, that's a tough question. There are so many. I'd probably have to say, you know, Alan Brunicini, just because he changed so much of the American fire service that we we know today. Um Bill Guston, you know, rest in peace, my brother, you know. But that guy had such an impact on the fire service and me. Absolutely, you know, over the years. Um Andy Fredericks, you know, I never knew him, I never met him. I had an opportunity to teach, you know, in his classes at FDIC, which just opened my eyes. And I'd say the last 20 years, he's had such an impact on the American fire service, even after he passed, you know, and then uh one another guy that comes to mind that you know I've become friends with over the years. I haven't seen him probably in a couple years, but Chief Mike Lombardo. There's things that we do today in the panhandle that come directly from him. But man, there's so many of them. God, like so many new school dudes that you know that I could think could fit that mold. So, you know.
SPEAKER_02Bruno, Gustin, Fredericks Lombardo. Brother, that is, I mean, if you want to if you want a solid, arguable, uh stand the test of time, uh, but rushmore, you got max points on that one, without a doubt. Final question. This is the question that will never change. Heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on a VES?
SPEAKER_00The nozzle. I'm an engine guy, man. I've done them both, and I just I've always been loved, you know. I've always enjoyed, I just love, I just always enjoyed letting you know engine work. I love it to be on the nozzle. So give you the knob. Uh oddly enough, my son, my youngest, asked me that the other day for some reason. Oh, really? Yeah, I don't know where it came from.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, maybe he has good taste in podcasts. Yeah, yeah, maybe so. Possible. No, I no, 100%. The five questions for firefighters, according to Chief Shannon Stone, which officially puts 346 scraps in the books. I can't still care. Yeah, that's crazy. Chief, if someone wants to get a hold of you, what is the best way to do so?
SPEAKER_00Um, probably just Facebook, quite honestly. You know, that are through 850 Fireman. It's a Facebook page my brother and I run that we don't do a whole lot with other than just share stuff. Um, but either that or you know, my emails, my name, Shannon.stone at midwayfire.com.
SPEAKER_02I want to be very clear. Like we had a list of topics to talk about, and we got to one of them, sir. So I will not wait four years. I'm not waiting four years to bring you back. We're gonna have to do this again and do it again soon, just to get to the other stuff. Because hey, that this is what we didn't get to performance measures, defining great performance by seconds, and how they have a series of semi-annual fire ground tasks that all personnel must complete. So that's a whole nother it's not this ain't theoretical. This is like an actual system put in place that they use, and then operational talking about the two and a quarter and how much it's not a very common nationwide hose line, but a game changer for you and and and talking about that. So that's that's what we didn't even get to. So we're we're definitely gonna have to do this again because we didn't even get to all the questions. We did not questions, not not just your topic. So again, uh, we'll make it happen. Okay, housekeeping for me. Go to patreon.com slash the vigilantes. The discord is up and running. And if you're not in the discord, why not like that? It is a gatekeeper because it you have to jump through some hoops to get on the Discord, and if you're not dedicated enough to jump through those hoops, then you don't make it. But if you do, man, you are connected to one of the best networks. And it's like all the plus sides of networking without all the downsides of social media. So it's an amazing place to hang out with like-minded souls. So go become a part of it. And one of the cool parts is you get to go to the after party, which is coming up after the show, where we get to go and roast Chief Shannon Stone and tell him how terrible of a job he did on the scrap. And he's looking forward to that and said, bring it on. So, all that being said, coming up next week on the scrap, it is Mr. Muddy River here to talk fire, photos, and fools. Dave Dabowski coming on the chat. Two weeks from today, it's time to talk some leadership and motivation with the one and only Chris Bloom. So you know it's gonna be fun. All right, enough jabbering for me. I love it. Let's get to the after party. Thank you once again, Chief Shannon Stone. I really enjoyed the conversation. I know that the audience did just from the in-depth questions that they asked on the the one topic we kind of got to cover. So that was amazing. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man. Thank you, Corley. I sincerely appreciate you thinking about me and having me on, man.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate it, brother. Brother, I I can't believe we took so long to do it, and I can't wait to do it again already. Audience, you make the scrap magical each and every week. You showed up with the with the soft tosses, you showed up with the heavy curveballs. You asked the best questions right down the pipe for the guest, and I appreciate you doing it and tuning in live each and every week. I love you all. The scrap doesn't happen without you, so thank you for being here. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tone stays silent unless it is burning. This job will never be safe. So stay smart out there. Thanks for listening to the weekly scrap. Please subscribe and please share. We'll see you at the next episode.