B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Silverback Leadership and Fire Department Dynamics
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode features Nick Brunacini, Terry Garrison and John Vance.
We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://youtu.be/-Wb5lA6f1uw
Sign up for the B Shifter Buckslip, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
This episode was recorded October 17, 2024 at the Alan V. Brunacini Command Training Center in Phoenix, AZ.
Join John Vance, Nick Brunacini, and Terry Garrison as they unpack the remarkable dynamics between a fire department's administration and labor, showcasing the power of mutual respect and defined roles. Hear from Nick about the robust bond between a fire chief and union president, and how this unique partnership can revolutionize work and customer service standards.
Reflect on the challenges faced during the COVID pandemic, particularly the vaccination mandate for paramedic students, as Terry Garrison shares a personal story of navigating resistance with openness and resolve. Discover the importance of collaboration with union representatives and how it mirrors other safety protocols, ensuring harmony even in adversity. This episode is packed with anecdotes that highlight the need for a structured chain of command, especially in smaller departments, to support the workforce and deliver exceptional community service.
welcome to the b shifter podcast. It is john vance, nick brunicini, terry garrison along with you today. How's it going, guys?
Speaker 2perfect good, yes, it's a great day just good, yeah, it's a weather change nick, come on it's good in phoenix, arizona yeah, it's, it's very nice, very nice the car didn't burn my I leaned up against my pickup truck and it didn't give me second, third degree burn. So it's a good day.
Speaker 3Uh, yeah, I think we may have escaped our hundreds. Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 1is the degree of burn that you get from touching other objects really the telltale on how the weather is? Is that the vein?
Speaker 2that we use yeah.
Speaker 3Just walking outside, sometimes it feels like there's a hand that's crushing you. The hand of heat is letting you know that you're made out of water.
Speaker 2Open an oven door with your face that's stepping outside.
Speaker 1Just that heat coming right at you. Well, yesterday was lovely.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, this should be the time that people want to be here. Yeah, the Octobers and Novembers.
Speaker 2You went for a hike in one of our desert trails and you survived that, so it was lovely.
Speaker 1Yeah, I had no problem. I saw horsies.
Speaker 3Nice, yeah, horsies. All kinds of wildlife. Yeah, all kinds of wildlife. I saw dogs.
Speaker 1Were people on the horses Raccoons. No, coyotes Javelinas. I did not see a javelina Rattlers.
Speaker 3They'll bite your face off right at how havelina, yeah, they'll come after you.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're they're not shy animals. They can't see yeah, they're. They're near blind towards sound. So people think they're going to chase them away and they'll yell at them and the havelina will go at you. They can't see you, they're trying to figure what the hell you are I walk by some horse ranches, some people who had stables, and they were feeding their horses.
Speaker 1And the horses were just chilling. Yeah now, but I'm surprised gosh, being a horse in this kind of weather, would yeah it would suck yeah yeah, who made you a horse? You and the horse you rode in on right yeah well, hey how was the uh conference for you guys.
Speaker 1You, you, uh debuted. Now, number there's a couple of things that have happened. Uh, our continuing education, number 40, if you sign on to B-Shifter, you can get access now to the Silverback Leadership First Module, which is an overview, and then you guys presented that at the conference in Cincinnati last month. How did that go?
Speaker 2Well, we didn't present that part. We didn't present that introduction module. So if you attended the conference and you listened to our lecture and our presentation, you got kind of a background on how we got to where we are. As far as Bruno and the union, I'll let Nick talk more about that. He did the presentation, but the module itself is an introduction module. The module itself is an introduction module and I think that's going to be. I think people are really going to like the introduction module when they go online. It's about a 60-minute, 45-minute, 60-minute module and it will kind of explain the entire program to you. But what Nick did at the conference is something different.
Speaker 3if you want to go into that, Nick, we talked about kind of where it came from, so how it came about basically, really the relationship between the administration of our department and the union of our department and how they came together during that era over a set of political issues that were going on and that really bonded the fire chief and the union president together in unique ways, based on kind of the politics that both of them had to survive to get to where they were.
Speaker 2It's like they shared a foxhole.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's kind of what happened and they kind of took care of one another during the thing. It is like you would. You know, they kind of did the silverback leadership thing and this is the way we are set up as an organization and then this is how we treat one another and this is and I mean that was demonstrated during that era where they kind of changed the political system in the city and that had there was some payback, some political revenge that came out and the union president and fire chief weathered that and it made their relationship stronger. So they were able to kind of forge a system that was centered on the work essentially.
Speaker 2And then they kind of moved forward with that.
Speaker 2It was centered on the work and it was about the relationship and identifying the customer and supporting the workers.
Speaker 2And then to me, the biggest part of all that that came out is agreeing to disagree, where if you had an issue like I've seen some fire chiefs and union presidents get wound up in an axle over one issue and I think they kind of agreed that hey, we're not always going to agree, but we're not going to let one issue or two issues kind of separate us if we just focus on the work.
Speaker 2If we disagree on an issue, then what we'll do is we'll continue to work on that issue and move forward with the organization. And I think they had real clear-cut boundaries and you described it really well is the fire chief manages the fire department and the union president didn't get involved with that. He let the fire chief manage the fire department and then he managed, the union president managed the rights of the workers and the fire chief stayed out of his lane. So it was all about lanes too, any kind of a relationship when you identify your lanes and then kind of how you're going to play within those lanes and work with each other. I think that's what they did really well.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think one of the issues that you have and the problems with just the system in general is and we talked about this in the presentation is there's really a trio of power. There's the authority-having jurisdiction and they're supposed to represent the community right, they're elected officials. It's the officials that are customers, elected to represent them. And then you have the fire chief who runs the fire department, like you said, and then you have the union president, who is the leader of the workforce, basically in their benefits and working conditions, and it's pretty easy. And you see, it today in politics is where like, okay, I'm the mayor, the president or whatever, and I'm actually the king, is, I'm in charge of everybody and I have the power to do whatever I want.
Speaker 3Well, that's no, that's not the way it works. We elected you to be the mayor, you run the city and that's not being the king of me. So, and then, when all three of them think that they're the one, you're going to have some issues and all ego based. And yeah, who's the prettiest pig? And I'm in charge and I told you to do this. And while you talk about all the time, that's the problem between a lot of times, between the fire chief and their boss whoever that AHJ is, for lack of a better word is. They think you work for me and you have to do what I tell you, and it's like well, no, I run the fire department, you run the city. You outrank me, but I know more about running this than you do. And I think it gets upside down when the mayor's like no, you report to me and you do what I tell you, you're my servant. And you're like no, I'm not your servant, I'm the fire chief.
Speaker 2I always relate it back to politicians being involved with Vietnam. How'd that go?
Vaccination Mandate in Paramedic Training
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly, so when?
Speaker 2you don't let the generals run the war and politicians get involved. That same thing with the fire department. When you've got a fire chief who's working and his he thinks his job is to make the mayor or the city manager, the city council or the fire board happy, uh, that's not good. And then when you you have those lines in place like that and uh, those two people work together the the fire chief and the labor, it's better for the members, because the members get confused with power, you know, and the smart members will use that against you, right, so they'll do that whole go ask mom, go ask dad thing Two Christmases.
Speaker 3Right and.
Speaker 2I remember this thing back to COVID, when we first came out and paramedics had to get the COVID vaccination. It wasn't very popular with some communities and some firefighters and we had a group of paramedics. I was working as a Glendale fire chief and we had a group of paramedic students that had only been in training for about two weeks at a community college. Well, part of their training program is you got the classroom program and then you got the clinicals at the hospitals. Well, the hospitals contacted us and they were kind of our partners in the paramedic training program. They said, hey, we're not going to allow your paramedics in the hospital without their COVID shot. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2So what we had to do is okay. Well, they can't get trained, they're not going to get certified, we're just going to waste money if we get to that point. And we got guys that aren't going to get the vaccination. So contacted the union president. We had a conversation about it. We were both on the same page. We went to the classroom and we had a dozen students in there and there were students from different agencies. We probably had about eight or nine out of a dozen students, maybe not that many.
Speaker 2But, anyway, we met. We said, hey, we want to talk to the Glendale firefighters after class. And so we met and we said, guys, you got to get your COVID vaccination if you're going to go to the program. Well, they were adamant about it. Someone said, no, I'm not going to do that. You guys are infringing on my right and you're not giving me a choice. And I said no, you have a choice. The choice is either you stay in the program or you leave the program. The choice isn't about the vaccination, the program or you leave the program. The choice isn't about the vaccination. If you want to stay in the program, you got to get the vaccination. That's your choice.
Speaker 2Well, you know that's bull crap. And I mean we had the union president, the fire chief and they we said let's have an open discussion about they weren't disrespectful, but they were. It came across more like that than they actually said it. Well, about four of them said, well, we're not going to do it. And I said, okay, time out. Go home and talk to your spouses and tell them that you're not going to get this pay raise, you're not going to be paramedics, you're not going to get in you know, complete this program.
Speaker 2Come back tomorrow and let us know what your answer is and what do you? Think happened when they came back the next day. When do we get those vaccinations?
Speaker 3how many.
Speaker 2We had one guy that actually one of our guys said, no, I don't want to do it. He goes it's just something that I don't feel comfortable with, and I said, okay, well, you don't put your books over here on the desk and go back, we're gonna, you're gonna, go back to your fire station. I'm not mad at you and uh, that's the choice you made. You just can't be in the paramedic program. And I was never mad at him. The union president wasn't mad at him. That was a choice he made. It was about two weeks of training that we spent on him, but it's like we didn't invest a lot in him in that piece of it, and so that's an example of the fire chief and the union president really being on the same team, and that's so helpful, because you could see how that could have.
Speaker 3Oh, my god, I could have well, you would have saw, seen the union president. You would have just saw him after you ordered everybody to do what they were needed to do, and then he would have uh, he would have been in my office and said no, you can't do this and you think. Well, a five-minute meeting with the guy in the front end eliminated that. Like you said, you're on the same page now.
Speaker 2And if he wouldn't have been on the same page, then I would have said hey, this is one of these we're going to have to agree to disagree. Let's keep our relationship strong and all the other things we're doing for our firefighters. But right now I have to do this, but thank god he was on the yeah page really reasonable guy and we went down and made that happen.
Speaker 3So you know, you wonder like with the recruits, and you tell okay, you have to wear the scba. Well, no, I don't believe in scbas and I want to do it anyway. You're like, no, you're fired. That's the way it works, pal. Yeah, we have safety protocols that are part of the gig.
Speaker 2So well, nick, that's important, because one thing we had decided when we went into that room with them is we're not going to talk about the benefits of COVID vaccination.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2We're not going to get into the politics of it. The hospital is not going to allow us to complete your training without this.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2That's what we're focused on.
Speaker 1That decision was made for you as the fire chief, that this is I mean? It wasn't you making a decision. It was yeah, decision.
Speaker 3Yeah, the hospital yeah and what's yeah, that's. That's a decision you would think the hospital would make too, in that favor and say no, no, you're going to have the best protection in that. This is how you get it. Yeah.
Speaker 2And I was happy for the ones that decided to stay and I was kind of proud of the guy. Honestly I told him afterwards that's a pretty ballsy move but you know your wife supports you and I think a year or two later, his concern was will I have a chance to get in the program?
Speaker 2later down the road and I go yeah, I'm not going to treat you, we're not going to treat you in a negative way. I gave you that choice. But at first, when they said, well, you're not giving us a choice, no, we're getting a choice. The choice isn't the one you want, but this is your choice.
Speaker 1And oftentimes it's the way that message is being conveyed. And I think what Nick said the union president was in the loop from the beginning, so the union president wasn't blindsided by grievances and people ringing this phone off the hook with did you hear what they're mandating? Because you talked to that person right away. And then the second thing that happened is the way that you communicated it. It wasn't a mandate and there were so many people that did some mandates right that weren't very well received.
Speaker 1um and and wasn't there like a safety shoe thing? That happened at phoenix with uh, with alan brunicini, with yeah what, what was that similar to this situation. I'm trying to recall exactly what that story was?
Speaker 3It was the Bruno boot. In fact, there's an award downstairs hanging on the wall that's a golden Bruno boot. And what it was is the fire chief. Again, you're in the deal, I'm the fire chief, I'm going to run the fire department. We did everything. The last podcast we talked about labor management committee. So you're doing everything through the uniform committee.
Speaker 3Fire chief goes in and tells the uniform committee we're going to wear steel toe shoes on duty. That's the work boot. Okay, we do a lot of pre-planning construction sites, hazard zone stuff. We're going to wear a shoe that protects our foot, and so it's got to have a steel toe and it's got to be designed like this. He says pick one, pick two, pick seven. Whatever you want to do, go at it. Okay, chief. Well, the uniform committee did not want to do that. They didn't want a steel toe shoe, so they never made one. And so it went on for a year or two and he went to the final meeting and he said I have asked and it's obvious to me that you just can't figure out what we really need. And so he pulled a red wing, chukka style three quarter boot out and said that's what you're all wearing. I'm done and they had a shit fit. It's like you can't make us wear this shoe, and so they're going back and forth and I mean, and there's See, this is like right after the strike vote.
Speaker 3And this is during this era that I was working with all the union guys downtown at the time. So I was having. It was the time of my life. It was so much fun and the idiots believe everything. You tell them all the time so you owned them from the moment. But anyway, we're not doing it and we're going to, we're going to go on strike, we're going to show you and you know, we're not doing it and we're going to, we're going to go on strike, we're going to show you. You know, we're just angry about this. And like an 11th hour, him and the union president met and they agreed on whatever the main issue was. That was kind of bubbling between the two of them, I don't know what the hell it was even, but they said OK, we're going to take care of this.
Speaker 3And and like the final deal was and Alan, the shoe. Let's like do like a three-month cooling off period. And then you got three months to get the shoe. He says perfect. He says we're good. Boom, boom, hug and kiss. That was it. Next day, the whole ah, we're going to vote with our feet on this one and can tell me, comes on and says, nah, we're going to wear the shoe in three months, you got three months to get it and we got this over here and this and this, and so everybody went back and they were by the end of the day, it was over, essentially, and everybody was back to their regular roles doing whatever they were doing. So, but that was the Bruno boot story.
Speaker 1And then the award came about. Why? Why is there an award downstairs?
Speaker 3Elmer Hess was retiring and he was the assistant chief and I think he told the old man, this is going to be the hill you all die on, it's this goddamn shoe of yours. And he said, I will see. And so Elmer was retiring and the whole thing you know. Kind of they pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat which none of these older guys who were my dad's staff had seen before. It was always no, you're going to blow your face off. This is what happens historically. So that was a new era for them. It's like, wow, he's actually agreeing with these guys and like he's getting what he wants and he's just giving them a little bit of string. And so they're like well, we don't. This is.
Speaker 1I don't know. Things are changing too much.
Speaker 3Paramedics will take blood pressures before we're done.
Speaker 2And this was circa 1980.
Speaker 3Yeah, this is the early 80s man.
Speaker 2It's not like firefighters were wearing tennis shoes and comfortable shoes around the fire station.
Speaker 3We're wearing like loafers, lace-up boots and dress shoes. Duke Ducote's wearing like loafers.
Speaker 2It wasn't a comfortable shoe you're wearing in the first place. It was kind of silly.
Speaker 3And we did, like his whole career. It was steel-toe shoes, but a lot of people wore tennis shoes and there wasn't Around the station. You wore whatever shoes you wore and then when you got on the truck you were going to wear—we wore brush pants so you always had leather boots. It was just simple. It was a uniform, so it was good.
Speaker 2We had day boots back in the day?
Speaker 3Yeah, we did. And you would tell the people wearing tennis shoes on calls like, knock it off, we can wear brush pants. So wear your pt shorts, your tennis shoes and, when we get a call, get into the brush pants. Well, I don't know if I like that. Well, I really don't give a shit if you like it or not. That's what we're doing at the station, so get used to it. Sally, when the light comes on, put the brush pants on, okay, and I think they would figure out. Well, he's never in a uniform, but he is on call. So, yeah, okay, we'll do what he asks. It was one of those things.
Speaker 2Later you found out you wouldn't want to wear your tennis shoes on to a call and then take those same shoes and wear them home into your family. Oh yeah, it's disgusting right shoes onto a call and then take those same shoes and wear them home into your family. Oh yeah, it's disgusting right so yeah where those you'd be trudging through? All kinds of body parts and fluids, yeah, man it was so it was.
Speaker 3it was easy to manage because the rules made sense, basically, and I don't know, it was just like, yeah, a normal person of average intelligence could follow along and say, yeah, that and that's what I go back to when we started.
Supervisory Support in Small Fire Departments
Speaker 2So Silverback leadership is going to be management model and the labor management process and the PFD way and all these tools that we're going to use as we move forward with our silverback leadership program. And that's where we break everything down. But it all starts with focusing on the work and I think they I don't know when they had that conversation, they probably had it every day, or maybe that was. The underlying theme with everything is that we got to focus on the work. Why do we and how do you support the members? I think labor did a really good job back then of just keeping the members focused on the work and when it was time to get fired up, like right now and you know, election time or something.
Speaker 2I guess you would get fired up about politics if you wanted to. But why would you want to in a fire station? Because there's no, there's no value in it. You're just gonna. You're gonna sit across from the guy that you would save if you had to. You'd risk your life. I always tell you, risk your life to save the guy sitting across from you, but you'll mf him because he's to vote for somebody else, for governor or president or whatever man who gives a shit, just keep it out of the fire station because it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 3Yeah, in fact, really, as you went on, the union I thought had a harder job is keeping the lid on their end, because as decades went on, as everybody started referring to the fire chief as our mom so that's kind of the relationship he had with everybody and you would have these meetings with all these crazy officers and whatever they're selling. You know, the first 15 minutes one of the old guys would stop and say just tell us what you want and then we'll do it. You don't have to sell us anymore. We know who you are and who we are. Just tell us what you want us to do.
Speaker 2No, it's kind of interesting. I agree with that too, because as a fire chief there's that hierarchy and people respect that position Some people, most people. But with a union president like you could be a fire captain or a firefighter and they get all kinds. Over the years I've worked with some union presidents and he called you what at two in the morning to tell you the remote control on the tv didn't work japers, creepers. Thank god he didn't call the fire chief, but you just hear that and I think the union president had a very difficult job.
Speaker 3And.
Speaker 2I think it's 24-7 and it's everybody and you know you develop an organization. So you kind of got the chain of command is also the chain of communication. You kind of expect people to use that on the front end. So I think a fire chief has probably one-tenth of the people that are talking to them.
Speaker 3You don't get a lot of drunk people at two in the morning calling the fire chief. Yeah, that's like career suicide. But the union president, they're all. You work for me, buddy. You're like. Well, call the mayor and see how it goes.
Speaker 1You haven't worked at a 40-person fire department. I've had drunk guys call a man at 2 o'clock in the morning. Well, that may be. There's the difference Exactly, See in our department.
Speaker 3You had a shift commander you could call. They were the buffer between the fire chief.
Speaker 2I got one of those calls once and we got your fire captain over here and we're about ready to arrest him.
Speaker 1What's his name? They to arrest him. What's his name? They told me, arrest him. Well, I've got the same exact call. I I got a call from a battalion chief and it's two o'clock in the morning. He's like so and so is uh, drove their car off the road. They're they're obviously intoxicated. The state trooper said if you come pick them up, we're gonna let them off. And I said you know I can't do that. Yeah, that that that's really a bad precedent. And he goes. And then he goes. Oh, never mind, he just took a swing at the cop they're arresting him, so it's like he made that decision for me and, uh, god bless him.
Speaker 1You can't make that up, he ended up getting help and and uh, he lived a long, uh healthy career after that mine was just for fun story.
Speaker 2We have your guy here at the bar and he's starting trouble. He says he's a captain. What's his name? Okay, first of all, he's not a captain, he wants to be. And well, we got him here. Hold it, Hold it. Shit, he's taken off. We got his ID. What a dumbass. I said good luck.
Speaker 1Yeah, have fun with that one.
Speaker 2He ran after they got his ID.
Speaker 3We had You're going to get caught. When I was a shift commander. Every now and then you'd get a call and it'd be a cop and say okay, we got so-and-so here. You're like okay, I'll put him off duty. Well, no, you need to come get him. No, I'm an on-duty fire department officer who's on duty. I don't pick up people from jail. Well, no, you need to cut. That's not the way this is going to work.
Speaker 1There's a lot of things I could have done to help you three, four hours ago, telling you not to do something or giving you some better life advice, but once you're in the presence of law enforcement man, because that would be a PR nightmare for any of us, right Like all, the fire department doesn't have to follow the rules.
Speaker 2No, there's a process. I always say use the process, whatever's in place when it comes to discipline.
Speaker 3Well, what's the? Here's the process Frosty's at the rave. He leaves the rave and he gets in as jacked up fourx4 and does 360 donuts in the intersection on the corner of the rave, shooting a handgun out the window. The police chase him, he's off, he hits something and then he's running from his vehicle and he is nude Right. And then, yeah, they call the shift commander later and say, no, he's going to need three or four different professionals before he gets back to us. Yeah, this is.
Speaker 2Did he hurt anybody?
Speaker 3Is everybody okay, yeah.
Leadership and Effectiveness in Fire Departments
Speaker 1Well, we've been saying it starts with the work and that's really part of your program with Silverback leadership and everything we do begins with the work. The work must support the customer, the supervisor must support the worker, the work must support the customer, the supervisor must support the worker and the system must support the workforce. Kind of working our way back to doing everything right for Mrs Smith in this statement. How do we support the workforce in situations where, you know, nick and I talked on the last podcast about a large system, okay, where they had these different subcommittees and literally, you know, dozens and dozens of people leading the way, if your department is less than 100 people, like most departments, how do we supervise and support? Well, how does the supervisor support the worker and how does the system support the workforce in those smaller systems?
Speaker 2When it comes to this, those four areas right there, I honestly don't see size being. Size doesn't matter when it comes to this piece, I think, because this is about relationships, right here. Right, and this is about where a person focuses their attention. So, depending on the size, you still need to. In my opinion, you need to focus on the workers and support them as they service, deliver service to the customer, and it's just that simple. Now, when you start to get to the formal piece about having committees and some of the things that we've been fortunate to have throughout kind of the larger departments we've been with, I think what you do here is you line up those same people together and they just kind of work on a few of those areas together, right, whatever those are, you identify them and you kind of multitask that way. Whatever those are, you identify them and you kind of multitask that way. But I really believe in many ways having a smaller department may be not easier, because you've still got to get everything done, but simpler Talked about the span of control and the hierarchy of communication and those kind of things.
Speaker 2I think that in a smaller department that may become simpler. And the message in Houston four shifts, 22 divisions. Getting the message out took a lot of work, took time. Took energy, oceanside Fire Department, 185 firefighters, nine fire stations on three shifts. A lot simpler to get the message out. But the message that was important for me was the same for both departments and that was the message we're here to support each other. We're here to service the customer. The leaders are here to help people do their job. You know it's not a gotcha department. So you start developing phrases that make sense within your organization to how you support the customer. But I think you could. I don't think size matters here. Where size matters for me is like on a fire ground. Right, you need to get crews on the fire ground, you need to have a. What do they call that? You have your fire attack, you have your initial fire attack and then you have the companies that come in behind it.
Speaker 1Yeah, the 3D, you have tactical reserve.
Speaker 2Yeah, to me that is that's more important there. But as far as the leadership piece and treating people, uh, respectfully throughout the organization and focusing down on the customer, I think a smaller department may be just a little bit simpler when we we did the recovery process in Phoenix and it was the height of our size as a department.
Speaker 3And out of that, really, what we did is we turned the organization you use to manage the fire department from a big one to a small one. Essentially, we put training back into the operations division, we put training back into the operations division, we put safety back into the operations division and see a bigger fire department. It becomes disconnected because those things float out. So, like the safety division was doing whatever the safety division felt like doing, they weren't lining it up with customer service in any way. It was with whatever the assistant chief, whatever revenge he had in the back of his head, is what the safety division was going to do as their mission Training was. The same way, is we're going to throttle anyone who tries to train outside of us? And you said well, no, you guys can't deliver the kind of training we need to deliver. Now we're not doing this by committee, it's got to be real and in fact doing that going from big organization to small organization is it contracted everything?
Speaker 3So what it did is like recruit training became closer to the shift commanders.
Speaker 3So what it did is like recruit training became closer to the shift commanders and so that was the next on the list is like we're done doing the old recruit training stuff is now we're going to focus on air management and actually like what's involved in completing the task that you're doing. There's no more of the recruit training officers thinking that they're on a cowboy roundup anymore, and this is because I said this is what we're going to do as a captain. Then this is what the whole training division looks like. No, no, no, no. You guys are doing training that's 10 years out of date. We're not the peak of the roof is not the strongest part anymore. We need to do training that recognizes that. So because we did that, it made everything more effective, and I think what happens is when you get too big, it just becomes unmanageable because it's too far away from the people that can actually fix and make it do what it's supposed to do fix and make it do what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2The term that I was thinking I couldn't get earlier. I was sitting there. Effective response force. You got to have effective response force to manage the incident. And you need to have effective leadership within an organization. So when you talk about effective, you're not talking about size. You're talking about how effective are the people in place and are they focusing on the right things? You know, I used to think of that game, asteroid when you'd sit there and you had a little triangle and you'd shoot the big bolt comets or what were they? Asteroids?
Speaker 3asteroids. Yeah, they were giant rocks they were coming towards you.
Speaker 2And then there's people that are shooting over here. It's like no dude, shoot the ones you can, the ones that are going to hit you, not the ones over here, and we worry about a lot of shit that isn't even going to impact us, right?
Speaker 3it's like don't worry about that.
Speaker 2Focus on if you, I swear, if you focus on the firefighter and the customer, you will be so effective as a leader and the and the conversations you have about the work is like when you as a fire chief. When I would visit a fire station, I would do a one or two minute to pull my finger right, but then it's like, hey, how's the work going?
Speaker 2what are we doing, what, what, what do you all need here? If leaders focus on the work and it doesn't take um more people to do that, it's got to be a direct line. Also, when I was thinking about this earlier, is that you know, like IMS, when I went to Oceanside they were IMS purists and what they really their premise was is you had to build the entire command system for everything. So I came from the eight functions of command and the blue card system at the time the eight functions of command and I said, no, it's expandable. The IMS system is expandable and you expand it where you need it.
Speaker 2And I think that's the way this whole organizational leadership starts is you may have a fire chief and I was fortunate to do this at one point at Oceanside actually, where I was the strategic level boss, but I was able to kind of teach everybody the decision-making model. So I kind of dropped down in the next role I was doing. Something a fire chief wouldn't normally do is I was able to train the entire fire department after I arrived there within a short period of time and do the class on decision-making model. They hadn't been exposed to that that was a priority for them and they asked me if I would bring that and it's like, yeah, I could do that.
Speaker 2So sometimes a leader in smaller departments maybe need to step out of their role and not act so like, no, that's not my job, I'm above that, and you see that sometimes I was lucky, lucky, once again worked for Bruno. I didn't see that in my career, but I've heard about it with other people. Well, don't get caught up in your position. Do what you got to do, right. Did you watch the game last night? The baseball game? Yeah, and the pop-up fly. There was a pop-up fly, I think, in the eighth inning, and the pitcher he sprinted off the field. He's like I'm not even going to try to catch this.
Speaker 2Went straight up, sprinted off the field. The third baseman came over and caught it and it was just about on the pitcher's mound, but he said no, that's not, I can't do that. So, with taking on extra responsibilities and not get caught up in egos, you also got to realize that you may not be good at something too, and you need me to hand that off, and we talk about that in silverback. Leadership is the key to power is the more you share it and empower other people, the more you get. So don't try to control everything either. Let people participate. You may have some people sitting in fire stations in some of those smaller departments or larger departments where they have some skills and you just haven't. You really don't even know that they have that yet, because you haven't asked who wants to do this.
Speaker 3One of the things you'll hear from, like big departments versus small departments, is during my career, especially the early part, is all the firefighters that work for any fire department wanted to be FDNY firefighters. So we have a ladder truck and we want to adopt the New York City Ladder Manual. Well, ok, the New York City Ladder Manual. Well okay, the New York City Ladder Manual was written around six-person staffing. Well, we have two-person staffing, but we're going to do it anyway. No, you're not. You can play dress up, but it's not a Halloween thing, it's a real job and you protect the community that you protect. If you want to go be in New York, go to New York and take the test and join the fire department. That's who they hire. So and then.
Professionalism in Fire Departments
Speaker 3But it's odd because then, like as quickly as they'll say that they'll come back and say, well, we're just a small fire department, we can't do this, this and this You're like well, you kind of want to pick and choose what you think you can and can't do and really, to be honest with you, if you're a two person ladder, you really don't need to do FDNY ladder stuff You're not going to. That's not your role in the world. You're going to be more of a fire suppression specialist. You're not a support specialist, support specialist. And so, in fact, alan Brunicini, like the last 20 years of his career in life, said before they sell any fire department a ladder truck, they need to give them a simple intelligence test. You shouldn't be able to do one without the other because it conflicts. There's too many holes to fall into. Explain gravity. Yeah, exactly that whole deal.
Speaker 2So the other thing too and I wrote it down here is because I remember the first time I was a fairly new captain and I was out teaching for Bruno and somebody was talking about volunteer versus paid firefighters and at the time they used the term professional versus nonprofessional because they thought you're not professional because you're not getting paid, which is bullshit. Right, volunteer firefighters are professional. They fight the exact same fire that paid firefighters.
Speaker 3They need to be. Yeah, it doesn't burn any different when you put them in turnouts.
Speaker 2You should not be able to tell the difference so they got away from that term, right, it went away, thank god, long before redskins, right, but it went away because they're all professional firefighters well, it was political.
Speaker 3it was political between the volunteers and the union. Essentially it was a real deal.
Speaker 2I mean it's so you look at some of these volunteer fire departments where guys are committed to their community and committed to each other and committed to getting the work done, you will find some amazing leadership that has taken place. You will find some amazing leadership that has taken place and they're doing all the things that the Phoenix Fire Department many ways Phoenix Fire Department, houston Fire Department, la and they're doing them better, on a smaller scale, and they're working with their communities and they're taking care of their apparatus and they're doing all that thing. So, once again, I don't think and I don't think small departments use I hope they're not using it as an excuse not to do something because they're small, just like I hope they're not using it as an excuse on the fire ground to not do something. That's to do something that's unsafe because they don't have the number of people.
Speaker 3This latest thing where OSHA wanted to change the word brigade to department and say, no, osha statutes now are going to apply to fire departments. All the fire brigades are gone, folks, there's not a whole lot of fire brigades left anymore. So everybody they reacted very poorly to that. The paid service and the volunteer service they said you're going to put us out of business. And you're well, why? Well, because the training, the commitment, the money, this, that and the other thing You're like. Well, if you respond and you operate in an IDLH, there's a set of rules that apply to that and you said it earlier, it doesn't matter if you're a volunteer or a paid firefighter. All firefighters must be professional. So let's apply it.
Speaker 3To see, you don't hear this in the EMS side, the orthopedic surgeons in the emergency room, physicians, control the curriculum for emergency medical. So like, when they come out and say you're going to do some new procedure or treatment for whatever it is, it's well, you can't do that. That's going to put us out of business. Never once have I heard that in my career. It's just, it's something we just unconsciously accept. Okay, this is because we don't control it. That's out of our venue. Accept, okay, this is because we don't control it. That's out of our venue. We can't, we're not in charge of that.
Speaker 3And if you lose that certification in most fire departments, you don't work there anymore. So if you're a volunteer firefighter and a paramedic, if you don't keep your CE up, you're not a paramedic anymore. Well, so the part that we keep pushing off is the fire side. It's like no, we can't do that, it's too much. It's too much training. And you're like well, I can train you to be in IC in about 60 hours. Basically, is the curriculum how long does it take to become a paramedic? Well, it's over 1,000.
Speaker 3But you don't hear well, no, we just have to do that. Well, because you guys won't represent the fire structural side of the service. You don't, that's just something that we should know automatically. And we don't because most fire chiefs couldn't tell you Many of them couldn't what that looks like. They're more administrative in nature. So you're like no, if we're going to have standards, they have to go across. It doesn't matter size, this is what you do for a living. If I go to a dentist, I don't care if he's doing it for free or if I'm paying him. I expect a certain level of care.
Speaker 1I mean, yeah, Years ago I walked into a combination fire department and something struck me and it stayed with me forever. During my career as a fire chief I couldn't tell who was a career person and who was a part-time person there. They all had the same uniform on, they were all physically fit, they were all professional attitude. When we were out training, they all had the same skills and it was a good department. And I always thought you know, that's the kind of department I want to be a part of, where there's no differentiation between part-time, volunteer, paid on call, whatever it is. I think there's a lot of people over on the volunteer side that uses it as an excuse, or the community puts them into a position where they're constantly fundraising and doing a bunch of other BS. You know, if you have to worry about putting on a fish fry every month to put fuel in your trucks, well, you're not going to have time to train and be a professional on call department.
Speaker 1The other thing I would say is what's the expectations of Mrs Smith? Mrs Smith doesn't care if you're part-time or volunteer or full-time when the air brake goes on, she expects a certain level of service, wherever you come from. And using the excuse we're just volunteers, it doesn't work and I know from working with paid on-call firefighters for the last 35 years. If you have a professional organization, they're going to perform up to that level and not using this as an excuse. But you see people do that all the time.
Leadership and Risk Management Discussion
Speaker 3And see, I think the work becomes what makes us all equal within the department and all of the same value as an employee. So, like in the Phoenix Fire Department, it didn't matter if you worked in payroll, it never went on a call. What you did is you supported the people that did by doing your job efficiently. So see, the thing where I get rubbed the wrong way is like you'll see companies that just, they're okay being mediocre and it's like no, we don't want to go on train or do any of this other stuff you want us to do. Well, then you see their performance on a call and it's substandard. Well, no, we're not doing that anymore. Pal, you're going to raise your level of performance to what we call the minimum, and it's not a high bar to get over, but you got to get over it and I always had more respect for the bosses that would call those individuals out and they wouldn't do it in private, because those people never did their shit in private.
Speaker 3They're like no, this is what I should be getting, and they were very vocal about you need to treat me this way. Well, when they had a real boss, they're like no, you're going to do your job. And if you don't do your job. Here's what that looks like, and I never saw any of those people go away. They all came up to whatever standard it was, and they may not have been happy about it, but that's what happened, and we all got along because we all expected the same things out of each other. Then no, and you're right.
Speaker 2And early on and I think it kind of went away. But I'm sure there was still some people who misunderstood the be nice concept. Be nice is not be weak.
Speaker 3In fact I just read a note from Bruno Sini, 1974, on my desk and I was going through I'm still finding he's still finding stuff in boxes. Man, I haven't opened his folder yet.
Speaker 2And it's a handwritten note from Bruno from 1974. Set from 1974 and he said be nice is not be weak, right? And I think, what do you tell? If you're going to fight, uh, fight.
Speaker 3If you're going to be a grizzly, be a mean grizzly if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly bear be a grizzly bear well, the other thing he said is do not expect gratitude for accepting poor performance and that's the deal it's like. Okay, I overlooked your weakness, so now you have to be grateful to me. You think no man. That's a dysfunctional relationship that's just going to get worse and worse. I mean that should come with baby oil and some other stuff.
Speaker 2That's where we're at the last bullet point on that page I just read in there is the most unkind thing a supervisor can do is accept Poor performance. Yes, that's the most unkind thing you can do.
Speaker 3See, we're no longer equal. Then it's like no, they're special because they don't have to do the job that you expect me to do. And you're like no, that ain't yeah.
Speaker 2You know it's funny because Bruno never once has he referred to the size of a fire department when it comes to leadership or firefighter safety. And you notice that he never. You know, when I went to Houston, I was talking about this today and I said you know, my greatest concern when I go to Houston is they've got a lot of history, they're a very proud fire department and I'm hearing through the grapevine that I'm going to go there and I'm going to make it phoenix east so I was having breakfast with bruno and I said what's the deal with that?
Speaker 2I said how do I because I don't want to do that wouldn't take the phoenix program and try to lay it anywhere. I didn't do notes inside and I wouldn't do in houston. And he said, terry, tell them that the phoenix fire department is the best fire department they have in phoenix yeah, and the houston fire department should be the best fire department they have in houston.
Speaker 2That's it. So I used, I used the hell out of that and it made sense to people and I think that's the deal with when it comes to size, whatever you do the best you can with the size you got right and the number of people you got you may have to double up some of that leadership stuff. I don't think you want to double up in the hazard zone. That requires a specific amount of people.
Speaker 3But when it comes to organizational If you deliver fire department service, you have to be certified to do it, whether it's CMS, hazmat, special ops or structural firefighting. The one place that we get drifty is structural firefighting, because it's the one that we're in charge of. There's no outside agencies really. Osha would come the closest, or FEMA. Fema tries to help. Fema funds a ton of training and equipment and other stuff the fire service does. So see, that's another part of leadership is I don't have the money. Well, there's places to get the money pal. About 90% of all the available funds for that go back to where they came from, because people just don't ask for them. So it's like well, no, if you want this, this and this and I mean you can hire people even if you need more robust safety and training, hire individuals to do that in your department, and the government has programs that will help you fund that.
Speaker 2I think one of the limits that a small department has is seeking out other departments or information or training programs, because they get kind of closed in-house and and they kind of they don't see what's going on around them. I think that's I'm gonna hit the silverback leadership program, but that's why this is a good program, because nick's making it this first. When we push out, these modules are going to be free as part of the package. Yeah, and there's some um, there's like I said as we build it's it's.
Speaker 3Anybody hooked up with us has access to them, so you're a leader in a smaller department.
Speaker 2You're not like, hey, I want to get this moving forward, but how do I do that? Well, we're going to have the performance management model. We're going to have some, um, the accountability model. We're going to have some the accountability model. We're going to have some scenarios and some kind of. We're going to use the scenarios just like we do in Blue Card, where, hey, this worked in this department and we'll share it, and so hopefully, we'll be able to help people who want to do a really good job with that, but they're not just, they're not sure how.
Speaker 3Well, and the leadership content. We'll do Silverback and that's going to take about another year to finish it and we're updating other textbooks. But then part of the Silverback project is we'll do senior advisor-specific stuff. So if you're the ranking on-duty officer for your shift, there'll be a lot of leadership stuff in there and just kind of other. We'll end up with like a two-day command team workshop. We'll resurrect that one. We can do a senior advisor-specific workshop if we wanted to. There's a ton of content that we haven't put out yet that supports all this.
Speaker 2But you said it'd be a year before it's completed. But we're going to have it.
Speaker 3Let them know the modules are going to come In a year, you'll have all eight modules will be done.
Speaker 3Four or five weeks we'll have a new module that we'll put out there, and it's free and it'll take you 45 minutes to go through Well and then then the stuff, the articles that go with it, and the buck slips.
Speaker 3So there's a ton of content over the next year that will be the silverback and then, when it's all done, we'll put it all together and put a bow on it. It'll become we're not going to give it to people. Then it's going to be a full-blown program they can go through and we'll uh, we'll submit it to ace to get college-level credit and do the same thing we did with BlueCard. So our goal is all the content that we currently put out you will be able to receive college credit for. So between the workshops and in fact you'll see like there will be some online front-end stuff that we can connect to the workshops and that will make it a lot easier to maybe you go to a workshop and you get one and a half college credits for it, or CE or whatever you want to call it. So we'll just keep expanding the library of college credited offerings we give here All right?
Speaker 1Well, as usual, I have more questions, but we're running short of time and I want to get a timeless tactical truth out. But we'll continue this conversation very soon, right?
Speaker 3We can do it tomorrow.
Speaker 1Yeah, we will continue. Yeah, Timeless tactical truth from Alan Bruticini. Sorry for scaring you, buddy, this is the Jack of Clubs and this one says the risk management plan must be known and understood by every team member. The risk management plan must be known and understood by every team member. When do we start talking about risk management with our firefighters? Is that a recruit academy conversation?
Speaker 2Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, when you're in a training fire right here, there's risk, there's risk management. So yeah, I, yeah, I think that that'll be something that just comes off people's and then you know for years we would know, you would hear guys say it we'll risk a lot to save a lot. You know, go through the process. But then you'd ask them what does it really mean? And they go.
Speaker 3Uh-huh. So, Well, and then, when you actually like, start discussing what it means. They start arguing with you and then when?
Speaker 3you actually like, start discussing what it means. They start arguing with you, yeah, and it's like, no, that's it. You think, well, no, dan Madrakowski describes the critical factors. Then what are you going to do? It's like, well, you're not, that's not survivable there, so we're going to do this that. Well, you're going to start when you say not survivable there. Oh, you got to search it and you thought, yeah, you do. But when we do that, is that. That's kind of the alignment of our tactics now based on the real world conditions that we're looking at.
Speaker 2I think that's why Gordon Graham was so successful because he could describe risk in daily, day-to-day circumstances. And what he was really telling firefighters is you've got to risk.
Speaker 2Issues lying and weight yeah To this day if I see a fuel tank at a gas station I don't go get gas because of what he told me. But I think people really need to follow that and you probably read it again at the end. But they need to understand and not just be able to state it. But the beginning of understanding is being able to kind of remember it and then applying it.
Speaker 3See. The other part of that, though, is during the first half of our career. Where did half of the line of duty deaths occur?
Speaker 2Driving.
Speaker 3The training academy.
Speaker 2The training academy.
Speaker 3Half firefighter fatalities happen in training settings. Well, you're going to teach a new recruit risk management. You probably don't want to kill their classmates during the academy. I mean, we did that. It was like we're going to see what you can take. So it becomes this like man called horse gauntlet you have to run through to prove that you're one of the group and you're like well, yeah, we want, we want people that can do the work, but we shouldn't kill you, fettering you out to figure out who that's going to be. That's not a smart way to do your business. It's very disruptive both inside and outside the organization business.
Speaker 2It's very disruptive both inside and outside the organization. Risk management sometimes is hard to a group. For a group of young individuals who came up in a system where they say hold my beer and watch this, yeah exactly well and they're not gonna.
Speaker 3You know, you're 20 years old in the academy, yeah, they talk to me about death and a pension. Yeah, yeah, silly old man, it's gonna happen to somebody else but you.
Speaker 2But it's an organizational responsibility.
Speaker 3Amen.
Speaker 2If one person in the organization doesn't understand risk, you know it's Charlie Company getting way too out in front of the rest of the battalion, and now you've got to risk your life.
Speaker 3You've got to have strong task and tactical level supervision and proficient strategic level management. That's what does it.
Speaker 2And that's where, after action, reviews, and really we've talked about early is letting somebody low performers get away with stuff. Now we got.
Speaker 3That's where you got to say when you when you look at our work, is what saves the day, is doing the correct thing in the front end during the first five minutes is what sets the stage for that, and most of the time, if they'll show up and take the correct set of actions, they either eliminate the risk or they figure out. The risk is so big in these areas. We're just staying away from this.
Speaker 2They sung that decision making model.
Fire Department Risk Management Discussion
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm just training them to do the work. And it's like hey, we're here to save shit. We de-escalate hazardous situations in the community. We show up and we save things and we just no, we're just not going to let it burn down, we're going to save what we can. But if the whole thing's going to the dump, madrakowski said at the conference, why even put water on it? Let it burn, it's going to be gone sooner. You're not going to foul the water table. So you've got to. I remember Haunton was going crazy once about just the responsibilities of the first apparatus operator and they said you can't quantify any of this. And you're like well, if you can't, then you can't do your job. Pal, you were going the wrong direction with this one. Is everything you said is the reason we need to train that? You just said it. No, it's too much to manage. You're like nah, you just, you're wrong.
Speaker 3Organizations that I've seen. See what you did with that goddamn car, Vance.
Speaker 2There's a lot of fire departments that spend more time talking about HR issues and budget and all that and not talking about risk driving life practices. Whatever gets firefighters in trouble, don't do you know that gets them focused on the work too.
Speaker 1When you're talking about risk, then they're focused on the work yeah, you guys have been saying yeah well, you can get these cards at the b shifter store and have hours of discussion around your kitchen table at the firehouse with it, because we can certainly go on and on play poker, yeah, afterwards, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3Three guys and all their body parts are broken and twisted up yes, take it from us all right, wrapping it up.
Speaker 1Thanks guys really appreciate it today. Thanks for listening to B-Shifter Woo-hoo.