At some point you’ve probably considered this question: When in the course of a fire department’s response to an emergency does it most impact the hearts and minds of its customers? Here’s the actual story of what happened when a fire department attempted to answer that question by looking for trends in customer feedback and in the process stumbled upon a philosophy that suggests our most heroic or technically complex actions may not be what our customers remember or value most. And by harnessing this knowledge to connect with our customers, we actually may help ourselves in ways we hadn’t imagined.
I wince whenever I see a green sheet of paper, for one simple and visceral reason: Green is the color of the customer complaint form in my department. For more than four years, because I was the operations chief, my desk was the starting point in that green sheet’s long journey to resolution. In this post, I’d like to share with you what I’ve found to be common themes regarding customer feedback.
This isn’t about where to place the first attack line, how close to the seat of the fire to vertically ventilate, or how to integrate the latest resuscitation techniques. While those critical tasks are vital to successful outcomes, I’ve found that technical tasks rarely resonate with our customers. In all my years of reading the green complaint forms — and their far-more-pleasant cousin, the thank-you letter — I’ve found occurrences of a customer commenting on our firefighting or medical techniques to be the odd exception, other than an occasional, non-specific observation about our general aptitude. I’d wager that most of us have training programs to address our technical skills but offer little in the way of ongoing training regarding what really matters most to our customers.
There are several important questions that need to be asked when attempting to identify customer-feedback trends. These include the following:
Who seems to be getting the most feedback?
What time of day seems to garner the greatest amount of feedback?
What demographic of the city is most likely to share its observations with us?
What incident type generates the most comments?
Perhaps the most important question is this: What customer interactions resonate most with those citizens who take the time to give us feedback?
We found a handful of trends. For example, some crews received more feedback than others. That trend seemed to be influenced by one of two factors: a crewmember deliberately soliciting happy customers to provide feedback to the department; or an individual being perceived as so disrespectful that people went out of their way to make sure their dissatisfaction was heard.
Another trend was that some citizens accounted for an inordinate number of complaints. One gentleman, for example, called us repeatedly when a fire truck drove down his residential street. He insisted that crews should never drive in his neighborhood unless there was an emergency.
However, the most important take-away from this effort was that customer-service feedback generally is driven by two key moments: the first two minutes and the last three minutes of our emergency response. While there clearly are many critical phases of our actions, these two moments are what we refer to as the “five most impactful minutes” of our service from the perspective of our customers. When a green form is generated in my organization, my chief officers know that their fact-finding mission isn’t complete without exploring the alpha and omega of our service: the first two and last three minutes.
There are numerous actions — and inactions — that might generate a green form, but there is one that will do so consistently. In the first two minutes of a crew’s arrival on scene, should any member be dismissive or disrespectful to anyone, a green form can be expected. A common factor in failing to successfully manage these two minutes is the presence of bystanders who feel that they have vital information that we must receive in order to do our job correctly. Such bystanders can be a family member, friend, healthcare facility employee — or even a complete stranger. In any case, failure to connect with the bystanders’ strong desires and expectations to relay information to us — particularly when our actions are dismissive — often leads to a complaint.
Not long ago I followed up on a green form that was generated after one of my crews responded to a patient who was injured by a ground-level fall. The patient’s friends — healthcare professionals themselves — all wanted to speak with my paramedic-firefighter, who seemed to have two priorities: preserve the patient’s privacy rights by not discussing her medical history with bystanders; and establish the patient’s level of consciousness by getting the sequence of events from the patient, and nobody else.
In doing so, the paramedic-firefighter dismissed and disrespected the patient’s medically trained friends. Though it really shouldn’t have mattered that the friends were medically trained, it did seem to complicate the issue. Why this one firefighter on a fully staffed (aka four-person) paramedic-engine crew didn’t have better support from his crewmates was part of the problem. Another problem was that while we treated the patient as a patient, we treated all of the would-be helpful bystanders as bothersome distractions. After the incident, one of the patient’s friends called to share her displeasure with us, and I’m really glad she did, because we can’t address unknown perceptions. Ironically, when I followed up with the actual patient, she seemed very happy with our service — until she was told by her friend how bad the first 30 seconds were.
In the next installment, I’ll provide some insight regarding what can be done to increase the likelihood of positive customer feedback.
Garret Olson is chief of the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Fire Department.
My favorite no-frills, apparatus-education conference each year is the Fire Department Safety Officers Association’s Apparatus Symposium in Orlando. This year, if the list of legal liabilities offered at the beginning of the conference didn’t get my attention, the death threats at the end certainly did.
The keynote presenter was attorney Jim Juneau, who offered the “Firefighter Law School.” In it, he described laws relating to the fire service and standards of care, and what their applications are in the community.
“You are always — always — personally responsible for what you do,” Juneau said. “If you are held liable, you will pay from your own pocket, and that means your pension, your house and your future earnings. … [And] if you have the ability to change the behavior of someone else, you will be held responsible if something happens.”
When Juneau presented at his first Apparatus Symposium 15 years ago, he asked how many departments had firefighters riding on tailboards; a couple dozen raised their hands. This year, when he asked the same question, no hands went up. “Times have changed,” he said. “However, how many of you have kids riding on top of apparatus in parades? What makes you think it is OK to put a 12-year-old on top a fire truck and drive at 5 mph? Do you really think you can catch a kid that falls from the truck?”
Juneau is passionate about apparatus safety and educating emergency vehicle technicians to protect themselves. “If you don’t have the authority to take a rig out of service, then write it up so that someone in authority will understand why it should be taken out of service and that they will be responsible if something happens,” he said. “If you don’t document, it didn’t happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s e-mail, a yellow pad or taking pictures — everybody’s got a cell phone!”
There was some good news mixed among Juneau’s dire warnings. In 2011, only three firefighters died in motor-vehicle accidents while not wearing seatbelts, down significantly from previous years. But in the first three weeks of 2012, three firefighters had already died in accidents without buckled seatbelts, Juneau said.
“How many of you have given somebody a day off for not wearing a seatbelt?” he asked. No one raised a hand. “Why not?” he then asked. He said after an unbelted-firefighter fatality, Fire Chief Charles Hood required seatbelt drills for all members of the San Antonio Fire Department.
Later, Virginia Lutz, a field investigator for NIOSH, explained her agency’s role in investigating LODDs and described several fatal roadside accidents involving fire apparatus that she investigated.
The most recent accident involved a fire department responding to a grass fire in the median of a highway. The apparatus driver pulled over and purposely measured two arm lengths, or 78 inches, from the apparatus to the roadside guardrail. A minor accident between a van and a car, however, resulted in the car careening at 47 mph between the fire truck and the guardrail, striking two firefighters and killing one.
“They are out to kill you,” she said. While Lutz was quick to add that NIOSH does not find fault or place blame, fire departments need to practice heightened safety on the roadways. Lutz encouraged fire departments to develop pre-plans with police, transportation and other departments to create safe emergency work zones.
“Putting out cones can be more hazardous on the highway than using a parked apparatus and flashing lights,” she said, and then reiterated, “they’re out to kill you.”
Can you define “stewardship” without looking it up? I’ve asked this question of new recruits and the newly promoted over the years. Before word got around that this could be expected from me, about 3 of 10 were close; now that the expectation is out there it’s about 8 of 10. That says two things: People will adjust to meet your expectations if you’re consistent and have a role in their success, and we can’t expect our future leaders to come pre-loaded with this core concept of public service.
If you’ve not already done so, go ahead and look up stewardship. A common theme embedded across all definitions is being selected and entrusted with the care of something very important that actually belongs to someone else. It’s about getting the shoulder-tap and being told, “Here, I want to leave this with you as I go on about my life. It’s priceless to me and I’m giving it to you so I don’t have to worry about it, you’ve been selected because I trust you to protect it better than I can. I may be back to claim it in 5 minutes or 5 years, in either case I expect you to give it back in as good or better condition than when I left it. Most importantly though, I want the peace of mind that comes with knowing I’ve made a good decision.” This is the basis of the social contract between our citizens and its fire service. This is the unspoken expectation between Mrs. Smith and Firefighter Jones.
Amidst all the quarrels that come with tight budgets, I hear a great deal about what the public needs to know — staffing reductions, pay cuts, working conditions — and how if they knew these things, how the public would rally behind us to politicians. But look through the other end of the telescope. We’ve all been out on down-power-line calls. They usually come in droves, and we’re stuck on-scene for a long time. But how many of us get on the phone the next morning with the power company, demanding that the administration hire more line crews, and pledging to support that with a rate hike? How about that cold glass of water we knocked down after the 2 a.m. dumpster fire Christmas Eve? It tasted great and you didn’t have to wait for it — even late on a holiday weekend. But did we feel we owed the water company a quick thank you?
We don’t make these calls as citizens, nor do we want to receive them, because we have an expectation that these things are all being taken care of. If anything, people get upset about having their confidence shaken; are their essential public safety/private utility workers taking care of the really important things? People entrust us with the care and protection of their lives and their property, they want to hear what we can do with what we have, not what we can’t do with what we don’t have. They believe we are the best of the best that have earned entry into the coveted fire service. They believe we can solve anything just south of brain surgery or a shuttle launch, but will probably dial 911 if there is a problem. Let’s be good stewards, let’s give them reasons to have peace of mind that their lives and property will be protected to the best of our ability. If we are unwilling to sincerely make this commitment, we abandon the finest traditions of the fire service, and with it forfeit our unique responsibility of protecting the lives and properties of our citizens. What do you see that’s strengthening and/or weakening the bond of stewardship with our communities? What can you do, personally, your next go-round, to better fill your role of stewardship?
Frank Frievalt started his fire service career with the California Department of Forestry Region IV (1979-82), continued on with the Bureau of Land Management Bakersfield District (1983-87), and recently retired as the Division Chief of Operations for the Sparks Fire Department (1987 - 2011). He is a new Adjunct Faculty member with Columbia Southern University, and currently serves on the Western Fire Chiefs Association board, representing Nevada. He has served with the Washoe County LEPC, Chaired the Fire Advisory Board for the Truckee Meadows Community College, served as Commander of the Northern Nevada Fire and Rescue Academy, served as the acting Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Sparks, has presented at several conferences on leadership topics, and served with the Sierra Front Incident Management Team as a Division/Group Supervisor. He also serves as the Program Manager for the Leadership Excellence Challenge™. Frank earned a Bachelor of Science in Fire Administration from Cogswell Polytechnic College in 1999, a Master of Science in Fire and Emergency Management Administration from Oklahoma State University in 2004, and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Political Science with the University of Nevada, Reno.
A longtime reader recently sent me an e-mail about our November issue, which featured the 2011 Station Style Design Awards. He wanted to know why more stations didn’t have fire sprinklers inside the facilities.
Following that e-mail, I called W.K. Matlock, a retired fire chief who currently works as a Louisiana deputy state fire marshal. He told me that one station’s entry had visible red fire sprinkler pipes, but for most of the other stations it was not obvious that they were sprinklered nor mentioned in the article.
“These are magnificent fire stations and should be protected by complete sprinkler and fire alarm systems,” Matlock said in a subsequent phone call. “More and more new fire stations are providing sprinkler protection due to residential building-code requirements.”
Matlock also saw that many of the fire stations had a lot of exposed wood and combustible construction materials — all the more reason there should be sprinkler systems. “If firefighters are going to encourage residential fire sprinklers, then they should at least have them in the fire stations and in their own homes,” Matlock said.
I contacted the National Fire Protection Association to find out if there was a specific NFPA code for fire stations. According to Larry Stewart, NFPA Fire Service Specialist, there is no one NFPA code, but multiple codes have references that could or would apply to fire stations and public-safety facilities. These include:
NFPA 1, Fire Code 13.3.2.3″ New buildings housing emergency fire, rescue, or ambulance services shall be protected throughout by approved automatic sprinkler systems
NFPA 1500, Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program 9.1.1″ All fire department facilities shall comply with all legally applicable health, safety, building, and fire code requirements.
After speaking with Stewart, we decided to include an NFPA-specific program to the 2012 Station Style Conference. NFPA’s Ken Holland, FF/EMT-P, will present a pre-conference session on the NFPA codes applicable to fire stations and public safety facilities.
Matlock’s concerns about fire sprinklers are valid and speak from experience. He began his fire protection career as a paid firefighter in December 1952 in Shreveport, La., and fought fires on the regular fire line for five years before becoming a fire inspector. For the past 20 years, has served as a full time Louisiana deputy state fire marshal.
“When you have a firefighter trained with his EMS, paramedic and all that, you have a tremendous amount invested in him,” Matlock said. “We need to protect the protectors.”
At a recent meeting of fire chiefs, all six attendees had smartphones, three had iPads, and one chief had a 3-year-old laptop — for which he was teased endlessly. The three iPads stacked together didn’t match the thickness of the laptop.
This prompted a conversation about ever-changing — and ever-shrinking — technology. Several of us remembered the hesitation we felt when computers were first introduced decades ago, fearing a screen-freeze that would require costly hours on the phone with technical service. Mystical terminology like DOS and COBALT made computer technicians godlike, and the machines’ cost and sophistication demanded respect and awe from new users.
As computers evolved, they became smaller and more affordable. Apple computers became commonplace in schools and classrooms, and younger generations became eager to play with computers and test their limits. To them, the need to reboot simply meant “try again,” rather than “you failed,” as it did to my generation of computer neophytes.
During the meeting last week, Novato (Calif.) Fire Chief Mark Revere told us that 10 career fire departments in Marin County received a FEMA grant for $500,000 to update their computerized database system. As part of the upgrade, the departments will replace obsolete computers on 32 fire apparatus with iPads. The existing computers, which originally cost between $5,000 and $6,000 each, will be replaced with iPads, which will cost less than $600 apiece. With the addition of a dispatch app and a few other apps, the upgrade will also be complete in a shorter period of time.
“Even if the iPads last only a year, we can easily replace these and still save money,” Revere said.
With Bluetooth keyboards and iPads, Revere said his officers can take the iPads everywhere and use them for e-mail, note-taking, and PowerPoint presenting.
Revere has had similar success with using his smartphone for work. “It’s amazing what you do with an iPhone,” he said. “You have a computer, wireless connection and projector. We also have Apple applications where I can use my iPhone and hook up to a station’s 60-inch TV, so we’re all looking at the same data.”
All this talk about new generations of technology reminded me that over the holidays I watched a 9-month-old baby squeal with delight as she touched a smartphone and made the picture change, while a 2-year old played a game with his Mom’s iPad. It’s going to be interesting to watch as new generations grow up with technology that still has many of us awe-struck.
Looking over the wreckage of the home that burned to the ground, a shiver ran through me that was quite unrelated to the brisk cold of the morning air. The front door of the house still remained, and in that door were more than 50 holes — holes that we suspect came from an AK-47. A building occupant obviously didn’t want us putting out the fire. A police officer narrowly missed being killed as bullets smashed through his cruiser, while my medic crew (not far behind the cruiser) had to run for their lives as bullets started flying through the neighborhood.
I’ve been around this business a long time, much of that time spent as a street medic in a high call volume fire department in an economically depressed area with a host of drug and alcohol problems. I thought I’d seen it all. Now it seems I finally have. All crews were quickly pulled back while the suspect continued to shoot up the neighborhood. We could do little more than watch helplessly from blocks away while the house burned to the ground and the scene was taken over by SWAT and ATF. Three bodies were recovered from the house, one the suspected shooter.
While I’m thankful that no bystanders or public-safety responders were seriously injured, I’m incredibly frustrated by this incident. The frustration comes from the realization that, despite all of our training, this isn’t something you can really prepare for. The initial call came in as your “typical” structure fire in a single-family residential house in a quiet and well-manicured neighborhood. The only slight evidence we had that something might be amiss is that some callers reported hearing what sounded like ammunition going off in the fire. By that time, police and our crews already were pulling up in front of the house. What police officer, firefighter, or medic isn’t going to rush up to the front door to make sure everyone is out and safe? We can’t exactly adopt a policy that all structure fires have to be cleared by police before we deploy handlines. At some point we have to take it on faith that most people want us to put their fires out and protect their lives and property.
I’m not sure what lessons we take away from this incident, but I’m sure I’ll be wracking my brain about it for months. Perhaps in the end I’ll just resign myself to the fact that sometimes we just get damned lucky to be around another day to hopefully help the people who need us.
Dominick Swinhart, BSHS, EMT-P (ret), is fire chief of the Camas (Wash.) Fire Department.
When I go out to eat at a fast-food restaurant, I don’t expect the person behind the counter to be wearing a suit and tie while serving me a $5 burger. Nor do I expect a waiter at fancy restaurant to be short or uninformed about what is on the menu or in their food. I expect the proper level of service appropriate to my needs. However, in the fire service, we believe that the highest level of medical care is needed on every medical alarm. That is just not the case.
In the Los Angeles County, paramedics are dispatched to every medical alarm. Some agencies provide their own transport, while others rely on private-ambulance companies for medical transportation. But is it necessary for paramedics to respond to every medical alarm? How many medical alarms do we respond to that require such a high level of medical service? According to the study, “Developing a New Response to Non-Urgent Emergency Calls: Evaluation of a nurse and paramedic partnership intervention,” out of 1,000 consecutive patients brought to emergency rooms by ambulance, 51.7% of these journeys were unnecessary.
I recently conducted a study in the area to determine whether an alternative ambulance delivery system would benefit the citizens in my city, as well as improve revenue to the city’s general fund. I decided to look at this problem from three aspects of how we deliver service: the levels of service we provide, how we dispatch those services, and the financial impact or benefit to the city. I also proposed a hybrid model of medical transportation that integrates inter-facility transportation (IFT) with providing for emergency services.
Consider what happens to patients after we take them to the hospital. They are discharged, admitted or transported to a different facility. But some of the major problems that exist are overcrowded emergency rooms due to a lack of resources that transfer patients to different facilities in a timely manner. This translates in higher costs for hospitals when they cannot turn over their beds quickly enough.
One of the statements I asked survey participants to rate was, “It would save my organization money if BLS units would respond to inter-facility transport responses within one hour.” Many strongly agreed with the statement. Furthermore, I asked participants to rate other statements that indicated their opinion on whether a fire department BLS unit could respond faster to an IFT. Again, they responded favorably.
My hypothesis was that if fire departments could respond BLS units to hospitals for IFTs it would improve both the operational and financial health of the fire department, as well as begin to service our business partners in a way never considered before. It seems the mentality in the fire service is that we are solely here for our citizens in the pre-hospital setting and we tend to shrug the fact that we are also protecting our stakeholders and business partners. But protection is not enough; we need to provide services to them that will financially assist them in this declining economy. By providing emergency rooms some assistance with IFTs, fire departments could affect both a better operational model for medical transport as well as provide for a healthier fiscal outlook for our agencies.
The research suggested that if we were able to change our fire departments transport model to incorporate BLS ambulances, these ambulances could be used for both emergency and non-emergency calls, which would serve to benefit the following problems:
1. Help ease the issue of overcrowded emergency rooms in our geographical area, allowing for better turn around times for our paramedic units and increase available beds for critical patients.
2. Provide for increased revenue to the city’s general fund by charging for inter-facility transportation.
3. Increase fire department resources regarding medical transportation units.
4. Provide for appropriate levels of care to patients in need of transport to an emergency room.
5. Implement an emergency-medical dispatch system that would dispatch both emergency and non-emergency alarms, including IFTs.
Shortly after completing my research, I was made aware of a Senate bill in California that was being drafted. The bill essentially has harsh language on the ability for public agencies to change their medical transport model. The bill is still in its draft form, however, the local EMS agencies have been instructed to not make any changes to fire department transport models until the bill has been signed and is in effect.
My reason for writing this article is to inform those with decision-making powers there are new avenues of revenue generation for the fire service. Unfortunately, California will not be able to implement such a change, for now. However, departments in other states may want to consider this model of transport. Just like businesses, our agencies need to fight for new market areas to prospect our ideas towards, in an effort to see if there is a need for service changes in our geographical areas. More importantly, can we affect substantial change that improves citizen services, provides for business partners financial relief and combat our current fiscal disasters? My answer is yes, through innovation, commitment and our innate ability to adapt to our changing environment.
William Mansour has been a member of the West Covina Fire Department for the past 11 years where he has held the rank of Firefighter/paramedic and his current rank of Fire Engineer. He has been intimately involved with numerous Fire Department programs, which include Public Information Officer, Public Education Director, C.E.R.T and is also the departments CPR instructor. He also holds a Bachelors of Science Degree from Azusa Pacific University, in California, where he graduated with honors in their Organizational Leadership program. William is happily married with 2 children, one with Autism, and is an advocate for Autism Awareness in the Fire Service.
This week I filed a story on confined-space rescues that will appear in FIRE CHIEF’s January edition. In this article, we explore in some depth the challenges associated with massive building collapses. I found this aspect particularly interesting, for some very personal reasons.
When I was a kid — which is to say quite a long time ago — we would hear at every family gathering the story of an older cousin who was a member of the Chicago Fire Department. The details of this story are a little fuzzy at this point — like I said, it happened a long, long time ago — but the basics are that my cousin was buried in a such a collapse. He survived, but some of his fellow firefighters were not as fortunate.
I recall that I and the rest of the younger cousins instinctively would roll our eyes whenever someone would begin to retell the story, and we would think, “oh no, not again” — though we were careful never to utter such blasphemy, in some measure due to the fact that we feared the consequences, but in much larger measure because we had a great deal of love, respect and admiration for our older cousin. In fact, among my fondest memories are the times when we would visit his station — which was often — and he would let us climb onto the apparatus, sit in the cab and don the helmets. It didn’t matter at all that the helmets were about a thousand sizes too big.
As I grew into adulthood, I matured and began to appreciate this story, and the sacrifice my cousin made. That appreciation grew once I began to work in the public-safety sector, especially over the last three years during which I have worked as FIRE CHIEF’s editor. Now I would give just about anything to be able to hear that story told once more.
Firefighter Mark Cummins has been fighting fires for more than 30 years — big, nasty fires in mines, chemical plants and all sorts of heavy-industrial buildings. He’s had access to the world’s best firefighting equipment. And now Cummins has cancer.
“I don’t know which fire found its way into one of my cells and mutated and started my cancer,” he said, but one thing he knows for sure is that smoke is deadly to firefighters.
Cummins always has been a warrior of sorts. In the early 1960s, he fought oil and tank fires in Texas with his father, Phil. He served as a pilot in Vietnam, and later became a Texas Forest Service instructor and developed the original patents for compressed-air foam systems.
But since his diagnosis, Cummins has turned into a “cancer warrior.” He is determined to get the word out that firefighters are not really supermen and there’s an urgency to prevent firefighters’ exposure and to stop as much smoke as possible from escaping into the atmosphere.
According to Cummins, a house fire creates tons of carcinogens that are contained in smoke and much of it is in the form of benzene. “Benzene vapor is heavier than air, so it goes up into the air with the heated smoke and comes back down when the benzene vapor cools. This can be miles from the fire,” he said. “The falling benzene is an invisible shower of cancer-causing molecules, which are like little cancer seeds looking for a sensitive human cell to mutate into a growing deadly cancer.”
Cummins said that the most dangerous thing about carcinogen exposure is that you usually don’t feel any pain or have any awareness of when the toxins enter your body either through inhalation or absorption. Symptoms don’t show up for years after the exposure, so you will never know for sure how or when you got it—something that Cummins thinks about often.
Cummins — a member of the Steele Creek Volunteer Fire Department — is president of CAFSCO, a Texas-based manufacturer of custom CAF systems. He believes that CAFS, or a water-expansion system, is the most effective way to suffocate or restrict smoke.
I’ve been a passionate proponent of Class A foam and CAFS for almost 20 years, but hadn’t thought much beyond their environmental and suppression benefits. But Cummins’ arguments about the importance of suppressing smoke because of the toxic vapors makes a lot of sense in many ways. Recent research has revealed the dangers from off-gassing of turnout gear after fires and the need to continue to wear SCBA during overhaul continue to prove that firefighting is a high-risk job that dangers don’t end when the fire is out.
As the fire service continues to evolve, we are going to be faced with many “new age” fire officers taking the reins. I consider myself to be one of these new-age officers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as many positive outcomes can come from the change. These new-age fire officers will be met with many challenges on the fireground; however, many of the most challenging battles we may face will be in our own department or engine house.
To combat these challenges, we as young officers must know how to handle the pressures that come our way and be able to effectively use our power to properly communicate to our peers and subordinates. To be an effective leader, you must balance your power and influence in a positive way to gain the respect of your fellow officers and fire fighters. The Interpersonal Communication Book by Joseph A. DeVito lists six bases of relationship power that can help us effectively manage our new responsibilities as a fire officer. They are referent, legitimate, expert, information or persuasion, reward and coercive power.
You must have referent power. You must carry yourself in a manner that makes all members want to be more like you. This is an example of carrying yourself in a professional manner, both at the station and away from the station. Practice what you preach and carry yourself in a professional, positive manner and this will make other people want to be more like you.
Obviously you have legitimate power; however, this must be handled carefully. This is essentially the power that comes from your title. You should not boast your power and go on a power trip with everyone in your command. This will make you less credible. The members know you are in charge; you just need to act like a professional. Always remember that respect is earned and it is not associated with any title. They may have to respect the title, but they may not respect you as a leader.
You should also have expert power to be a good fire officer. To be effective, you must always learn new things and be extremely proficient in all aspects of your job. That way when someone has a question, you can show them the right way to do things. This lets them know they can count on you no matter what. In order to do this, lead by example again. Be the first person to sign up for the new training course and always be eager to learn new and improved methods and techniques. Having expert power is increased when you are seen as an unbiased party in the event and have nothing to gain personally. This can be avoided by not having favorites. I have seen this happen and when you have favorites, you lose power! By being unbiased, you can gain the respect and backing of all members.
You should also be able to persuade others. You should know how to talk to members to get them to do things they may not be comfortable with. You should have the information available to be able to tell them what to expect and how to correctly do it. Therefore, you will have credibility with your subordinates and you will more than likely be able to persuade them to do tasks that are essential that they normally would not do. But you should also keep in mind that you need to know the strengths and weakness of people in your command so that you will know how to address each person on a individual basis.
As a good fire officer you have the ability to reward the members for good actions. It can be as simple as saying “good job” after a call or recommending them for a commendation. This is where reward power comes in and by properly rewarding personnel for their good behaviors is an effective management tool. However, you also have coercive power. If you are really good at the other functions of power, your staff will respect you enough not to have to use your coercive power. But things do happen. You should fairly and justifiably utilize the punishment that you have available to you. You should follow the chain of command and make sure that they realize they cannot perform in this manner. If done correctly, this can be a valuable learning tool for a new member, which will inevitably make them a better firefighter. You may not be their favorite person at the time, but they will respect you in the end if you handle it correctly and professionally once they calm down and see the big picture. This could possibly be a lifesaving event!
It takes more than one base of power to be an effective leader. A lot of times it takes all six to get your point across. By following these six bases we can get the job done. Always be competent, have good moral character and carry yourself with good charisma and your will be a credible fire officer that everyone looks up to.
The fire service is faced by many challenges in today’s climate. We as firefighters cannot control the economy, budget reductions and the like. Don’t let something we can control get in the way of being an effective leader in the greatest job in the world. Stay safe and train harder!
Neal Copeland is a shift captain and training officer for the Senatobia (Miss.) Fire Department. He has been in the fire service for more than 17 years, and has an associate’s degree in fire science. Copeland is a certified Firefighter I and II, Fire Officer II, Instructor II, and Hazmat Technician. He also teaches periodically for the Mississippi Fire Academy.
