Recently I went through a negative life experience. ( How is that for politically correct, Eh?)
As with all of these I reached deep within and found something worth sharing and some positive that I could learn from. I chose to share this thought with some new fire officers just graduating from officer training class and I will share them with you now.

Life and your fire service affiliation will occasionally challenge you in many different ways. You may have to discipline a close friend you may be challenged in some way by a person or a group, you may have suffered negative publicity or some other negative experience. Nothing will fully prepare you for these events but what I offer you today might help a little.

Just imagine and concentrate for a minute on the strength you have in your dominant hand. (Right handed or left handed doesn’t really matter) Now as you read this page open your hand palm up, and place into your strongest hand the following items: Your personal integrity, your entire capabilities and talents, and your inner passion and love for your family, friends, and career in the fire service whether paid , call or volunteer. Mentally place all of these items in your hand and close your hand and grip them tightly and place them in your pocket.

This symbolic gesture I just described will do you no good if you never reach into your pocket and pull them back out when you need them. Also because they are in your strongest hand, nobody can take them away from you ever, unless you decide that they will.

Someday you will be faced with an opportunity that will challenge your personal integrity. Maybe someone will question your truthfulness, or ask you to do something you know is wrong. When thrown back on your heels and somewhat taken back by this, think of this blog post, reach into your pocket and look into your open palm and see if all of your integrity is still there. Have you lost any, given any away? Some times you will witness a perceived injustice and the easy way is just to turn away and turn a blind eye. I offer you this analogy, while you are turning a blind eye to a perceived injustice, you may not notice just a little bit of your personal integrity slipping away. If you do that enough times, when you reach in to use your integrity you may find it is all gone, and nobody will believe anything you say, even though you might just be right this time.

Hold onto your personal integrity with all of your might ! Never let it go!

I hope when you put your capabilities in your hand, you included them all and even left room for more. As human beings we are all multidimensional and we have talents at work, we have a variety of human skills, we have varying degrees of education, artistic and creative talent and a myriad of other talents that make up everything that actually defines you as a person. Those capabilities that you hold onto and protect with your dominant hand are very special. They can only be given away and used by others when you allow them to be. Oh, sure people might try to diminish and minimize your capability. They may even challenge your capability. When people do that and your feel bad about it because you have been hurt by someone not recognizing and appreciating your talents and abilities, go to a quiet spot by yourself, open your palm and look at and list all of your personal skills. It can bring a smile to your face when you take personal stock of your value and worth regardless of what anyone says about you. It also is a good time to wonder about yourself if someone did not recognize your capabilities because you did not share any of yourself with others. That is also something to take stock of and decide how much others will know about you.

Take stock of your personal and professional capabilities often and never let anyone diminish or reduce you or your capabilities in any way!

Remember that I asked you to put your passion in your dominant hand as well. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is never to let it go. I do not care what your passion is and whether it is family, friends, and professionally fire service related, never let anyone stand in your way and prevent you from feeling and believing in what you believe in. Do not let anyone, or any set of circumstances take your passion from you or diminish it. You have to examine your passion every once in a while though to see if it is still there, and if it still is for the right reasons.
The second reason for putting your passion in your dominant hand is so that you may have some degree of control over it. You may have days and periods of time when your personal passion escapes your control and becomes a detriment or impediment to what you are trying to control. Do not give up on your passion, do not diminish your passion, but use all of your strength to control and redirect into areas in which you can become more effective.
Your personal passion is the most powerful tool you have. If you have lost it along the years of your career, then try with all of your being to get it back. Because it is the most powerful tool you have it is the first thing that the naysayers and detractors try to attack. Your passion will overwhelm them and in fact diminish those that are really impostors and talk about passion rather than know how to demonstrate.
It has been my practice not to “talk” about how passionate I am about the fire service, I have been told that people know it when I speak to them. I don’t have to remind them or prove to them as some impostors need to do.

Keep your passion very close to you and always within reach. Never let anyone diminish reduce, or try to break the passion you have. Keep your passion under control!

The above three tools I have just given you are very important tools. Like any other tools in the fire service they must be maintained, inspected and checked frequently, and they must all be used for the right reasons.

The next time you are having a difficult situation either personally or professionally reach into your pocket, sit in a quiet place, and look into the palm of your hand ….you might just find the right tool to fix the problem.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

This week a discussion on department training.

This week’s drill idea is very simple and requires some innovations on the part of the training officer.

Get an acquired structure or use your firehouse if there are upper floors or the roof is safe to operate on.

The objective of this drill is really simple, it is to test ropes and knots knowledge coupled with the creativity of the firefighters available.

The instructors and a safety person should be on the roof area and then ask the assembled crews of two or three persons to retrieve and hoist whatever equipment is called for.

* Crews will have to report to the base of the area to get instructions on what items will be needed.

* Crews should be told to report as if they were being deployed at a commercial structural fire, that way they should have some tools and equipment with them.

* Items will have to retrieved in a timely and safe fashion from the apparatus, so equipment knowledge is also checked.

* After crews have performed a task, have them climb a ladder and be the hoisting crew as well.

* Items to be hoisted should include: Smoke ejector, roof ladder, charged hoseline, uncharged hoseline, folding ladder, step ladder, roof ladder, CO 2 or dry chemical extinguisher, power saw, stokes basket (can then be lowered with mannequin or hose dummy- Not a live victim), handlights and cords, small hand tools also such as axes, halligans, and hooks.

* All items should include a tag line so they are under full control at all times.

* Hoselines can be passed from story to story using pike poles and multi-hooks. This techniques should also be practiced.

* Evolution should be practiced with appropriate gear on.

* Utility ropes and not lifelines should be used.

* Items lifted should be appropriate for the size rope used.

Members will develop ways to use webbing and carabiners as an advantage. After completing basic evolution, small competitive timed evolution can take place.

There is a caution here that while encouraging creativity, care should be taken to insure proper knots and rope handling techniques are used.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

I spend an awful lot of my time doing consulting and teaching in some leadership classes and I have found something that I wanted to share today.

Now those folks who are local and know me, know that I went through the ranks way too fast and was an officer way before I should have been. They also know that not unlike others, I was convinced that I knew everything!

Thank God, that with some age there does come some wisdom!

In many leadership classes I am teaching I m hearing young officers and firefighters speak about being allowed to make decisions and not being “micro-managed”. Now on this subject I speak with some authority because I am micromanaged in many facets of my life on a regular basis, so while not an expert, I do have some history!

I think that all people generally resist being coached and guided. We all believe that we are comfortable with our job and our ability to handle any given situation, but in reality I think we all need some guidance from time to time, and the benefit of having someone share a previous bad experience.

With that being said, then maybe as leaders we should look at the way we attempt to guide those that we are mentoring to be better officers. If the decision they are attempting to make is not life safety or life changing for them or the other parties involved, allow them to make a simple mistake. They will learn! Then don’t run around and say I told you so, but be there to offer possible “options” on how that can be handled “differently” in the future. That is one technique. There are many others.

The other thing I never learned as a young rowdy officer was that I did not even have enough life experience to make some of these personnel decisions. I just simply had not been exposed at that time. I now look at some of these folks who have come into the fire service who maybe have been to paramedic school, been taught about being the sole person responsible for life and death, being taught to operate independently under a protocol, and then jammed into a fire service filled with tradition of team, partner, paramilitary and discipline and procedure, and wonder why we have some bumps grinds and failures. Some of young folks feel they are capable of any decision, but have not been exposed yet.

When we teach in these classes about how to make decisions, we need to teach and focus much more attention on the consequences of decisions. By doing this we truly are offering guidance rather than being micro managers.

We should really strive to be more like mentors, and examples so that people will emulate us, rather than to tell everyone how much better we can do their job instead of them. The old saying is true…People don’t care about how much you know, until they know how much you care. If you care for your people you will guide them. If you want to show them how much of a genius you think you are you will micro-manage every detail.
See I will give you latitude, you decide which way you want to go.

I truly believe new and young officers can benefit from guidance, and we should be patient with their resistance to our suggestion, but we must continue to guide them rather than to over supervise.

Recent negative experiences in my life have caused me to pause and reflect and be sure that I am a source of guidance, and valued resource, and a place to turn for those that work with me. This whole experience of inner reflection has been good for me.

Try it for yourself,……I promise I won’t tell you how to do it !

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

Communication is a whole lot more than radios and whether or not they work.

Think about the communication that occurs in your department and then think about the following statement: Will what I am about to say into the radio cause anyone to do anything? We give reports, we do an awful lot of chatter, but are we saying anything? Let’s look at a couple of reports and then let’s try to make them better.

Engine 2 is on the scene, 2 story wood frame, smoke showing.

OK, that is pretty good and a lot better than what we used to do, but what did it do for me?

Engine 2 is on the scene, 2 story wood, smoke showing, I am advancing an 1 3/4 line into the C side door.

I now have the same information but I know the crew is around the back and advancing the line. I now have some idea about the size of the attack and where my people are and I have used about 1 more second of air time! How much air time gets wasted now?

Five minutes later that crew of engine 2 reports back…

Portable engine 2, (or engine 200) we have a lot of smoke but no heat, still checking.

Not bad, I know the crew is OK, and they have not found the source of the fire yet.

How about this?

Basement division to command, lots of smoke but no heat still checking.

I now know that the crew that went into the back door has found the basement stairs and has changed levels. This entire incident could be a furnace incident.

Just by thinking if what you say is going to make someone do something, we can do wonders to improve how we communicate on the emergency scene.

Having a company use the terminology of where they are located in the building aids in our ability to both track where they are and where I may need to send a FAST team (or RIT) to get them if they are in trouble. The problem is that we know that firefighters move throughout the building and they rarely report when they change locations. We
continue to traditionally use portable numbers or identifiers rather than location designations. This has an effect on firefighter, safety, accountability and operations in general.

Spend some time modifying what you say and the way you say it…you might just save somebody’s life by doing it!

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

This week we will look at Lack of use or failure of accountability.

For review I have listed the five common factors in LODD factors below:

Five major common factors among line of duty deaths are:

Lack of use or participation in Incident Command

Lack of proper risk assessment.

Inadequate communication.

Lack or failure of SOPS

Lack of accountability.

Firefighters must stay within Voice, Visual, or Touch Contact.

This week I was told that radio counts as voice contact. I am a ham radio operator. Last week my “partner” was in Lithuania. I was in voice contact with him. I am not sure I could have helped rescue him, and I am not sure of exactly where he was if I had to rescue him, but I guess we were in voice contact, so I must have met the standard.

I show this absurdity because the actual intent is to maintain crew integrity and be able to help if someone is in trouble. Does radio count….sure it does if you are able to immediately come to the aid of someone in trouble. If you will immediately react when they don’t answer. If you are in a position to help.

If we are in a medium to large sized room and in actual voice contact, and you yell hey Pete are you OK through your SCBA facepiece and I do not respond within one or two calls you are going to react. If I am on the C side of a building and you call me on the radio and I don’t answer, you will try a couple times, curse your radio, check with fire alarm or command, and then maybe walk around the back. I submit it is a little too late.

On a ranch house, this might be fine. A supermarket or warehouse? I think not.

The conditions of voice visual or touch should become more enforced as conditions that you are operating in change.

Alarm investigation, little or no smoke or food on the stove, = voice or visual contact.

Moderate smoke condition, no heat = voice contact visual not available. Not by radio!

Heavy smoke, high heat = Touch contact or able to reach to solve an emergency.

Firefighters must use the system in place in their department.

Officers must enforce and require discipline and mandate participation.

Chiefs must research and provide an adequate system.

On scene duties:

Firefighters must stay as a crew and know where your partners are at all times. You must be in a position that allows to you to immediately assist your partner and correct any life saving issue. Know who you are reporting to.

Officers must know where their crews are operating, that they are in fact intact. Officers must check crew integrity every 15 minutes by some mechanism. Officers should know who they are accountable for and to.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

One of our regular members will be discussing and demonstrating google glass and I will be discussing some ipad apps.

This week I am recounting four principles of the workplace that come from a very unlikely source. Can we apply the principles that they made famous to the fire service.

The folks at Pike’s Seafood in Seattle WA. These folks at the local fish market did some remarkable things in their own small fish business that have not only made them famous, but have led them to become speakers for major corporations on how to improve the workplace and morale.

Since morale always seems to be an issue in the fire service I feel that we can apply these basic principles to us! Here goes:

Principle # 1 – Play!

Now I fully understand there is no room for horseplay at an emergency scene, I do believe that people should be able to have safe reasonable fun at work, while maintaining productivity. If your personnel want to come to work and genuinely have fun, then that attitude will show when they contact other firefighters, and members of the public.

Principle # 2 – Make Their Day !

It should be your prupose to attempt to “make the day” of all those you contact. This also includes co-workers, and members of the public. In our profession it is very difficult to make someone’s day after some terrible circumstance such as a fire and or medical emergency. Now, while these are difficult, they should be our goal. In addition, there are many folks we meet in the course of a day, during a routine non-emergency transport, fire inspection, and other contacts where this works just fine. Would’nt it be nice if people looked forward to dealing with you as opposed to dreading having to talk with you.

Principle # 3 – Be There

Really connect and be present when you deal with others. Be an active participant, team player, that everyone knows “is there.” We have all spoken to people who appear that they are merely existing, and we seem to be bothering by our very presence. Be present, enthusiastic, and a valuable member of the team!

Principle # 4 – Choose Your Attitude

I saved the best and most important for last. Each morning before work, choose the attitude that you will present to others for that day. While life’s circumstances effect us all, choosing the attitude you present to others, is solely your responsibility. Attitudes are contagious as well. If all we do is sit around and complain, then those around us will complain, and pretty soon we say, “see everybody feels that way, it’s not just me”. The question is, did it start with you? Wouldn’t you like to be the cause of positive morale and good performance on your job?

Don’t blame anyone else for your attitude.

For four guys in a fish market these four principles really make some sense, huh?

There is a book called FISH that you may want to pick up that further explains this whole concept in much greater detail, and there is a web site also called Fishphilosophy.

Check it out, and then you will know why I am now “gone fishin” for a new way of doing business!

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013