Have you ever recognized what a difference a single minute in your life can make? Most of us only count down the minutes at the end of the day near quitting time, or when we are waiting for a big event. We never really recognize just how important every minute is because every minute makes a real difference. It is important to remember that for everything there is a season, a time for every activity.
Be Aware of Critical Moments
A critical moment is when you make a decision that has a critical impact on your life. These can include fire ground decisions, career decisions, attitude decisions or decisions on choice of words. These may last only a few minutes, hours or days. Sometimes these decisions may have impacts that last a life time. Most of our decisions are made in a rapid fire mode and are impacted by attitude. It is important to remember that attitudes are choices or decisions we make.
Some Individuals would look at a pile of rubble and say “what a mess” while others will look at the same pile and say “what an opportunity”. At this moment there is a critical decision going on. Which one of these individuals would you want leading the fire department in your community? Most would say the one who has a vision of what that “mess” could be. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time in the great State of Vermont training with a group of outstanding emergency services professionals in Addison County. What a breath of fresh air. The amount of energy that was delivered to my starving body was incredible from spending just 48 hours with such great fire service leaders. I was able to reflect upon 50+ years of leadership legacy that was still going strong. That’s right; the fire chief of Vergennes Fire Department the late Ralph Jackman had been the Chief for 50+ years. The best part was he looked at everything in a progressive, proactive philosophy of saying “look at that opportunity”. He understood that every minute made a difference and he understood these critical moments and the importance of a positive attitude even when the chips were down and things were not going as he may have hoped or wanted.
As individuals and leaders of the fire service we must look at opportunities with vision. We must be able to decode the “mess” into “opportunity”. It is paramount that we focus on the concepts that it shouldn’t be this way, but we can make it something else. These are truly hectic times we live in, times that can challenge even strongest of seasoned leaders or firefighters.
Regularly ask yourself three (3) questions…
1. Who and what is influencing me?
There are many individuals and things that can influence you. Subsequently you must ask yourself if these influences are positive or negative. Many times your influences can be strong positive ones while other times they can be the negative ones that you fall victim too. It is important to have strong positive influences in our lives. Remember ever time you choose to follow an influence it is a critical decision and becomes a critical moment in your live. “
“Choose wisely Grasshopper”
2. Where does my mind naturally go?
What are you thinking about when you have free time or where does your mind drift off too frequently. Where your mind goes will have a big influence on critical moments in your life. Make sure that the place your mind is visiting is worth being there!
3. What am I passionate about?
What do I really like in life is another way to say this. Well often times when we get to this level of soul searching we can see that we have things a lot better than others. Often times it is a big reality check that we realize we are not following or doing our passions. It is important to make sure that your passion is not a negatively impacting one as well. Remember everything is influenced by our attitudes; you should always be reminding yourself that your attitude is like a disease and is yours truly worth catching.
Don’t Miss Opportune Moments
We should all be reminded just how brief our time being alive really is. None of us will live forever. We are merely moving shadows and all our busy rushing ends in often times nothing. Opportune moments don’t have to be big successes, but can be as simple as learning how to do something new. We are all busy and miss the opportunity to celebrate great moments. So with all this rushing around and what we are missing let’s look at what happens when you get in a real hurry or act in haste…
• You feel stressed.
• You lose your joy…simplified your laughter, special times and moments of impact.
• You are less productive.
• You can’t hear or see anyone.
So if you don’t want to miss opportune moments or act in haste you need to slow done. You may ask, “how do I slow down”? Remember it is important that you work hard but take time to rest as well. I recently was out to eat lunch. A group of pastors were at this restaurant as well. I heard one of the pastors state I always remind my congregation that the Devil never rests, another pastor asked since when did we start following his lead. Silence fell on that group for a moment and the first pastor replies wow I never looked at it like that! So what are some helpful hints to get you to slow down?
• Participate – Go and do more with family friends, colleagues.
• Delegate – Don’t put that big Superman “S” symbol on your chest. It usually doesn’t signify you are “Superman” but more like “Stupid man”
• Procrastinate – Stop and think before you act or speak, often times take more than just a second in this case. I see great leaders take days, weeks and months to act on items to keep from making poor decisions.
• Eliminate – Eliminate all the bad influences, attitudes and passions
Please don’t waste your minutes…they may be running low and you don’t even know it!
Power is the ability to command or apply force.
A wise person once said, “It’s not life that’s important, but those you meet along the way that make the difference.” Many people have taught me many valuable, unforgettable leadership lessons. Here are ten I’d like to share with you.
In multi-story multifamily structures there is a lot more to consider than in single family structures. The population density increases significantly, the size of the structure increases and in high rise operations you have to be concerned with the rapid spread of heat, smoke, toxic gases and fire upward through the structure. The fact that the structural design is significantly different as the size if focused on going vertical verses horizontal.
As we embark deep into the millennium and a new decade, changes are sure to occur. The fire service will surely see many of these changes. The place that we need to make changes initially is within ourselves as officers. We must be prepared to meet these new challenges and a new decade with a set of fully charged batteries. The task of change is extremely hard, as we are often times nostalgic. However, we must strive to reach new levels in service through education and training. The first taste of leadership in recruit academies is seen by trainees through the instructors and officers they have. As a young officer one of my mentors told me this little secret, “A true instructor is a leader of the future”. With that I had to ask how? My answer was, “you shape the minds and careers of many firefighters through education. By doing so you are leading the fire service of tomorrow.” It was not until much later that I could truly understood what this great leader was talking about. I have found it to be true that you lead tomorrow’s firefighters through instruction today.
analogies over my career about the fire service like “You can peal one fire department name off the wall and replace it with another one and it would be the same” and “it is the same circus but with different clowns”. The more I hear this type of talk the more I have come to realize that we got some really big issues at hand that need immediate attention. I have witnessed many events and issues over the years and recently listened to a guest speaker at church talk about recent situations he was in and how his staff reacted. The first thought that came to mind was the fire service. I know that many folks are going to say here is a negative attitude about to come out. Well it just might be but it is reality and we have to face that it is what it is! We have three types of folks in the fire service: Shiners, Whiners and Recliners. So which do you fall into? Let’s take a look at all three and see what we can do to identify their characteristics.
Being a leader does not mean you have to be the Chief Brunacini in your fire department. In fact trying to be some type of leader you are not can get you into deep trouble. It is important to develop your own styles and type. In the 1980’s Dr. Warren Bennis of the University of California conducted a 5 year research study that look specifically at various styles of effective leaders. It is interesting to see that the results found that although each leader had his or her distinctive leadership style, they all shared four leadership competencies. These have been identified as the keys to successful leadership and Dr. Bennis identified them as: Management of Attention, Management of meaning, Management of Trust, Management of Self.
Both leadership and management are important and have their place. it is important not to confuse the two as they are different. Leadership is the skill and an attitude that enables one to get others to accomplish the objectives or goals that have been established. Management is the ability or skill of controlling resources, activities or tasks during the accomplishment of a objectives or goals. It is important to realize that these two concepts work synergistically together and that one without the other is not going to be very effective. “leadership is doing the right things, management is doing things right”, according to Doctor Warren Bennis of the University of California.
Good to Great…How many times have you heard that buzz phrase in the last three years. Maybe you never even gave it much thought till now. So let’s take this opportunity to dissect the concept. Good… If you would ask most any company officer or firefighter if they were a good company they would most likely reply yes. If we posed the same question only changing company to department the most common answer would be yes. In general conversation this same group would use the word good in describing most of their collegues. So why do they use good and not great? What does it take to go from Good to Great?
