Delivering outstanding customer service is not a “nicety” for your department; it’s the key to its survival. The successes I just described did not occur overnight or in a “vacuum”; they were earned one customer interaction at a time.
Read More »Management Sciences
Musings of a 1st Year EFOP Student
I am a geek, nerd, academically gifted, call it what you will, and my EFOP experiences have re-confirmed that for me. (As if I really needed this program to do that for me.) I have always gravitated towards learning experiences, especially experiences that challenge me. EFOP was no exception. What was the exception this time in my geekiness that has blatantly come to light the past year – I inserted myself in too many of these challenging experiences at one time causing added stress.
Read More »Approachability—A Key Officer Characteristic
Approachability is a key leadership characteristic, but one that few leaders actively work to develop. Learn more about how to become more approachable as a Fire and EMS officer, or for that matter, anyone who leads, guides and directs people in accomplishing a mission.
Read More »Stressors for POC and Volunteer Firefighters
What I find to be true for the points made by both Linda and MB Firefighter is that all but one—the impact of emergency incident management on firefighters—are entirely within our scope as leaders and managers to manage out of the fire service.
Read More »Legacy in Action
Each of us who serve in the fire service, especially those of us privileged to have a leadership position, wants to leave a legacy. We want to feel that our time, energy, and contribution will have a lasting positive influence of the organization long after we hang up our helmet for the last time. I think this is especially true for those of us who—in addition to holding an officer rank—also embraced our roles as a teacher, coach and mentor
Read More »3 Tools for Sharing Organizational Knowledge
So how can we in the Fire & EMS profession more proactively “capture” such knowledge before it “walks out the door” with the next retiree? Let’s take a closer look at some of our “old and reliable” information management tools: policy, procedure, and processes. Frequently, we use these terms interchangeably, but they are not synonymous at all. However, if we understand how the “fit” together, we will find that they can serve as powerful tools to help transfer organizational knowledge from one generation of members to another.
Read More »The Genesis of a Fire Service Leader Network
With my acceptance into the program, I joined a cohort of 21 other members who are newly appointed fire chiefs and aspiring fire chiefs from around the nation. Before our first session in May, retired Fire Chief Mary Beth Michos, the coordinator for FSEDI, sent out biographies of each cohort member. As I read through the other 21 biographies, I was “floored”, awed, daunted, and honored. Impressive is an understatement for the biographies. I fumble to find the right word to describe the group of individuals I was reading about: remarkable, inspiring, extraordinary, amazing… No pressure.
Read More »Fire Department in Danger After Levy Fails
As Dr. Phil says, “It’s time to get real!” Fire departments must stop trying to provide a model of fire protection—one that’s predicated on saving lives and property through the reactive deployment of firefighters who implement an interior fire attack the majority of time—when the department does not possess the resources to do so safely, effectively, and efficiently according to accepted standards and practices, e.g., NFPA 1710 or NFPA 17.
Read More »Being the First-line Supervisor Ain’t Easy
The company officer (first-line supervisor) is the toughest "gig" in any fire department, but too many of those officers make it harder than it needs to be by not wanting "to be the bad guy", i.e., the officer who follows policy and procedure and makes everyone else follow them as well.
Read More »Finding Your Funding
Once upon a time…with a beginning like that you just know this is going to be a good story, right? Well the good news is that it’s not a fairy tale. It is, however, the fictitious story of how a fictitious municipal fire department, the Cutting Edge County Fire and Rescue (CECFR) Department, created a non-profit organization (NPO) to provide financial support to its customer service efforts. It serves as a model for actual departments to follow.
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