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Comment by Jason Hoevelmann on March 19, 2009 at 8:49pm

This is so true and is not uncommon in my area. In addition, we also deal with rogue boards that are in the pockets of the wrong individuals. We see alot of promotions based on who your in with instead of what the experience, education and leadership level one has. We recently had a captain promoted to assistant chief/training officer on a whim. This person is not an instructor, not a certified fire officer, and has very little formal training from outside agencies and organization. To top it all off, there was no such position, he will be the first.

This is when leaders have a tough time keeping morale high and to keep people motivated. It is a challenging circumstance that we have been dealing with for a couple years and it wont last forever. It is hard, though, to get the troops to be patient and motivated.

Comment by Ben Waller on March 14, 2009 at 9:14pm

Mick,

Imagine - personalities, egos, and human nature getting in the way of teamwork. Imagine - "my way or the highway" being spoken in the fire service. Imagine - the superior winning the battle but losing the morale war. Imagine - unrealistic expectations on one side or both torpedoing a realistic change that would improve things. We don't need a huge imagination to see any of those, do we?

Sometimes there's a third way in between Sun Tzu's two extremes of picking your battles and beseiging the walled city. I've spent a lot of time on whitewater rivers where the rocks started out as rough or even jagged boulders. Over time, the water wears down the rocks until they're smooth and round. In some cases, a small waterfall will fall onto a boulder in one spot until it actually wears a hole through it. In other cases, the rock will have a hard granite cap but a softer sandstone base layer. As the water falls off of the granite, it wears the sandstone away, until the granite breaks off in big chunks and turns a big waterfall into a turbulent-but-runnable rapid.

In other words, given enough time, the water always beats the rocks.

If you're the rock, you'll stand tough for a while, but the water will always win regardless of the direction from which it impacts the rock.

Be the water.

Comment by Paul West on March 14, 2009 at 8:20pm

I needed to read these comments today to refresh in my mind that I wasn't the only one to ever battle "counter productive" forces in the and outside the fire dept. After a 20 year absence from my small town, I moved back in 2000 and found a town board cleaning up a long underfunded and unsupported vol. fire dept., in fact the town was in the process of being sued by a large insurer for failure to provide service due to so much fire loss. They created the first full time Fire Chief's position and asked me to take it. Things started off fantastically but then 6 wks. after I was hired 4 out of 5 of the board that hired me got beat in the election or didn't run. I inherited a mayor and some board members who were not fans of the fire dept. The down hill slide began slowly but the constant interference from city hall began destroying the dept. After 7 1/2 years I went to war with them over a county commissioner who died of a heart attack with all local ambulances tied up. The mayor refused to let the f.d. respond three blocks to assist him.( yes we were equipped, trained and certified) The heart was restarted 25 min. later at a local hospital, however he was 85% brain dead from oxygen deprivation. He was not the first to die in town or be trapped in a vehicle and the f.d. was forbidden to respond. The news media got into the fray, the family has a suit filed against the town and when I wouldn't cover for city hall they terminated me and eliminated my full time position, going back to the condition they were in in 2000 and before. Chief officers especially, be very careful picking your battles. You can have widespread support from the public and your members but when it hits the fan and you make a stand for whats right, it very well may be just you and God fighting the battle. I'll take God on my side any day, I've been in and out of work for 19 months with this economy but he hasn't let me miss a meal and I can look in the mirror and know I stood for right, even though its had a very high cost.

Comment by Chad Furr on March 14, 2009 at 10:58am

Great advice hope all of us on FFN can head your advice and use it to resolve conflicts more peaceful. TCSS and buckle up.

Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on March 14, 2009 at 10:48am

Mick:

If I didn’t know any better, your blog almost described “dissension” bordering on “rebellion”; dissension being a disagreement in opinion and rebellion as defined as resistance to authority.

In this age of the many task saving devices that we employ to quickly solve our problems with our busy days, we find it frustrating to stand still and dedicate time for something that isn’t part of our daily schedule or normal routine. Arguing with a colleague can sap strength and waste valuable time if it is done for no other reason than to “make a point”.

If we are lobbying or selling an idea, then it should be presented in committee format, so the presenter doesn’t take it personally should his idea not be embraced.

It seems as though that as time goes on, the chemistry that we enjoyed early on with our men and women changes and doesn’t have any ONE reason for it. People that we could always find in our corner just a few short years ago are now in the opposite corner ready to come out for Round 2. I think we get so comfortable that we lose sight that it is humanly possible to agree on everything.

Plus, as we move along, there were those times when we should have asserted ourselves more forcefully but didn’t, because of the “friendships”. This only reinforced the idea in THEM that they could be criticial, disagree or be insubordinate without any negative fallout. I know it happened to me more than a few times.

When that occurs, you have to spend the time to mend fences, allow feelings to return to their pre-contused state and try to keep a department moving forward.

So, in retrospect, it is better to spend the time when the upheaval occurs to save time down the road. I always enlisted the input from ALL members of the department in a meeting setting. They were all on equal ground in the meeting room. Democracy at its best.

But it was made very clear that democracy did NOT exist at the scene of the incident. That was not the time to “argue”. Unless it was a matter of safety, it was duly noted and a discussion could be taken back to the station.

We have to walk a very fine line between maintaining order, promoting entrepreneurship on our department, providing excellent service to our communities and do that without giving up any of our principles or caving in to a certain “mob mentality”.

Being a leader doesn’t have to be a lonely job. In fact; it shouldn’t be.

Good leaders and their people should support each other unconditionally in times of battle, despite any differences that exist outside of those times.

Excellent blog, ZenMaster.

TCSS.
Art

Comment by Kimberly A Bownas on March 14, 2009 at 8:58am

Holy cow Mick, that is really so true. I have come across that myself with our company elections. I am one of 5 that is on our nominating committee and over the past couple of years there have been issues that have come up that we have been over ruled on and it is frustrating. I was not the chairman of the committee till this year so I always in the past let the other person take the helm when it came to presenting our findings. This year I took the job of being the chairman of the committee. Not an easy job let me tell you. We did our research and then when the time came presented it to our board of directors and to the chief of the department. It was mentioned that a member running for the deputy chief's spot didn't have a certain class and the chief stated that he took the class with the member. I just very nicely looked at the chief and told him that if the member doesn't have the class then neither does he and he is not eligible to run for the position of chief. It worked to my advantage only because the class that was originally needed had changed and luckily the state class print out stated that the class use to be called something else. Having that information in writing proved what the committee had been saying for the past 2 years and it worked very well. The chief to say the least wasn't happy with me but I was doing my job the way it was to be done and I had what was needed to back up my I was saying.

You are so right in what you said, you need to pick your battles and if you are going to fight that battle have the tools to back you up. That maybe information, people with information that is correct. If you are wrong then admit that you were wrong, it shows that you are wiling to admit you made a mistake. I have had to do that myself a time or two and it is very humbling but, it has made me a better person I think and it is helping me to hopefully when I get to be an officer to be a good one. This is a blog that makes you think about how to handle tough situations with personnel. Thanks for this, I haven't seen a whole lot of discussions or blogs with good information or ideas on this subject. I may have missed them. Great blog