I spend a large amount of time each week speaking with firefighters during the course of teaching or leading mentorship groups for a variety of development topics. I get to hear their views and perspectives about organizational process and progress. I get to hear their true happiness when something new or different they execute is successful. I also get to hear their frustrations and about what doesn’t make sense to them. I get plenty of questions about struggles as individuals, sections, situations, or the department as a whole.
In a recent conversation with a group of my own mentors, I had a profound realization as we discussed an educational opportunity we are working on. One of my smart friends was relaying a story of a long ago, annual RBO (Labor/Management Relations by Objectives) retreat. It seems labor and management had been toiling with the idea of our mission statement for a better part of the 2- or 3-day process. All understood a mission statement mattered but the great disagreement was about how to communicate it. There were intellectuals (for firefighters) from management writing long-winded, over-explanations of what we did. There were labor representatives trying to ensure we still remained the “FireDepartment” in the end. On the last morning, there was a push to get it done when each side was unsure what it really should be.
As management sat with a sense of indignation and labor attempted to manage their hangovers, the boss spoke up. In a way that is so specific to how he was as leader, he started asking the frustrated, photo-sensitive group some questions.
“What are we supposed to be doing for the community?”
“What are we here to help them with?”
As I understand it, one of the more alert Otis Campbell impersonators said, “survive”, in an attempt to describe what he was trying todo. With a sense of surprise and mutual acceptance, the boss agreed. He asked if survival was enough to describe our customer service? He asked, how did we want our customers to view what we provided? It was obvious to the group that they needed a better explanation of what we represent. After discussing our services in the simplest terms, it was concluded that what we really wanted our community to understand is that we were here to “prevent harm”.
As the room gained energy with a realization that this painful exercise may be nearing an end, the boss leaned forward and said in serious tone, “I want to make sure we’re nice when we do it!”
In times when it appears that our existence as the fire service is becoming more and more complicated and convoluted, we need to evaluate our lowest common denominators. When the expectations of municipal leadership attempt to change firefighters into something they can better understand and better control, it adds identity confusion and over complication of what we are here to do. Organizational leaders struggle with whom their master is, as well as what are we as a department are here to do. I can assure you we were never designed to be a public relations arm of a mayor’s office or to be run like we’re here to save money rather than using our allotted financial resources to leverage every possible service we can for the community.
This confusion and struggle for control ultimately requires that intervention of simple questions. What are we supposed to be doing for the community? What are we here to help them with?
Survive
Prevent Harm
Be Nice
It’s our mission!
-Chris Stewart