B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Hot Washes, Command Presence, and Leadership Insights
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This episode features Steve Lester, Grant Light and John Vance.
Experience the power of post-incident reviews, or "hot washes," within the firefighting community. This episode sheds light on how these reviews offer a comprehensive understanding of incidents, highlighting effective actions and clarifying questionable decisions. We emphasize the crucial role of positive reinforcement from leadership to boost morale and reinforce good practices. You'll get detailed guidelines for conducting hot washes, including handling defensiveness and ensuring constructive feedback, fostering a productive and positive atmosphere even in tense situations.
Get your Hot Wash Quick Reference Guide here: https://files.constantcontact.com/dcea1db4901/9b8dedf7-92f1-4ce3-b10e-4129995ff31d.pdf?rdr=true
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This episode was recorded on July 30, 2024 in Charlottesville, VA
Steve Lester dives into his fascinating topic, blending competence, confidence, and control with insights from neuroscience. Meanwhile, Grant Light provides a sneak peek into his session on the "Eight Functions of Command for Technical Rescue," emphasizing customized training for various rescue scenarios. As a bonus, we share our love for Charlottesville and encourage you to secure your spot for the upcoming Hazard Zone Conference in Sharonville, Ohio.
Finally, we explore the benefits of immediate debriefings and self-diagnosis after incidents. Discover how real-time learning and self-criticism can occur right at the back of the fire truck, capturing pivotal information without external judgment. We discuss the challenges of conducting these reviews in public or high-tension situations and stress the necessity of formal after-action reviews for significant incidents. Learn effective methods for documenting and disseminating lessons learned, and recognize the role of proactive leadership in driving continuous improvement and fostering a culture of learning within fire departments. Through personal stories and practical advice, this episode underscores the impact of effective leadership on team cohesion and operational excellence.
Welcome to the B-Shifter Podcast. You've got John Vance here, along with Steve Lester and Grant Light, and we are coming to you live on video recording and audio recording from Charlottesville, virginia. It is July 30th 2024. And this episode will actually air August 5th 2024. But we're here doing a Train the Trainer and we brought the bikes with us so we could sit around and talk and do a podcast, like we always like to do when we can when we're on the road. So today we're hanging out in the hotel room and got done with class today. Great department, great folks here in Virginia, awesome, awesome, really enjoyed it. It has been great.
Speaker 3A bunch of departments.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, we have Louisa and Mooresville are also in the class and I thought they were all close to here, but I think Mooresville is like four hours away and where we are here is the home of Dave Matthews, so I've been pretty excited about that. We're probably going to go and go to a restaurant bar that he used to play at all the time called Miller's.
Speaker 3Yeah, so we're going to search for him. He could show up, never know.
Speaker 2And he'll talk to us like this I'm going to do radio size-ups like Dave. Matthews for Blue Card. Anyway, today, what we want to talk about? Well, first of all, before we get into the topic which is going to be hot washes and critiques and coaching your company after an incident. We are all going to be at the Hazard Zone Conference, steve. What is your topic that you will be talking about this year?
Speaker 1well, this year, john, I'm gonna be uh doing a presentation on the three c's of command presence. Uh, if you might have listened to my podcast, we did about a about a year and a half ago, I guess it was. Uh, we did the three c's of command presence in a podcast and, uh, the folks at b shifter asked me to put together a class for the conference for that. So we'll be going over competence, confidence and control. So, looking really forward to it, we're going to be talking about some neuroscience stuff, some kind of get a little nerdy with it, but it should be a really good class. I'm looking forward to it. Excellent topic.
Speaker 2And I think when Bruno was alive he would actually be at our Thursday classes and that was kind of the topic of conversation that he would talk about cool command, and it's something that's missing, I think, not only in the fire service but just in our circles right now. So I'm glad you're taking the ball and running with it, because it is a topic that needs to be talked about and I don't think a lot of people we can teach a lot of the skills in blue card and decision-making and communication, but teaching somebody that actual command presence, how to speak, how to control your emotions, all of that is such an important skill and a lot of us just learn by watching others and it's like I want to be like that guy but we don't have a lot of those people either.
Speaker 1So, to develop those skills, there are several ways you can pick it up. You know sets and reps, of course, is a good thing, and experience, you know, we've got to go to fires, we've got to go to incidents, we've got to go to incidents. We've got to be able to learn from other people's experiences as well. So, yeah, a lot of things we'll be talking about in that class. Really looking forward to it. And Grant Light, what's your?
Speaker 3class this year. So we're going to be talking about the eight function of command for technical rescue. So we do the eight functions of command for firefighting and everybody in those classes has an experience level of firefighting right from when they first get on the fire department and all the people that they meet and all the people that they work under they learn about. You know how to run a fire or how a fire operates and things you should think about. But then when you show up at a trench rescue or something like that, there's nothing in your Rolodex, in your file, in your brain that says what's the most important thing here I got to worry about. In your brain that says what's the most important thing here I got to worry about? What do I need to do or not do to keep my company safe and to keep this thing from de-escalating and falling apart, right?
Speaker 3So we're putting together a program where we will have it's kind of like a la carte. So if your department decides that they feel trench rescue is important there's a lot of construction going on, a lot of trench going on then they can say, hey, do this little, do this online piece. And we think water is important for our department, our department is out in Arizona somewhere. We don't even have rivers or water with them. They don't have to do that. So we didn't want to just do an eight or 10 hour class where you cover everything. We're going to make it so that they're separate modules, so so people can pick what's important to their department, what what they think they feel their, their employees need to have, and that's awesome yeah.
Speaker 2It's going to be great. August 3rd I'm sorry, october 3rd and 4th in Cincinnati, ohio, slash Sharonville. It's at the Sharonville Convention Center. If you go to hazardzonebccom you can get all the information. There's about 150 seats left for the overall general conference right now. Last year we had 500. This year we're capped because of the space in the room to 700, and it looks like we're going to get there. So we are encouraging folks to get online. Go to hazardzonebccom, get signed up right now, because there are limited seats Once we hit 700, we can't put anybody else in the room by orders of the Sharonville Fire Marshal.
Speaker 2So we've got to you know. Hopefully people will. If you want to go, you'll get signed up Also. Hotels are filling up pretty quickly. We do have some hotel banks left.
Speaker 1I noticed, you know, and we are doing a May Day workshop prior to the conference. I noticed today I looked on the computer and there was about a dozen slots left for that May Day workshop. So that filled up and Josh keeps adding more seats.
Speaker 2So it's filled up twice. But he's adding instructors to help facilitate. So he said this is the last time that we can add Because we were limiting it to, I think, 40, and then we've gone up from there. I think it's going to be 90 now altogether. So, yeah, a lot of people coming to Cincinnati, Hope to see everyone there and we're looking forward to a great conference this year for the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference.
Speaker 3That May Day workshop is really good, really really good. The front end of it, just the in-class part, is top-notch and it really helps everybody for something that they never want to be involved in, they never want to be a part of. But if that were to happen, you've got something to ground yourself to fall back on. It's really good.
Speaker 2Well, and all of us teach on May Day Day because we're out to entrain the trainers, but really the number one guy to have at that class is Jeffrey King and he's going to be leading the discussion there. So he's been through it before His departments have been through it before. He knows it in and out. It's something he's deeply invested in emotionally and he's a great instructor. So you know he and a bunch of other instructors will be there presenting so good stuff.
Speaker 2So today we want to talk about continuous improvement and Bruno used to talk about, you know, the continuous improvement model where we have a policy, we put the policy into practice, we train on the policy, we tweak the policy and then we keep that whole cycle going over and over again. And part of tweaking a policy really comes into doing a good hot wash and critiquing our actions after an incident. And we don't improve as a department, as a station, as a company, as a shift, unless we are always looking at ourselves and fixing ourselves and and trying to do better. And I have a mantra that I picked up from somebody I didn't invent it 1% better every day. And the one way that we get 1% better every day is by figuring out what went right, what went wrong and how do we make those improvements along the way.
Speaker 2So we've affectionately called these tailboard talks, or critiques, in the past. So, starting off with, you know what do we talk about when we're going to a tailboard talk? What triggers us from saying you know, this is a worthy incident that I want to gather everybody around and talk to them a little bit before they go back to the station and capture what happened?
Speaker 1Well, in my experience as a battalion chief I had my kind of rule of thumb was any multi-unit response anything where we have you know three or four pieces of equipment on that incident where they actually make it on scene or given assignments, formal command is established, things like that then we should be doing a hot wash, whether that be you know an MVC with extrication, or you know a gas, maybe a gas leak that requires a lot of evacuation, maybe putting some lines on the ground for protection, things like that, hazmat incidents and of course you know any structural fire that we go to would require that as well. But you know, I thought that was always anytime there was a multi-unit response we should do the tailboard talk, or where I'm from, we call it a hot wash.
Speaker 2Do you know what the definition of a hot wash is?
Learning From Incident Reflections
Speaker 1Yeah, the definition of a hot wash. Of course it occurs on the scene and it is just basically just a quick recap. Usually it's meant to last like 15 or 20 minutes, but it's not. It's very informal. It's an informal talk. It might be led in like a formal type of or like a format, so to speak, but it's really supposed to give everyone that was involved on the scene, from the battalion chief or whoever was in command all the way down to the tailboard firefighter an opportunity to speak and give their input and be able to give and take criticism.
Speaker 2Grant what's your experience with the hot wash and with your crews?
Speaker 3I enjoyed them. Everybody feels you know. When you go to an incident, fire, whatever it is, you always feel like I was there.
Speaker 3I know everything that happened, I know what went on there and you realize that you really don't, you kind of know your thing and maybe somebody who's close to you, but but in the big picture you really didn't know what was going on. What did the first team company see? What did these guys see? Why did they do that? Oh, cause I saw this like oh, and it really I just always I really enjoyed them Cause I just thought you kind of got the big picture of what happened and then things that that you, that I saw, that maybe have been like why would anybody do that?
Speaker 3Well, then you find out, oh, okay, I get, why I think it's a good rumor or that guy's a goofball, why did he do that? And then you realize when they explain why they did what they did, it was like, oh well, that was pretty heads up, right. I think they're really good just to get everybody on kind of the same page of how the thing ran and again, they're not always punitive, they're. You know, it's just like kind of laying out how this thing went from the jump, from the first in company. People who got there later like, okay, I get, I get how we got to from A to B and I always thought they were really good. I liked them.
Speaker 1And you know, even from a from a leadership perspective, even if, if, if it's just a routine, let's just say it's just a small extrication or something where everything goes right, there's no real big issues to discuss, or anything like that it gives the battalion chief, or whoever the incident commander is, an opportunity just to give the folks a pat on the back and say, hey, good job, folks Really appreciate what you're doing, everything went right, I'm very pleased. And it just gives them some positive reinforcement, which I think goes a long way in this day and age.
Speaker 2Late, great Tom Brennan said that you want to capture what happened on the scene before the guys get on the truck, because the lies are already being made up once they get on the truck. Kind of to the point that Grant was saying to capture the truth and what happened there, as well as the pat on the back. I think the pat on the back is very important because people just don't get that reinforcement and you don't want people to. Once they're gathered around the tailboard, let's say that's where it is to say, oh gee, here it comes again. He's going to chew our butts because this or that happened. You want them to like hey, we're also going to be told what we did right here. So I think that's very, very important. Um, so, when you're doing that, what are kind of the ground rules? I guess you know, like who speaks, who, who leads it, who, who gets their turn at the table to speak up? Is it open to everybody? How? How does that? How does that start off?
Speaker 1I generally, when I, when we do a hot wash in my department, usually the incident commander kind of just starts it off and he kind of serves as the moderator, so to speak. In my battalion where I worked, I particularly kind of laid down some ground rules way beforehand and just let everybody know. Hey, everybody know that this is completely constructive and that don't bring your feelings with you, because we're trying to learn here and trying to make us all a little better. So hopefully that groundwork is laid ahead of time but it's moderated by the incident commander. And then typically we just started with the first do and we would just go around okay, first do tell us what you had, what you did, some of the assignments that you made you know, and then, as he would, he or she would finish what they were discussing. Then we would kind of critique that you know.
Speaker 1Okay, well, I noticed a couple of times you didn't, you didn't do TLO all the way through, you didn't do task, location and objective, or you could have been a little more specific here in your, in your follow-up report or something like that, and then we would just move to the next person, or it may be just the opposite, it may be. Hey, that was a really great initial rate report you did. You nailed everything on the sheet, man, while I was riding to the scene I was able to mark down every item off of that checklist, so to speak.
Speaker 2We talk about setting the right tone, which is important, but occasionally we have members that either they're having a bad day or they're particularly defensive. How do we defuse somebody who's going to come into that very defensive, even if just a minor thing's brought up like hey, why don't we do this different next time?
Speaker 1I think if it starts to get defensive, or at least if it starts to get hostile, you have to shut it down immediately and just say that this is something that we can talk about behind closed doors, whether that's maybe the second-due officer has an issue with the first-due officer, or maybe one of the officers has an issue with the decision of the incident commander, something like that. But if it starts to go into hostile territory, I think that's where you have to shut it down or at least skip over that section and go to the next, so that you can continue with the hot wash and say, hey, we'll discuss that later.
Speaker 2And then you really have to follow it up, absolutely yeah. I mean you just can't let it hang, because that ends up festering and it blows up at some point.
Speaker 1And sometimes, when you do shut it down like that and say we'll follow up later, then it seems like cooler heads will prevail, and by the time you actually do sit down and talk, there's a huge change of attitude.
Speaker 2So you go around starting with first due.
Speaker 1second due Is it just the officers then, or is it every member of the company Just speaking for me? Personally, I usually let all my officers speak first, or whoever was the seat rider that day. We have a lot of acting officers in my agency and then at the end I'll give everyone an opportunity to speak, because we have young guys, we have probationary folks that say, hey, I'm new, this is my first fire. Can you tell me, explain this to me? Or maybe they don't understand something about the command structure because they just don't have any experience with that, or something along those lines. We give everybody an opportunity to provide input. Maybe the drivers want to talk about the water supply a little bit. You know something like that, yeah.
Speaker 2Now, grant was a heavy rescue officer, so your work was very technical, I mean, compared to just our normal everyday firefighting. Is there anything you would do different when you're hot washing with your crew?
Learning and Improvement After Incidents
Speaker 3Well, first off, I just wanted to add it always seemed to me that when you did the hot wash, if something wasn't right, the, the, the company officer, whoever would and I don't, I don't want to say it any better they would rat themselves out.
Speaker 3They'd go hey, we came up and we I can know I could have done this better and in the middle of doing it I realized I could have done this better, like they, not that they're getting themselves in trouble, but they just were very honest. You know, and I found it refreshing that in that group, because it was just so right at the moment, that pretty much everybody was just really you could tell people were just being honest, right, like, hey, I think I screwed up and I know I can do better. But I got halfway through doing it and realized, ugh, but at that point I was committed and it was like you're right, and usually the chief would be like you're right, but hey, we'll get there, kind of thing.
Speaker 1I think it makes people feel better to call themselves out than be called out by someone else.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, one of the educators we work with when we were building Blue Card said self-diagnosis is always the best because it's more meaningful to people when they realize that, okay, I messed this up or whatever the case is, and then they're not being called out, they're self-critical and they're able to kind of go on with that. Is there a wrong time to do this, like after certain kinds of incidents or when there's members of the public around? How do you set the stage to have that talk without a lot of people, you know, kind of chiming in from the public or the media or some of the other bystanders we might have?
Speaker 3I just think around the fire truck really works. It does for the most part. Mostly, things are winding down, the excitement's gone, so most of the civilians unless it's their house or whatever they've lost interest. The whole thing's kind of wound down now and anymore the media is there for five minutes and they're gone. They've got a hundred things going on, just like everybody else. I think that the back of the truck, wherever you want to do it, I think that is the spot, because the second, like you said, they get in the firetruck and all drive away. You've lost that moment. I think it works because it's right when everybody's getting ready to go and everything's put away, everybody's kind of relaxed and like, okay, let's just have this little talk, yeah.
Speaker 1I think if tensions are really high, you know, if maybe there was a lot of some multiple fire deaths or maybe something just went crazily wrong, you know, might be a good idea just to say, hey, we'll hold it to next shift. Let's just everybody go back and decompress a little, maybe involve some peer support if we need to, whatever that looks like and then maybe launch like a formal after action review kind of deal, depending on the situation. But, believe it or not, I've actually had some members of the public walk up to me after a hot wash when they see us all gather up in the driveway and say, man, that's really neat that y'all do that. That at least you know you're learning every time you go, and I have received some positive comments from the public for that.
Speaker 2How do you capture the information that you glean from that, Especially if it's going to go on to like if it's a larger incident? There's a lot of great lessons learned. We want to put that into an after action review. That's a little more formal. How do we capture?
Speaker 1all that. Well, my organization just recently launched an after action review committee and we're we're currently in the process of drafting up some policies and procedures for that where, basically, like we like we were talking about every incident gets a hot wash but not every incident is going to get a formal after action review. It needs to be something significant, uh, where we would, where we would launch that type of uh, that type of review. Uh, but that's a formal process where members of the committee would actually come out and interview the officers and and and the incident commander and and things that Review the fire report, review fire ground audio, maybe even some helmet cam footage if there's some guys on the scene that have helmet cams and stuff like that and then put together a full, comprehensive report for the entire department to review.
Speaker 2Grant. Do you have any other experience with capturing that information and passing it on?
Speaker 3No, most of the ones we did it was just very informal. I was involved in things that became big, but that was kind of what he's talking about. It now became a formal thing and there was write a chief's report. That was our formal reporting thing. They said, go back, write a chief's report about it all, about what you did, your company did, that kind of thing. Those were, yeah, the big events. That was the super formal thing. I don't think we really made an effort to capture what, just what happened next to the fire truck kind of thing. It was all just what people there got with, you know, got what they got from it and and it and you just kind of moved on. But they were not the big incident. The big incident, yes, they did the formal.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know incidents like near miss, mayday type events, maybe multiple rescues, strategic shift I know strategic shift is definitely on the list. If we have to make a strategic shift on the fire ground, then that's going to go under an after action review. You know things like that.
Speaker 2My former department. We were big into the tailboard critiques. What we would do is we have a weekly ops report, so we would take notes and then put it into that weekly ops report If there was something remarkable for everybody to know. You know, because a lot of times on these incidents we discover something like a water pressure issue in a certain part of town or a relief valve was sticking on this engine or you know whatever those kinds of things are, they pass it on to that report. So then the other shifts get the benefit of that experience as well, because not everybody's there Right, and if it's something to share with everybody, it's good to be able to have some kind of either formal or informal, or whiteboard or something at the station where we pass that information on. I don't know if you have any success stories you want to pass along or some lessons learned that you've had in the past from some of these that you've done.
Speaker 3I just thought they were a specific one to pass on. I just always thought they were good and kind of walked away with a better attitude about kind of how we operate, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3Like I said you only see the few things that you see, thinking you've seen it all. At that run, yeah, I was there, I know everything that happened. And then when you finally get the whole picture from everybody, at that thing you kind of like okay, it just seemed like, okay, I see where everybody's coming from, right, how it all came together.
Speaker 1I just thought I felt very positive about the ones that we did yeah, and you know I'll say this you know, I spent five years as a battalion chief and I think every time I did one of those, the next incident got a little better. You know, and uh, over time it really just became kind of a high fiver type situation where like, hey guys, I don't, I don't really have anything to add. Everybody did great. We, you know all the officers walked through, what they did went like clockwork, we all high-fived and went to the house, you know, and uh, but yeah, I think every one of those get a little better because people learn from them. You know, and it's like you make a mistake, okay, just own it and we'll move on and we'll go to the next one and next time you won't make that mistake.
Speaker 2One of the worst things out. Everyone's going home. Let's just, you know and these are usually ugly scenes where somebody is actually saying that because a ladder fell or pressure was off or things didn't get charged when they needed to get charged. So there's always something to learn off of those, and I think there's a way to create that environment that you're talking about, where people expect it. I mean, it really came to pass that people would want the, they would remind me. Sometimes it's like, hey, we're going to do a tailboard. Oh yeah, you know, because once in a while you get busy with something and you're you're for, you're forgetting, cause you're off to the next thing. So I think to make time for it and make it part of every incident, cause there's something that we can learn from every single incident that we go to.
Speaker 1Yep, yeah, this kind of all this whole hot wash thing really started for me back when I was a young Lieutenant, probably in the early two thousands. Um, we went to a fire at a business and you know, you know the first-due lieutenant. He kind of had one foot out the door, he was getting close to retirement and just didn't really care a whole lot and he made some critical mistakes as the first-due. And so goes the first-due, so goes the fire, as Andy Frederick said. And that's exactly what happened. And I knew I was upset.
Speaker 1I was like the third or fourth-due officer. I was upset. I was like the third or fourth year officer. I was upset, you know, because I was young and eager and wanted to do a good job and I was upset with the way things went. I knew my chief was upset with the way things went. So you know, we all gathered around after the fire which burnt to the ground and we're all standing. I'm expecting, you know, for the chief to speak his mind and it was like no, I'm Well, guys, the fire went out, nobody got hurt, and I was just like completely deflated. I was like we're not going to learn a thing from this and if you don't learn from them, you're just going to repeat it right. So that's why I think it's just so important that we do these on every major incident.
Speaker 3Such a low bar yeah right when people say that it's just like yeah, nobody got well, that's as good as we can do, got well we. That's as good as we can do, is that? Well, nobody got hurt. Okay, fire went out, nobody got hurt, like there's so much better we could do than that.
Speaker 2Yeah well, if you want a culture of continuous improvement in your organization, this is one of those things that you do. If you're a young officer, new officer, somebody who's trying to affect some change, but you're getting those roadblocks from some of your superiors, what can you do at your level to create some of that? Either suggest, can we do a tailboard talk after these incidents, or how does one go about trying to make some change at their organization and get that attitude of continuous improvement?
Effective Leadership in Organizational Change
Speaker 1Well, you can always make the suggestion of the chain of command to make a requirement, and once it's made a requirement, it's kind of hard not to do one right, especially if you're that officer that walks up to the chief and says, hey, are we going to do a hot wash? I mean, you put the ball at his court at that point. He pretty much has to do that. So I think that's huge when you make it a priority in your organization, whether you can push that through your union channels or up your chain of command or whatever that looks like. I think that's probably the key. But you just have to foster a culture, too, of being able to accept criticism and be able to take that, and it seems like that's getting harder to come by. Uh, as the years roll on, you know, people want to. People want to get mad and upset and wear their feelings on their sleeve instead of just, you know, rolling with the punches and saying, hey, I'll do better next time.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, so he's got about two cents on that People get easily offended. They do very much.
Speaker 2So, they shouldn't, what would you say? Very much so they shouldn't. What would you say Cause you're a company officer, you know and and how do you, how do you, affect change on your level?
Speaker 3Um, well, you know, on my level, change above me is, you know, it takes. It takes a chief that's willing to to do it Right. Um, the last chief that I worked for I worked for him for a bunch of years and he was great, like he always wanted he would, he would get he. He tapped into people that were willing to work and so he would have us to set up like district trainings on Saturdays and we've been like hey, he backed us a hundred percent. You guys set it up, I'll get every company there. You tell me what your timeframe is. He would be there the whole day and we would rotate companies through. He would do hot washes. He made you want to do better, if that made any sense. And really that's kind of where as much as I could affect, he allowed me to affect things.
Speaker 3Myself and a couple other company officers that were willing to do it. He allowed us to do it and he facilitated that.
Speaker 3And then there was other people I worked for and they had no interest in it and it was like, okay. And then at that point what I can affect is my bubble right, my guys, and 100% was about my guys and I would do whatever it took and they were great. In return, they wanted to work. I was very lucky to get the combination of people I had to work with in my career, because I didn't have a lot of people that were upset if we trained or this or that they were all in. Or if they were upset, they never say anything about it, but it was great. I really felt really lucky.
Speaker 3But the district chief that allowed us to do the most was great. I just he. I think he pushed our whole district forward because all those trainings that we did, you know, district-wide, not only did they get some training, but then this company that never sees this company, they would be there at the same time. He would, you know, he would make it all work out. So people saw people, they got to train with other people and I just think it, it just everything was better after that. Just the personalities, the whole interconnection between the companies in the district just was a lot better as opposed to you being in your little station. Your little station, your little station, you really don't see anybody unless you're on a run. And then when you're on a run, you know you're, you're doing your thing, and that point you know you're kind of like hey, hey, and that was it. So I thought he really made it happen for us.
Speaker 1Yeah, and let me just piggyback on that Hot washes during drilling. I've talked about it in another podcast that you and I have done about battalion level drilling and how important that is and the difference between training and drilling. Drilling is where you get a few companies together and you give them a scenario and three, two, one go right. I think it's very important that you integrate those hot washes into those drills. You know, talk about it during drilling and when the real thing comes and you're on the scene, the guys are just going to expect it.
Speaker 1You know, and I think that's very important that we incorporate that, and so they get used to that during drills of hey, we're going to talk about it, chief. And so they get used to that during drills of hey, we're going to talk about it, chief's expecting us to talk about this. You know. So we complete a drill. You know I usually come on the radio and say everybody shut down and meet under the tent. You know we got a tent down at our training center and we would all gather under the tent and we do a hot wash and we pick up and do it again, you know. So I think that's very important that you integrate your hot washes and your critiques into your drilling and that really.
Speaker 2You know, just like we're building muscle memory with the drilling, we're building muscle memory with the hot wash too. That just becomes part of the operation and we're going to do it. You know, as a reminder to everybody, this is the eighth function of command. The eighth function of command where we review and we revise. So when we review, we revise and it continues to be a problem and say it's not a personal problem, it's not just with one person, but organizationally we keep doing the same thing. How do we change that? Any suggestions on really turning the ship?
Speaker 2Because there are some of those things that I saw in the past. For instance, my department used to not pump correctly at all. You know, we would end up with 100 GPM and then we would hot wash and try to figure out. You know, why did this fire not go out? Well, we weren't really putting enough water on it and it wasn't until somebody from the outside came in. Well, he was sort of from the outside, but he came in with pump charts and started educating people. But it took about a year or two to to really get that Cause. And I I used to tell my bosses a fire department is not like turning a speedboat. It's like turning a barge, yeah.
Speaker 1It's an aircraft, yeah.
Speaker 3It takes a while.
Speaker 2So, um, you know, maybe if you have any advice for for folks that you know aren't getting the result they feel like they need because I think people are also impatient these days how do we stick with it?
Speaker 3When you say people are impatient, it's just the culture that we're in right now, and I don't mean that the new people, but it's just everybody is. I mean, everybody's got a phone, you have a question, you get the instant answer. You have this, you get the instant this. We have this thing that you know, if you had a question before, you would have to ask 10 people and try to go out and figure it up, and then within 13 seconds, I can put a little question in Google and get an answer, and so that's kind of what we.
Speaker 3You know it's everybody, it's not just young people, which people you know? Some people complain about those kids these days, but we're all the same way. We all get the instant answers to anything that we want to know, and so I think they expect that because that's now the norm and some people aren't looking at, like you say, the big ship. This is a big thing, right, and not that what we want to change maybe isn't, but the organization is a big ship and turning it is hard, right, it's hard to do.
Speaker 1I think it really relies on leadership at the top. It starts with the fire chief. Oh, absolutely, it has to start with the fire chief. And my former fire chief he retired a couple of years ago he said when someone comes to you with an organizational issue, instead of asking them, why ask yourself why not? You know when they're talking about wanting to make a change, and I think that's very important. You know you got to be as a fire chief. You have to be open to change, you have to be willing to roll with the punches and advance with the times. And you know we just don't go to fires like we used to, and we all know that. And I think the only way that we can truly learn is doing hot washes and after-action reviews and learning from each other. And things like that, you know, is the only way we're really going to be able to change our department or the American Fire Service.
Speaker 3The world's changing around us. I mean the fire's changing. It's been proven by all the research and all that the world is changing around us. I mean the fire's changing. It's been proven by all the research and all that the world is changing around us. And you can only say, well, it's tradition for so long, because at some point, yes, it's tradition, but that's something that was a long time ago and we need to change. I mean, you have to be open to change.
Speaker 2Steve's put together a nice algorithm on some of the things we talked about. I think we hit a lot of the points on the algorithm. That's going to be in our show notes and available. We'll also put it in the B-Shifter Buckslip, if that's okay with you. Okay, and we'll pass it on to folks because it's a really nice document.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you could customize it for your department and change things around. It's a Word document so, yeah, you're welcome to change it however you like. It was actually when I spoke about our Actor Action Review Committee. I'm actually on that committee and that was the portion that I was assigned was to develop that. So that's something that we're using at my agency. We actually have laminated copies of that that we keep on all our battalion cars. So you know, if you're a battalion chief that's maybe not real familiar on how to run a hot wash, or maybe you're a captain acting up or something like that and you need a little help. You know it's not really meant to be a script, it's more meant to be just a guide to kind of help you run through that and make sure all the points are hit. But yeah, we're excited about it.
Speaker 2Well, what a way to to establish yourself as a leader in your organization, though you're acting up either as a captain or as a battalion chief, and you're able to roll this out to some people, and maybe that's one of the ways to make change. You know you do it when you can right if it's not being done all the time. Do it when you can grab that opportunity. Is there anything else you guys want to add about the hot washes and, uh, tailboard talks?
Speaker 1I think the biggest, biggest takeaway is really just just go into them with a, with a humble attitude. Um, be willing to talk about the things that you did right and the things that you did wrong. Don't wear your feelings on your sleeve. You know we're all here to learn and get better. Um, you know they call us tactical athletes for a reason. You know we're all, we're all part of a team and you know, if you, if you played sports when you were a kid, or if you, if you took part in that, then you received some harsh criticism from a coach at some point in time, right, and really it's no different in the American fire service. You know, if you look at the fire ground as a football team, well, the first new officer is like the quarterback and the battalion chief sitting in the buggy. He's more like the head coach, right? So you've got to be willing to take a little criticism from the coach from time to time. Oh, yeah, and there again.
Speaker 1The coach has got to be willing to take a little criticism too from his players and I've taken some of that over in my time and I'm sure you guys have too.
Speaker 2Oh, absolutely that over my day, over in in my time, and I'm sure you guys have too oh, absolutely, but that's how we survive and get better. That's right, absolutely all right. We still, uh, have a little bit of time. You guys want to do a timeless tactical truth?
Speaker 2yeah, let's do it absolutely all right, timeless tactical truth from alan brunasini. And this one says you don't wreck the system now so you can take credit for fixing it later. There's a lot of people who sabotage their organizations. Again, you don't wreck the system now so you can take credit for fixing it later.
Speaker 3Well, hopefully you have the ability to fix it. Some people wreck the system and they have the ability to fix it. Some people wreck the system and they have no ability to fix it. Right, they're not in a position to fix it, but they're more than happy to wreck it.
Speaker 1Yes, To cause trouble. We had a period of time in our department where there was a cultural shift to really make people look bad in order to make yourself look good, and that was a really sad time in our department and I'm glad to say that we're I think we're past that at this point, but yeah, very, very sad situation.
Speaker 2It's because they, they kind of thrived on this chaos. Some of them, you know, they, they, they, they created trouble and then they would own trouble. You're, you're living in your own wake, man, and and if you looked ahead, instead of trying to make everybody else look bad, cut each other's throat, sabotage people, you get so much further ahead. But you know, a lot of times those people don't even realize they're doing it because, as Terry and Nick always say, they're they. They were raised by ugly parents, right, so you know they, they've been rotten since kindergarten. There's nothing that we're going to be able to do as leaders to turn them around, but probably one of the things that we can do as leaders is not put them in leadership positions or allow them to exist in an area where they're going to get a loud megaphone and affect the rest of the crew, because those people are like cancer. A lot of times they affect everybody.
Speaker 1Yeah, and the bright side of that is most of those types of people aren't willing to study and put forth the effort. So if you have any type of promotional process in place, they probably won't be successful because they're not willing to put in the work. Yeah, right.
Speaker 3They're just looking for an audience. You can usually pick them out because they're the person that's been assigned to like 20 different firehouses. Because, like they just got, either they decided to leave because it wasn't working for them or they got pushed out Because, like, if they're always on the move, there's something not right there. They can't find a home that makes them happy and they're never happy.
Speaker 2All right, guys, have any other thoughts for us before we wrap up?
Speaker 1No, just, you know, continue to stay active with the B Shifter Buck Slip podcast man. John, you're doing a great job. Thank you. We appreciate all that you do for us and getting us out in the social media world. And, you know, make sure you sign up for the conference and we look forward to seeing everybody in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2All right. Well, thanks for being on the show today. Guys, it's always good to hang out with both of you and I know last time we had Grant on was Indianapolis in April, and you and I were just together not too long ago. We, we've, we've hit the road here a little bit, so looking forward to teaching with you guys for the rest of the week and hopefully we'll see everybody again real soon. Thanks for listening to the B Shifter Podcast.