B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Push Brooms and Leaf Blowers
We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5_ZwoCZo0
Sign up for the B Shifter Buckslip, our free weekly newsletter here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fmgs92N/Buckslip
Shop B Shifter here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com
All of our links here: https://linktr.ee/BShifter
Please subscribe and share. Thank you for listening!
Nick Brunicini, Terry Garrison, and Pat Dale examine the vital connection between internal department culture and external customer service in the fire service.
• Core services involve technical aspects of firefighting while added value services humanize customer interactions
• Customers rarely write letters about equipment or tactics but frequently comment on how firefighters made them feel
• Treating members of the organization with kindness and respect creates the foundation for excellent public service
• Leadership must consistently model the expected behaviors and hold everyone accountable to the same standard
• The "push broom story" demonstrates how leadership decisions either support or undermine organizational culture
• Being nice doesn't mean avoiding accountability—it means addressing issues with dignity and respect
• Effective leaders establish personal authority through consistent behavior rather than relying solely on positional power
• Organizational culture is shaped by how leadership responds to challenges and treats team members
• Modern fire service leadership requires balancing tradition with evolving professional standards
Join Pat and Terry at this year's Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference, September 29-October 3 at the Sharonville Convention Center near Cincinnati.
Hello and welcome to the B-Shifter podcast. I'm John Vance. I hope you're enjoying the summer, hopefully getting to spend some time with your family and friends. It goes by so fast, so get up and enjoy it.
Speaker 2:This week we've got a powerful segment featuring Nick Brunicini, terry Garrison and Pat Dale, and they're diving into an important topic, and it's how we treat each other internally and how that directly impacts the way we serve our external customers. Watching this week's headlines, I couldn't help but wonder what the internal dynamics look like at some of those departments making the news this week. It's a prime example of what not to do when interacting with the public, even in the most passive situations at the firehouse, so it's not even at an emergency. What you're about to hear is part of the larger Silverback Leadership Program available to all Blue Card Incident Commanders. In fact, just last week, we introduced a brand new CE based on this very topic. So if you like this, download that. It's a great program and it'll give you even more tips, tricks and insight on what leadership looks like. Here's the good news too Pat and Terry will be presenting at this year's Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference, september 29th through October 3rd at the Sharonville Convention Center outside of Cincinnati, ohio. We have the link here for you to sign up for that.
Speaker 2:And before we jump into the full podcast, I have a favor to ask you If you haven't done so already, please hit that like and subscribe buttons. It really helps us out I know everyone who has a podcast says that, but it really does. And don't forget to share this episode with your crew too. In the show notes you'll also find a link to our weekly newsletter. It's called the B Shifter Buck Slip and it helps you stay in the loop on free training and incident command and leadership topics. It goes out to 30,000 incident commanders every week. Don't miss what they're getting. Subscribe to the B Shifter Buck Slip and, of course, you can always find all of this free content at BShiftercom. Now let's hand it over to the Silverbacks, as they talk about push brooms and leaf blowers. Yes, really, that's how that connects to our internal department culture. You'll hear it here on the B Shifter podcast.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Nick Brunicini. I'm here with John Vance, pat Dale and Terry Garrison and this is the third module of the Silverback Leadership Program and this one has to do with inside-outside customer service. So essentially what this module looks at is the fire department delivers core services as our regular thing EMS, fire, hazmat, trt whatever we do for the public is our core service. We have SOPs, training and the rest of that goes into delivering effective core services. Well, the other part of this is the added value services. So the added value piece kind of humanizes the customer service exchange in it and that's really what the customer remembers in that transaction where we're delivering the service. And there's a number of examples throughout the curriculum that we're using to put this program together, where AVB talks about all the letters he got back from all the customers, as he said, the first couple sentences were what their problem was and then everything that followed it, which could be pages, was how the firefighters treated the customers in it and he says nobody wrote me a letter talking about what excellent coordinated attacks we conduct or the command system that we use or the quality of our saws or any of that. He says Mrs Smith always called us back to let us know they were so nice to me, you got here so quick and you took care of my problem and the firefighters were so nice. Well, they got here quick, they took care of the problem core services, they were so nice is added value. Well, one of the things we're doing in this and we'll get to the three experts in this that actually implemented this in their fire departments. But the be nice part of it is we did this in our old former fire department we worked for is when this first started and we started looking at added value and the effect that had on the service delivery cycle and everything else is. We really didn't change much as most firefighters already working for the fire department and the way we were trained and the way that the administration and leadership treated everybody. We were already there as everybody was already treated like a valued member of the organization, so we were already being nice to each other inside. So you didn't see a huge difference really in the ultimate service delivery from one day when this was brought up and then we actually started thinking about it and doing it more and as it went on, it struck me that the added value part at least the front end of it.
Speaker 3:The being nice element ended up was really kind of part of the core services. It was just the approach that you use because it was a group of nice people to begin with and they were all. There were very few people that would act out any kind of negative thing with the customer. That would happen occasionally, but it was an anomaly. It was more that we would. You know we'd show up, we'd be decent to the customer and everything would go well. You know we'd show up, we'd be decent to the customer and everything would go well.
Speaker 3:So today's topic is we're going to talk about the way you guys did that in your organizations and I think a lot of it comes through of the aisle of trust. As you know, we got to trust one another to be able to do this and there's some other stuff. So I'm going to kick it to the group of you Because, like Terry, you went to, you were the fire chief for four different fire departments and kind of implemented the same thing with really pretty good success in all four of those places. So how did that cut? What did you do when you got in, kind of as a strategic leadership piece of it, to say, okay, this is where we're at as a service delivery organization and we can improve a couple of things and move it to here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So thanks for asking and thanks for saying that. So the first thing I did and it's going to sound goofy is I was nice to people. When I showed up, I came in with an approach of hey, I'm here, I'm here to help, I don't know everything. I'm here to help, I don't know everything. I'm here to listen to you guys, to see where we're going to move this forward, where we need to move this forward.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to be nice to you, but in turn, I expect you to be nice to each other and in turn, I expect you to be nice to the customers, with the expectation of if you're not nice to the customer, if you're not nice to each other and I find out about it then I'm going to do some unkind things to you in ways of discipline, and we talk about that later on. But the front end is you got to say right up front we're going to be a be nice organization, we're going to be kind to everybody that we encounter and we're going to be kind to each other. And that is the expectation from the leader. You got to start with the expectation of the leader. If the leader is weak on that, or they're iffy on that or if they're just nice some days. You know we talk about consistency and how people you know show up with a different medication every day.
Speaker 3:Either take half the pill or take two of them. You've got to figure out if your dose ain't right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fire chiefs, having a bad day can't be mean to people.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Brunicini was never mean to us and I remember that working for him for 29 years Never saw him be mean. I saw him be directive to us in a way and then he kind of got past it and he didn't think about it too much. And some people lingered with that directiveness longer than others. But the first thing is you got to say I'm here, I'm here to support you guys so that we can do the best job we're here for. And you got to remind everybody we got to go back to the very first chapter, or the second section, which is the work is what matters.
Speaker 1:The very most important thing is the work that matters. So once you say that the work matters and the way we treat each other while we're doing that work and preparing to do that work, and training to do that work and living together in quarters, and then how we do that work, we're going to do it in a kind nice manner. We can't just screw with each other because we got a little bit extra time. We can still have fun. We're not going to take away the fun because you know, being a firefighter is absolutely fun.
Speaker 3:Well and that was part of our careers is we came on. You came on in the late 70s, I came on in 1980. And the culture in the fire department was different then. It was a little more fraternal, you could be a little more out of bounds with each other, compared to kind of the environment we live in today. You know I'm not going to use hazing, but that probably comes the closest but we were all good friends and understood each other.
Speaker 1:And, like you said, we would screw with each other a little bit. Well, you know, we worked with each other enough to know that if somebody was having an off day, somebody that you'd normally screw with a little bit and tease if they were having a bad day, you didn't tease them. Yeah, so we were close enough to know that we worked in our, our cruise, that it's like, hey, that guy's having I don't, don't mess with him, man, his wife, him and his wife are having whatever and you would kind of know each other more and and based on that, you would treat them differently for that.
Speaker 3:You'd be a little more chill with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Almost enable him to get through whatever the, the, the rough sea they were going through at that time to get healthy enough where you could start poking them and prodding them again. I mean, that's kind of what we did.
Speaker 1:But you know, things change and life evolves and honestly, if you're in a fire station, nobody poked and prodded you and didn't tease you a little bit, then that was like a negative for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you weren't part of the group.
Speaker 1:And I'd feel terrible if you didn't at least say something about this haircut, right, yeah, exactly. Well, you don't care, I got a bad haircut or whatever.
Speaker 3:You mentioned one of the things earlier and it reminded me of something Churchill said during the Second World War. He says you know you can go off and you can be nice about the war. And people are like what are you talking about? We're in battle for our country. And he says, well, no, I'll give you an example. And I mean, yeah, you're going to kill him just as soon, but don't be a prick about it, just kill him and go about your business.
Speaker 1:Don't be like a cat and torture him before they.
Speaker 3:Exactly. So it's kind of odd. This is the second time we're shooting this thing. The first time we started talking a little bit more on the task level about an issue, we got ahead of it. Yeah, we got ahead of ourselves, and we'll do that. Later on in the last half of the program we'll start looking at simulations, if you will, and how you deal with those.
Speaker 3:But one of the things we were talking about in this particular scenario the core service was great. It was everything you wanted, but the added value they just were disregarding the customer and the customer was a distraction and the rest of it. And so one of the things that I'm interested in is we're going to be nice to each other, but if somebody screws up and they keep screwing up, it's almost like, okay, I've got to address this and correct it. But in a lot of people's first reaction is I'm going to be mean to you about this, this is going to be disciplinary and it's going to hurt. So you don't repeat these bad behaviors and you become nice and I don't.
Speaker 3:During my career, the more I thought about it, the more you had mean chiefs doing that kind of stuff or leaders, the less effective it seemed to be and it kind of tore on them a little bit yeah, you know and it. And they almost dig in then and say, no, you're just, you don't see it enough. And you know, this is what love looks like. And you're like yeah, it's somewhat dysfunctional.
Speaker 1:I had somebody tell me, nick, one time that they go into an organization as a fire chief mean spirited and rules and regulations, because later they felt like they could ease up when they feel more comfortable. Like establishing their authority. Yeah, and I said no. I think it's exactly the opposite. I think if you develop and establish your personal authority before you have to use your profession, because everybody we talk about it, everybody knows you're the fire chief you're the battalion chief for the assistant chief operations.
Speaker 1:They don't need to be told that. Yeah, and they know your role and your organizational authority the battalion chief or the assistant chief operations.
Speaker 3:They don't need to be told that. Yeah, and they know your role and your organizational authority, like you're the fire chief. Yeah, we know you're the boss. You don't have to be an asshole about it.
Speaker 1:So the other thing too and I'll let you guys jump in, but you asked me is so when you move into an organization I was lucky there was some really good low-hanging fruit in one organization where people were being mean, and the people that were being mean to the workers were some of the assistant chiefs, and as I was interviewing for more new assistant chiefs, I got a chance to do that, to pick my command team 11 or 12 assistant chiefs and I kept hearing about and I've written about this, but it's good to say it here again because it's an example of how you kind of set the bar Like this is what we will or won't tolerate. And I was interviewing assistant chiefs and I was going to interview the ones that were in place and I was going to interview people that kind of met the mark as far as education and experience. And the first day I heard two or three stories about the logistics guy who is the support chief, and the same story came up regarding I've called it the push broom story, where they go. Well, you know, I want to come in because I and what the way it came across for the people that would use this as an example is they weren't beating him so much up, so much as they were telling the story to try to share with me that they were going to be nice, because they know he wants nice people, he wants supportive people. And they would say, hey, I want to be more, I want the logistics chief position because I'm going to be more supportive than the guy who's in now. Well, tell me what you mean by that. Well, this guy.
Speaker 1:You know, we order all of our equipment up through our district chiefs and then it goes to the assistant chief of support services. And we ordered because we have a fire station that's in kind of a low economic area part of the town and behind our fire station there's a park and the drunks handle the park. It's like vietnam, right, they, the drunks, had it by night and the kids had it by day, so so during the daytime the kids would go out there and they try to play in the grass and the basketball court and there's broken beer bottles and all kinds of terrible stuff. So the firefighters on saturday wanted to take it on their own, as they said, hey, we want to clean that park every Saturday along with our fire station. It's like, wow, that's pretty amazing, right. So we asked the we put in a requisition to get six I think it was at the time six blowers. And they sent it to the chief and they said the reason we want these blowers we want to blow out the fire station. Then we want to blow off the park and get all the glass and clean it up every Saturday because it needs it after Friday night, and so they waited for the requisition to come back.
Speaker 1:It goes to the district chief. The district chief comes back and he he said I got bad news. He goes you guys are, here's eight push brooms. So they, they. Hey, the district chief calls the assistant chief. He said hey, chief, you gave these guys push brooms. They need blowers. He goes you know what they want to use it for, right. He goes yeah, they put it down in their memo, their request that they want to clean the park. He goes yeah, they want to clean off the stuff. Response start pushing. You got push for him, start pushing. Now the cost of eight push brooms was about the same as the cost of six blowers. This is just the way government is right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I had heard that story two or three times on the first day. So the second day this support chief was coming in. He sat down, seemed like a pleasant guy, how you doing nice to meet you. I said, before we start the interview, let me ask you. I heard this scenario the other day twice and I explained it to him and I said did you do that? And he goes yeah, and I go. Why would you do that? He goes because they need to be push brooms. The firefighter push brooms, that's what they need. They're not getting. They're not getting blowers. I said so did you? Would you do that again, knowing that he goes? Yeah, I'd do it again. I said so. I said well, let me stop you right there. I said uh, you were assistant chief, yeah, okay. Well, you are not going to be an assistant chief. Moving forward, I'm going to find somebody to replace you that'll put blowers on that and check, yes, and send blowers. I said you're the support. I did my old, you know, phoenix dude.
Speaker 3:I duded a situation. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. How did dude work in Texas?
Speaker 1:Dude, you're the support chief, support those guys and he goes. Yeah, so anyway.
Speaker 3:What did you have the blowers for? I mean, what would you have to do? Oh, you could get a blower you could use some special guys. Got blowers apparently so, friends of his, we get the blowers.
Speaker 1:I didn't go that deep into it because I was you know, I want to take the broom, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you didn't need to find that answer, but I wasn't mean to him, I just said okay so and I looked across because I have the positional power.
Speaker 1:I don't need to use my personal. You're an asshole power. He is an asshole, we all knew he was. And I said well, as soon as I finish this process, you're not going to be the logistics chief or the support officer, you're going to go back to the district and you're going to go back to and I use this term because it just felt so good to say it, so this might've been a little bit of mean spirit in this, but I said you're going to go back to the general population. And he looked at me and he says okay, and I said so, you're going to have a great day. You want a bottle of water on your way out? I'm not interviewing, I'm not asking you any more questions.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, this is a short interview.
Speaker 1:And he retired within that very short period of time and those guys got their blowers. In fact, they got their blowers that same week. Because, it was so easy to do. So, I guess, saying back to your original question, saying that you're going to be nice and support the workers and then demonstrating that in a real because nice and support the workers, and then show, demonstrating that in a real because that that went through the entire that wasn't transparent.
Speaker 3:What happened there? That everybody saw that. Everybody saw that.
Speaker 1:So you want to be transparent, you want to use some of those, because what happens is, as a leader, and you guys, I'll let you jump in now but when you make a statement about um, any decision, and you say, know, this is the line that we're going to, the line here is going to be, we're going to be nice to people, ok, guess what? There's going to be a person within your organization who's going to step over whatever line you just created, that imaginary cultural line or whatever that is, that imaginary cultural line or whatever that is and now everybody's like okay, chief, I felt so lucky when I went home that day to say I'm so glad I got this opportunity to really demonstrate. Now, I'm sorry I had to do that to that guy. I really was. It's like would you do that again? I asked him and he said yes. I was like oh well.
Speaker 1:Terry, you got your first chance and second chance right there.
Speaker 3:He decided what was going to happen to himself.
Speaker 1:He self-assessed himself.
Speaker 3:He got ahead of himself because he didn't know the new boss wasn't going to put up with that kind of juvenile behavior that he was demonstrating and I thought, within the weeks leading up to, that.
Speaker 1:I was pretty clear about that. We're going to support the members, so the members will support the country. Yeah, you think the last three or four chiefs said the same thing. Yeah, we'll see how this goes. Well, you know what's funny? Because one thing I do got to say, because we talk about the chief that I followed was actually a pretty good chief in that organization. He got wound up in a personal issue, but I have followed other chiefs that weren't that way and it makes it so black and white. We talked about the question that you guys will see coming up in the Massachusetts section about how do you follow a good chief who's set the bar. That's harder than following a guy who is—.
Speaker 3:Well, after you left that fire department it wasn't six months later. I know people that work there, we deal with them through training and some other stuff and the thing that they started asking is oh, do you miss them yet? And that was it. And the people they asked finally said shut up and quit, asking me that it pissed them off so much that they kind of missed the opportunity. And then the new, and it just wasn't what.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you know it's unfortunate they got another chief. I was an outside chief and I would love it if, if every chief that would promote it was from the inside the organization, if they had that ability to do that. But I went in. You guys have done as an outside chief and you're you know they didn't have anybody that really that the mayor or the council wanted or whoever that really the mayor or the council wanted or whoever. So you come in and they got another outside guy after me who didn't have the same thought process that I had.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's B-Shifter podcast. Big thanks to Nick, pat and Terry for always keeping it real. Stay safe and we'll see you next time.