B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Fit For Duty, Ready To Command
This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart and John Vance.
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We lay out what IC 1 must own, what IC 2 must enforce, and why fitness for duty includes training, standards, and honest evaluation. Other highlights include:
• expectations for first‑due company officers as IC1
• training to a published command standard
• fitness for duty across physical, mental, and procedural readiness
• acting officers trained to the same bar as promoted officers
• chiefs enforcing the IAP and ending free‑lancing
• NFPA 1700 as a practical guide for tactics and search
• building a deep bench and stopping target‑moving
• focusing the station and cutting distractions
• using the eight functions of command end‑to‑end
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Welcome to the B Shifter Podcast. Today, got John Vance, Chris Stewart, and Josh Bloom. And we'll be talking about the responsibilities and expectations of company officers and responsibilities of response chiefs as well, and sort of their fitness for duty level. And it's going to be a follow-up to last week's podcast where uh we had Gary and Eric here talking about first do now own it, which was really the responsibilities of that first due company officer. But we wanted to delve deep and into really what the expectations should be of both that first due company officer who's going to arrive as IC number one, and then IC number two as a response chief. But before we get into that, let's check in with the guys. Chris, how are you doing? I'm swell. Thank you very much. It's good to see you. It's been been a little bit since we last hung out.
SPEAKER_01:I'm glad you're back here in the beautiful I'm happy to be here too. World headquarters of Blue Card.
SPEAKER_02:And from Cincinnati, we've got uh Josh. Josh, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00:I'm good. I'm all good. Wintertime's just around the corner, sweatshirt weather, college football's on on the weekends. It's yeah, fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:We have a lot of classes filling up right now, too. What do we what do we have going for the rest of this year? And then what's the outlook looking like for next year with our activity level?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we got I think there's uh four or five seats in the November train the trainer class in Phoenix. Other than that, every everything else we got for the rest of the year is full. So we got uh big box class up there in Minnesota and you're in Hennepin County or your neighboring county up there somewhere. We got a Mayday workshop in Kernersville. They're this week they're in Massachusetts and Central County uh Missouri for trainers. Next week they're at Athens, Clark County, Georgia for a trainer. We're assisting several fire departments that are just coming online with some cert labs between now and the end of the year. And then next year's schedule is pretty filled up through May. We got some we got some spots where we can plug people in in those first five months. But uh if you go to our calendar, you can see that we got four or five events every month scheduled already through April anyway. So if you're looking to do a trainer, some kind of workshop, Mayday, big box, division ops, critical thinking, the safety train a trainer, any of that, reach out and we'll work to get you plugged into the schedule. But schedule is definitely filling up for for next year.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and we we've got the ARF train the trainer also here in the in Phoenix in December. And I think that's over half full now, if I remember right, for for those folks. And and we've been getting a lot of interest from other departments and other airports, both in the US and Canada. So hopefully we we have that full pretty soon and looking forward to delivering those and then kind of planning out that calendar for 2026 with you know a lot of the requests that are coming in for us, you know, to take that on the road now.
SPEAKER_02:Make sure to hit up b shifter.com if you want to look at all those dates and all the other opportunities to learn. We've we've got it all there for you. And we also have on there the NFPA. Well, we're doing it uh if you're if you're listening uh before the 28th, we have a live webinar coming up on NFPA 1700 and its impact on incident commanders and what the ICs should be looking at as far as you know being compliant. I are are we calling it compliance, Chris, or where are we looking at just trying to follow it as a guideline? What give us a preview of what that webinar is going to discuss?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think the technical term they use is a guide. It's a structural firefighting guide. So somebody had asked actually the question at the conference, you know, is this going to be as rigid as a 921 has become with regards to fire investigation and and those elements? And I don't necessarily see that because it doesn't it's not prescriptive. It's not saying, all right, uh at this building type with these conditions, this is what you should do. It's here are all the considerations you need to have when looking at either building types or specific tactics, or now there's there's a chapter that you know what previous was not previously in 1700 that has everything to do with search and rescue and life safety. So these are considerations and recommendations for some best practice. I think it's absolutely worth knowing and understanding, and and and it's a very much you know universally needed document. But I don't know that it's gonna be, you know, it's not as rigid as I think maybe some of the fire service would like, right? It's it's about considerations, it's about critical thinking, it's about being able to evaluate what actually is going on and what it actually means on the fire ground. So I I uh I look forward to actually talking about it uh next week.
SPEAKER_02:And if you would like to sign up and join us live, you can either go to the B Shifter Buck Slip. There's a sign up there, go to any of our social medias, and we will also include in the show notes on this podcast where you can sign up and and participate live. Part of participating live in our webinars is really an opportunity for you to interact with us, ask questions. But if you can't join us live, you can always get it on demand. So all you have to do is sign up as soon as the webinar is completed. We'll send you a link to the video and you can watch it at your leisure then after that. So today's uh topic, we'll we'll hop into it, is talking about uh expectations and responsibilities. And let's start off with the company officers because they are the ones that really start off our response. And when you're outlining uh and we're gonna keep this more on a broad spectrum, I think, just uh an overall uh what you should be expecting from the fire chief on down out of people who play these roles. So let's let's start with the company officer and start talking about their expectations when it comes to response.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I I think I think Gary and Eric did a really nice job of kind of outlining the perspective of and and they inside their departments kind of had to make some operational changes with what is expected of initial arriving company officers. And and they use the blue card system to kind of help them be able to do that inside their organizations and their, you know, geographically very different organizations, one from the East Coast, one from the West Coast, but they functionally and operationally work way closer and more similarly than maybe they would even ever give credit to because of that same expectation. So in making that, they had to lay out clear expectations. This is what we want our comp command or excuse me, our company officers as initial arrivers at an incident to be able to do. And and what is it, what is expected? What is your role going to be when you arrive? And it's very clear the role is you are going to be the initial incident commander. And that means you are responsible for the actions, the evaluation, and the the work that happens at that incident, right? And that seems very overwhelming and very uh daunting to folks who have never done it before, but it absolutely is a trainable skill. It's a, it's a, it's something that that uh over time, when we develop, we turn folks, everyday company officers into pretty effective incident commanders when when they know what they're supposed to do, when they're given the chance to to train on it, and then they we do some type of performance evaluation, both in training and out in the real world. So I think that knowing and understanding that is really important. I think as a as a as the next step back, I guess if you will, of what we expect out of them is they need to have a general understanding of what their role and responsibility uh is as the boss of a fire company, right? And and so there, there's a there's an article that Bruno wrote, I think it was in 2013, if I remember right, and where he's talking about the role and responsibility of officers and general, you know, company and command officers is in first and foremost, it's in in his words, their responsibility lies in the fitness for duty of that company and the people that they're that they're working with, right? So as a company officer, uh the fitness of duty for myself, my company, and all the things that that we're supposed to be able to do on a daily basis, and especially at the in the IDLH, what we're what are we responsible for? And so as Bruno did a ton, is he was very, very good at making very simple statements about roles and responsibilities or or our mission, but they are so incredibly deep and there's so much depth into what that actually looks like. So when we talk about fitness for duty, oftentimes we go to the, you know, the the whole, you know, mentally and physically and spiritually prepared to actually do the work. And that that that does matter. That is something, right? But this has to do is are you prepared to actually do the work from a boss and a performance standpoint, right? Are we ready to actually execute the things that an engine company needs to execute from the front, from the beginning? And everybody has a role and a function in that. And how often do we train on that? How often are we developing that? And how often we're measuring how we do in the real world? Part of that is the company officer being the initial IC, but the other part of it is getting water into the truck, getting water out of the truck, getting us in the right position, and then the firefighters, you know, taking the tools and equipment off the rig, getting in the right spots, and actually executing the work. So all of this comes together in this idea of fitness for duty and what are we prepared to actually do the work that we're supposed to do? And we're not letting a lot of the other things that could potentially get in the way of that, you know, with the the distractions, if you will, with a lot of other elements that, you know, uh become pervasive in our fire departments. And so what are those things? So I think part of what Gary and Eric were talking about last week was the establishment of expectations the last podcast, where the establishment of the expectations and the broader sense is all right, are we fit for duty? Are we ready to go to work? And and what does that actually look like?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think we gotta I think where you just ended there, Chris, and what Gary and Eric talked about, the whole expectations of the whole organization. So from the top down and the bottom up, is everybody on the same page with these expectations, whether it's you know, SOGs and procedures and guidelines and process as far as like how do you how do you get to that position, and then the organizational standards so that everybody is on the same page. But if we're not doing something as an organization to train people to be in those positions, then we're not giving them anything, which is why we oftentimes hear that uh as the company officer, I can only be responsible for my company. It's everything I can do just to manage, you know, my company. And it's like, well, you what training have you had beyond maybe some fire officer one and two classroom training? Have you had any training on strategies and tactics and critical thinking and decision making and and tying all of that together? And most of the time the answer back to that is no. So yeah, people are gonna be uncomfortable. It's that it's really the unknown, right? It's like it's why kids are scared of the dark because it's the unknown. Well, firemen, fire officers, chief officers are are scared of the unknown. And it's our job as an organization at the fire department to lay out expectations and standards and then train people to that, and then as you've said several times already, evaluate that. Are we performing at the level that we should be performing at? And if we're not doing those things, then we shouldn't expect uh we shouldn't have a big expectation of things are gonna go well or as we want them to go if we haven't communicated that to everybody. But specifically the incident starting off with that company officer getting there and evaluating the critical fire ground factor standard conditions so that we take some sort of standard action.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there was a uh Chicago firefighter, fire officer years ago that said that people don't call 911 because they want a couple of dumbasses in a pickup truck to show up. They want a brain surgeon, an athlete, somebody who's gonna get there and solve their problem. And how how much is it important to give that wide level view as a company officer, the mission, why we're here, and and how often do you do it? Is it every shift? Is it every month? Is it a meeting? How how do you give the people the motivation and the focus for what they need to do when it comes to service delivery?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I think one thing with that is is we we have to train people beyond be really beyond our expectation, is is kind of my answer to that. If if I just want firemen to be laborers, which I that's not what I want, we want thinking firefighters on the fire ground that can engage and that the entire company works together as a company and the entire response works together as a response, with with you know an end result being you know, fires out and victim removal and property conservation and taking care of Ms. Smith and all of that. And I think far too often we we do pretty good at that task level. This is how you do it, but we don't spend enough time talking about why we would do what we would why we do what we do, and then that next layer. So I want I want firefighters on a fire company to know what I'm thinking is the company officer. It's not a secret, right? It's it's together that whole group becomes a team and you're gonna make better decisions and they're gonna give you information. But if it's just no, your only job is to force entry, and your only job is you're the nozzle person, and you're gonna be, you know, the nozzle man. And and if if you if we just keep going down that list, then uh we shouldn't expect different results. We're just gonna keep on trying to do the task level harder instead of making better decisions on what we're gonna do when we get there.
SPEAKER_01:So uh your question, you know, how do we do that from in a more broad perspective? It made me think of how Terry Garrison did it in well, and did it in a few different places, and Houston was probably the biggest example of that, or the most widely seen example of that. And and for him, it was consistency and message from the fire chief. And his message, well, he he he had a uh a great perspective is anytime he's talking to a group of people, a group of politicians, talking to the media, he used that opportunity to talk to the firefighters. And he always had that view of I'm going to, I'm talking to the firefighters because they're gonna be listening to this. And that consistency of message was everything, my job every single day, and our job is the uh as whatever fire department he was working in at the time, is customer service and firefighter safety. That's those are my two most overriding things that I am concerned about. And when the membership hears those two things over and over and over, and I don't mean necessarily at nauseam, like where he's beating them over the head, but that but it's a very consistent message is if you want to know what we should be thinking about, and you want to know what I'm thinking about, and you want to know what actually matters to us and is going to benefit the community, it has everything to do with firefighters being safe in order for them to be actually be able to deliver the service that they need to to the community. So that becomes then fairly pervasive in the the chief officer ranks and the and the and the company officer ranks of, well, I know what the broad perspective is of the expectations for us in doing our job. Now, what is my role and responsibility in doing those things specifically? If I'm a company officer, that very much has everything to do with the standards of incident command, the standards of the task level work we're supposed to get done and how those two interact. And I should probably be spending a lot of time and a lot of training and a lot of effort on making that happen, right? And that's gonna happen organized. It should be happening organizationally. There should be some formal ways that happens. But as a company officer, there's a whole lot of informal opportunity for me to be able to establish that and for us to work on that and how we're gonna do the things that Josh was talking about, how we're gonna do those things together. So the other thing I thought about was is what does it actually mean to be an IC? Like to actually be a what qualifications, information, and skills and ability do I have that make me an effective IC? And where does that come from in my department? If I come from a place of, well, we really don't have one, it's hard for me to describe it to you, what our what our incident command system and standard is. And but I want you to watch these guys because they kind of do a pretty good job at it and just emulate them. How serious am I should I take that as the expectation from my boss versus saying, no, this is our incident command standard. You don't have to say it's the blue card standard. You can say it's the, it's the the the any town USA command standard, but this is our command standard. This is the way we're gonna do business. And I'm gonna actually create a standard, I'm gonna train you to that standard, I'm gonna hold you to that standard, you're gonna be accountable to it, and I'm gonna measure your performance. There's a whole lot of givea shit in that, in that organizationally. And that gives the people inside the organization something to strive to and strive towards. And one of the things I talked about in my breakout in Cincinnati was made the comparison of how much training and qualification does it take to become a person who is certified to install car seats in a car as a as a firefighter or Joe Blow, or what are the certification and qualifications that it takes to actually become an incident commander in most fire departments across the United States? You have to do 40 hours of training, pay$3,000 to say you're qualified to put in a car seat. And I'm not and I'm not discounting how important knowing how to put a car seat is. In most systems, it's you have to have passed a test and be a good dude in order to be an IC. Well, all right, which one do we give a shit more about, really? When you actually look at that at what it is. So we need to take that way more seriously, in my opinion. The fire service in general. I think there's a lot of departments that have uh be you know become awake to that and are doing that, but man, let's let's really focus on what actually matters and make the main thing the main thing. That seems to be a pretty common saying these days. Well, the main thing that an I that a that a company officer has is the potential to be an IC and to lead their crew in the work and operation in an IDLH environment. So that's the stuff we should probably focus on. The expectation should be centered on.
SPEAKER_02:One of the things I've correlated lately, just when it comes to preparation, if we're in the preparation phase of response, is how prepared some departments are because of state mandates, and then then they they raise the level from there versus states that have no mandates or very little mandates. And if you look at line of duty deaths, firefighter injuries, ineffective operations, the whole gamut, it's those states that don't have uh any kind of minimum that they're enforcing. When we go to states that have 610 hours for fire one and two as a minimum, they're a lot more effective. I mean, guess what? When when training's important to you and preparation is important to you, you're going to do a lot better versus, hey, let's all vote for Gus for chief because he's a nice guy. And there's a lot of departments out there still doing that. We still have elected officers that uh in some good size areas too, that they have to run on a platform. And I've I've been to areas that are having officer elections, and you think they're having a mayoral election because there's actually yard signs and coasters and and buttons, and that's where they put their energy. And not to diss those systems, but really what qualifies that person to be an IC or a chief or any other kind of officer if it's just election? And I and I do understand that some places do have minimum qualifications to to get voted on. It just in my view, an antiquated system. Over to you, Josh. What when you talk about laying out the expectations for for people who are working for you, what how how do you go about that and and what's your routine with that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I think first off, when somebody's if somebody's gonna get promoted or really long before that, we hear we hear and we see this all the time. Well, that was an acting company officer. Well, if we're gonna talk about IC1 and it's gonna be and we have acting company officers, which happens every day all over this country. Those people need to be trained to the same level as the person that would normally be riding in that seat. And, you know, what does that time commitment look like and how often are they in that position? And how do you evaluate that? We can't take the approach of, well, it's an acting company officer, so we're not gonna hold them to the same standards or have the same expectations, but they have the same job to do. They're still the company officer, they're still gonna get there if they're first due and be responsible for those duties in that acting position. So we kind of have to start with that. Oftentimes when things don't go well, oftentimes there are acting positions or people on trade that aren't working in their normal company. And you know, that that just that just causes it to be a little bit disjointed because everybody doesn't know what everybody else's capabilities are within, even within that own within their own company, that we all realize that there you're gonna have strengths and weaknesses within folks all across your organization. But the whole expectation and standard has to start as the organization, and then anybody who's gonna fill that role, regardless whether it's acting company officer or Joe just has to ride in that spot today because there is nobody else, well, then they need to be trained to do that job. And I always go back to the you don't put an EMT riding in a paramedic spot and tell them that they're gonna do paramedic work today if they're a basic EMT. Well, on the fire side, at the at the company officer level and as the division or district chief or battalion chief response level, people are enacting positions and they do not have the the tools that they need to fulfill that position. So, you know, looking looking at an organization first, right? They that it has to be set up that the organization is gonna train the folks and have to meet the expectations and to follow all of the standards that the organization has developed. It's not a it's only if you're fully promoted to that position because it all connects to the work. And the work doesn't know whether you're really promoted or whether you're an acting company officer or whether the fire chief said, Ah, you can just ride and charge today because we're not paying overtime, we'll figure it out. That that does not work.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that Bruno talked about in that article I referenced earlier is in the end, that when things go uh don't go well, or there are issues, or folks are inadequately trained, or it the the the department's inadequately staffed, or you don't have enough resources to actually do the work that you're supposed to, that that and one of the compensations for it is they start manipulating the target and they start changing what is okay. And then they start making have built-in excuses on why you're not we're not actually doing that. And manipulating that target is all good as long as you know nobody dies and there isn't, you know, true consequences in the end. We can basically what we all start doing is bullshitting each other, right? Uh about uh why that didn't work, or it was it was a fluke thing, or it was a surprise, or you know, nobody could have really predicted that. Oh, really? No, we can actually go into that and look based on the standards and based on having expectations of what actually happened there? Where did we make good decisions? Where didn't we? And what could we do as an organization to actually improve that? So part of the part of the way we get a uh part of the the the manner in which we get away, to use Josh's example, is throwing EMTs in paramedic positions, is to start to bullshit ourselves about the the the the answer there. What was the actual outcome? And and we have less of a standard because we put somebody who wasn't unqualified in that position. And we get away with it most of the time and and there's no real consequence. And then when when something does happen, then we act surprised like it, gosh, I couldn't believe this. There's no way we could have predicted this would happen. No, it was actually very clear that this, there's a potential for this to happen. And that was a predictable surprise. So I I think that recognizing when we start manipulating those things, the outcomes, the answers, the the end result, or the why. Well, why did this happen? Or we we have no idea we we couldn't have predicted that. That's that's all that's all fake, that's all nonsense. It's not that's not the reality. And we need to keep our eye on here is what good work looks like, here's what we expect, and here's what it takes to actually do it from a training perspective, a resource perspective, and then make sure that an organization is actually providing that. Company officer's not necessarily in control of that, but a company officer is in control of it at their level and with their company, and whether they're being honest with themselves and each other about how things are going. So they're it all has it's all connected, right? And it's not necessarily all this ethereal stuff that we're just you know uh grasping at theories. No, there's actually real stuff to it.
SPEAKER_02:With I think it was a football coach, and forgive me if it was Bob Davy, but but he if the football coach had this theory, next man up, and and he wanted a deep bench. So if if if the the front lineman got hurt, you know, the next the next person there is to do the job. And I always applied that toward my job. Like, okay, if if if Ricky is out, then who's gonna move up to Ricky's role? And what do we do to support and and get them ready to do that job the same way that Ricky would. So be because that captain has a part of it, the department has a part of it as far as the overall preparation, setting standards, saying, no, you cannot ride that seat until you have blue card and fire officer one, or you go through our officer academy or however, you know, usually a combination of those things is really best practice. But but to develop that bench. And I think when I look at some organizations, they're not looking at that right now. They're not they're they are such in crisis mode just to get butts in the seats that they're not thinking ahead about like, okay, then what do we have to do to fill this six months from now if this person goes off on a leave or or whatever the case may be? So they're not talking about it. And then they wonder why we can only hire chiefs from the outside. It's because the entire organization never prepared the driver to move over to the right front seat. And and and that kind of applies itself to the entire organization. I don't know if you guys have seen that before, but the that that I think you have to start on the company level to have that deep bench in order for the entire organization, including in the front office, to have a deep bench.
SPEAKER_01:So before I retired, there were there was some significant stuff going on inside my organization. And one of them was is we had purchased new SCBAs, right? We had stepped into the the newest standard, hadn't gotten new SCBAs in, I don't know, eight, eight or so years. So we're we're doing that. And then at the same time was the city's annual what they call the community service fund drive. It's whatever. United way, or you know, whatever charitable operation the city had does every year.
SPEAKER_02:They want to take money out of your paycheck. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:To give it to so they can pay some CEO running a non-for-profit. That's really what it comes down to. But which one do you think in my organization got the most attention from the executive leadership? It wasn't the equipment that was being going to be used in the IDLH environment. It was it was we have to meet our standard as a department in the city, in in this other thing. So you need to make sure that everybody is participating and doing it. And it's not necessarily, you know, they're they're giving their money, but they're but they're completing the information. And there was literally daily updates on that. And at the same time, we're putting uh multiple things. It wasn't just the SCBA's new piece of firefighting equipment in service and that got no attention from the leadership. So what what does that communicate to the company officer and what their expectations are and what they should be ready to manage? It's uh bass awkwards.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that message, the the the silverback leadership message, right? The the whole where all of that starts is the we have to focus on the work. And we're there. The reason that we are there is to provide service to Mrs. Smith. And, you know, and and they're on their worst day during an emergency or you know, whatever they deem to be an emergency. And yeah, we get we get way sidetracked on so many other things that should that are not the focus. And then we end up with the acting company officer who hasn't ridden in that spot for three months, and somebody's on a trade. Well, this guy's a new driver, and he's only been in that spot for a month and is in his regular permanent spot. And you know, the the normal fireman riding backwards is on vacation today, and somebody else is in that spot. So, you know, that the organization has to be able, has to support that company officer and be realistic through that expectations and standards. So otherwise we're we're really we're really setting them up for failure.
SPEAKER_02:Let's switch gears to the chief level. Uh we we talked quite a bit about the company there for the first half. So the the chief level, response chief, whether it's a battalion chief, district chief, shift commander, however your your system titles that person, how do they set expectations and and really what's the expectations and and responsibilities of that person, then how do they pass that on down the line?
SPEAKER_01:So to use what Josh just said, start with the work. What are they responsible for? They're responsible for being the boss of the company officers, first and foremost. Like they are they are their supervisor. And so part of being a supervisor, any supervisory job, you're you if you boil down all your responsibilities, it comes to two three things performance, behavior, and attendance. Are you showing up? Uh are we behaving appropriately and are we doing our jobs, right? And so their jobs to do that for the company officers. So they have to be clear on what the company officer role and responsibility is, and then be able to help and facilitate them actually executing that. And then when it comes to the hazard zone, is they've got an they've got a responsibility to help IC number one be prepared to be IC number one and manage their crew. And and then they also need to be prepared to be IC number two and play their role in the position or in the in the system the system, right? And so it's it's a pretty uh it's actually fairly simple when we when we really start to boil the the nonsense away. But I I think that often those simple elements get overlooked.
SPEAKER_00:So one thing I think with the with the chief officer, battalion chief, district chief level, you know, the day-to-day routine, but most importantly the when the bell rings managing the emergency event and the and the people working within that response is making sure that well, you've communicated the standard, you've communicated the expectations, and that there is a standard, but with that that you follow the standard yourself, right? So you know, we hear, you know, quite often from organizations, well, the chief let them do this outside of what we would normally do because he just didn't want to listen to what they were gonna say if he didn't let them do it. And it's like, well, what is that all about? So that that just creates a hole in the system, and then you end up with more and more holes in the system because everybody's gonna catch on to that, right? Like this, if if the expectation is and the standard is this is the way we do it, then that's how we do it. And there's gonna be times when we do things different, but it's not because of somebody's emotion or because somebody wanted to do something, or because I, as the response chief, don't want to deal with the captain who's gonna run his mouth for the next two shifts if I don't let him do whatever this is. And you know, we see that on the fire ground, and we've gotten plenty of feedback over the last couple of years of organizations where IC number two, the strategic IC, allowed companies to do to make their own decisions outside of the incident action plan, and and then you know, something happens, and then they're they're surprised, and then they start making the excuses of of why it happened. And it's like, no, you uh if you're gonna use a system, then you need to use the system. And if you're gonna do something that doesn't align with the system, then you need to be able to justify what not just in your own mind, emotionally justify, but of justify why you did or didn't take the standard action.
SPEAKER_02:On the chief level, too, I think right now, probably more than ever, and talking to people who were on that uh the battalion level and and they're trying to coach captains, it is a challenging environment in the firehouse right now. There is so much going on. And over the last two months, I've talked to many leaders who are being challenged. And it's because of what's going on in society, it's a polarization out there. Everyone around the table just wants to talk about the news. And and yeah, I talked to somebody yesterday, and and you know, he said, Yeah, the first thing in the station when I got in this morning, they're talking about, you know, the the White House is being demolished. And the first thing he said is, Is that in our first due area? Nope. And we have work to do, guys, and uh the White House has nothing to do with it. So it's keeping your people focused on the right things and getting them focused on the right things and not allowing all these other distractions to come in and either polarize the fire station or get people distracted so they're not focused on the mission every day. And and that is very, very hard to do. You know, another thing, a very uh, and this is just a fitness for duty way down the rabbit hole, is actually fit for duty, like sober, ready to go to work, you're not hung over. There are very brave company officers and very brave chief level officers that I've worked with in the past that have come in and they found somebody who was either obviously intoxicated on something, or they were getting over being intoxicated on something, or they're in the middle of a life-changing event and they have no business being at work. And to be able to pull the plug and say, you are not ready to get on big red and go do your job today, and we need to pull you off for one reason or another. Now, a lot of union contracts or uh employee manuals or however you're you're regulated will have a fitness for duty clause where you can actually go and get somebody tested and make sure that they're they're fit. Hopefully you have that. But I I just want to shout out to those folks who are brave enough to come in and hold that line on the standard saying, no, you're not getting on the fire truck because of one reason or another. And then there could be a myriad of reasons for it because they don't want to show up at Mrs. Smith's house with somebody who is incapable of doing the job. And that and that's even physical, too, right? Like I've I've had guys come to work that are sick, that they don't want to use a sick day. I've I've gone into work where guys are injured, and oh, I'll I'll I'll I'll be able to get my glove on over this splint that's on my partial hand, or it's like, no, you're not. What's gonna happen when we're in the IDLH and you've got to really pull out? You're not gonna be able to do it. I had I had a guy who was having major surgery, like one of the most life-changing things, and he wanted to continue to start keep working, and an FPA physical does not allow you to keep working when you're gonna have the procedure this guy had. So it it it takes it takes a lot, I think. And I I just want to shout out to that because you you have to be the first one to hold people to those standards that they are fit and ready to go. You guys have any experience with that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, John, that I think that's a yeah, it's a it's a hundred percent real thing that it's it's I I compare it to the training level still, though. I'll take it all the way back to that. I mean, it's it's different if they're impaired physically, can't do it, mentally, can't do it, you know, whatever. There's an avenue to address that, right? And that the organization needs to have standards and expectations of how they're gonna do that and follow that process. Well, I link that right back to the training because we've all gone to work and been like, I hope we don't get a fire in Engine 17's area today because it's gonna be a problem. Well, we should do something about that. Just like we would do something about somebody's intoxicated, somebody, you know, had surgery, somebody doesn't want to use a sick day, but they, you know, can't hardly walk because their ankles broke or whatever, the training, in my view, is is really no different. We we are not as prepared as we need to be and should be to make this response. And and specifically here, we're talking about you know, command command training and the expectations that go along with that. So as a response chief, if you're in that position where there's an acting company officer or or a regular company officer that doesn't meet the expectation, then we can't fix that in five minutes, but we need to start it, right? We need to identify, hey, this is a there's work for us to do, and we need to improve on, you know, Johnny's skill set when he's riding as as the company officer. And far too often I think we don't engage in that because we don't want to hear back the flack from anybody about why did we do what we did. And quite frankly, it creates this thing called work that so many people try to avoid. It's easier to turn my head and say, I hope nothing happens over there today, than it is to go there and say, well, no, we're gonna start doing some training today. And as a company officer, same thing, right? You got somebody on your company or that transfers into your company that doesn't have the skills that they need to have and meet the standards and expectations of the organization, then there's work to do. But if we if we turn our head to it and accept it, then we shouldn't ever be surprised when things don't go as we expect. And it all comes back to we need to turn and focus on the delivery and the work that we do. That that that is our number one objective. We go to work, they pay us to go to work to respond to emergencies and incidents. That's why we exist. And all the rest of it is nice to do stuff, but uh we get so politically wrapped around the we're gonna do all this other political dog and pony show stuff because it looks good on the administration or one person in the administration or whatever. And meanwhile, the capabilities of the organization is lacking at best.
SPEAKER_02:That politics stuff that comes in. I and I I realize the fire chiefs have to do it. Uh I I did it, but I always used a litness test is what's this gonna do for the firefighters? Is it gonna elevate their stature within the organization or whatever to get them involved and stuff? And there was a lot of stuff I just never got them involved in because it wasn't gonna do anything for them or the community. It was just the it was all feel-good stuff for for maybe a couple of politicians. So if if that was the case, we didn't do it. If it was gonna be something that had a benefit and a return on investment when it comes to the time that you're going to put in on it, then then maybe it would be something to do. But there's so much pressure on fire chiefs to get involved in the in this political crap like you're talking about, you know, whether it's, you know, the the United Way fun drive or any other kind of charitable giving. And you got to pick and choose what you're doing because you only have so many hours of the day. I I worked at an organization where some of the neighboring departments would do chili feeds and fish fries and pancake breakfasts. And our department wanted to do that. And it's like, why? Well, the camaraderie. That it's fun camaraderie stuff. So, well, do you realize how much work it is to put? I mean, number one, we don't have a financial need for it. Any pancake breakfast I've ever been involved in is not enough to fill the tank of every apparatus on the department. So, I mean, the the the profit that you get off those things, and then the time and energy you're wasting on it when you could be training and getting other things ready to go for a response. So you got to look at what the overall return is gonna be. And I always said no. And it's like, no, there's no reason for us to do that. Now, sometimes, you know, we we have some associates right now that work with us that they're going through some very heavy stuff politically in their communities because they're looking to defund their fire departments, where they're changing levies or trying to eliminate levies altogether and property taxes in some state. I know that's big in Idaho and and uh Wyoming and Montana right now. And those fire departments have to engage in that. And and and somehow, you know, depending on how your city charter is or how you're set up, you're you're gonna get your troops involved in that too. But that that's more of a fight for survival politically than it is anything else. But you've got to pick and choose, is my point and triage what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01:So I I can't keep go ahead, Josh.
SPEAKER_00:The best thing that we can do with all of that still, though, is provide and focus on the providing the best service that we can provide with what we have. And if we if we slam on the brakes and say, you know, we're not happy with the political stance, then you're gonna get even less support. But John, I think, as you said, it it doesn't that's not it it that doesn't engage really all of the the companies out there. That's more of administrative and and top level management positions that that are gonna deal with that. And what we need the companies to do is to provide the best service they can possibly provide, but far too often that turns into we don't have any support, so we're not gonna train, we're not gonna do any of this other stuff. And it's like, well, that's why you exist is to provide that service and to do it the best that we can possibly do it, and accepting anything less than doing it as good as we can is not acceptable.
SPEAKER_01:So that consistency and message is is really helps us in that, right? And so, like this is where Bruno was most masterful, in my opinion, is he would only engage in political stuff that in a way that he was representing the safety and welfare and protecting lives of the community from his job as the fire chief. That conveyed down into the membership of oh, I have to maintain that consistency in my view of this is what matters, right? So he would get involved in things like sprinkler code, he would get involved in things like emergency transportation for the community, he would get involved in things that had a political element that directly impacted the community and and what his job and responsibilities were as the fire chief and the fire department for the community. And and the his kryptonite every single time in that political discussion was the customer service delivery of the that in our case, the city, the Phoenix Fire Department was delivering to the community. Because anytime there was political pushback, his ability to thwart that political pushback was what the community thought of the fire department because the fire department was taking care of them. When they showed up, they were nice to them, they took care of their problem, and they made them feel like they gave a shit. It's not getting into the politics because I want to be, you know, I'm part of the mayor's team or I'm part of the city manager's team. That's all nonsense. Keep it focused on what the work is of the fire department, what the role and responsibility of the fire chief is. And when you're actually really good at that, you really, really help the battalion chiefs, you help the company officers stay focused on what are the things here that I really need to be worried about. And, you know, we're always going to have Fox News or whatever, whatever bullshit streaming on the TV in a firehouse is a distraction, but that can be turned off. And and how the all of the bosses from the top down are behaving and what they're focusing on is is is a really important element to fighting all the other distractions.
SPEAKER_02:Well, great discussion, guys, on the roles and responsibilities. I think we can go on forever on the expectations of what we're expecting out of our company officers and chief level officers. If any of you have any input or ideas that you would like to share with us, please hit us up on the email in the show notes. Before we go, Timeless Tactical Truth. Have you guys seen that video? There's actually somebody with the Timeless Tactical Truth. They put it on the chip on their siren and their heavy rescue of all things. So that's that's a nice homage. Wow. Okay, today the Two of Hearts. And uh this one says the IC is responsible for all command functions all of the time. Simply, command functions define the IC's job. I'm gonna repeat this one more time. The IC is responsible for all command functions all the time. Simply, command functions define the IC's job. We see people try to piecemeal command functions or drop some down and we're not gonna do this. But when they don't do them all, it doesn't really seem to work, does it? I mean, do you do you see them picking and choosing and that being a a system that ends up working if you're not doing all of the command functions? And I I'm sure what Bruno's talking about here is the A-functions of command, right?
SPEAKER_01:So so so he eloquently is saying an IC should know and be responsible for their job. Okay. What is it? And when we start picking and choosing what it is that we like about a system and process, and I'm only gonna do these, and I'm not gonna do these because I think they're dumb or they're hard, or they're, you know, it's it doesn't uh there's not a lot of self-actualization tied to me performing that. That becomes a problem. It's a standard and a process for a reason. It's standard and a process to get us to an to an end result. And in this case, it's achieving the tactical objectives all clear, under control, and a loss stopped, right? And so that's the work we're supposed to do. And the the most effective best practice at it is utilizing those those components of it to get there. So my question would be is how do you manage effectiveness and how do you manage performance if you don't have a clear standard to actually get us there? And the ICs aren't actually good at at executing that. So it uh I I guess you don't get too many uh commercial airline pilots saying, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this part of my job. I don't really, I'm not gonna mess with this other stuff because that's never really important. It's never, it's never really mattered to me. And and so I'll just do what I'm what I want or what I'm comfortable with. Yeah, that's that's that's not a good thing for for them and the safety of passengers and all that other stuff. And that's that's why the system doesn't allow them to do that. I don't know why the fire service allows us to do it.
SPEAKER_00:What we do is nothing that we do is by ourselves. So that so when we don't have a system, which in this case, you know, talking about you know, fire command, blue card, the eight functions of command, and and the and the strategic decision-making model, so that we can walk through that process and continue to revisit every one of those functions throughout the entire incident. If we do that, and everybody else that's on the fire ground that's a that's that's operating, including the firefighters, have some sort of an inkling of the process because that's how the organization is trained and that's how the fire chief has rolled out and said, This is the expectation and this is what we're going to do, that's how we end up with that end result. But, you know, far too often we kind of started with it, Chris. I think you said it. You if you ask a fire department, what's your incident command system? We do ICS, and it's like, well, what is that? And they can't tell you one component of it besides, you know, somebody's in command. And it's like, well, what does that even mean? And all of those things are just words unless you actually have a system and process, and you've trained everybody on that system and process, and then you know, a a huge component of is this working? And if it's not working, is it the system that's broke, or are we not using the system appropriately? And most often we find with that the system's not broke, it's we we did not train people to use the system the way that it's designed to be used. So yeah, the A-function is a command. It's it's the it's the playbook, if you will, of managing, organizing the fire ground. And I think I think it says the IC is responsible for. Well, that doesn't mean that they have to do it, that just means they're responsible for it. So that's where you know that delegation piece of who's gonna fill out these other roles to make sure that all these things happen. So, you know, if you expanded an incident out and had multiple divisions and a support officer and a senior advisor and build out a whole command team and all of that, well, you're gonna work through all eight functions of command continually, and multiple people are gonna be going through multiple different parts of that eight functions of command until the final resolution of law stopped and and you know, primary all clears of of all victims removed and property conservation. So it it it is a system.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I don't I really don't believe in gravity. So I'm really not gonna account for it on the fire ground, right? And and I don't believe in it, right? So I it's really not a thing. But when the bit when I have structural collapse or when I have you know uh other things that are very much the cause of gravity, I then that that gives me license to act surprised that it happened. And like I couldn't possibly believe that that that could have occurred, right? Because I just didn't believe in it. Well uh that's the way we behave. That's the way we act a lot of times when when we're not using a system and a standard and a process, and nobody has the specific incident action plan, nobody knows how we get there, and and we're just doing whatever it is that we feel like doing on the fire ground, and then we have a problem, and that's kind of the way we're acting a lot of times as a as a fire service. So I don't quite I don't quite get all that.
SPEAKER_02:A wonderful discussion, guys. I I appreciate you both being here today and being a part of the B Shifter Podcast, and that about does it for us. Until next time, thanks so much for listening. Make sure to subscribe and uh tell your friends to listen to the B Shifter Podcast. We'll talk to you next week.