Side Alpha Leadership

Volunteer fire department membership is dwindling. The decline has been steady for years. Are you doing all you can to recruit and retain new members? When you get new members are you making them feel welcome or are you ignoring them to the point they leave? Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Volunteer organizations must go out of their way to make new members feel welcome. All members need to engage with new people let them know how important it is for them to be at the station, take training classes and give as much time as they can.

We must do the work to attract and keep new members or one day the volunteer fire department will become extinct.

This month I welcome Dr. Shelley Wheeler back to the show. This show is all about making decision on the fire ground. We offer advice to the new officer on making critical decisions with little information.

We discuss Recognition Prime Decision model. This model is what firefighters use on the scene when we have little information. This model is rooted in knowledge, skills and experience.

I am an optimist. I do my best to see the good. People don't just show up to work and think "how can I be a POS today?" I believe people want to be good at their job and be an asset to the shift, but when Officers or senior firefighters don't correct bad behaviors, people fall into a routine of sucking. If you’re an officer and you have underperforming people on your shift, it is your job to fix it.

As a chief officer you demand your people to do their job with skill and precision. That comes from constant training. As a chief officer, what are you doing to maintain your skill? Your department needs to develop training that measures a chief’s skill and allows them to perform on the training grounds so they can be skilled on the fire ground. 

I don't buy into the "customer service" model of the fire service. It is BS. We are not selling goods. The citizens are not our customers. We are not salesmen. Our job is to be the best at mitigating emergencies. That means we train; we show up when the call comes in and we protect lives.    Just because you don't agree with men does not make us toxic. Men need to be masculine. Being masculine is not a crime, it is not a bad thing. The term Toxic Masculinity is BS dreamed up by wacko mental defects. There are men out there who are prone to violence and are shit bags. Those are not masculine men, they are immature boys, but to lump all men into this category is wrong. I urge all men to embrace your masculinity and be a good person.

This month i talk with Capt. Mike Burkett. Mike is a Captain with the Baltimore City Fire Department assigned to Truck 5 and an instructor with Capitol Fire Training. 

Mike and I discuss being the Truck boss.

• Crew expectations
• Operating in commercial and residential structures
• Searching vacant 
• training to keep your crew sharp

In combination systems, career and volunteers work together to provide excellent service to the citizens. That’s the way it is supposed to work. unfortunately, it does not always work that way. There are organizations that fight against each other. Career personnel want to get rid of the volunteers and volunteers refusing to work with the career. In the end the interior fighting makes the organization and the citizens suffer. 

There is strength in numbers these two entities working together can accomplish great things. there is no room for discord in the system and if the riff is from the top then the top needs to go. We are all here to do the job and when we do it together the system becomes great.

Why do unions gravitate towards a certain political party? Most of the time the answer is "we have always done it that way" At best that is a crap reason. All politicians suck and will promise you the moon and stars, but don't deliver yet election after election they keep supporting the same party. It is time for the heads of the local to listen to their members, who elected them to run the union in the first place. If your members want you to break the cycle and support a different candidate, then so be it. Stop blindly throwing you support to the same trash election after election.

Sleep deprived, anxiety and inflammation ,CBD is helping first responders as well as nurses and doctors cope with the stresses our work hands us. Jon Vought and I discuss the stresses our job has. John is the owner of Rescue 1 CBD. His product is 100% THC free. Jon and I dig deep into what his product is, what it does and how it is helping. Feel free to contact Jon on:

Instagram @rescue_1_cbd

YouTube @rescue1CBD

Web site rescue1cbd.com

Be loyal to your organization. Show some respect where you work. Stop trashing your department. Too many times we hear people who bash the system, trash talk how things run. These people may have legitimate complaints but fall on deaf ears because they never have solutions. There are those who just bitch to bitch, these people are never happy no matter what. 

If you don't like something work on fixing it. Speak to your leaders respectfully and offer solutions. You will find people listen when you speak with facts and not feelings.

So, if things are not great, ask yourself what can I do to make it better.

You say you take care of your people, but your people know it is Bull $h!T. if you did take care of them they would not be leaving and or trash talking you and the company. Take the time to appreciate the people who work hard and care about the job. 

Take time out of your day to meet the people face to face and tell them thanks for the work they do. Buy them breakfast or lunch or both. A little goes a long way. Letting your employees know you truly care makes the work environment better. If you don't, your employees will be less productive or may leave altogether and, in the end, you too may be looking for a new job.

This month i sit down with Stephanie White. We discuss CBD in the fire service, the kitchen table, keeping a heathy shift and changing the culture by looking at the past.

We are firefighters, our job is to go into burning buildings and put fires out. It seems we have steered away from our past culture of being aggressive firefighters and morphed into a culture of safety. We need to steer the fire service back to the 70's and 80's and be the firefighters the public counts on us to be.

Our newest rookies are coming into this job ready to be aggressive, we must teach them and drill it into their heads, we are firefighters our job has inherent risk, and we accept that risk to get the job done. Teach them right make them firefighters.