Ep. 59: Dr. Eric Saylors, Fire Chief - Positive Succession Planning

Summary

Episode 59: Dr. Eric Saylors, Fire Chief - Positive Succession Planning

Release Date: December 23, 2024

Podcast Information:

• Title: Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
• Host/Author: Berlin Maza
• Description: Captain Berlin Maza & Deputy Fire Chief Bill Mack engage with leaders across various professions and industries to discuss leadership philosophies, behaviors, and actionable strategies for growth at the firehouse kitchen table.

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Introduction

In Episode 59 of Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table, hosts Berlin Maza and Deputy Fire Chief Bill Mack welcome Dr. Eric Saylors, an experienced Fire Chief with a rich background in the fire service and a doctorate in Leadership from USC. The episode delves into the critical topic of Positive Succession Planning, exploring how current leaders can effectively prepare and mentor future leaders to ensure sustained organizational success.

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Guest Background [03:35 - 06:25]

Dr. Eric Saylors brings nearly three decades of experience in the fire service, having served in various capacities including paramedic, firefighter, Engineer Captain, Battalion Chief, Assistant Chief, and Fire Chief. His extensive tenure with the Sacramento City Fire Department and current role with the El Cerrito Kensington Fire Department highlight his adaptability and commitment to emergency management. Dr. Saylors holds multiple degrees, including a Master's in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, and actively contributes to fire service education through teaching and consulting.

Notable Quote:

“Good leaders are those that have been kicked in the teeth enough and keep getting back up. They embrace the suck.”
[00:01] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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The Principle of Positive Succession Planning [24:36 - 27:44]

Dr. Saylors emphasizes that the core principle of leadership is positive succession planning—ensuring that future leaders are well-prepared to surpass current leadership. This involves a proactive approach to mentoring, continuous education, and fostering an environment where emerging leaders can develop the necessary skills and judgment to lead effectively.

Notable Quote:

“The principle of leadership, of positive succession planning. My job is to make you better than me.”
[24:36] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Essential Leadership Qualities [16:46 - 18:44]

Dr. Saylors outlines three indispensable qualities for emerging leaders in the fire service:

1. Empathy: Understanding and valuing the perspectives of team members to foster a collaborative and motivated environment.
2. Adaptability: Being flexible and responsive to changing circumstances and challenges within the fire service.
3. Resilience: Possessing the ability to recover from setbacks and maintain focus on long-term goals.

Notable Quote:

“Number one, empathy. Number two, adaptability. The last thing that you need is resilience… resilience, I define as the ability to get back up.”
[16:46] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Challenges in Leadership Development [22:37 - 33:07]

The conversation highlights significant challenges in developing effective leaders within the fire service:

• Lack of Institutional Support: Unlike the military, the fire service lacks comprehensive institutions akin to West Point or the Naval Postgraduate School that systematically train leaders over extended periods.

• Methodology vs. Principle: Many leadership training programs focus on methodologies without anchoring them in fundamental principles, leading to inconsistent and often ineffective leadership practices.

• Continuous Development: Dr. Saylors advocates for a culture of ongoing leadership development, where leaders are consistently trained, tested, and mentored to adapt to evolving challenges.

Notable Quote:

“We're getting outpaced by our competition with higher education. Education actually forces you to change and adapt.”
[09:22] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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The Succession Project [34:08 - 47:12]

Dr. Saylors shares his initiative, the Succession Project, designed to identify and develop future leaders within his department proactively. By engaging captains early in their careers, the project involves:

• Leadership Workshops: Facilitating sessions where captains assess current leaders, recognize strengths and weaknesses, and identify top organizational challenges.

• Curated Reading Lists: Introducing a structured book club approach, starting with accessible leadership books like Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, and gradually progressing to more complex texts such as Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal.

• Practical Application: Encouraging leaders to present insights from their readings, fostering public speaking skills, critical thinking, and the practical application of leadership theories.

Notable Quote:

“What you've got to do is intentionally reach out to individuals younger, earlier in the career and build them up.”
[50:37] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Leadership Education vs. Training [33:07 - 38:54]

The discussion contrasts traditional training approaches with comprehensive leadership education:

• Training: Often limited to short seminars that introduce basic concepts without ensuring understanding or application.

• Education: Involves deep, sustained learning that integrates principles with practical methodologies, encouraging leaders to continuously evolve and adapt.

Dr. Saylors criticizes the fire service for not investing adequately in leadership education, advocating for dedicated institutions and continuous development programs to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Notable Quote:

“Leadership without management kind of goes nowhere.”
[19:46] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Recommended Books and Resources [73:21 - 83:20]

Dr. Saylors recommends a selection of leadership books that have significantly influenced his approach:

1. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
2. Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal
3. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
4. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
5. Appreciative Inquiry frameworks for effective communication and leadership

He emphasizes the importance of not only reading but also actively applying and teaching the concepts to ensure they translate into meaningful organizational improvements.

Notable Quote:

“If you don't apply it, then it just doesn’t work. You can have all these books and knowledge, but if you don't use it, it meant nothing.”
[73:33] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Applying and Teaching Leadership Principles [83:20 - 86:30]

The episode underscores the necessity of practical application and peer teaching in leadership development. Dr. Saylors advocates for:

• Testing Theories: Leaders should implement learned principles in real-world scenarios to assess their effectiveness.

• Mentoring Others: Sharing successful strategies and methodologies with emerging leaders to foster a culture of continuous improvement and collective growth.

• Authenticity: Encouraging leaders to remain genuine and adaptable, using personal experiences to guide their mentorship and decision-making processes.

Notable Quote:

“My job is to make you better than me. The only way I can do that is actually prepare myself and then go test it.”
[85:22] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Final Thoughts and Contact Information [87:06 - End]

Dr. Saylors concludes with a compelling reminder of the centrality of people in leadership:

“Take care of the people behind you. It is all about the people.”
[91:31] – Dr. Eric Saylors

He encourages listeners to reach out via the El Cerrito Fire Department's website or through Facebook for mentorship, training, and further discussions on leadership.

Notable Quote:

“They are those that solve problems. They are the ones that will replace you. They all the ones that will meet the mission better than you did.”
[91:31] – Dr. Eric Saylors

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Key Takeaways

1. Positive Succession Planning: Essential for ensuring that future leaders are prepared to surpass current leadership, maintaining organizational resilience and effectiveness.

2. Core Leadership Qualities: Empathy, adaptability, and resilience are non-negotiable traits for effective leaders in the fire service.

3. Comprehensive Leadership Education: Moving beyond short-term training to sustained education and practical application is crucial for developing competent leaders.

4. Proactive Mentorship: Initiatives like the Succession Project demonstrate the importance of identifying and nurturing future leaders early in their careers.

5. Application and Teaching: Leadership principles must be actively applied and shared to translate theoretical knowledge into practical, impactful leadership.

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Conclusion

Episode 59 offers deep insights into the intricacies of leadership within the fire service, emphasizing the need for intentional and sustained effort in developing future leaders. Dr. Eric Saylors' emphasis on empathy, adaptability, and resilience, coupled with his practical approach to leadership education, provides a robust framework for current and aspiring leaders to foster a culture of continuous improvement and effective succession planning.

For more information or to connect with Dr. Eric Saylors, listeners can visit the El Cerrito Fire Department's website or find him on Facebook.

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Join the Conversation: Stay tuned for future episodes of Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table as we continue to explore diverse leadership philosophies and strategies from leaders across various fields. Whether you're an emerging leader or a seasoned professional, these conversations aim to inspire and equip you with the tools needed to excel in your leadership journey.

Be safe, be intentional, stay curious.

Transcript

[A]

Early winners do not make good leaders. Early winners don't make good leaders. People that start off in their career knocking it out of the park, getting number one on this promotional exam, number one on that promotional exam do not make good leaders. Because success is a combination of judgment and luck. And a lot of early winners are simply lucky. They just don't know it. They took a Captain's Test and 100 other people took that Test and they scored number one. And now all of a sudden they have the signaling that they're awesome. Good leaders are those that have been kicked in the teeth enough and keep getting back up. They embrace the suck. It is hard. They have learned that there's a difference between luck and judgment, and they start developing their judgment.

[B]

Apartment building.

[A]

The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table Podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to.

[B]

CEOs.

[A]

Our conversations have one simple goal build more leaders.

[B]

Today's leadership conversation 59, the kitchen table is brought to you by the First Responder Liaison Network. Network is organized for the development, implementation and ongoing support of mentorship and professional development programs, inspiring our youth and young adults to mature into engaged civic leaders and resilient community sentinels. Our core mission is to mentor underrepresented urban and rural youth interested in public safety careers. Music and graphics are brought to you by Kai Elephant Productions. Today's Conversation we're diving into the fundamental principle of leadership positive succession planning, preparing the future leaders to replace the current ones. Our guest today is a fire chief with 29 years of experience in the fire service. With a doctorate in Leadership from usc, he currently serves the El Cerrito Kensington Fire Department after serving the Sacramento City fire department for 25 years. During his career, he has held the rank of paramedic, firefighter, Engineer Captain, Battalion Chief, Assistant Chief, and Fire Chief. He worked on the ambulance, fire engine, ladder, truck, type 1 hazmat team and heavy rescue unit. He has experience in high rise, large commercial, urban interface, basement and balloon construction fires. Before promoting to the Executive staff, He served as BC1 battalion chief in downtown Sacramento. In addition to the doctorate degree, he has two associate degrees, a Bachelor's in Finance, a Master's in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School. He teaches Command and Control of major incidents and Chiefs general administration classes for the California State Fire Marshal and is an instructor for Elite Command Training. He also consults with fire departments in active shooter events, succession planning, leadership, and post fire analysis. He has published over 20 articles on homeland security and fire service topics on the 59th episode. Today we welcome Doctor slash Chief sailors to the kitchen table. Morning, Chief.

[A]

Good morning.

[B]

How are you today?

[A]

It's an honor to be here with you.

[B]

Well, I appreciate it. And it is division chief Heather Marquez, who, you know, was on the show just a few weeks back. She was one that brought us here with the leadership challenge. Said you have to reach out to. She said, chief Sailors, and then she goes, well, Dr. Saylors, so call them Dr. Chief Saylors. So here we are and thank you so much for taking up that challenge. Would you mind sharing a little bit about Eric Saylors before we dive into this leadership talk?

[A]

Yeah. Let me say it's unfair having a follow up, Heather. That's totally uncool, but that's the way it goes. So set your expectations low. Yeah, it's always weird to hear your own profile because you're thinking to yourself, who the hell are they talking about? But you know, yeah, there's a human side to me. So I actually did live in Washington for five years when I was a kid. I was born in Grass Valley, Northern California, and then when I was five, we moved to Redmond, Washington, and then to Marysville where I went to grammar school and then Camano island and then we left Camano island just before junior high when I moved to Texas, lived in Texas for a little while and then eastern Los Angeles where went to a few years of school and then SoCal and then I wound up in Sacramento in college. So kind of anchored in Sacramento, went to Sac State and worked for a few, few small fire departments before I took the challenge to work for Sac City. Sac City is a lot of fun, but it comes to cost. It's a scrappy little city. It's, you know, it's just 24 stations, kind of medium size, but it's got 66 high rises in the capital and two rivers. And there is just an unimaginable amount of that happens in that city on a daily basis from from riots to civil unrest to water rescues to hazmats. So It's a fun 25 years. And now, now I'm in the Bay Area and it's, for me it's really interesting because I had a lot to learn coming out of an executive chief as a, of a medium sized city. Now I'm in earthquake country. My, my department sits right on the Hayward fault. Now we're also in wildland country, which is right on the backside of where the Oakland Hills fire happened. And it's all about emergency management planning and disaster planning and deep contingency plans, which I was just used to managing large fires. This is a different domain for me. So it's very humbling, and I'm learning a lot every day. And I also. I'm the chief of actually two fire departments. One's a city and one's an independent special district. So I get to learn the world of special districts versus just cities.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

So there's. There's. There's my 32nd but. And then one. One last wrap up on me is there's. I've been told and I have to warn others. There's two sides to me. Apparently. There's two people that live in me. There's. There's Dr. Sailors and then Viking Eric. So Dr. Sailors says a lot of big, stupid words, like the empirical evidence to support that action. Then Viking Eric occasionally gets angry and is like, hey, that's some stupid right there. Let me tell you how this really works. So I warn people about that because sometimes, depending on what topic we're talking about, they'll. They'll come out.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

So there's. There's my 30 seconds, man.

[B]

Awesome. I appreciate that. So I'm gonna just start with that. So, Dr. Sailors, what motivated you, I guess, to say, you know, I'm gonna get a doctorate de. Because you had a. What was it? It was a master's. Master's in security studies. And then you continued. So what was that journey like?

[A]

That was curiosity on my part. It was a dumb idea, I don't think. So I got out of, you know, the. So you get your bachelor's, right? And they. And the bachelor's. They tell you what you need to know. So you're just. You're just taking in the answers and regurgitating them. And some of the concepts are really hard to take in. But then you get in the master's degree, and they stop telling you what they need to know, and they start forcing you to ask the right questions. It's a different mindset. So now asking the right question is way harder than regurgitating the right answer, right? Absolutely was. That was hard and so inspiring to me that when I was done with the masters, it was just curiosity. I thought, what are those guys now? Like, let the guys that go get the terminal degrees, what do they. What do they do? So I started applying. I got accepted to a. A lot of big schools and. And USC came along. And I remember the phone call I got where I was standing when a woman named Jennifer called me on the phone and said that I had been accepted. And I had two emotions immediately. One was, wow. And one was, oh my God, what have I done?

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because I was like, oh, this is so cool. I got accepted to a tier one university, the doctorate program. And then the other side of me was like, you dummy, like what? This is going to be four years of hell. What are you thinking? But like, everything. I learned a lot. You know, one of the synapses for those that go into higher education, you're just, you're going to meet some smart people. And I think that's one of the neatest things is you are going to be around some really intelligent people that have thought deeply about topics. And for me, that's the biggest, biggest benefit for me for school.

[B]

I think remaining curious is such a key and it's a key leadership trait for anybody that is aspiring to learn, progress their careers, just become better in general, in life and, and in everything they do. So is higher education important in the fire service?

[A]

It is now, yeah. There's two things that are happening to us in the fire service. One is we're getting outpaced by our competition with higher education. And let me say, like, you know, education doesn't necessarily make you smarter. Some of the dumbest people I've met in my life had PhDs. It does a few things for you. One, it's going to give you a little bit of credibility. And that is important for us because we're starting to sit across the table from people that have MBAs that will look down on us. We may be way more smarter than they, but just because they have a degree from Duke, they look at us and say, but you got an associates from a junior college. Nothing you say has any relevance. You don't fit into my internal reality right now. So it does give you a little bit of credibility, but it also, it makes you resilient in the fact that it allows you to bring in change. So we get a lot of training in the fire service and training is very robust. It sticks with you and by design it resists change. Right. I can still throw a wooden 24 foot straight side ladder because of my academy, even though ladders don't exist anymore. That type of training is robust. It resists change. I'm an instrument rated pilot and I had an engine out at 11,000ft and had to dead stick my plane into an airport out in the middle Nevada. My training resisted all of the stress that came in in that event. But see, it also puts us into a Mindset of standing still and resisting. And education is the opposite. Education actually forces you to change and adapt, and it brings in new topics. It pushes you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to think about change and how to navigate it. So it is incredibly useful for future leaders in the fire service because we are adapting and changing faster than we ever were because the environment around us is changing. Just the injection of lithium ion batteries is forcing us to entirely rethink about what the hell we're going to do with the structure fire.

[B]

Absolutely. What would you say to some individuals, this being a podcast geared toward emerging leaders, but really, any. Any leader, formal, informal, in the fire service, what would you say to an individual that is just like, you know what? I. I don't want to do formal education. I want to go back to school. I think it's useless. What would you say to them to prioritize higher education if they seek kind of a higher role or higher rank in the fire service?

[A]

Let's start with a really. Let's start with a. With a. With a statement that it might be controversial and anger some people.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

Early winners do not make good leaders. Early winners don't make good leaders. People that start off in their career knocking it out of the park, getting number one on this promotional exam, number one on that promotional exam do not make good leaders. Because success is a combination of judgment and luck. And a lot of early winners are simply lucky. They just don't know it. They took a Captain's Test and 100 other people took that Test, and they scored number one. And now all of a sudden, they have the signaling that they're awesome, good leaders. Good are those that have been kicked in the teeth enough and keep getting back up. They embrace the suck. It is hard. They have learned that there's a difference between luck and judgment. And they start developing their judgment, and they realize, shit, sometimes you're just unlucky. That's just the way it goes. But that's what makes good leaders. You can't knock them down. When you get the crap kicked out of you early in your career, you take a few big losses. Maybe you don't promote. Maybe you fail your first promotional exams. Maybe it takes you a long time to get a job. If you're. If you are paying attention, you start to realize what is truly important, what the principles of the fire service are. Because you have to sit back and think about what the principles are in you, what the principles of the fire service are, and why you're here and why you're going to keep going. That builds. Good leaders, they have empathy. When they get to the top, they don't forget where they came from. And you can't knock them down very easily. They get punched in the face, they get right back up. That type of person is the type of person that goes out and starts to seek other deeper education because they realize they've really got to practice good judgment. They got to be centered on what is important to them. And they have to develop tools and judgments around that. And they also realize that they don't have all the. The answers right. It's a form of humility. And that's the difference between the early winner. The early winner tends to develop arrogance. They tend to develop a false sense of self confidence because they were number one in their class. Number one on the engineers exam, number one on the captain exam, number one on the BC's exam. They're just like, holy, I'm knocking it out of the park. Yeah, you're usually just getting lucky. I'm not interested in those kind of guys. I'm actually really fascinated. The guy that took four battalion chiefs tests and then eventually ranked number one and is now still willing to step up and do the job, that starts to drive people to a level of humility which gets them out of their silo to go seek. What in the hell is the military doing about this? How does business think about this? And not that we're. Not that we are a business, but it gets you out of your shell to go, you know what? I'm gonna still keep learning. And there's a few places to learn. You know, the school of hard knocks is a great teacher, but you also have educational institutions and you have people in there that have studied one topic their entire life and they have a lot to offer. It's not everything to you, but it'll be pieces and chunks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You'll go, holy crap, that was really useful. I'm gonna humbly take that in and I'm gonna. And now I'm gonna use that to meet the principles that I found in myself. And I'm going to know, you know what, I've had some ass kickings in my early career. I'm going to keep getting some ass kickings, but I know one thing, I just keep getting back up. Like you can knock me down, but I'm resilient. I will get back up. And there's going to be good days and there's going to be bad days, but the bad days aren't going to derail Me, because I'm going to keep getting better at my judgment.

[B]

What I've heard so far, you talked a lot about curiosity, and I heard you say judgment, but you said embrace the suck. And you've heard that a lot, whether it be from David Goggins or. Or the other book from the other Navy seal. Can't remember his name.

[A]

I.

[B]

But it sounds like failing. And correct me if I'm wrong, but failing is not just necessary, but you would like to see people that are failing a lot because it's showing that they're trying. And you like to see that individuals not only just fail and get back up, but then are consistently being curious on, well, how do I get better? Let me search for other avenues. Right. Maybe it's not just simply study harder at the next promotional exam, but maybe it's going out and saying, you know what, maybe I'll just go out and seek a higher education because that will broaden my perspective on things. So with that, what would you say? Are, you know, you being, you know, with the experience that you have, Chief, with having higher education, you serving in several fire departments. If I were to ask you, chief, what are. What are three qualities in an emerging leader that you say a must have, what would those be?

[A]

Number one, empathy. Number one quality you have to have is empathy. So you're. You're talking about influencing others. You're talking about aligning them to work as a team and move towards a common mission. And in order to do that, you have to be able to put your feet into someone else's shoes. You have to be able to see the world through how they're seeing it. The simple definition of that is empathy. If you don't have empathy for those that you are trying to align and bring together, it's going to be tough. It turns into more of a command and control than it does influence and inspiring. Right? So that's number one. Number two, you have to be adaptable. The world is going to change around you. You think you have the right answer now? Well, you have the right answer yesterday. Today's answer is different. Wow. Right? It. And that is. That has been my reality my entire career. Someone told me a long time ago, get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is true. Just when you think you have it figured out, the game changes. The world we live in is a complex adaptive system. It adapts to everything that gets pushed on it, and it is constantly changing. So you have to be adaptable. Always. The last thing that you need is resilience. Now that term I define as the ability to get back up. And I know I say it a lot and I preach it a lot because it sometimes gets forgotten. Right. There are some people, bad things happen to really good people.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

It is unfair. I get it. Temper tantrums get you nowhere. Those that get back up first win. And if you are mission oriented, then you are going to win the mission. Right? So those are the things that you need. So let's. We tie that in. I have a love hate relationship with the word leadership because it becomes so nebulous. That gets used for everything, right? We got a leadership problem. No, he's a, he's a good leader. She's a great leader. I'm like, whoa, let's, let's time out really quick and think about, you know, that word so that we can define it for ourselves. And then that ties back into these three traits we need. Right. Because there's a difference between leaders and managers. Not that one is not better than the other. Leadership without management kind of goes nowhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm not valuing one without the other. They're two different skill sets, right? Managers, they plan, they organize, they put in controls. Right. They're critical.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Leaders set direction, they align people. Right. They motivate and they inspire. And when you think about the, the definition of that term, it's a, it's a conjunction of multiple phrases, right. It's to lead, lead, which is to guide. So that means you are dealing with groups of people, right. By definition, that is something you have to do. Then it has an er at the end of it, right? Yeah. That is the idea that, you know, you are actually taking action, you're doing something. Right. And then the ship is that. Yeah, it's you right here. This is you doing this. I like the metaphor of guiding somebody to the peak of a mountain, right. You're guiding a group of people. You are actually the one that are pulling this up this hill. So once you define that and you realize the heavy tasks, that is, you come back to those three, those three things, all right? I got to have empathy for the people that are going to be willing to follow me. I can't just send them into a shitstorm and not acknowledge how hard it's going to be. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I myself have to be totally adaptable to every situation. And I myself have to keep getting back up there. There's no temper tantrums allowed. I can have a timeout occasionally and vent a little bit, but there are no. Just straight out temper tantrums. Allowed, because everybody's following me and they're looking to me. So those are the things that have to happen.

[B]

So my question is, who teaches that? So. Right, let's see, let's use the. This is the premise or the example of you have some new firefighters, some emerging leaders, some aspiring officers will say in the fire service and your department, or the former leadership above you, recognizes that the future leaders of this organization must demonstrate empathy, must be adaptable, and must be resilient in everything that they do. But who teaches them those things? And I know we're going to get into leadership training versus leadership education versus leadership exposure. Maybe this is the segue to that. But who teaches that? Right. If an individual. Right. And I always believe that an individual is responsible for their own development. Right. A department won't necessarily be able to provide everything for an individual. Right. So there's some personal accountability and responsibility for your own development. But is there intentionality from departments or are there departments that teach empathy, adaptability and resilience if they're saying these are what's necessary in our future leaders here at this organization?

[A]

So here's the. There's so many challenges with leadership, leadership books, leadership training, leadership education. Because very few people actually slow down and think about what those terms mean, right?

[B]

Yes, agreed.

[A]

The challenge with leadership books is, God damn, we keep writing them. I mean, we're. There's so many. You think we would have got it right by now, right? You'd think there's only, there's only one or two foundational geometry books, right. I got a copy, you know, of Euclideans back there. You know, there's only one or few, you know, foundational calculus books. I got Newton back there. But like in leadership, the challenge is, is that so many of the books in the modern day of leadership are methodologies. They're methodologies lacking principles. So you have to have. You have to know the principle, the problem, and then you develop methodologies around to meet the principle of the problem. So many of our books are just simply methodologies and the readers don't realize that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So many methodologies are context boundaries, Right. They have to fit the situation. You look at, you know, leadership books from the early 1900s, then to the 50s, then to the 60s, like a geek like me does, and you realize, oh, it's shifting, it's changing because. Because the context is changing, society's changing, people's perceptions are changing. Right. And you may have leadership methodologies that work fantastic on the east coast, that don't work on the West. Coast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You may have leadership methodologies that roll out and they're like, yeah, this is. This is everything in New Jersey and you bring it to Berkeley and like, oh, this doesn't work at all, this chunk of methodology. But let's work our way back to the principles, the principles of the problem. If we anchor ourselves in the principles now, we're going to start talking about how do we train and educate them people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. So the principles of the problem of leadership. It is a positive succession plan. That is the principle of the problem that trans. That works its way across timelines. It is a positive succession plan. How do you guide the people behind you to replace you and be better than you? If you start with that as the principle of the problem of leadership, how do I guide you to be better than me? Because I'm on a short time frame, right. I am just a flash in the pan. I'm here, I'm gone, you're behind me. You're just going to be a flash in a plan. But I have to get you. I have to have a positive succession plan. If I violate that, then I'm actually not really leading. I'm doing something else. And then all the methodologies I'm having and I'm running around spouting off, if I'm not actually doing that, then the organization is going to fail.

[B]

So let me. I'll pause there for a minute because I want to. I want to capture that just very, very briefly. So is it fair to say that. And I say that I pause it because I want the listeners to really resonate with what you just said, because I believe it's very important. I want to capture it and highlight it. So would it be fair to say that company officers in the fire stations today, those that are listening, would be fair to say that their principal or one of their primary objectives right now is to be in the fire station, making sure they develop those, whether it be engineers or firefighters working under them. If they so aspire to be company officers or whatever level of training or development they want their principal. And they must be living off the fact that, hey, I am training you today and every day to make sure you are better than me tomorrow. And when I leave.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then the chief. And then to go even further, let's say chief officers, their job is to then develop the current company officers to make sure that they are training them to make sure that they are the future chief officers of that organization.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And every rank in between, above and below what I just demonstrated. So that is the principle and objective of the. Of our leaders current today.

[A]

Yes. That is the principle of leadership. Whether you're a company officer or a parent.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right. Or some other species. Whatever you are doing, your DNA is driving you to make sure that who's coming behind you is better than you. Love that you, as a company officer, need to prepare yourself so that you can make those below you better than you. You, as a chief officer, need to prepare yourself that the company officers behind you will replace you and be better than you. That. That principle, as I said, it spans time, it spans species. It is fundamental in what DNA does for us. And that is the principle of problem for leadership. Everything else is just methodologies.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And some of them are just thrown against the wall as fast as they can sp. Some of them sound fancy and neat. But if you don't understand the principle of the problem, then you are simply on this merry go round of nonsense.

[B]

I love that. So here's a. I guess not rhetorical. Right. Because the question, it's a thought, but it's also a reflection. But I also want to see where it goes. To those especially listening, what would the fire service look like in 20 years if, starting today, every leader, formal, informal, adopted that principle that you. We just talked about?

[A]

There wouldn't be a whole lot of gaps in our free time because we would all be preparing ourselves to prepare others. It's tough to actually train and educate and develop others. Yes. You've got to be good at it yourself.

[B]

Agreed.

[A]

And it is more than just simply telling them. You actually have to help them develop. So they're, you know, academically, there's four levels of knowledge. There's declarative knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. So we'll. We'll bridge that into something simple that we know. This is cognitive science. Right. This is. This is like me that get doctorates and this stuff. Right. So you think about Bridget, like, okay, a tank line. Like, okay, declarative knowledge. You know what it is? You know the word you say? Tank line. Oh, yeah. Fantastic. Tank line. You look at it. Yeah. Yes, that, that, that there is a tank line. All right. Conceptual knowledge. What's the tank line for? Oh, well, tank line is for, you know, a quick attack and a fire. We got to be within so many feet of the engine, depending on the length, you know, But I'm going to pull it. It's pre. Connect. It's going to get water fast. Okay. Conceptually. Cool. All right. You got the idea of what a tank Line is. Right. It's not a supply line. Right. We don't hook that to a hydrant and we don't hook it to a sprinkler system. Procedural. That's the next level of knowledge. Okay. Procedurally, how do you do this? Oh, well, that actually takes a lot of practice and understanding. Like, I got my hand here, my hand here. It's got to be a loop here, right? If I do, if I get the procedure messed up, if I go but I pull the loop before I shoulder it, it's going to be a spaghetti mess, right? If I shoulder it and pull the loop and walk straight towards the door, then drop it all into a bundle, it's going to be a mess, right? Like, I. I'm probably going to have to, like, walk away from the building and then come back. Right? This is procedural knowledge that we, we tend to get to through a lot of practice. Then the fourth level is metacognitive knowledge. That is stepping back and looking at the tank line as it fits in the system of the whole engine and understanding when and when not to use it. Now, metacognitive knowledge takes a long time to acquire, right? So now that we've got that basic understanding and you hand this task to a captain, you say, look, man, I need you to bring your firefighters up to a metacognitive level knowledge of a tank line so that when they become captains, they can make good decisions. I do not need robots. I need thinkers. But that takes a lot of work on your part, a lot of effort. And you yourself, here's the shitty part about this mission. You yourself got to be a magnet. Cognitive knowledge level.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[A]

Which is not easy. I had a. I had a karate school for five years when I was younger. I was. I was a pretty competitive kickboxer and a boxer. Me and my buddy opened a karate school. I thought I knew a lot about boxing and kickboxing because I fought for so many years. I had a lot to learn when I started teaching others a lot of gaps in my game.

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

And then when I became a little. When I got in the corner and I was coaching other fighters, I was like, oh, shit, this is metacognitive knowledge now. Like, now this is some big gaps. So, yeah, that's. That is. That is the principal problem with leadership. And it takes a lot of work.

[B]

Yes, yes. And I mean, it goes to the saying, I'm sure you've obviously heard it, is leadership is not easy. I mean, maybe some of the concepts is easy, but applying it and doing it day by day, it takes work. No one ever said it was just going to be as simple as do this and you're done. So a question that I have now is how do fire service instructors, mentors, leaders become good mentors? So my, my point being is we're. When individuals get put into roles to either teach a discipline or they get promoted to, say, a training officer, company officer level. And chief Castro says this a lot, is every company officer is the lead training officer of the crew. Right. Not the training division. So how do company officers become great mentors? Like, are they. You know, I never went through a class that taught me how to be a great mentor. I never went through a class that taught me how to be the best instructor or teacher. I learned that there's job on the job training, there's exposure, there's curiosity, which you talked about. Right. Does that, does that kind of make sense? Like, we have people in positions to be good instructors, but are we teaching them to be good instructors? Are we just teaching them the knowledge of the topic at hand?

[A]

Yeah. And we, we struggle with this in the fire service a ton. Because we will, we will put on a class and maybe it's a. Maybe it's a two hour class.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

All right. And we'll use the word leadership, and then we'll throw some methodologies out onto the table. They sound fancy. And then we walk away. Right. And our captains, our firefighters, our chiefs, they tend to go right back to doing what they're doing because that's what works. We'll do that over and over again for generations.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But if you really want to understand something, you got to start with walking in and saying, here's the principle of the problem. Take this in and think about this. Now I will start to educate you. I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk you through declarative knowledge. Right. When you get to the conceptual knowledge, we'll talk about procedural knowledge on leadership and then metacognitive knowledge on leadership. But that takes time, and it takes the opportunity for you to go back and practice it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is a long, long process to do. And we don't do that at all in the fire service. We don't really have any ability to do it. But let's look at a successful model in our distant cousin. Let's look at the military and how purposeful they are on something like this. We'll take an example, one of the three. Ms. McChrystal. McChrystal, Mattis, McRaven. Right. I call them, I call them the three Ms. Yes. Just because they're, just because they write and, and, and a few of them write well. All right, so Crystal. Right, so his purposeful training, West Point at the age of 17. They start developing him as a leader immediately. And he doesn't get much of a choice, right. And then he, then he goes off and he gets to practice the things that he's done. So he's, he's, he's been, he's been implanted with a bunch of shit. Then he goes out and he practices and then they bring them back and they force them to go to another school and then they send them back out to practice again. And then they bring them back and they force them to go to another school and they send them back out to practice again. Right. And they're mixing training and education together. Then they're going, all right, go back out there and now go do it. And then we're going to come back into the four years and I'll guess what, now you got to go to command College. Right. So there are just jamming him full of information. Well, by the time he's 50 and he's put in charge of something, something significant, he's got the equivalent of a PhD in leadership. Just doesn't have the title. But it is very purposeful and he doesn't have any choice. They're just sending him and he's off and running. That's what it takes to actually do leadership training. A two hour seminars is not, is not that to our seminar is some, is some basic terms and methodologies thrown out onto the table and nobody ever goes and forces you to practice and drill on it and then brings you back and assesses it. Which is weird because it's what we do tactically. Right. If we just use that analogy to look at tactics, we say, yeah man, go pull that tank line. I'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna watch you and then when you come back, I'm gonna just fill in some gaps like, hey, good job on this. That, that here's what needs to happen on this. That, that if you don't do that any faster, then the second engine is going to beat you. Right. All right. You know, if you don't do this right, you're going to get tangled up and you're not going to be a, you're not going to be on the nozzle. Yeah, we don't have any ability to do that for leadership, but I do think it needs to happen to some.

[B]

Degree, to a level of degree. We have to. And I hate to use the word force, but for the sake of conversation, see the word force. We have to force our leaders, current and future emerging leaders in the fire service, into leadership development. Right. We need you to go out and take these classes. We need you to come back and put them into play and practice it. And then we need you to go out, take these next classes. We need you to come back and demonstrate. Do this because. Right. How many of us sit back, wait to take classes?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, okay. Now I'm gonna go take a class because, you know, I see that there's a promotional exam coming up in six months. So now I'm gonna go take these classes, and then that's my development leading up to something. But it sounds like for a true leadership development program, if you will, it's this constant sending people to do things, classes, taking courses, whatever it may be, coming back, applying it. Oh, by the way, you're gonna go do this one now, right? It's. I hate to use the word force, but at the end of the day, if that is our program is that consistent, sending people and encouraging people to this all the time, not just when there's an important event coming. And then. And then we will eventually just have a culture of continuous development of new leaders.

[A]

Yes. And unfortunately, we lack the institutions to do that as well. I'm not trying to be skeptical. I'm. I'm honestly looking at this because I've been thinking about this most of my career.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We don't have the West Points, the Naval Postgraduate Schools, the Annapolises, the, you know, the war colleges. We don't. We don't have the institutions we should have out of America Burning. Right. That was one of the recommendations published out of that document out of the 70s, and that's why the National Fire Academy stood up. But the National Fire Academy has never funded well enough to actually become that institution. Right. And. And we probably need multiple. Multiple of them across the nation to consistently send people to so they can come back with the. With a consistent, correct message.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And lacking the institutions we get, we get put into an interesting environment. So here's my next. My next controversial statement to business.

[B]

I love controversial.

[A]

Our catalyst is the very high value of shitty leaders. So what's wrong with that? We don't get someone coming in, telling you, hey, guess what? Pack your bags, we're sending you off to here. What we get is to observe shitty leaders, work their way up, and then that becomes our catalyst. Because all we know is that. Well, I don't Want to do that. Like, that was a. That was a good lesson of what not to do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I'm gonna go start to try and figure this out on my own and that. That becomes one of our greatest values in the fire service. And I hate to say it like that, but most of us learn what not to do by watching other people absolutely screw it up. And that seems to be our cycle as we will go through a series of shitty leaders that will be transactional. They will totally miss the principle, the problem. Right there. They are. They are for themselves. They are not thinking about others. They are in survival mode. Right. Someone has leverage over them and they make terrible judgments and they make terrible decisions. We watch them and that becomes our catalyst to try and figure out how the hell do this. Correct.

[B]

Yeah. With all that. No, it's good. It's good. I love it. If I. If I may ask, in your department or even in a previous department that you worked for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What was that leadership development like? Right. So as I'm finding out, talking to individuals across the country, people on the show, even neighboring agencies here, who I'll reach out to just to be curious on what they do. What is. Is happening in the fire service or in your department as far as leadership development? Like, do you guys send people through formal leadership stuff?

[A]

Yeah, we'll talk about. Talk about my former fire department. So I had. I had a. I'll call it an epiphany, but it was. It was a muddled thought that had been the back of my mind for a solid 10 years, and it finally formed into words. Words. And unfortunately, I had a leader that was just crazy enough to back my stupid ideas. So I was looking at my agency, Sacramento. Sacramento is a. It's a hard environment to work in politically. It's a tough environment. And it always felt like we were just getting. We were just getting rolled. And I wanted to get ahead of the problem and instead of trying to figure, fix the leaders that had two to three years left, I realized, wait a minute, we need to get ahead of this, like 15 years. Like, I need to be 15 years out. I need to stack the bench. So with this stupid idea, we started something called the Secession project. So I actually looked, Pulled. Pulled the data out of our staffing software, looked at captains who were going to be here in 15 years. So look here, here's the concept that's going to take. It takes 15 years to develop a fire chief. You got to start early, a little bit like a general. Right? General. It's going to take you 15 years, maybe longer. Better start early. Right? So let's pull these captains who are going to be here for more than 15 years. I had a very specific protocol I wanted to run them through based on my research and then an amalgamation of what was in the agency. So we sent an invite out to this group of captains, told them, it's a day off, show up on your own. We're just going to about leadership stuff. I thought one or two people were going to show up. We had 30 captains show up.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Awesome. So we brought them in. So here's the protocol process we put them in through. This is called combination of consensus building. But we gave them three post it notes, looked at, you know, standard post it note, and each one of them got one on their desk. And we said, all right, write down the leaders that you respect the most right now that you think are most influential. I don't care if they're formal leaders. I don't care if they're informal. I can be an engineer. Right. Three names down. We're going to put them up, up on the wall. And then I want you to write down the strengths and weaknesses of those leaders. And then I want you to write down the number one problem the fire chief should be fixing today. So we had three groups of post its up there, right? 30, 30 post its with three names on them. You go over there, you look at the names. The names were very consistent. And you look at those names and you say, all those guys are done in five years. They're all gone. Everybody that you think is going to save you is gone in five years. We walked over to the strengths and weaknesses and we said, you see those strengths and weaknesses that you think are in your leaders, they're probably in you figure out how to leverage your strengths and shore up your weaknesses right now. Start working now because it takes time. It's not a simple fix. Right. If you're not a good public speaker, you don't fix that in a week.

[B]

Maybe not even in 10 years. But yes, better start now. Absolutely, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. So then we went over to the number one problems, and the number one problem was very consistent. We looked at and said, that's your problem. You're going to be the last one standing in the room. That problem's still going to be here. You better start thinking about it now because it doesn't get solved in a year. It doesn't even get solved in five years. You have to start setting the chess table up Now. And you better start thinking about it now. So when we did that, we kind of shocked and odd. These, these 30 caps developed a reading list very specific to bring them up. What's called the Cognitive Gym. I started them off with easy books. The Cognitive Gym. Cognitive gym is an analogy for, hey, I want you to read a really hard book, but I can't have you read it right now because it's just going to crush you. Right? It's, it's a little bit like, you know, my analogy of, you know, the 315 squat. It's not where you start. Right, right.

[B]

Not me.

[A]

You don't just, you know, just, you know, slap free, place on both sides and start squat. No, you got to build up to it. Well, that was the cognitive gym. Let's build up. So, you know, the first book that we started with was Jocko Willis Extreme Ownership, which I put out there. I actually ranked these books in difficulty, ranked them in relevance, and then ranked them in academic rigor. Right. How well do they cite their sources? And then Jocko Willocks looks like, hey, man, this is, this is a good book if you haven't figured out that you own this problem yet. Right. But it's also not where I want you to end. Like, those are just really neat war stories. That is, it's a little bit like watching spongebob squarepants. It's neat philosophy, but you don't bring it to the manager's table. Right. It's if, if you haven't figured this out, that you're part of the problem, well, then you need to read that book. When you're done with that book, put it aside. And then next we brought them to team of teams, McChrystal Crystal, a little bit harder to read. Right. Starts to bring in some science, starts to talk about the conniving frameworks. Let's talk about Prisoner's Dilemma. Right? These should be tools that you're bringing in so you can understand how you interact with people and why it works like this. We started up in the game to Chris Fussell's One Mission and then to books like the Lucifer effect. Metaphors you live by, algorithms to live by. And each book was progressively getting harder. So we would do a book and then we'd bring them all back to city hall and make them present. They got one slide, two minutes. Tell us what this book is about. What's your key points out of this book? And we saw, we saw some people that were really good public speakers. We saw some people that were terrible public speakers. We Saw some people that like, you're like, phenomenal leader. You're super smart. People will follow you anywhere. But we get you in front of an audience, you fall apart. Well, that ain't gonna work. We need to stand. We need you to stand in front of city hall and city council and argue for resources. Right. So. So I'm glad I know this now that you're 30, because by the time you're 55, I need some. I need some action.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So each book we did this, we worked our way up to algorithms to live by. And we did this for a few years until the pandemic hit. And then we had to stop meeting and. But I never stopped watching.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the results were even now that I've left the agency, the results were the next battalion chief test. Everybody on that list, except for one, came out of the secession project.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Now almost all of your bcs are out of the secession project. Almost all of the ACs are out of the secession project. And one deputy is right. You're. You're starting to see this bench. Thinkers and readers and researchers climb. And in a way, I just built a bunch of self educators, but it was trying to get them out of the bubble. Like, stop reading self help books right there. There's some really cool self help books out there, like Jocko Willits or, you know, Ego is the Enemy. Like, those are neat books, but those self help books pick up something that actually has some meaning, like algorithms to live by or the Lucifer effect and understand the impact that you have on people. Develop some hard skills, develop some soft skills so that you can lead this agency because you're going to be the last one standing there. Teen years.

[B]

That's the succession pro. The secession project.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it sounds like number one is recognizing that if you don't reach out to early and younger firefighters, you're going to find yourself developing leaders by accident or on purpose. Those that are going to be here for a short amount of time, meaning it, it's. And there's nothing wrong, Right. With developing a leader that may not be here in five years. Just the, in my opinion, just a return of investment is going to be a lesser time frame.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You invest in someone that has 20 years left in the fire service, you get more return on investment because they're here longer. So number one, it's recognizing that we may have to intentionally. I'll use that word. People make fun of me because I use. They do like a ding, ding, ding every time I say that word on the show. Because they're like, oh, the intentional hit, 20 today, and that was only my first time today. So, by the way, that turned out, there's only one so far. But intentionally reach out to individuals younger, earlier in the career and build them up. Let's just keep that simple and build them up. But the number two is what, What? You know, do something to where you're getting people together to. I love how you use stack the bench. That was an awesome term. We had Frank Lieb on from FDNY and he used they have a deep bench. And I love that because it's just. And it was the same exact concept because what that meant was your future leaders, the future officers, the future chief officers, the future members that are running this department, it doesn't matter who's next, because that bench is so deep, it's so stacked that, like, that next person is ready. It's not like, oh, my gosh, we got this person next. Doesn't matter. They're all. They're all going to be ready. They're all going to be good. So I guess a question that I have is you said you thought you was going to be a couple people at that book club or that initial meet, but you had 30.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This was an unpaid event, correct?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And people are like, so how did you get there? Right. Like, if I sent an email.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If I sent an email today with 30 officers and said, let's meet at the bar and let's just chat, I mean, I like you. I might have five. How did you get 30?

[A]

All right, so here's. Here's tough for me because now I'm not good at talking about myself, but if I think about this honestly, I think enough people on the agency at that point knew me long enough to trust me, to trust that I wasn't wasting their time. So you. So, you know, they. They had been around. They had been watching me for 15 years or more. I was very consistent in my behavior. Although the words weren't used. They knew that everything that I did was for their benefit. Right. I would tell people, as a captain and as a battalion chief, I would tell them, I work for you. It's my boss that holds me accountable.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But when I choose to do work, it's for your benefit. I'm not here pulling tank lines for me. I got this. Right? So I think it was. I do think that my position in that ask had influence on those that showed up. They might have been also a little curious, like, what the hell is this? This agency's never Done this before. This is backed by. It was backed by the deputy chiefs as well. Right. So they're like, whoa, deputy chiefs are going to do something like outside of the box. And it's got this insane person that, that we know for 15 years. And an outside observation. I'll regurgitate what one of my best friends said, who was there watching. He said, look, they're so hungry for leadership that they will take just about anything, you know, so. Wow, that, that's. I don't have a great answer for you on that other than. Than some of my own observations as I think about that.

[B]

Yeah, I love it. I love it. I mean, started with someone that, you know, an influential person, a credible person. I heard you say that a couple of times today is. And it, it obviously helped to have someone that's credible. And you took a risk, Right. You put yourself out there and you. For all you knew, it could have been two, it could have been zero people for all you knew. Right. But it ended up being 30. But like they always say, without a risk, you don't have any reward. And then that succession project, it ended up being something that was just massively influential positively in the future of that organization that you're at. So that's.

[A]

I did, I did take a massive risk. And you know, when it was one of those, oh, I'll be the laughing stock of the agency. Yeah.

[B]

But he said again.

[A]

But what did I, what did I say in the beginning? Early winners don't make good leaders. I got the. Kicked out of me a lot at the beginning of my career. So I was at the point of, you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna take risk and you guys want to laugh at me, Fine, laugh at me. But I know I'm not wrong. I know the principle. The problem is my job is to have positive succession planning. And if I look at myself in the mirror as a leader of this agency, then I am failing and lying to myself if I don't do this. So go ahead and laugh at me, but I'm not gonna fail and I'm not gonna lie to myself.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

My job is to figure out how to make you better than me. And although I don't have a recipe book that I can read, I know that I gotta do something. And I know if I can get you to go to school and read books and believe in yourself, accept the fact that you will be in this position. If I can do those three things, then I can look at myself in the mirror.

[B]

Yes. And say, you did your part.

[A]

I did my part. Right?

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

And I wasn't a fucking coward.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

You know, I love it. I led from the position of courage, not fear. And I'm going to back up that first statement. I said, why, why early winners don't make good leaders is because those that get the kicked out of them in the beginning do develop true courage. We learn, we learn how to do things that scare us and face the fear when we know they're still right. Okay. Yep, yep. This is terrifying. Like I'm gonna be embarrassed again. I'm gonna, I'm gonna fail again. But I'm gonna have the courage because I know it's the right thing to do. And sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta try again and put yourself out there.

[B]

Yeah. We talked about things, we talked about leaders. We talked about what qualities, characteristics, attributes would make a strong leader. How do we get there? Let's talk about one thing. If I were to say, Chief, there's, we all have a non negotiable list. We'll say things that you just absolutely cannot do. It'll be, it'll be detrimental to your own development, it'll be detrimental to the organization, it'll be detrimental to the people that you serve. Mentor, all the above. If I were to say, had to pick one that you were going to talk to our listeners about and say this is non negotiable in a strong leader, what would that attribute or characteristic be?

[A]

I'm gonna, I'm gonna box this into something called a breach of discipline. And I'm going to relate that to transactional selfishness. So my no go items has to be defined between the difference between a mistake and a breach of discipline. Discipline. I expect mistakes. Mistakes are decisions and actions made with limited information. Everybody makes mistakes. I mistake, I make them all the time. In fact, I expect them so much from my newly promoted captains or bcs that if I don't see them, I get nervous because it tells me you're either hiding them or you're not doing your goddamn job. Yeah, right. Because you just took on a new role and you're going to make some mistakes.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And I want you to make it. I want you to learn from them. But my no go, my stop, my oh, we've got problems. Is breaches of discipline. That is when I start to see decisions made for your own personal benefit. And now I know if you don't overcome that or figure that out, you will violate the principle of leadership. Because what's the principle of leadership? Positive succession planning. Right. And if you start to make selfish decisions, breaches of discipline, for your own benefit, well, then you're going to violate the principle of leadership, and you are not going to be a leader. You're going to be the catalyst for good leaders by being a shitty one. But, yeah, that is my no go. And I use those terms specifically, mistakes and breaches of discipline to signal to everybody that I work for, say, this is what I'm watching for, and I am watching, and I will come after you if I see breaches of discipline, because I need to get you out of the system. If you can't figure this out, then I need to get you out of the system. Right. Because my job is positive succession planning, and I cannot have positive succession planning if I have somebody in there who is selfish, who is not able to be humble, who's not able to learn, to develop, to practice empathy. Right. To be adaptable. No, I need to get you out of the system. I need to protect the others that are willing to take that journey. Right. To put themselves out there. So I use those terms very specifically. I actually write them down in both agencies. My new agency, now, they. They've seen me write it down and they know. Yeah. Oh, you know what mistake? Cool, man. I made mistakes. Yeah. You know what? I had a battalion chief a few months ago back his rig into a pole, and he was so nice, like, oh, my God. I'm like, buddy, back to rig a new pole. Happens, man. It was a mistake. I know you didn't do it on purpose.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But that's different than calling in sick on Christmas.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You call sick on Christmas, you better be goddamn sick if you're gonna mando somebody else to come in on that day and be away from their family because you want to be all right. No, we. Now we got breaches of discipline. Yeah, right. You starting to hide from me? No, that's. That's my no go. And now I know that you are not fulfilling that principle of the problem.

[B]

I read the book recently, is the Five Principles of Human Performance. And the principle number one was exactly what you just said. It says, people make mistakes. Errors are normal. Yeah, like it has to. What I took from that and what I took from what you just said is you. You just have to know that errors are going to happen. Errors and failures are part of success. And stop looking at a failure or a mistake or an error as well. What happened? What went wrong? Well, maybe nothing went wrong. It was. It's a part of progress.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good systems or good organizations. I'll Say build in error tolerance. But then it, I, I, I believe it equips leaders all the way up from the bottom up in that if you know errors will happen and you're not looking at it as a negative, it will be used as a good thing and it'll just be used as a tool to make everyone better instead of just always saying like something bad must because you made a mistake.

[A]

We don't get better by always winning.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

That is not improvement. Running undefeated doesn't get anybody better.

[B]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[A]

If I wanted to do that, I would take the Kramer route and go fight a bunch of 10 year olds. I'm undefeated. No, I, actually, no, you should probably try some harder stuff and put yourself out out there.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But, but what, what that author said is very relevant to the fire service. Right. Because I like the word they use, system. Right. You gotta have a system. Right. Sometimes culture and system overlap because sometimes the culture adapts and, and progresses the system on. You also expect mistakes. But a leader who's looking out for you will put guard rails up for you to allow you to make mistakes in your lane. Right. And not allow you to get outside to where you can make a mistake that is catastrophic for yourself. Like here's, here's your sandbox, your metaphorical sandbox. Yeah. Here. Make some mistakes. You're never going to progress if you don't make mistakes. Right. If you don't, if you don't realize that you don't. Or do this on command and control. Do it. And then I'm going to tell you. Yeah, see how that didn't work? All right, let's not do that again. That's, that's perfect. And then you pass it on to the next person because I'm on my way out.

[B]

I'm on my way out. It always goes back to that principle, like he said, is how do I guide you to be better than me? And if we live by that principle at every rank, at every position in our organization, I'm just imagining like the future of the organization years from now and then years and years and generations from now.

[A]

So that's every, Everything else is methodology. Whether it's servant based leadership, complex based leadership, transactional based leadership, transformational based leadership, whether you go back to 1950s, the bass. It's all just methodologies to try and meet that principle. Right?

[B]

That principle.

[A]

And you, you split bit methodologies out that don't work. You try new ones that do, but you don't lock in on them. You recognize what they are. Hey, man, this, this is. This is methodology. And when the environment changes, I'm getting rid of this one. That didn't work no more.

[B]

Y. The principle never changes, and the principle never changes. Methodology does some work some days, some work for other days. Some work for some systems, some don't work for, don't. Don't work for other systems. But the principle is always the same. I love that. That. Yes, that connects very well. Okay, so this being an action oriented podcast, obviously, we talk leadership, we talk about what to do, what not to do, we talk about principles, methodologies, all the above. And then now we get to just kind of narrow it down to groups. So, chief, you served as a firefighter, you served as company officer, and you served as a chief officer. So with these three groups, if you were to, as our listener base is tuning in of all ranks in the fire service, first group, being a firefighter, what would you say to the group of young firefighters that they should be doing to ensure that they're going to grow into being an effective leader throughout their long career?

[A]

There's a few things there. Observe and watch the leaders that you think that are impactful. Recognize that there are formal and informal leaders, right? And if you see informal leaders that are positive, see what you can mimic out of them and see what is impactful, right? You can watch your formal leaders, the ones that are assigned to leadership roles. Those are the ranks. Watch those as well. But it's almost always more interesting to watch the informal leaders and see how, see how impactful they are because those will be the traits that you're going to want to start to pick up as you do become a formal leader. Because those are good formal leaders. Those, those that, those that were already leading the charge prior to somebody pinning a badge on them. Are always better.

[B]

Are always better. Absolutely.

[A]

And, and back to the man. Don't beat yourself up over your mistakes. Just get. Get right back up and expect to take some heavy hits. This, it is a long way to the top. If you're gonna do this, and you are, you are gonna get knocked down and broken and beat and lied to and cheated and something really bad and unfair is gonna happen to you. Just get back up.

[B]

Don't make it complex. Just get back up. Okay. Company officers.

[A]

Company officers. You now realize you are accountable and responsible for everything that your crew does or fails to do. That means when someone on your crew screws something up, I am looking at you, not them. It is your job to train them and prepare them for one of the most interesting, unique, and dangerous Jobs that exists in the world. It is not an easy task. You are the most influential person in the fire service because you have direct contact with those that voluntarily belly their way in to a burning building that is going to flash in five minutes and face structural collapse in 25. So when that hits you as a company officer, that level of burden should motivate you to get your together and start learning everything that you can about becoming a professional fire firefighter. This is a profession and it ain't about fantasy football or watching games on Sunday or figuring out what movies you want to see. It is about becoming a professional firefighter and looking what is happening out across the country and figuring out how in the world are you going to keep those three or those two that will follow you anywhere alive. Because it sucks to go to the burn center. I've been there a few times and it sucks even more when it ain't you. It's the one that followed you.

[B]

Wow, that's powerful. Yes, that's good.

[A]

Chief officer.

[B]

Chief officers. All right. What's. What do you have for them? They got to continue to grow. Hopefully it's. They have the return on investment as many years to come. But it's called what it is. Some chief officers, I've not that much time left. But just because you don't have that much time left doesn't mean you don't no longer have influence with those below you or around you. So what can chief officers do to continue to grow and be influential as leaders?

[A]

Realize who you work for? Right now, there's difference between who you work for and who holds you accountable. Right. Your boss may hold you accountable. You work for those captains who work for those firefighters. Right. This is an inverse pyramid. Once again, you are accountable and responsible for everything your crews do or fail to do. Right. Every firefighter needs a minimum of three things to survive their first day on the job. And guess who's responsible for this? They need the right training, they need the right equipment, and they need a mentor. Those are the three things that every firefighter needs to survive their first day on the job. And now you as a chief officer have to make sure that those are available to them. Right. You cannot train people during a fire. You have to train them before the fire. Right. If you're seeing tactics misapplied or unaligned on fires, that is your fault. You should have been ahead of that problem before it happened. That is the heavy burden of a chief officer. And now you have to start thinking out into the future what equipment is Going to keep us alive. What equipment is next? Right. How in the world are we going to do lithium ion batteries? Clean our equipment after all of those poisonous gases get released, Right?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And now you have the last thing. Gosh darn it, this sucks. All those firefighters need mentors.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Damn it. Now you need to develop people, which means now you need to start developing your captains. I mean, purposely developing them into leaders, which means you yourself have to be a leader, which means you yourself have to be well trained and well educated and read almost every book out there that covers leadership and understand what it means at a metacognitive level. Because you're going to have to start developing those young captains early on so that they can take your place. Welcome to the unbearable and heavy burden of a stupid White helmet. But you're the one that signed up for it, so now it's on you, Mentor.

[B]

I love how you. How you went there. So battalion chief or chief officer is a mentor to not just a few of them below, but all of them.

[A]

Yes, yes. You got to remember how much when you were a firefighter, you looked up the chiefs, those of us that wear the white helmet. Now it seems like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, man, when I was a firefighter, the chiefs were, you know, they were like idols.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're like, oh, my God, the chief is here. It's not even a person. Yeah, right. It's just like an idea out there. Like, oh, holy shit. Stand up straight. Like, I hope my uniforms on. Right, right. Like, he's the person. This person knows all. Well, you got to remember, that's how they're probably still looking at you. Even though we know that we're just humans always. But you need to make sure that those three things are secure. That is on you. If your people don't have the right training, that is on you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't get to point to anybody else.

[B]

Training, equipment, being a mentor. Love it. Okay, Chief, we talked a bunch about books, reading concepts, methodologies, philosophies, all the above. And I do say this. What's your favorite book? Because as we know, it's an excuse out there if an individual, in my opinion, if an individual is simply, you know, oh, I didn't have this training, or I didn't know about this, or I didn't know about that. There's lots of resources out there for our own taking. It just takes our own ability to be curious. To be curious, and our own ability to be, you know, putting our time in to better ourselves. So I say book I say reading, but let's make that plural, because I don't want to limit it to 1. If you were going to say some books, some resources now that people can buy and people can look up right now to be better, what would they be?

[A]

So I'm going to burn a little more time on you. I'm sorry to torture you, but first.

[B]

No, no, I love this.

[A]

First, we're going to learn how to read a book.

[B]

Yes, we do.

[A]

What are you going to do when you get a book and how do you get it right? All right, so I'm going to tell you right now. Love audible.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

And learn how to listen to books. But there is a technique to listening to books. I do not want you to try and pay attention to every word that's said. I want you to get an audible book, run it at 1.5 speed, and go through it to the end. If you phase out, as we all do phase out bucket. If it's a good author, they're gonna wrap it back up at the end again. But don't keep stopping it and trying to pay attention to what they're saying, because nice thing about Audible is you can just listen to it again. All right, so you got Audible. Now you. I use Audible as a survey. I. I go through a lot of books every year, and I'll find a survey, and then I'll be like, oh, wait, this one's gold, right? So like, like team of teams, right? I'm like, oh, this one's gold, right? Okay, now I'll get the hard copy. I'll get the hard copy because now I'm going to start marking it up, right? I'm going to go back and I'm going to find the things that really caught my mind. And I'm also going to buy it on Kindle. I'm going to buy it on Kindle because I can search it. I can rapidly search it, because I don't want to flip for every page where he talks about the conniving framework, But I do want to go through Kindle and do a quick search. Oh, there it is. Okay, now I need to go to here. I'm going to tag it up, right? And now I'm going to use it in the class I'm going to teach or I'm going to remember it. I'm going to ponder it for a long time because I'm not that smart. So I got to roll things around my head for a long time, right? So now that we got how to read a book, Look. Right. I want you to actually digest it. So if you're a firefighter and you're coming up. I. I do like. I do like Jocko's extreme ownership. Just to get you to let you know. Yeah. You own this if you're a captain. I think team of teams is still one of my favorite catalysts.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Right. Because McChrystal starts to talk about some very important stuff as you start to work your way up into the chief's ranks. I actually pulled a stack of my favorite leadership books here.

[B]

Oh, let's. I know we're not publishing the video, but would you mind going through some of those?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're working your. If you're waking your way up, leadership in the new science in a chaotic world, I think is applicable to what we do. And because we are expanding in the rapidly moving times. You can pick this up on audible. I also like the extraordinary coach. If you are talking about becoming a mentor, this will give you some basic tools. It was going to use the fuel framework to basically have some conversations on how to push people forward. And I use it. It works. I practically use it and it practically works.

[B]

So.

[A]

Never split the difference.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Right. So he's a professor at usc, which is why I was forced to read his book again.

[B]

Didn't know he was a professor at usc. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. USC brings in some pretty interesting people. I still use this. I will still sit down and talk to an angry elected official and look at them and say, it seems like. It seems like public safety is really important to you. Well. Well, yes, it is. It sounds like you're saying these things need to happen. Well, yes, they do. How do I do that? Well, I guess we need to increase. Okay, I'll accept that as a solution.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

I still use this.

[B]

And it works.

[A]

It does. It does work. Especially when someone's chewing my ass and I feel like I'm backed into a cold. Angry. I'll take a breath and I'll be like, okay, let me. Let me say it. Let me say it back to you. And then say. All right. It seems like, you know, you're really concerned about this. Okay. You know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do I do this?

[B]

Love that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now there is. There is an interesting one out there, if you are curious. Just leadership in general.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then North House has always done.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's an amazing job.

[B]

Yeah. That's a big read. I know. Yep.

[A]

On and now. Now, look. Look what an idiot I am. See how. I don't know if you. How. How marked up.

[B]

I could. All the sticky notes, highlights, I could see it all.

[A]

Like, when you get a doctorate in leadership, this is. This is the book that you kind of teed through. Yeah. But I got to give this guy credit. He has wrapped up just about every theory that has been published and put it into a book for you to kind of give you an idea so that when you lock on to the next fad. And I will call them fad, because, remember, they're just methodologies. Right. Methodologies are fads. And you say, you know, servant leadership. Yes. Servant leadership is the thing. Well, he's going to break it down for you and say, yes, servant leadership. Here's where it was published. Here was originally the idea came up. Here's how it was tested here, how it was never tested. Right. Like, there's no empirical evidence whatsoever that says that that works. Here's its strengths, here's its weaknesses, here's the tools that it uses to assess.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it does a fantastic job of summarizing some of those. And I. I'm not. I like servant leadership. I'm not. I'm not crapping on it. I'm just saying, like, he does a great job of telling you, hey, this is just someone's idea.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's no evidence whatsoever that this works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or here's. Here's the studies that were done, and they were very specific to business in this realm. Right. And that's a challenge with. With people selling leadership methodologies is they all suffer from. From survivorship bias. They only tell you the story that works. They never tell you when it failed. Right. Because they are selling books.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you're getting yourself wrapped up into this stuff and saying this is the answer. But you got to realize they. Survivorship bias is real. They're just telling you when it worked. They didn't tell you that seven other companies tried it and they all failed. Right.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Because GE was so successful. Doesn't mean it's the answer. Yes, everything.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

You just got to stick with the principle. Okay.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So I took up enough time on that, on how. What it is, and then some of my favorite one. Oh, you know what? There's one more. One more in here. So appreciative inquiry. If you're not familiar with appreciative inquiry, the methodologies and the processes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

If you're. If you're a dummy like me and you're moving agencies and you're walking into a different department or you're learning something new. Appreciative Inquiry is a great framework to start with. I pick this thing up all the time, but it is, it is about asking questions more than it is telling people. Right. And truly listening to what they're saying. You, you kind of wrap up and thought appreciative inquiry like I'm asking and really appreciating the answers, even though maybe I don't understand them or maybe they're not what I wanted to hear. You know, maybe I think they're nonsense, but I'm not. I'm pushing those opinions out and I'm just, okay, tell me what it is. And I'm trying to appreciate it so I can bring them in and digest them. I'm going to use some empathy to think about how you're thinking about them and it's going to give me some really good tools because I had to do that a lot in my new, in my new agency. Coming out of a machine like Sacramento for 25 years and going to a fantastically supported, very agile agency in the Bay Area. I had to do a lot of listening.

[B]

So appreciate Appreciative Inquiry. Love it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna capture just, just one thing on that. I'll go in my soapbox a little bit because you said it and I loved it. You said you, you're reading these books, you're right, you're digesting the information in it. But the one thing that you was key is applying it and then you teach it. So what annoys me and I'll go into my sub box just a little bit is we can all have the ability to go to a class, we'll have the ability to read a book. We all have the ability to absorb information, but it means nothing until you apply it. And then this next step further is to then teach others about it or teach on that topic of what you learn. And the one thing that gets me is a lot of extreme ownership. Right? And that was a book that was recommended to us to read early on in our development organization. That book came out in 2017 or 18. Can't remember what year they came out. But anyway, the point being is extreme ownership, it doesn't mean anything after reading the book until we ourselves apply the concepts in it. Right? To say, I read the book, okay, great, but if you don't apply it, it meant nothing. So I love how you said you got to apply it. But then I love it further when you said, now I go out and teach it, whether it be the extreme Ownership concepts or something else. So I guess there's no question. But can you just elaborate just a little more on applying something and then maybe even teaching it in a class or teaching others about it too? Because I believe that's what is, is the key there. It's not just the resource that we get, but how can we now apply it? Or you must apply it and even teach it to others.

[A]

The principle of leadership, of positive succession planning. My job is to make you better than me. The only way I can do that is actually prepare myself and then go test it. Right? I actually have to use it and test it. If I don't test it and just give it to you, well, I'm just a dick, right? I actually have to go pick up Chris Foss and sit down and use it to negotiate my last chief's contract. If you don't go to the last few pages of this book and actually map it out and test it on yourself, then don't hand it to somebody else. And then I figure out what works and what doesn't work. And then I give you what worked for me. Because my job is to make you better than me. And if I can get Chris Voss's framework into your hands sooner than it was in mine, then you'll be better than me. If I can figure out here was the question of the secession project that we started with is what would you have, if you could gone back in time, what would you have told 30 year old Eric Saylors? If you can go back in time, what would you have told 30 year old Eric Sailors? Well, let's just change the name and tell that person. Yes, and I did. It was, it was. All right, well what, what would I tell Wade? I would tell him. Oh, well that's, let's actually go tell them that.

[B]

Go do it. Right, Go do it.

[A]

Yeah. Get them ready. So that this is the burden of being a chief at any rank. You are now the mentor. Well, guess what? You've got to go explore and exploit, explore and exploit. You have to explore all this crap, this bookshelf. It's your burden to explore it, test it, figure out what works and then exploit the stuff that actually works and give it to the people behind you. Don't just hand them crap. I mean, and you really, you really have to use it. So I only pull things that I really use. I. Yes, I, I have like four copies of Team the Teams just because I honestly use the things out of that book.

[B]

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, for what? Right? You have a Book, you don't apply it. What's the purpose? Why do you own it?

[A]

You're. You're violating the principle of leadership.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If the book sounded good to you and you didn't apply it, well, then it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you actually, I. I actually. I actually got to see. I don't. I don't need any more good idea fairies. I need. I need practicality. And there's. For those of us who are thinking about a higher education, there's a term for people like me. It's called a pracademic.

[B]

Academic.

[A]

I love that. Academic. A pracademic. So academics are useless because they don't do anything.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Right. They're theoreticians until you put them into play. Yeah. There's a gap between theory and practice.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Well, academic, a pro academic, puts them together. Yes. I am actually practicing this nonsense that you guys are putting into books and figuring out what works and doesn't work. I am a pracademic. I'm an academic because I study it, I read it, I teach it, I write about it, but at the same time, I'm practicing it. My ass is still on the line. Time.

[B]

Yes. This next part, I'm going to say. I hesitate to say because a lot of people will be rubbed the wrong way when I say it, but, hey, we were honest today in today's conversation. But I actually believe that if. If an individual were to go take a class and they were compensated, say, for example, overtime to go take the class and say it was a leadership philosophy, and the expectation was that you learn it, you own it, and then you. The expectations that you're going to apply it into practice, but you never did. You went and took the class, you absorbed the information, but you never actually applied it or taught it to others. To an extent, I believe you actually stole from the department because you took over time. You took, you collected money, the department expected you or wants you to adopt these philosophies, learn it and apply it, but you only learned it and you kept it to yourself.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To an extent. You took without giving it back. And so I always believe, whether you agree with the concept that a chief is teaching you, whether you agree with what the organization, the stance on something, you don't have to agree with everything, but you're there to be aligned in the mission because that's what your job is to do. So I love how you said you got to apply it, because otherwise it's just words.

[A]

Yeah. So it is. It is there. They're just Ideas. And you know what? I'll bridge that analogy into real life. Hey, man, if you went to a. If you went to a class on VES vent Inner search and decided the first time that you were going to practice that was on a real fire, you're a dummy. You better go to the VES class, bring it back to your environment, and then practice it a ton.

[B]

A ton.

[A]

Figure it out before you actually take a window, belly your way into the flow path, and get cooked without any actual real skill sets.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

Right?

[B]

I love that.

[A]

It's the same process for these books.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. You're moving into a leadership position. Better figure out how to use these.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you can see mine. Like, one of the things that I've learned was to be authentic. I don't try to be somebody else, which is probably why I cuss so much. There's just the. Just. I'm just authentic. I believe in this stuff, and I'm not trying to pretend to be somebody else. I learned that from leadership books, and then I just started applying it. I'm like, all right, man, this is it. This is me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be better.

[B]

Exactly. And tomorrow, you're not gonna be any worse, but to an extent, you won't be, but you will be better. All right. My favorite part of the show, Chief. And I lie. That's a lie. Because every part is my favorite part. But this is a great part of it. We're here today because of a leadership challenge. Chief Marquez said, you got to reach out to Chief Sailors. It helped us foster this conversation today. So I'll ask you, Chief, to help us further the conversation on leadership for our listeners in the fire service. Is there someone else out there that you would like to formally challenge through the leadership challenge, to be a future guest on the kitchen table?

[A]

It's tough because I have so many mentors. I am. I am standing on the back of giants. There were so many people that helped me out because I'm such an idiot that were just constantly propping me and pushing me in the right direction. So when I. I says. I'm like, oh, this. This is a list of names that. That so long. But I do have. I still have one mentor. Well, not just. I've got a bunch of mentors that are still working. There's. There's one that is nearby me, and I think you'd be willing to do it, and that is Chief Chris Tubs.

[B]

Oh, I know that name from.

[A]

He's from Washington. This is why he came to mind. I've got another, I've got another few best friends that, that work in SoCal's fire chiefs. I was like, you know, Chris, Chris has spent time in Washington. That's where he's been most of his time. He's now down in South Marin. I love his perspective and I still, I, I ask him questions because he has such a breadth of knowledge and he's a super interesting dude. We're going to do a co presentation coming up at a, at a conference on storytelling for leaders. Because story. You ever heard the term talk is work.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

70, 78 of what a fire chief does is talking. That's, that's how we move, is we talk because we're always communicating the mission, the message, the values. Right. And, and we're always doing the form of stories. Right. So how do you, how do you tell these stories? So, yeah, that's. My leadership challenge is going out to Chief Chris Tubbs.

[B]

Chris Tubbs. If I can ask where did he work in Washington? I know this name. You know, where did he work?

[A]

Don't. No. For sure. Okay. I think it was near Seattle.

[B]

It is near Seattle. Mercer Island.

[A]

Nah.

[B]

Maybe Mercer Island. Okay, that's, that's interesting. I know. Actually, I might have met him once before. This was probably 15 years ago. Anyways, I, I think I know the name. I know the name and I just, I'm trying to remember if he.

[A]

He's been in the game way longer than I have and he knows way more than I do. Yeah. But now he's, he is a. He's a fascinating character.

[B]

Awesome. Well, what I'll do is I'll reach out to Chief Chris Tubbs to see if he would take up Dr. Sailor's leadership challenge and being a future guest. So thank you so much, Chief. Before we close, how do we find Chief Sailors in the future? Right. We talked a lot about stuff today. There are going to be listeners that are going to be like, I love that message. How can I find him? Can I attend a seminar you talked about? You're doing a, a discussion, assuming sometime next year. But how do we look you up, Chief? And how do we find you if we're looking to, to find you in the future?

[A]

So you can look me up on Facebook and you can always just go to El Cerritos web page and find Fire Chief Eric Sailors. You can just Google my name and go to El street, kick me an email. I, I do get requests probably once a week for either active sheet or training or leadership training. And I am 100. I will get back to you. I will respond and I donate a lot of my free time to people that are looking for help because my tentative leadership is positive succession planning.

[B]

It's positive succession plan.

[A]

I will pick up that phone, I will talk with you, I will tell you what I know, don't have all the answers, but I won't you at least tell you, yeah, yeah, this works. That doesn't work. And I welcome anybody to reach out. I, I teach a lot of chief officers classes in California and it is not uncommon for a student to reach out, post a class to have some conversation or to give me some ideas or to ask questions. So anybody listening to this podcast, feel free to email me. Just go to El Cerrito's website and you'll see my contact information or look me up on Facebook, kick me a message and, and I will get back to you.

[B]

Thank you, Chief. And he's, he's not lying. He got back to me within. It might have been hours, if not a day. And that's how we're ended up with this conversation today. So thank you. Chief, what would you like to leave our listeners with as far as your lasting leadership thoughts?

[A]

Take care of the people behind you. You. It is all about the people. You keep the main thing. The main thing. And it is people. And when things go wrong, you stick with the main thing. Focus on the people. They are those that solve problems. They are the ones that will replace you. They all the ones that will meet the mission better than you did. They are everything.

[B]

Thank you everyone for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope that you found this time valuable. We hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Till next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.