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Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 65: Chris Tubbs, Fire Chief - Delivering Public Value
01:17:47
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Chief Chris Tubbs
The idea of building relationships in an agency isn't relegated to one or two people or to admin or to prevention. It is an organization wide responsibility. We can all play a role. There should be some structure to how you do that, right? You want to have certain guidelines about that. But even the simplest act of driving down the street and waving at people, as a matter of fact, I have a very good friend of mine who works down in the southern part of the state, Don Butts, the chief. And Don has years ago mandated that his crews, when they're out on the road and they are driving and they see people to wave. And at first the crews, you know, like this is silly. And it became so institutionalized and the community loved it so much and the firefighters loved it so much, you couldn't turn that back if you tried.
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Berlin
Being rescued from a three story apartment building.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
The First Responder Liaison Network is proud.
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Berlin
To present to you the Kitchen Table Podcast.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to.
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Berlin
CEOs.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.
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Berlin
Good afternoon. Today we come back to the west coast with a guest who worked in the Pacific Northwest for several years and now currently serves in California on episode 65 of the Kitchen Table. Today we have Fire Chief Chris Tubbs on the show and the theme today is Delivering Public Value in a Tribalistic Culture. We're talking the intersection of public value and culture, the four Cs of leadership, and a whole lot more. Chris Tubbs is the Fire Chief for the Southern Marin Fire District. He began his career in the fire service in 1978 at the Mercer Island, Washington Fire Department. And over his 40 plus year career he has worked in every rank from firefighter to fire chief. While at Mercer Island, Chief Tubbs was awarded multiple commendations and recognitions including the Distinguished Service Medal for the Saving of Police Officer's life. He also spent 19 years with the Department of Homeland Security's FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue Response System as part of Washington State Urban Search and Rescue Team Washington Task Force 1, where he served first as a logistician and later as a Task Force safety officer. During his time with Washington Task Force 1, he deployed to the Oklahoma City bombing and Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi. Chief Tubbs left Mercer Island Fire Department after serving as the fire chief almost seven years and serving with that department for over 36 years. Chief Tubbs has been with Southern Marin fire District since 2014. He's been married to his wife Christy since 1980. Four and has three grown children who are all married, and he has 10 grandchildren. Good afternoon, Chief. Thanks for joining today. How are you?
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Chief Chris Tubbs
I'm doing great, Berlin. Thank you very much for the invite. I'm excited to be here with you.
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Berlin
Thank you so much. So why don't we start here at Mercer Island Fire Department out of Washington, Eastside Fire department. We are one. So let me ask, over 10 years ago, when you left, did you ever think Mercer island and Eastside Fire would be one?
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Chief Chris Tubbs
I. I wouldn't say no. I didn't see it in the immediate future. But, you know, consolidations make sense for a lot of reasons. We consolidated with NORCOM when we had previously had our own psap. And actually, it was before norcom. I was very involved in the, you know, the startup of norcom, so it was with Bellevue Police Department. But again, our agency went through that. So consolidations are not something foreign, as, you know, as a part of Eastside Fire and Rescue are not foreign. So I didn't rule it out. I just didn't know if and when something like that would occur.
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Berlin
Yeah, it's. It truly is made for the listener base we're trying to fire is one of the current partners of Eastside Fire, which I work now. And so it's just interesting how this connection took place. This connection was not because of a Mercer island connection. It was Chief Eric Sailors out of California who challenged Chief Tub. So I'm glad this conversation is. Is taking place. So thank you, Chief, for being here.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
It's my pleasure. And Eric's a. As a really good friend. And when I learned that he had volunteered me for the program, I said, well, you know, revenge is a dish best served cold, so don't hold your breath.
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Berlin
Yes, exactly. And rightfully so. So thank you so much. So the theme that we're talking today, obviously, being leadership conversations, we're talking delivering public value in a tribalistic culture, the role and responsibility of leaders. So why don't we just start with this? What do you define as public value? And then let's talk about the intersection of both public value and culture.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, it's a great question, Berlin. And maybe the best place to start is, you know, how did this issue come up for me in my own career? Public value. And, you know, I think back to a particular dialogue that I had with a city manager, and this was long before I was a chief. But like a lot of us in the fire service, you know, there were challenges, financial challenges that, you know, I wanted to see resolved in our community, whether it was replacement of apparatus, equipment, fire stations, those kinds of things. And we never seemed to get any traction. And that was very frustrating for. For me. And I remember in this conversation the city manager saying something to me that has always stuck with me, and it was this, you guys, the fire service have got to quit using the burning baby argument. And the. What he was. What he was saying was, is you cannot use an emotional argument. You need to start using metrics, right? You need to make an argument for how you're going to add value as a result of what you're asking for. And so this began. Began really a journey of curiosity and learning for me, led to my academic pursuits, and in the course of that, definitely have had some education formally on what is public value. And I'll talk about that in a second. But that the idea of what we are and what we do has been a really important thing for me to get my head around. So specifically, I like to sort of simplify. A fire department is nothing more than a reflection of a community's tolerance for risk, right? So, for example, here in the Bay Area, we are a suburban urban department, and people have an expectation that a fire engine, a paramedic unit, or a police car will be on the doorstep in five minutes. I can go east of here, 80 to 100 miles, get over into El Dorado County, Amador county, where the departments are much smaller, primarily volunteer. And for them, because the tax issue is more important to them than it is in Marin county, they are okay with a different level of service response. One is not more important or better than the other. It's just a reflection of what those communities values are. Right? So I guess for me, where the. Again, sort of this, the. The next stage of this learning occurred was we, in 2006 at Mercer island, we were in the process of deconsolidating our Department of Public Safety. So we were an administrative department of public safety, meaning we had a director, we had a fire chief and a police chief. And we were in the process of uncoupling that and going back to a standalone fire department and police department. And we brought in a gentleman named Steve Kent, who has since become a very dear friend and a mentor who teaches all over the US to law and fire. He has a leadership academy, but he's really sort of into this lane of organizational behavior, strategic planning, and value. And the way that he would describe value is this. He says, you know, every month I get a utility bill, and I look at the utility bill, and I'm not thinking about how Many miles of line are they maintaining? How many trucks do they own? How much do they spend in fuel? What I think about is, when I go over to the wall and I turn the switch up, do the lights go on? And when I turn the switch down, the lights go off. And if that does every time, then I write my check, because that's the value. And the challenge that he offers, you know, when he is working with leadership groups is, do you know what value is to the community? And to answer that question clearly, it requires you having dialogue with your community, right? Well, what is it that you expect? How are you defining value? When you write your property tax check and you're thinking, am I getting my money's worth? How are we doing that? And we'll probably come back to outputs and outcomes in a second. But let me just jump to the last part of this, and that is, while I was attending the Harvard Kennedy School, one of the programs that I took to finish up a certificate program was a class by Dr. Mark Moore on public value. And I was very interested in sort of the academic side of this. Right. As well. How do you measure this? How do you define it? How do you measure it? And he breaks down public value into a framework which is really a thinking important one is the public value proposition, which is, you know, what are we doing? What is our purpose, what is our mission, and what will be a result of that, Right? So we're not. We're not just here to. To exist as. As Eric would say, if you've ever read any of Eric's articles, and I agree with Eric, we're not a business and we're not an insurance policy. Insurance comes after an event. We come before the event is over and attempt to mitigate. We're actually part of a community's infrastructure. Okay? The second one is legitimacy and support, right? We can't exist if we don't have support from the community, both from the standpoint of trust and then from the standpoint of resources and then ultimately operational capacity. If the community says they want X, do we have the resources to deliver that? And so, first of all, this idea of public value, which I think is really important, especially when we're talking about leadership, is what is your community's value? And how do you know that?
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Berlin
So how do we know that? So going back to the very beginning of this question, you talked about the burning baby incident. And that is used a lot. Whether it be the burning baby incident or the burning patient or the house that's going down, someone that's dead cpr, whatever it may be. But that is always what comes to the top. Because I think what a lot of people always get to, not just people, but firefighters will say, me being one of them, is we do say that only thing that matters, the quote, unquote only thing that matters is that someone shows up, which that is. But is that all that truly matters? So when we talk about how. How to add value, and I see that you're nodding your head next that. And this is exactly where I want to go is how do we add. How do we know what public value is? And then how. How do we know that? So are we asking the community. But then also, why is it that maybe the firefighters, we'll say, have a different perception?
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, that's exactly at the root of this very question. Right. So I'll share some personal experience, but I would. I would offer this. The business model that we have is predicated on public trust, right? Absolutely. If people. If people do not trust us, they will not call 91 1. And we'll. We'll get into talking about that when we get into leadership. But just is that is a fundamental element to this piece. Right. So what do we know about relationships with. With people and trust is it requires dialogue. Right. It requires interaction. So, you know, sitting in the firehouse 24 hours a day and not engaging with the community does not build trust. If you think about the operations side of our house, which is a really important part of the work we do, but what percentage of the population do we touch? Five, maybe ten. Right. So how is the other 90% evaluating value? And, you know, one of the things that we did down here a number of years ago as a result of the wildfires issue that we've got, specifically in 2017, we had the. The North Bay fires and the Tubbs fire. And I'll get around to that because of the link to my name. I have a funny story about that. But it drove a major change in Marin county that included a funding initiative which allowed us to begin to build out countywide, a whole series of programs and services to address this, including hiring more people. And those people go out and they conduct defensible space inspections on all of our parcels. So guess what? Now when I have one of my inspectors like Madison or Jason out meeting with Mr. And Mrs. Smith and helping them to be more aware and educated about what they can do on their parcel to lower their risk, they're building a relationship, right?
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Berlin
Yes.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
And there's a dialogue. You aren't just having a discussion it's not this sterile process. This. It's actually an emotional engagement. We're in that conversation. While we're informing them, we're also learning what their concerns are. And you're having this opportunity to build trust. And Now I'm touching 100% of my community. So this is. This is just sort of one example of how you can begin to at least get a sense of that values equation for the community. But more importantly, surveys can serve as maybe a little bit more of an academic, if you will, or certainly a calculated way to evaluate that. We did that back in, would have been 2017. When I came to the agency, we were in some financial difficulty, quite frankly, we were looking at either insolvency or shutting down services within seven years. And so we had to go out to the community and tell them about the issue. And one of the things that we did in that process is that we conducted a survey in the community and we asked them what were the values, what was important to them from the standpoint of the services that we provided. As a result of that, we got overwhelming support for the tax measure that we passed, and we got really important information about what our community values. Now that then feeds into the dialogue that we have both in all of the ways that we communicate formally, like newsletters, our board packet information, our website, all of those things. But it also helps us when we go out and we talk to various community groups like the Rotary Club or the Chamber of Commerce. Right. So it's this idea of there are. There are ways that you can actually get a very analytical calculation about the community that way. But the informal process is so powerful. And that's how you begin to define how the community sees value or what they're looking for when they're writing their. Their property tax check. And you can't assume that that's static. Right. You need to revisit it on a recurring basis so that in my experience, that's what's been really effective. But again, anchored to this idea that our business model is fully predicated on public trust, and we have to be investing in that every single day, otherwise we risk losing that. If we lose that, we're done.
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Berlin
I love it. You said that 95% or. Sorry, you said 5 to 10% of the community we're actually engaging with, which means the vast, vast majority. Right. 90 to 95% were not even touching. So is. It's kind of rhetorical, but I'll ask it. Is it the responsibility of every single crew, crew level to get out there and to be building public trust.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Yes. I mean, you know the short answer, of course it is, right. I'm one of our stations, Station 1 in Sausalito, which is right in the heart of the city and it says Sausalito is a tourist destination. It is visited almost every day from people all over the world. The folks at that station, you know, they often have the apparatus bay doors open and they're engaging with the community and the community and the tourists love it. Right. And so, and I certainly remember this, as a firefighter, I loved engaging with the community, right. Telling them about what we did and listening to, you know, what their concerns are. So the idea of building relationships in an agency isn't relegated to one or two people or to admin or to prevention. It is a, it is an organization wide responsibility. We can all play a role. There should be some structure to how you do that, right? You want to have certain guidelines about that. But, but this, even the simplest act of driving down the street and waving at people. As a matter of fact, a very good friend of mine who works down in the southern part of the state, Don Butts, the chief, and Don has years ago mandated that his crews, when they're out on the road and they are driving and they see people to wave. And at first the crews, you know, like, this is silly. And it became so institutionalized and the community loved it so much and the firefighters loved it so much, you couldn't turn that back if you tried.
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Berlin
I love that. So how do we teach that? Right. So like, right, so the crews out there, let's say on the vast majority side, right, we're getting, there's a lot of busy houses out there. They're running calls, 15, 20 calls a day. There's so much training to be done, but there's slower houses out there, but there's not much emphasis. We'll say, and I'm sure there's departments that, that focus on it more than others, but how do we teach that to crew level, to battalion level, to a department that it's important to get out and do two hours? We'll say, right, because we, we emphasize two hours of training a day, right? Or one train, one piece of training a day. But then to say let's do two public interactions a day in addition to your call volume, Right? Yeah, that's something that's not necessarily emphasized, right. Whether it be in the fire academy, whether it be in an apprenticeship program, whether be a company officer training. But I love this, right, this whole thing of like you know, make sure you drive down the road and you are waving at people, you're engaging. When you go to the grocery store, meet somebody new, get to know the, the business owners. Like, right. If we're not doing formal inspections, we'll say we're not getting in and getting to know our, our business owners. But so how do we teach that? Like, right, it's, it goes without saying, just start doing it now. But how do we make it a priority?
- [19:28]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, well, I, I would start by saying that the teaching does you no good unless you have that as an organizational value. Right? So this has to be part of your culture. And how you do that in every organization depends on that organization. Right? What, what's going on that organization? Where are people at? But I think, I think when you identify that as a value, and that means there's going to be some perhaps education or an awareness, right, of what is the gap. Why is this important? Why should all of us embrace this? So that you adopt that as a value? Absolutely. Very important. As far as how you begin to educate people on the different ways that you do that, maybe the ways that you measure that. There's a host of resources out there for that. So it begins with curiosity about your own agency and where you want to see your agency and then what is your role in that? You know, collectively, when we bring that energy together and we say, yeah, you know, we get it, this is important. Okay, now let's make that a value and now let's build programs and systems around that. And if we need outside help to provide either education or frameworks for these things, then let's, let's go do that. We did a couple of years ago, actually it's been four. I went to my board with a request to fund a full time communications person. And this was actually born out of something I learned from Steve Kent in one of the classes that he taught. And he said, your communications person is the most important person in your organization. And when I first heard that, you know, I'm like, really? And the more I thought about it, I'm like, dang it, he's right. And so again, kind of with this conversation that we're having, they can play a very important role. I'm not talking about a pio, I'm talking about someone who is managing all of your communication streams, your social media, your newsletters, internal, external, that for us proved to be incredibly valuable. We saw our newsletter subscription skyrocket. We've had videos on social media that have, have gone viral around the world. And again, this is to the credit of the people that you put into those positions and the mission that they have and, and sort of the tools you give them to go out and conquer the world and, and let them go because they. There's some amazing people.
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Berlin
So in your organization, like, is it a. Whether the community engagement, adding public value, how is that includes going out and engaging with the community, waving hi, making sure they have public contacts every day at every opportunity. How is that ingrained in the culture of Southern Marin? Is it, is it a. Literally a core value at the organization or is it something that's expected of their crews and it goes to the expectations or accountability or how does that.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I suspect we are a reflection of many fire agents agencies in the US So it's a mixture of things. So there has always been a culture in this agency of engaging with the community, at least at the firehouse level. Right. We. We do open houses and all of these kinds of things. So that predates me. So there is a, there already exists a culture of that. Is everybody doing that to the highest level? No. You know, we got personalities and you know, we deal with those, those challenges like everybody else. But it is a cultural part of this organization. When we hired the communications person, this was, if you will, a board pol. Well, it's clearly a board policy decision that really sort of set the tone and the message that we believe this is such a high priority that we're willing to allocate resources to that. And, and that was very effective for us. And how has it, you know, if you will, how's it sort of trickled downstream again? We've got folks in the organization that love it. We have some folks that are maybe a little bit more standoffish. They're not quite sure they're worried about, you know, I don't want to bet, I don't want to be filmed. You know, we've been working at trying to deploy helmet cameras and trying to sort of go to that next stage of, you know, the exciting video while protecting, you know, the privacy of those we serve. And we're still, we're still working through those things. So again, a core, you know, is the value. It pre existed, but it. We're still refining it just like anything we do in the fire service. Right. It's like we're. You're constantly grinding, how do I make it better? How do I improve on that? And, and we're. We're just like everybody else.
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Berlin
Yeah. I want to lean on one more concept and I want to Go to the four season leadership. Because you said the word curiosity, which I love. It's on my signature line. I love curiosity. But the last, going back to adding value, I work on some committees up here. I'm really engaged, if you will, with the work with diversity and inclusion and equity. But when we're talking about adding value, would it be fair to say that depending on the demographic that you serve, depending on the population that you serve, there could be a vast difference in the value or the expected value of the public. Correct. For example, you mentioned. Or we were talking about the burning baby incident. We were talking about people calling 911. And those that don't call 911, there's a population, if you will. Well, say a demographic that, that doesn't even know what 911 is. Right. Because of maybe their family history, background, maybe immigrated from a different country that they don't have a 911 system. So when they come over here, there's an element of like, what's 911? Or if they do call 911, they have no idea what the fire department even is. So I guess the question is understanding the population and the demographic you serve is of the utmost importance to even understand how to even add public value. And so I guess the question becomes like, how do we do that? You know what I mean? So obviously getting out and understand, you start talking about Rotary clubs, getting out into, you know, community, neighborhood groups, stuff like that. But that's a, that's a, we'll say a challenge, but an opportunity within itself to get out there and literally find out who your community is.
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Chief Chris Tubbs
You, you are exactly right, Merle. If, if you're community demographics are not monolithic, then you need to identify what those various groups are. And you're exactly right. Their, their values and their language can be very different. And there are ways that you can identify that information. You can hire demographers, right. And they can come in and they can do that kind of work for you to know, what is my community makeup? You know, do I, do I have a, do I have sort of a, a pocket or a group of folks who are Hispanic? Do I have a group are Vietnamese? You know, whatever those, those groups are. And that is, that's critically important because how those folks may identify the world or how they, you know, navigate through the world can be very, very different. And that's important to identify because then, you know, it then will sort of lead to, well, I need to go find out what their values might be compared to the other demographics. In my community and figure out how I'm sort of out of that sifting, if you will. Well, what are the values overall? And then how do we deliver those services? Yeah.
- [26:49]
Berlin
So here's a question for you, Chief. What would you say to this concept or this statement, if you will? Because I'm sure you've heard it. I've heard it is all that matters to the public is that someone shows up when they call 911-ALL-LAT MATTERS. So what are your thoughts on that? Because I've heard that time and time again in reference to it doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter what you come from, it doesn't matter. All that matters is someone shows up. Meaning I believe sometimes it does matter. And I'm not saying in the sense that because one firefighter or one EMT cannot provide service. No, it's in the sense that sometimes, maybe we'll use the instance of, let's say, a female patient. We'll say for an example, there are times where maybe a female EMT would be able to interact a little bit differently. We'll say better, if you will, at times than someone like myself. So when we say all that matters is, to an extent, I agree with that statement. But we can always do better in some areas or provide a higher level of service. Not to say that one level of service is bad, but if there's a way to give better service, that's great. So what would you say to the content statement of the only thing that matters if someone shows up?
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Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I'm gonna steal and butcher a statement. And that statement is ideas unite. Details divide. So at. At a 90, 000 foot level. Yes. When people dial 91 1, what do they expect at a high level, they expect someone who is competent, professional, and empathetic to come and help them. That's why they're calling 91 1. But you're exactly right. I've certainly experienced this in my career where there are people who, for various reasons, may not be as comfortable with one member of our crew or two members of our crew where they would be with someone else. And that's, again, I think for us in the fire service, it's very important for us to. To create an awareness around that and. And. And learn the interpersonal, the soft skills to be able to read the room. Right. So that we. We can provide whatever we need to do to sort of navigate whatever that sense is that we have. Right. Because at the end of the. Again, at the end of the day, what are we trying to do is we're trying to affect a positive change. Why would I be forcing a person, you know, on a patient when there is this, you know, clear, clear blockage to me? Again, if I use another metaphor, not every problem is a nail, right? So there are some tools that are. Or there's some situations where I don't need a hammer. I need a different tool. It's the same thing. And, and. And it's important for us to be able to read that and be prepared to respond to it in a very empathetic way.
- [29:38]
Berlin
Yes, I think that Nick summed it up is in an empathetic way is key. Let's talk about the four Cs of leadership. Chief, I talked about curiosity earlier because I love that. So I'm curious to where we go. Curious to where we go with that. But let's talk character, credibility, curiosity, courage. Why is that the four Cs of leadership? And why is that important to Chief Tubbs?
- [29:58]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I'll start off this discussion by saying I am not an expert in leadership. I am a student. So some of your previous guests that you've had, many of them very good friends of mine, you know, Mike Despain, Eric Sailors, Heather Marquez, Steve Przewowski, a lot of great people. And. And several of them are alumni of the Naval Postgraduate School, as am I of the Master's program. And let me kick off sort of an explanation of these with disclaimer. So if you're in the Master's program, you will very quickly get introduced to the program chair. His name is Dr. Chris Bellavita. And Dr. Bellavita, while he's certainly a person, he is an experience. And everybody who's been through the Master's program will know exactly what I'm talking about. But, you know, when we talk about leadership, you know, my experience over the course of my career is it feels like about every 20 years, leadership gets repackaged. And it's the same stuff. It's just in a different package. And we get all excited about the new shiny object. Well, a while back, I came across a podcast called the RF Factor, and it's host by Ray Gadetti and Pete Gagliardi. And they're interviewing Dr. Bellavita. And in the course of the discussion, there's a point in the interview where Ray asks Dr. Bellavita what got him or what brought him to the Naval Postgraduate School. And in classic Bella Vida, he answers with a question. This is appreciative inquiry, and we'll talk about that later. But he says, tell me why that's useful for this podcast, so I know how to respond to it. Well, what comes from that ultimately is he asks Ray, he says, would you entertain the idea because it's about leadership. Would you entertain the idea that leadership is a myth? And I remember the first time I heard that and I thought, where is he going with us? I know Dr. Bellavita enough, you know, if you get into a conversation with him, you learn right away you've brought a knife to a gunfight. You want to be very careful around Dr. Bellavita. And I mean that in a respectful way. I mean that in a very positive way. So he talks about how leadership is almost like this magical incantation is the word he uses. Right. You're, you, you go through this process, you know, for formal leadership, and you're given a set of responsibilities, probably had some training, and they're, you're expected to do something different. But what he points out is there is, there has been zero empirical evidence that any of the things that we have done around leadership, the classes, the books, the education, has had any effect on moving organizations or businesses forward. And it, that is a really, to me, a really thought provoking question. So I'll, I'll jump into the four C's. So I'm, I'm, I'm not nearly, I'm not even in the same league as Dr. Bellavita, of course. And I'm, I sometimes find myself, how did I get so lucky to go to the post grad school? But I like to boil things down really to sort of a digestible level. So for me, I like to understand the mechanics of things. Right. How does it work? How do these pieces get put together? So for me, I, I have always sort of rested on the, what I'd call this foundation of the four Cs. So, you know, character, again is rooted in this idea that we are a business model that is predicated on public trust. When I hire firefighters, what do I hire them for? Character. Why? Because when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and they're going to Mr. And Mrs. Smith's house during a really tragic moment or a frightening moment, amongst things that are very personal and valuable to them, I need to know that our firefighters are going to be empathetic, they are going to be professional, they are going to honor the confidentiality that really is a part of that. And if I don't have that, then that puts our, our services at risk. So character is like a muscle. And there's a lot of elements to character, but it's like a muscle and that'll get into courage in a second. And if you don't, if you don't exercise that right, then, then you. It's real easy to not have the skills or not develop the skills around that. But I think character, especially for a leader, formal or informal, and I would argue for any of us in the fire service, courage is absolutely foundational. And we won't follow people who don't have character. Right. It's like, I am not f. That guy's going to get me in a world of hurt. Right. We're just not going to follow those people. So that's really important. Credibility. We all know in this business that you have to be able to trust the person that you're working with. This is credibility at its simplest form is I get on the end of a hose line with you and you tell me you're not going to leave me in, in the fire. I need to know that. Right? Or back at the firehouse if you're telling me something. And I'm expecting that to remain in confidence in our discussion. Is that true? And our whole, our whole reputation in our career will be linked to that. Right. The, the only thing really I think that we have as a currency in the work we do is, is. Are linked really to these four Cs. But specifically character and credibility in our business, that is the currency.
- [35:53]
Berlin
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [35:55]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Curiosity. To me, you have to be, you have to be a curious about everything about your business. So on the trade side of our organization, not the profession and there's a distinc difference between those two. As a firefighter and I certainly remember this coming up the ranks, I wanted to learn everything I could about everything. Right. I was curious and I didn't want to, I didn't want to learn in a book. I want to go do it. You know, when I went through Rs1 and Rs2 is like, I don't want to learn about how to do stitching with a jackhammer. I actually want to do it. So it's ingrained in me. And then the same thing on the academic front because this is about moving the profession forward. So real quickly, the difference between in a trade and a profession is a trade is based on passing down institutional knowledge and experience. A profession is built on a body of knowledge. Right. It's about studying and creating peer reviewed research that we then can learn and build off of. Much like we do in medicine. What we do in case law, same concept. It's why the National Fire Academy was created was to Move us to a profession. And so having the curiosity around some of the things we're even talking about today, like, well, what is public value? How do we measure that? How do we define that? How do we, how do we learn about that? How do we become more effective in communications and building relationships? If you're not curious about that, you're never going to discover why. And then as a result, how do you help move your organization forward? I, I just think that you have to be curious in this business, otherwise you run the risk of dis. Of damage.
- [37:36]
Berlin
So as far as curious, because this is probably one of my favorite parts of, of the four Cs, is, is it important for every level, every rank in the fire service to be curious? Even the fire chief over the firefighter and the battalion chief over the captain. And why is that?
- [37:54]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I think it's important that everybody in the organization is curious now. What they're curious about is going to evolve based on their roles and responsibilities. But when we take on an oath of office into this, you know, profession, and many of us come in because we are driven by a sense of purpose, and we, we truly embrace this idea of serving the community. We're servants. How can you do that with credibility if you're not curious? Do you come in and do you assume that you know everything? I don't. After 46 years, I. I feel like I know more about what I don't know than what I do know. And so it's not relegated to one level in the organization. I know some of your speakers have talked about that. Mike Despain, you know, talked about. I've been around a long time, and I just. I don't know everything. And, you know, Mike and I go way back. We were an EFO together. And Mike says he's one of the smartest people I know. And for Mike to say that, that should be very enlightening for all of us is here's a guy who has a remarkable career, a great leader, and yet he's saying, man, I, I just don't know a lot of things, it'd.
- [39:09]
Berlin
Be fair to say. And I'll just go on the, on, on the, on the extreme. We'll call it extreme. It's even more important to be more curious the higher up you go and the more experience you have.
- [39:20]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's more. It's different.
- [39:23]
Berlin
Right, right.
- [39:24]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I think, because your responsibilities are different. So, you know, as a fire chief, you know, we don't do a great job of teaching people soft skills and political awareness. And when you get to the fire chief level, man, your, your role is all about relationships and being able to read the room, to read the landscape. Right. To be able to navigate that. And, and so my curiosity is different as a fire chief than when I was a firefighter. And I'm, I'm trying to learn, you know, all of the inventory in my vehicle and how does this tool work and what's the best way to operate it safely, you know, all those things. It's just different.
- [40:03]
Berlin
It's just different. Yeah. And I guess. Yeah, I was only trying to emphasize the fact that because we see it in the firehouse, a lot will tend to want that new firefighter, that new apprentice that comes in. We want them to have the go getter mindset to be coming to us about their needs and their wants to be better, which is obviously important. It goes without saying. But then also on my end of things, we'll say as the experience or the company officer, the trainer, whatever you want to call it, I also have to have that equal or more important curiosity of I need to be proactive in engaging so they can come forward and tell me what it is that they want to learn and want. So it's a, it's a two way street. But yes, it's a different level of curiosity. I emphasize that more. But yes, obviously curiosity is just different at every single level. But everyone has to have it.
- [40:49]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah. How can you expect it of people that you supervise or work with if you're not modeling it yourself?
- [40:56]
Berlin
Exactly. Modeling the behavior. Exactly. So courage. Let's go there. What's so the courage?
- [41:02]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah. So this is something I think all of us who end up stepping into formal leadership learn oftentimes painfully that one of the, one of the crosses you bear as a leader sometimes is making decisions that are not popular. Yeah. But they're the right decision. And, and the higher up you go in the organization, the more important that becomes. And I'll give you an example, you know, this just occurred down here in California and some of your listeners will know about this is we know that we just recently had the Palisades and Eaton fire. Right. And extremely devastating loss and immediately, you know, a lot of criticism. First of Mayor Bass as she stepped, she was out of town in Ghana on a trip. She wasn't present for this. And the fire chief of LA City is Kristen Crowley. She's, she's a great, she's a great person. And I remember a day or so after, you know, things had sort of begun to settle down, she came out and made a public statement about the condition of her organization and the budget cuts that she fought to not have, but ended up having to absorb and sort of the status of, you know, they have 100 fire apparatus, they're at the shop and they don't have enough mechanics, on and on and on. So she, she makes this statement and, you know, my first reaction is, oh my God, this is political suicide for a fire chief. Not that I think it's wrong. It's like that this is, you know, a lot of times it's the death knell, right? And then, you know, I sort of, sort of started to think about it. It's like, well, the mayor can't fire her right now because one, the public isn't really fond of the mayor and two, everything that Chief Crowley said was right. And then she was quickly backed up and supported by her union. You know, obviously she has been subsequently demoted because she doesn't actually get terminated, she gets demoted in that agency. And this is yet to still play out. I, I have my own predictions about what's going to happen, but this was a really, to me was a really good example of where the rubber meets the road on courage and, and people may argue whether it was a smart thing to do or not, but ethically, arguably even morally, as a public servant to her community and as a leader of the men and women in her organization, for her to come out in public and say that was incredibly courageous. It was also a hundred true, but she did it knowing that there was personal risk and why she did it because it was the right thing to do. She needed the men and women of LA FIRE to see their chief standing up and making this argument, letting the community know we fought against these budget cuts. Here's the state of our agency. And now after this fire, I can't be silent. I can't sort of navigate the political world that we all have to navigate. I have to come forward. And so that's, to me is a really good example of, of courage. And oftentimes day to day, you know, the, those decisions that we make that require courage aren't necessarily, you know, front page like that, but they're important in the scheme of sort of the evolution of our organization and how, you know, everything is, everything is connected and, and they have, it has a ripple effect. And so courage, I think, as a leader, if you're going to be effective is you have, you have to be able to make those hard Calls, especially when they're not popular. And that's.
- [44:46]
Berlin
So would you say it. Would you. Would it be fair to say that, number one, courage is a necessary skill and an effective leader, but number two is when displaying courage. Not oftentimes, but there may be times where you put yourself out there to the point where you are either ridiculed, we'll say demoted, or.
- [45:09]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, you. You may be marginalized or ostracized.
- [45:12]
Berlin
Right.
- [45:12]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I mean, we are. We are a tribalistic culture. And. And there are norms within our tribes. And so, you know, you step outside those norms, you risk being ostracized or worse. And so. Yeah. And, you know, I think you're exactly right.
- [45:29]
Berlin
You.
- [45:29]
Chief Chris Tubbs
You touched on, you know, courage is something that needs to be exercised. And I'm reminded of a little video that was. That's been floating around for a number of years on the Internet in social media, and it's from a movie with Morgan Freeman. And he's talking to this person about courage, and he's saying, you know, when you pray for courage, you just think that God is going to give you courage, or do you think he's going to give you the opportunity to learn and exercise? Well, it's the latter, of course. Right. Is it. It's not this thing that when you get promoted, all of a sudden, boom, you have instant courage. You have to go out and exercise it. And. And sometimes. Well, oftentimes those opportunities come not by your design.
- [46:15]
Berlin
Right.
- [46:15]
Chief Chris Tubbs
But it's by how you respond. And you are. You are setting an example for your organization. And a fire chief is under more of a microscope than a firefighter is. Right. And just as. Just as a parent, my. My words were less impactful to my kids than my actions.
- [46:33]
Berlin
Yes.
- [46:34]
Chief Chris Tubbs
And it's the same as a fire chief is. So I want to make sure that what I'm doing, what I'm modeling for my folks, is something that really feeds into character. Right. Walk the talk. It's that simple.
- [46:49]
Berlin
It's that simple. Yeah, sometimes. And we've talked about that on the show, too, is sometimes some of these things, these, you know, messages, philosophies are simple. We just have to follow through with the action. And that's obviously not the simple part, but it's not about the information, because the information is always in front of us. But it's our responsibility to put those words, those messages into action. I know we talked about leaders, Chief, but I want to talk about followers as well, because to be a great leader, one must also be a great follower. And it's not that you become a leader one day and you're no longer following. I would agree, and I believe you would agree as well that we all continue to follow throughout our entire journey of life and leadership. So can you talk about the importance of followership?
- [47:31]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, Berlin, it's a great question. And I think it sometimes is a, is a part of this discussion of leadership and organizational culture that we don't spend enough time talking about. And oftentimes we talk about leadership through this lens as if, if everybody in the organization is a robot and if you have the perfect leader, everybody will just follow. And that is absolutely not true. If I could use the metaphor, you know, if we think about like a racing canoe, you know, you have a coxswain who's counting out the pace, right? That crew trains to know their role and responsibility. They learn the pace that they have to pull. They know the objective. They're united in their objective to win the race. And because they're all pulling in the same direction, you know, each doing their part, right, they are propelling forward. Imagine how effective they would be in winning that race if any one of the rowers decided to not pull full the full strength or to turn their or in a different direction. So, followers, the following piece is, is equally important. And I think each of us, at whatever level of the organization, we need to understand what the responsibility of followership is. And maybe in the simplest way to describe that is if you are like a battalion chief or a captain, you, you are operating under the authority of the fire chief, you are an extension of the fire chief. And, and the fire chief is carrying out the policy direction of his council or his city manager or his board of directors. And so that implies the importance of following. And I don't mean blind following, but what I'm talking about is a decision's been made, it's about getting on board and carrying that out and not looking for ways to sabotage it. And, and this is a piece that we don't spend enough time talking about.
- [49:23]
Berlin
Well, I think when you talk about rowing and you talked about canoeing, it reminded me of the, the quote at the end of the movie, it's the boys in the boat. I believe it is movie. In the book and the story, obviously they were asked, how did you enjoy rowing as an eight man crew or eight person crew? And the individual replied, we were never eight, we were just one.
- [49:40]
Chief Chris Tubbs
We were one.
- [49:41]
Berlin
I think that's exactly kind of what you're saying is it's exactly right if we all work on the same with the same mission, the same idea, the same philosophy. We all work together as one. It doesn't matter for 210 or a hundred. We're all going the same direction, and that's how we win.
- [49:54]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Well said.
- [49:55]
Berlin
Well, on the show, Chief, we talk about, obviously decisions being made. You talk about a lot of things that you've done in your career. We talk about failures. Right. Sometimes failures, oftentimes failures turn into later opportunities, sometimes opportunities that we never would have thought would have been there without the failure to begin with. We talk about getting out of your comfort zone, we talk about change, we talk about a lot of stuff. But these all being types of pivots in our career. We'll say the word pivot. But regarding your career, Chief, what would you say? Give an example of a pivot that you had in your career, something that happened, a decision that you made, assignment that you took, a situation, if you will, that kind of put you in the direction to the success, to where you give credit of where you're at today.
- [50:36]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, there are two very distinct pivots for, for me, Berlin, when, you know, when you asked that question, it was like it came to me right away. And the very first was academically. So again, rooted in that question that, you know, my city manager raised. But what, how that, how that manifests was a very good friend of mine, Lauren Charleston, who was at the time a battalion chief in Redmond fire, went on to become a deputy. And Lauren remains a really good friend. He was in the EFO program and he called me over to his house one day because we lived a couple blocks, I lived in Samamish. And he called me over and he showed me this paper he was writing. We had this whole discussion. He said, you need to get into this program. And at a very simple level, you know, certainly happy to talk about the, the academic journey. But what that did was it started my journey in academics. Prior to that time, I had no interest in really finishing my undergrad. I didn't think I needed to. And in, in that experience and at the time, the EFO program was a four year program and you had to write four applied research projects and they were graded, they were peer reviewed and graded. And if you, if you didn't get at least a 2.0, so 4.0 was a perfect score. If you didn't get at least a 2.0, you wouldn't get to go to the next class. So there was a saying, two oh and go. And that began my journey. And I learned something in that process that, that shocked me. And, and it was this. So I went into that process not knowing what an ARP was or even how to put an ARP together. I knew I liked to write. I had two really good instructors, Dr. Cal Posner and Dr. Larry Rizzi. And they were very clear in, in that first class, which was called executive development, or ED, what you needed to do to write a 4.0 paper spelled it out for you. Here's where you're going to get a quarter point off, right? So I write my first paper and I, I'm meticulous, sometimes almost to the point of, of, you know, being on the scale, making sure that I'm. I'm doing everything right, looking at the APA guidebook, and I submit my first paper, and I have no illusions about a 4.0. I, I just want to get above a 2.0. Well, my first paper was evaluated by Kurt Verone. Everybody knows who Kurt is. I, I've, I've met Kurt a couple times. He doesn't know who I am, but he was my first EV waiter, and he gave me a 4.0. And I was shocked. And I went on in my second and third year to write two more 4.0 papers. Now in my fourth year, I, I wrote my paper and I got a 2.8. And I was pissed because I went back and I looked at the guidebook and where the evaluator marked me off and he was incorrect. And I, you know, I was going to write to the school, and Lauren is like, dude, two zero and go. You're done with the program. Just stop. And I'm like, no, man, it's the principal. And what, what got me off the ledge was I got a call from Dr. Burke Clark at the academy. And he said, hey, I just call him to let you know your third year paper won the outstanding research award. And so, you know, it really took all of the wind out of my balloon. It was, it was an important lesson for me in many ways. But what it did was it taught me what that process is about. And I actually learned. I really liked it. And so that put me into this path on finishing my undergrad, getting my first master's, getting my second master's and still going to school even to this day, which is what helps me learn. Back to this question of how do I argue for our agency and our needs and our resources, and how do I define value? The second pivot for me was when I came to California. So the decision for coming down here was rooted in My grandchildren, ironically, my first grandson was here in California. I was 50. I was almost 54. The department was in a really good place. We had. It was a. It's a great organization. Mercenary was an awesome organization, great people, and we were in a really good place. And I got recruited for a deputy chief's position down here, and I thought, boy, if you were ever going to go. And I've got a grandkid down there, and we're flying down all the time. The organization is in the best place it's ever been. The city manager literally pulls a lever and a bunch of people click up. The community won't know any difference. The city won't notice any difference. It was like, the right place. But I came into an organization as a deputy chief because California, in my eyes and when I was in Washington state, was this amazing, you know, fire service state right there. They're on the cutting edge of everything. And I heard of this organization called Cal Fire. Matter of fact, when I'd be in California, I'd see Cal Fire rigs. I had no idea what they were. I knew they were part of the fire service. I just know how. I didn't know what Cal OES was. You know, Firescope was. I didn't know about their EMS system, which is a whole nother conversation. Very different than our model in King County. And so I wanted to be a student, right? I wanted to come down and learn. And I didn't. I didn't know what my trajectory was. But what I. What I learned very quickly was I was put into a situation where I was stretched and in challenge and. And, you know, again, one of the things that really shocked me was I was so warmly embraced by the California Fire Service, which just shocked me. I have people wrap their arms around me and say. Say, you're part of our family now. And that led to me, you know, eventually becoming the president of the California Fire Chiefs association, for crying out loud. How the heck does a. A guy from Washington state end up in that position? But that's an illustration of that support. But, man, what a pivot point. Because I never had those experiences at Mercer island, and I never learned some of the skills that I've subsequently learned because I was put in an entirely different state, an entirely different governing structure. So I'm in a special district, not in a municipality in it, and in a different organization that has different challenges. And wow. I'll tell you, it was. It's been a. It's been a ride. That's probably the best way to Summarize, I believe.
- [56:52]
Berlin
And when you answer with the first one with academics, I already knew my question. And then when you went to the moving to California, it's like, I want to ask this question more. So for the sake of it, I'll ask just a one of one of them and it'll be toward the second question. Regarding you leaving Washington state where you serve for over 30, well over 30, 30 years, you went to an organization, a different state, you said you took on different type of organization, different layout, we'll say different politics, different position. Right. You went from, from fire chief to now deputy chief. So many different types of challenges. And you were later in your career. Right. You weren't, you know, a 25 year old saying, I'm just getting on my career going, it's early for me. It was, it was, you didn't have to take the position. So I guess where I'm going with this is by you putting yourself out of, we'll say, a comfort zone, putting yourself way out there. We're talking way out there now to the listener base. I want to preface it with this, with this question. My intent is never to say, you know, go out and leave your organization. Go look in a different state. Right. You got some two, four, eight year people listening to this show. So in regards to maybe an assignment or maybe thinking about maybe going to a neighboring agency to a dream department, we'll say, but something on a smaller scale. Right. Again, not emphasizing, you know, go out and just go, go, go work for FDNY tomorrow. Because you always thought about doing that when you're a kid, but maybe, yeah. What would you say to an individual that's kind of like, you know what? I'm kind of scared for the unknown. I don't want to go to that division because I don't know what to expect. I like where I'm at. Talk about the importance of the growth that can happen if you do such things.
- [58:21]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah. And, and one little clarification on coming here. So I came as a deputy chief and a month, less than a month after I got here, the fire chief said, I'm resigning at the end of the month. So I was the fire chief inside of a month, which really amp that challenge. But really good question. So there was a point in my career and Mercer island was like a lot of fire departments, especially pre 9 11, really in a silo. Right. We, our, our world was Mercer Island. It wasn't the broader King county area. Departments were very isolated. And our fire chief, Al Provost, who came up through the ranks recognized sort of the dysfunction that comes out of that. Right? You, you live in a bubble. You don't know what's going on in the rest, the rest of the world. And he, one of his, one of his missions and one of the things that he did was he pushed us outside the organization. And, and this is a really practical way to your, to your question. And for me, that was when I went to the EFO program and I had classmates from all over the U.S. matter of fact, some of my closest friends today came from that program. Mike Despain, Charles Werner, a bunch of really great, great people that, that have really stretched me. But what I was exposed to was I had this picture in my mind of my department's condition and sometimes that would translate into unhealthy conversations. Right? It's like, yeah, you know, we're, we're, our organization is not funded. Right. And I mean, fill in the blank. Right? The coffee table chatter. And then I went to the school and I started talking to guys in different parts of the country and I'm hearing about, you know, what they're doing. And there was a time, for example, when you worked in the fdny, you could not support a family on that salary. Those guys were, they had two, three jobs on the side. But it was the privilege of being in the FDNY that was so important to them. But when you hear, you know, that for some folks the newest engine in their department was a used 1955 Mac that they got and you're like, and you're, I don't understand why you're excited about that. You know, and our, our rigs are in the 1980 series, right? It, that is one way, I think Berlin, where it's a, it's about, you know, being stretched can, can occur in many different ways. You don't have to move to another organization, but you do have to get outside of your organization. Whether that is through school or it's, you know, being in a program or an experience like Washington Task Force one that was a very eye opening experience. Experience as well and building your network. So be, you know, beginning to have relationships with people in other organizations. It, it, it doesn't have to be this, you know, demonstrative action. It, it's can be small and simple things that simply begin to open your eyes to the broader world outside of your station and your crew and your department.
- [61:18]
Berlin
I love that you said two so important things. Things getting outside of your organization to see what's out there, to learn what's out there, the new perspectives that. Not new, the different perspectives and get outside that bubble, but also building your network. I think that's. You mentioned the National Fire Academy, and I didn't have the, I haven't had the opportunity yet to go to the National Fire Academy. In fact, I applied for the EFO and then didn't get in. But that's a whole nother story because there's hundreds and hundreds of more qualified applicants. But the network that I was invited in was a group of guys that came from the NFL. They took a class, like a week long, two week long class at the nfo and they call it this wolf pack and talk about the networking and the relationships, the growth that can happen just by getting to know some people and sharing of ideas and it's the coolest thing. So building your network is something I want to lean on. So going back to the very beginning, because I love this public value. So if you were talking about delivering public value in a tribalistic culture and you were talking to a group of new firefighters, what would be some advice that you would give to them regarding how to deliver public value or adding value to the public at their level in the fire service?
- [62:26]
Chief Chris Tubbs
That's a really good question. I, I think one of the ways that you begin to do that is you, you begin to have, you know, the conversations with the other more senior people in your organization. Right. I mean, we, a lot of what we learn comes from those who've gone before us. And I think again, you know, it's sort of embracing this idea of if you want to be successful in this career, you know, you need to be curious. You know, you always want to be learning. So I think it's, it doesn't have to be, you know, if I was talking to a new firefighter, I would, I would be asking them questions like, when you think about your career, what do you hope for? What do you want to achieve? And then, and then talking about, certainly, you know, whether it's my experience or you have a group of firefighters share their own journey and what they've learned. That's a powerful tool. So we in our DNA as a specie is storytelling, right? That's how for, for eons we have communicated information. That's why we have the dialogue at the coffee table, right? It's, it's this form of storytelling. And so I think it's engaging in that, in sort of, in that kind of a context. Healthy, healthy conversation, right?
- [63:45]
Berlin
Absolutely.
- [63:47]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I'm getting to, I guess, the instrument and how you do that. Is really important because as you're new in the fire service and you want to earn the respect and the credibility of those that you work with is you need to listen to them, you need to go out and ask questions of them. Right. Because they have a lot to share with you that's really valuable to your trajectory.
- [64:05]
Berlin
Absolutely. To the company officer. Right. To the company officer in the fire stations, what advice would you give to them regarding how to add public value?
- [64:16]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I'm going to tie it back to curiosity. Right. And value. So, you know, is it, is it a value of the organization? And if not, you know, is it a value to you? And if not, why. But if you get to that point right. Where it is, this value is, then it's about being curious if, if you want to understand value. And again, I like to, I like to dummy the things down because I'm, I'm, I'm not a bright, I'm not a super bright guy, but I like to think about it in this, this way is if I want my organization to be successful, which I think we all do, if I want to make sure that I have, you know, really good fire apparatus, I've got a great training program, I've got all sorts of support systems for our people in our organization, whatever that might be, equipment, community, respect, those things. Right. A good paycheck, good benefits, those kinds of things, then what is key to making that successful? Right. And, and that gets to public value. That's a direct link to public value. Because if you're not delivering public value, then you're not going to get that legitimacy and support for those things that you want.
- [65:28]
Berlin
Absolutely. So how about the fire chief or a cheap officer? You've been a fire chief for two different departments now you worked your way up the ranks. You have deputy chief roles in two departments as well. When we're talking about public value, what can chief officers do at any other chief levels? Right. Battalion chief, fire chief, deputies, what are some things that they could do in the organization to increase public value? Or making sure that public value is a top priority, even if it's informal, we'll say. Right. Because it doesn't necessarily have to be formal and written on the core values on the front page, on the side of the apparatus. But having public value at the top of our priority list inside the stations individually is something that we can just adopt today. But chief officers can have high influencing organizations. So what's something that they could do to help encourage and prioritize public value?
- [66:15]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I think at the Core. Right. If you want your organization to, to buy into it, if you will, if you want them to embrace it, which is what you want, otherwise, you know, it's just lip service. Is you, that, that, that implies that there has to be engagement, you know, for me. And I'll use our organization as an example. When I arrived and I went out and I spent time with the crews in the station and I was asking questions about, you know, what is your hope for this organization? What frustrates you about this organization? What things do you think would improve it? But when you look at this organization five or ten years from now, what is your hope? Right. Yeah, well, guess what? We didn't, we didn't have a vision. That was one of the things I heard from our people, is we don't know where we're going. It's like, well, that's a problem. If we don't know where we're going, then, then we don't know how to build a plan to get there. And, and that sort of begs the question that if, if we have a plan, do we have the values that accompany that, that allow us to be optimized, to get to where we want to go? So I think, you know, it begins with sort of looking at your organizations, if you will, sort of underlying purpose and mission and vision. Are they, are they first of all identified? Has the organization had the opportunity to be engaged in that discussion, to develop those things so that they can buy into that? That's a great practical step, step to, to take at least it's been in my experience, to at least begin to, to take that journey. And it, it doesn't happen overnight. You know, as many of your guests have talked about culture change, it takes decades, years, unless you have some outside catastrophic event like a line of duty, death, or, or something like that. And so you have to be, you have to be patient. And sometimes it's about experimentation. You know, I, I, I think this is what I'm, I'm seeing. That is the problem. So here's probably a pathway to solution. Oop, that didn't work. Okay, let's pivot and let's try something else.
- [68:22]
Berlin
So talked about metrics. At the beginning, we talked about metrics versus emotion. Regarding metrics and public value. How do we know that what we're doing is getting better? So, for example, say our intent is to get out there and add public value, to get to know our communities better, to really engage them more than we had been in the past. How do we know that what we're doing is being. Is. Is effective.
- [68:48]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah. I think it begins with knowing how your community identifies value. So I'll use King county as an example. The King County Medic one program, Seattle Medic one program is obviously it's a very big part of the entire Seattle culture. Right. In society. And you know, many years ago we established the metric of cardiac survivability utilizing the Utstein method, which is a medical methodology that, that provides an outcome, not an output, an outcome. And that is a tool that, that we have used over, you know, many, many years to define to the community what the cardiac survivability rate is again under these specific criteria. And then we've built upon that. You know, Dr. Eisenberg, Dr. Eisenberg, great guy. I really enjoyed, you know, working with him over the years. He has done a lot of work and study, as has other folks around. Early intervention, right. Is it's not just about the firefighters getting there. It's about community members who are trained. This is, this is the key to Seattle's success is that we have such a proliferation of, of folks who are trained in CPR and are not afraid to engage, which increases the survivability. But that's a value that long ago became institutionalized in the Seattle King county area. How do we know that? Well, we continue to measure that in various forms every year. So that's sort of one way down here. We've not done that certainly in my county yet. There's a whole bunch of different reasons why. So for us to define value, it required us going out and doing a community survey and saying, you know, what are the things that you define as a value? And then once we, we have that, then we can begin to build, you know, metrics around that. I think the one that's one of the hardest to identify, it's been a quandary in the fire service for years. I think Eric Sailors is on to something with his quantifying the negative. And it's this idea of how do we identify the value that we provide by intervention in a structure fire or a conflagration. Right. And you know, you can't prove. You, you can't sort of prove how many fires you've prevented.
- [71:16]
Berlin
Right.
- [71:17]
Chief Chris Tubbs
But we can certainly apply peer reviewed methods like network theory and others, topography, weather information, fuel spread modeling, to say our intervention efforts as a result of what we did preserved x amount of value. And that's an outcome that's not an output. Right. We, that is something that we can then go to the community. If the community defines that as a value. And that's, that's rhetorical. Of course they define that as a value. But then it gives us the basis then to have that narrative with the community and revisit it on a regular basis.
- [71:49]
Berlin
Yeah. So surveys, but also dialogue, I think. Dialogue, I mean, at the firefighter level. Right. Like, I'm not going to be the one that's going to be putting out surveys at the department and community level, but I can easily get out into the community and talk, engage, ask questions. Where are we missing the boat? What can you, what do you expect of us? And, and sharing that information departmental wide as well is only going to hope. All right, team, I'm going to ask you this and, and I'm going to hold you to one. I take it you're a reader, obviously academics. If you're going to pick one book to recommend to listeners and say, this is a, is a very high influential book. It was to me and I would recommend you all to read it. What would be that one book in?
- [72:26]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Why, why narrowing it down to one? You're putting me on the spot here. I, I would go with Leadership on the Line by Marty Linsky.
- [72:34]
Berlin
I'm glad you went here. Okay.
- [72:36]
Chief Chris Tubbs
So why, so why. So I had the privilege of, of meeting Marty when I went to Harvard and he's, I like to say he is the Chris Bellavita of Harvard. They're very similar in, in many ways he's a guy that you want to be careful in your conversation because, because he's so bright and he will challenge you. And why do I like this book? Because that's in essence what's in this book. It's this idea that, you know, leadership is dangerous. Right. Because it requires courage, it requires curiosity. You have to learn how to distinguish between technical and adaptive change. And you know, at, at the firefighter level, a lot of times we only have to learn to be proficient at tactical challenges. Right. But at, at my level, it's, it's adaptive change. Right. As an example, right now we have an issue in one of our communities where we are having an emotional response to the fires in la. And despite all of the things that we have done and we, we provide that information, it's not satisfying to the community and we know that. And so we have to recognize that the fear that they have and we have to be empathetic to that fear. So in other words, we have to be adaptive to the challenge. We have to learn kind of what's at the root of this. And I love, I love the way that Marty and, and Ron Heifetz, you know, they sort of spell some of these things out. And I have found that information incredibly valuable. You know, as I've learned and continue to learn, you know, what it is to be in this position as a fire chief and whatever leadership is, whether it exists or it doesn't, but influence. Right. Which is what I think leadership really is.
- [74:17]
Berlin
Well, thank you for that. Because I was looking at this list and I'm like, I hope he says this one. If you didn't, I'd probably say, okay, what's your second favorite? But I've read probably two thirds of the book and I have not finished it yet, even though it's given to me well over a year ago. But I love the book. I know Marty Linsky has written multiple books and so Ronald Heifetz. But I think what's key is, and I'll just leave this out there as a cliffhanger for the, for the listeners is, is yes, it's basically defining, but differentiating between what adaptive challenges are and technical solutions. Because I think oftentimes as firefighters, we're very much in the technical. We show up, it's like we solve that one problem and we go home. But when we're talking about leadership, we're talking about the greater whole. And I think oftentimes we think our solution at the kitchen table will say we'll take care of the problems. Well, oftentimes that's not the case. So if we're able to define a differentiate 30,000 foot level, view those adaptive challenges where you could really look at true, lasting change for the better. And so I thank you for recommending that book. It's a great book.
- [75:17]
Chief Chris Tubbs
It is awesome.
- [75:18]
Berlin
Chief, if you don't mind, could we go to the leadership challenge? We are here because Chief Saylors, Dr. Eric Sailors challenged you to be on the show. And I'm glad he did. But the goal here is to continue the conversation on leadership. Is there an individual out there that you would recommend to come on the show and add a leadership perspective?
- [75:39]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Oh, yeah, there's definitely people I would recommend, but I know I'm going to be held to one. So I was prepared for this. A lot of people I could certainly recommend, but I would challenge my good friend Brian Fennesy. Brian is the chief of ocfa, Orange County Fire Authority and a remarkable individual with a very fascinating background and story to tell. And I think the listeners would, they would get a lot from him. Brian operates strategically at a three dimensional level. It's it's fun to watch.
- [76:14]
Berlin
Well, thank you. I'll reach out to Chief. Is it Chief Finessy? Is that how I pronounce it?
- [76:18]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah. Yeah.
- [76:18]
Berlin
And see if you'd be willing to take up Chief Tubs challenge to be a guest.
- [76:23]
Chief Chris Tubbs
I'll send you his contact information.
- [76:25]
Berlin
Awesome. Thank you so much. So before we close today, too, I do want to just say thank you so much for giving an hour and 20 minutes of your time on this. I say beautiful Friday afternoon. I hope it's beautiful over there, but Seattle has seen sun for the second day in a row and it's 65 degrees out for the second time this year. Thank you for spending the time with us today. Before we officially close on the kitchen table, I want to leave it with this. What would be your lasting leadership thoughts you'd like to leave our listeners with before we close episode 65?
- [76:53]
Chief Chris Tubbs
Yeah, I would. This, I guess this simple sentence, leadership is about active service, curiosity, and sacrifice. And I would root it for those who have ever heard Teddy Roosevelt's man in the arena. This is a great description of what I'm talking about, and it is really about this idea that you have to be on the battlefield to exercise this. And nobody who has not been on the battlefield has the right to criticize you. And it's a great. If you haven't read it, go read it. But that would be my thought that I would leave you and the audience to consider.
- [77:30]
Berlin
Well, thank you so much, Chief. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope that you found this time valuable, and we hope that we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.