← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 68: Steven Dubay, Deputy Fire Chief (ret.) - Learn from Everywhere
01:36:45
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- [00:01]
Chief Stephen Dube
And I think if you're willing to learn, willing to have an open mind, it doesn't matter whether somebody's older than you or younger than you or has more time on the job or less time on the job for you, if you want to, you can learn from everywhere and never stop learning. Make this career a lifelong learning opportunity and use information and that education from all around you and especially from people below you in the organization.
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Berlin
Being rescued from a three story apartment building.
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Chief Stephen Dube
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.
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Berlin
CEOs.
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Chief Stephen Dube
Our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.
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Berlin
Welcome to episode 68 of the Kitchen Table. Today we're in Colorado Springs as we have a Deputy Fire Chief Stephen Dube as our guest. And the theme is Never stop learning and learn from everywhere. Chief Dube spent 39 years in the fire service with three years in Casper, Wyoming, and 36 years with Colorado Springs Fire Department. He retired as a deputy fire chief, climbed the ranks of firefighter, firefighter, paramedic, lieutenant captain, and battalion chief. Throughout his career, he spent time in operations training, fire prevention, emergency management, and support services. He oversaw departments such as medical training, human resources, emergency management, communications and accreditation. Good afternoon, Chief. How are you today?
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Chief Stephen Dube
I'm outstanding. Thank you very much for having me.
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Berlin
It is opening day for the Major League Baseball, isn't it?
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Chief Stephen Dube
Yes, sir, it is.
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Berlin
And. Big baseball fan.
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Chief Stephen Dube
Mariners at 7:10 tonight.
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Berlin
7:10. Okay. Are you. So are you a Mariner fan? I gotta ask. Obviously Melissa's here. Mariners, most of them, I think. But Mariner fan or. Or just.
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Chief Stephen Dube
No, that's why I. I look, knowing that you know, where you're at in the Seattle area, I absolutely looked up. Know your audience, right? Yeah. So I think I looked up where or what time the Mariners play, if they open today or tomorrow, and who they're playing, all that. No, I generally follow the Colorado Rockies.
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Berlin
There you go.
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Chief Stephen Dube
You know, being in the Colorado area, and I was actually born in suburban Detroit, so I tend to follow the Detroit Tigers a little bit, too.
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Berlin
Oh, nice.
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Chief Stephen Dube
So it's an interesting juxtaposition that I was born and started life in suburban Detroit, and then we moved as a kid to Casper, Wyoming.
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Berlin
A little different.
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Chief Stephen Dube
There's a little bit of a different culture.
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Berlin
Yes, I bet. I bet. Well, I'm sure we'll dive into some of that as well as we talk today. So before we, you know, get going on today's conversation. Would you mind sharing a little bit about who Chief Dube is?
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Chief Stephen Dube
You bet. Thank you very much again for having me. I'll tell you, I'll bet I probably shouldn't make an assumption, but I'm going to bet that you don't have a whole lot of guests that claim much about Wyoming in their backgrounds. So I'll tell you that the story there is kind of fun because I was actually born in suburban Detroit, Michigan, and when I was 12 years old then my family moved from Detroit, Michigan to Casper, Wyoming. And I look back on that now and I think, oh, my gosh, what in the world were my parents thinking? And what a huge cultural change to go from the mid, you know, a huge city in the Midwest to rural Wyoming for where the work took them there. And I am very glad that, you know, not to cast aspersions on Detroit, but I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to grow up in the Rocky Mountain West. And so, yes, I started my career as a very young 21 year old with the city of Casper, Wyoming Fire Department. And about three years into that job, believe it or not, at the time, the city of Casper was laying off police officers and firefighters, very energy dependent economy in Wyoming. And the energy economy was contracting. And so I was called into the fire chief's office and said, hey, you're probably going to get laid off. I thought, oh my gosh, I better start looking. So, like most enterprising young firefighters, right, I started doing some research and looking in the area, primarily in the Rocky Mountain west, but I researched departments all over the country. And I thought, well, heck, I can. I'm young and single. I can go anywhere. The long story is I decided to focus on the Rocky Mountain west or the inner Mountain West. And I tested in a few departments up and down what we call the Front Range of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. And I just landed in Colorado Springs. I didn't know a soul there, and just kind of started over with the Colorado Springs Fire Department and then made a life there eventually, you know, getting married and having a family and all that. And. And as you mentioned, moving up through the ranks. But the Wyoming connection now again is I like to tell people, you know, Wyoming is really home to me. I moved away from Michigan when I was young enough that I remember more of growing up in Wyoming. And so what I started to say is, I like to tell people, you can take the boy out of Wyoming, but you can never take Wyoming out of the boy.
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Berlin
There you go.
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Chief Stephen Dube
And so my wife and I were married in Grand Teton national park and Wyoming. And as a result of spending time up in the national parks here, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, we eventually bought a second home in northwest Wyoming. And as you indicated, now we split time between both places. But being retired is really interesting and different. I desperately miss all the people, the firefighters that, you know, I had the opportunity to work with because across this nation, you can walk in any fire station at any time and tell them you're a firefighter, going to be welcome with open arms. And I love that brotherhood and sisterhood that we have. And so now as a retiree, I'm very much in this mindset of giving back to the profession that gave me so much. Right. So even during the end of my career when I was working, I tried to get out and gravel to assessment centers when fire departments needed assessors because I had the opportunity to advance in my career and I wanted to go back and travel to other fire departments and be an assessor to help other firefighters reach their goals right through that promotional process. And I became involved in the accreditation process, as you mentioned, and now I go out and while I was working and I'm still doing it in retirement, going out on accreditation site visits to fire departments across country to help them realize, you know, their opportunities and their desire to, to be better and for continuous improvement and basically want to help fire departments meet their goals through the accreditation process. So the other thing I'm really proud of in retirement, it has continued. I've had the humble opportunity to serve on the National Fire Academy's Board of Visitors for the last five years. And again, that's something where it's an incredible fire service institution. I want to see it grow and expand and continue to be able to provide opportunities for firefighters across this country. And so again, that's part of trying to give back to the profession that gave me so much. So that's a little bit about Steve.
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Berlin
Well, can I ask a quick question real quick? At the National Fire Academy was just. We just closed down a few weeks back. Do you know about its progress in reopening by chance?
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Chief Stephen Dube
I do not, so interestingly enough. And of course, that is something that near and dear to my heart made me very sad. But prior to that, believe it or not, prior to the National Fire Academy shutting down for classes as the Board of Visitors, there's eight, eight of us that serve on that board and you can do two three year terms. So I was towards the end of my second term, I had about a year to go and probably about six weeks prior to the academy being shut down, I received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security which, you know, you think of the National Fire Academy and believe it or not, it's under dhs, Right. So it's dhs, fema, the United States Fire Administration. And then the National Fire Academy is sort of that chain of command. So I receive a letter from the Department Homeland Security saying thank you for your service to the National Fire Academy's Board of Visitors. It's no longer needed. Wow. So I got fired from my volunteer job is what I joke about.
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Berlin
Wow.
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Chief Stephen Dube
But that was interesting. Very quickly after that we were, we received another letter saying if you would like to continue on in the board, please submit your letter of interest in your resume to continue on. And so I kind of thought, okay, it was just kind of a temporary thing that was going to happen with the change in administration anyway. And so that's all been submitted again.
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Berlin
Got it.
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Chief Stephen Dube
But then the word came down that classes at the Emergency Management Institute and the National Fire Academy were being canceled. And since that time period I haven't heard anything more about the Board of Visitors or why classes have been canceled and. Well, why is because they're looking at whether or not that's an appropriate function of federal government and the budget process.
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Berlin
Right.
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Chief Stephen Dube
And, and I'm hoping to hear more soon.
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Berlin
It's. Yeah, I, I applied for the EFO program and I wasn't, I wasn't accepted. This was back at, back the November applications due date. We got our word, I think it was early February where all of us heard back and makes me wonder that, you know, was I not accepted because I wasn't accepted or was that not accepted because the academy was shutting down? Nonetheless, if it reopens, I would gladly continue to pursue that as well.
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Chief Stephen Dube
Well, thank you for saying that you would pursue it again. Let's all hope as fire service professionals that that institution is able to continue. And if it is, I would encourage you and all your listeners to apply. I've, I'm again very blessed to have been on that campus over the course of my career attending classes at both EMI and the National Fire Academy. Been on the campus well over two dozen times and the people you get to meet there, the conversations you have in and out of the classroom, just meeting other like minded fire service professionals when you're there is a, it's a, like I said, a great institution. Something that it hasn't been replicated to my knowledge anywhere else in our business. So you know, I'm clearly Biased. But I hope that we get to, you know, firefighters get to experience that again in the near future. Near future. Excuse me.
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Berlin
Biased in a good way, of course. You know, pro firefighters and. And pro training for the fire service.
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Chief Stephen Dube
Yep.
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Berlin
All right, so let's talk leadership. Never stop learning and learn from everywhere.
- [11:55]
Chief Stephen Dube
So the theme never stop learning is interesting, and it's not anything that is earth shattering, is it? Right. It's just, it's something that we hear from a lot of people, leaders, mentors, sometimes from the people that work for us in the organization. But I think what I have learned over the course of my career is that every day I went to work, I was learning something new. If I wasn't, then I needed to check myself and think, you know, think back. What did I. What did I learn today? And what I found out is throughout my career, I never stopped learning. Formal education was a big part of my development. And so I'm one of those nerdy folks that have collected a number of degrees over the course of my career, and they each different educational journey shaped the person I am, the leader that I was. And now in retirement, I'm still learning every day. I have the opportunity now, having been challenged by Chief Payne, to listen to your podcast. And as I mentioned to you before we were recording, I've been learning wonderful things about leadership and life and all that goes with those things about our fire service career, about the fire service. I've been still learning something every time I read an email, listen to a podcast, open a trade journal. And so just that opportunity to continue to learn and grow throughout your career, I think has served me very well, and I hope it serves others.
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Berlin
You said you would check yourself throughout your career, even in your spot as a chief. A question I have is how did you check yourself? What were some of the things that you mentally did or physically or literally did to make sure you were always, you know, you weren't going about the day, the week, the month, the quarter where you weren't learning. How did you make sure you were always embracing and taking on new assignments and learning?
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Chief Stephen Dube
It's a great question. I one I think never took my career or my position, whatever rank I happen to be formally called right at a particular time, but never take that for granted. And I'll tell you, I don't remember who, but as a brand new firefighter, I was 21 years old and somebody in the Casper, Wyoming Fire department talked to me about learning every day as a probationary firefighter and what I started doing as a result of that was journaling my days, especially the emergency calls that I went on. So imagine 21 year old, brand new firefighter, EMT. You know, it's really my first real job out in the world. I, you know, I worked like so many kids did and I worked for a vet, cleaning kennels, I worked in retail and a sporting goods store. But those were summer jobs and things like that. So now I'm in a career and I started writing down when I went on a call, I would write down what I learned from that call because it was all new, everything was new. Just even as trivial as it seems, taking a set of vital signs on a patient, if I think back to my 21 year old self, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I didn't know what that meant, how to do it. And so if I learned something about how I could be better at taking vital signs, I would journal that. I would write that down and then usually in the morning before I was getting off shift, I would write down something that I learned during the day. I didn't do that my whole career, but that laid the foundation probably the first four or five years of my career. That's what I was doing to help learn. And then as I moved through my career and moved through the ranks, especially as a chief officer, I didn't ever want to take how I was approaching the job for granted. And so there were a lot of times, you know, you'll picture this in your mind. Hopefully I'd be sitting at my desk thinking about a decision or a project or, and I would stop and catch myself and I just push back from the desk and say, okay, what am I learning about this? What have I learned that applies? What can I learn from this? How am I thinking broadly enough about the issue? And you may, this word may sound familiar on your podcast, right? But it was very intentional about making sure that I never stopped learning, progressing and never stopped keeping an open mind.
- [16:45]
Berlin
So you obviously mentioned intentional. You must have listened to some of our, some of the podcasts because that's such a key word in navigating life, especially as we learn to or we want to grow, especially in leaders, we got to be intentional about our actions, our words and the way we carry ourselves. But how did you, as a mentor, will say in any of the ranks that you were at, whether it be a mentor firefighter, whether it been a, as a senior paramedic, a lieutenant, even a battalion chief or, or higher, how did you instill that mindset, if you will into your subordinates or even your peers to. You got to keep learning. You got to keep learning. This is something that's just going to propel your career because you did it for yourself. But it's also important to, you know, as leaders, if something works and you're successful and you see success with it, I believe it's also our job as leaders to help others foster those types of habits. We'll say, you know, the constant learning will only help you in life and in this profession. So is that something that you instilled in some of your, you know, the people that you work for and with?
- [17:49]
Chief Stephen Dube
Well, I sure hope so. And you know, that, that we're being intentional or being purposeful about it? Yeah, I, you know, what I did is I talked about it. I talked about learning to people and, you know, being open minded and being open to new ideas and never stop learning. It was something that I shared with people throughout my career. If I had the opportunity to coach or mentor somebody younger than me in the organization that was wanting to move up, that's. I would talk to them about learning and how they learned and, you know, where they learned from that. You can learn from everywhere. We can talk about that in a minute. I can expand on that. But then as a chief officer, as an operations battalion chief, one of the things that we did, there was three of us together at the time. The organization has grown since then. But when I was battalion chief, there were three of us on duty and we always talked about it, but we learned from each other. It was very interesting because I was a brand new battalion chief and I had the most senior battalion chief on the same shift as I. And the third battalion chief in our team of three was kind of between both of us, right? But I, I was two months into being a battalion chief, right? I still was trying to find where the keys were to the chief's ride. And my phone rings and it's the most senior battalion chief on the fire department. He'd been a chief officer for probably 18 years at that point. And he, he always called me Stevie, which I loved and didn't matter how old I was or how long in the job. My phone rings, it's the most senior battalion chief. And he says, hey, Stevie, he said, I got a question for you. Because I just had this experience with the crew. I've never had it happen before. And I wondered, what if I could get your perspective on it? And I thought, whoa, here's a guy who's been a Chief Officer for 18 years or something and he just had an experience that he had never had before with the crew. And he's asking me about, you know, what he can learn or if I had something to help him with that was pretty impactful as a new chief officer. And so the three of us working together, whenever we were working to solve problems, trying to learn from one another, we always had a designated dissenter. It didn't matter if I had the best idea in the world, at least one of those two guys would try to shoot holes in it. And it was a way for us to make sure that we were thinking broadly enough, that we were addressing all the issues. And so maybe for a particular issue I was a designated dissenter. And I wholeheartedly bought in and believed in it. But then I had to work hard to think of things that we were missing that we could be better at, how we could improve and learn from one another so that our decision was sound and was moving the organization forward and caring for the people in the organization. So that was one way as a mentoring younger people, it's talking to them about learning and how they can get educated. Chief Officer. We always questions our, ourselves about what we were doing, how we were thinking, where we could learn, etc.
- [21:08]
Berlin
That's a, that's a very powerful point you make there about an 18 year veteran battalion chief reaching out to the newer battalion chief. Let's throw it out there. That doesn't always happen like, right, you don't always have the most senior person reaching out to the most junior person for advice or input. The question that I have, Retief, is how did you, how I'm assuming there was relationships built, right? There was trust that was built. So this individual who had 18 years seniority on you in this position felt okay, you know, left, left his ego at the door, which we say a lot to say. You know what I'm going to call, you know, Chief Duvet here and see what, see what he thinks. Can you talk a little bit about how that's important? Regardless of, you know, where you're at in your career, reaching out to someone that's super junior to you is okay for advice because they might have information you don't have, they might have perspectives or lived experience that you don't have. And that helps us grow too. So can you talk about that and how that is, is necessary in all ranks, in all positions of leadership?
- [22:13]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yes, I think that that chief officer, the reason he would, was able as an, you know, veteran fire or battalion chief, excuse me, to reach out to a, you know probationary battalion chief is he, he had enough self confidence in himself and his abilities to know what he knew, know what he didn't know, and admit that to himself and be able to find out, find from other people what the best answer was. And it's interesting, if there are people that listen to this that know that individual, they would say, oh, he was egotistical, he was, you know, and that, you know, overly self confident. And I can't believe that he would have reached out to you because his public Persona was one of supreme confidence. But he knew well enough himself, well enough to be able to close that door and pick up the phone and call other people and ask them for help. And I think that comes from knowing yourself, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, having the self confidence, which, you know, what that did for me is it instilled in me that ability to know that, hey, here's somebody way more senior in the organization than me that he's telling me he doesn't know everything. I certainly don't know everything. It's okay to reach out and talk to other people. And one of the things that came of that, as a new battalion chief, if I had a company officer call me with a question and I didn't know the answer, I, I wasn't embarrassed to say, you know what, I'm not sure. Let me get back to you on that. And, and so that chief officer taught me to have the confidence, say, to admit that I don't know everything. And so I could tell a company officer, hey, standby, I'm not sure about that. I. Let me do a little research and I'll get back to you. And then what I did was pick up the phone and call those other two battalion chiefs and say, you know, hey, chief, I got this issue. Not sure, what do you think? Share me, share with me your perspective. And once I had some of that information and what I thought was a good answer, then I'd call that company officer back and, and then we'd talk through the issue.
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Berlin
It sounds like humility goes a long way. Sounds like self awareness goes a long way.
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Chief Stephen Dube
No question about the humility. Part of never stop learning in my mind is being humble enough to know that you don't know everything I mentioned. You know, in 39 years in the fire service, I am incredibly honored to have worn a uniform to work every day. I will never not be proud of being a firefighter. And I have told people I'll always say, proud to be csfd, right? Because that's where I spent the bulk of my career, but just knowing yourself and that you don't know. In 39 years, I had the opportunity to interact with people from all across the American fire service in a lot of different things that I've been involved with and learned from. People all over the time are all over the place. So I've met a lot of people in this fire service and some, you know, I could name drop lots of names, people that you've had on your podcast that I've had the opportunity to interact with in the fire service that are nationally known figures. And so I've met a lot of really experienced, smart people in the fire service, but I still haven't met anybody that knows everything there is to know about the fire service and.
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Berlin
Right.
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Chief Stephen Dube
And that's why I continue to keep learning about it. And they're continuing to keep learning about it. And you're learning by doing this podcast and sharing this information, having the humility to recognize I certainly don't know everything, never will know everything. Let's reach out to our network and learn from others. And there's so many other ways you can learn besides from people. Right? From books, conferences, TV shows, etc.
- [26:16]
Berlin
So with that, let's, let's continue with that further, because the theme being never stop learning and learn from everywhere. We talked about learning from, you know, some of our peers, we talked about learning from those that, you know, have a lot more experience than us, and also learning from those that, you know, are probably newer than us in our positions. Where else are we talking about learn from everywhere? What else does that include?
- [26:38]
Chief Stephen Dube
I mentioned higher education. Right. So I've been a bit of a nerd. I've collected a few degrees along the way, and that's clearly one way is to invest in yourself. Take the time to attend classes, seminars, conferences, go to college if you haven't been, and try to broaden your horizon from all those different areas. And it doesn't have to be necessarily fire service focused. Right, right. When I have had the opportunity to help people prepare for promotional exams and they say, well, I don't know if I'm ready for this. And I said, sure you are. You've been preparing for this your whole career. Remember when you were in the eighth grade and you were on the basketball team and something on your 8th grade basketball team prepared you for this position that you're trying to promote to. The challenge is for you to learn about yourself. What it was that you learned there that you can apply into the future. So it doesn't matter if, if you are, you have a leadership role at your church or you worked at a fast food place when you were in, in high school or college, or all of those lived experiences that you have had throughout your career and let's say somebody's trying to promote to become a company officer. All of those experiences have taught you things about being a company officer in the fire service. The challenge you have is to learn from those, find them, learn from them, apply them to your life and then be able to apply them to the role.
- [28:15]
Berlin
So I would lean on something real quick because you talked about, you were, you know, higher education. You mentioned a couple of times you just, you were a nerd about going to school. I was the same. I went and got these degrees. Some of them, you know, did it because I was know, fascinated about the, the topic at hand or the degree at hand. But I'm going to assume that maybe some of this higher education that you purs pursued, Chief, weren't necessarily a requirement to promote. Right. Some of this maybe was just because you wanted a higher education. It was maybe a goal of yours. You knew it would, you know, benefit you in your personal and professional life. But you talk about how seeking a higher education, even though it may not be a requirement in your career path to how that could still be very beneficial to you in, in your career.
- [29:00]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah, I think there's so many different ways that it can apply. If you're open minded enough and receptive enough to the learning. The act of, you know, going to a class and being told, read this well, you have to learn how to read. You have to, you know, if you have a lot of things that you have to read a number of different texts in a given time, you need to teach yourself what's the most efficient, effective way to read so that you can learn from it and then be able to apply it. That's one thing. Writing, it forces you to be a better writer. If you spend time writing a lot formal papers for class and for assignments, it's no different than starting an IV, right? Or throwing that 24 foot extension ladder by yourself. It's practice. You and you get better at those skills. So higher education teaches you how to read, how to write. And it sounds so elementary, right? But it's true. As an adult learner, I was becoming a better writer for having had the opportunity to go to graduate school where people are critiquing that work and say, no, you can, you know, here's how you can make that better. And then I would absolutely use that the Next day, when I was at work at the fire department, a big one from formal education in my mind is critical thinking skills. You know, learning how to learn, having people teach you how to think about problem solving and then applying that. Those are, you know, three things right off the bat. How to read, how to write, and then learning about critical thinking that I think higher education brings. And it doesn't matter what the, what the degree program is in. So many people, let me say it this way, so many firefighters I've met think they need to get a degree in fire service administration or public administration or something that applies directly to the fire service. And I'd say not. Not hardly. I think you have a advanced degree in finance, right?
- [31:11]
Berlin
I do.
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Chief Stephen Dube
Wow.
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Berlin
Didn't know you knew that.
- [31:13]
Chief Stephen Dube
So, yeah, so that if, if a second year firefighter said, really what, you know, why in the world do you have a degree in finance? What did that teach you about fire service? You'd have an answer for them. And, and it would, hopefully that person would learn from it. But every degree, or every degree that you could choose to go to, you can learn from that and apply it to the fire service. There's lessons to be learned everywhere that.
- [31:40]
Berlin
Are applicable to tag onto what you say, you know, you learn to read, you learn to write, you learn how to learn, you learn some other things that obviously not obviously. Some of the things that I think goes along with when you seek higher education is you're putting yourself out there to force yourself to learn, we'll say, but it also forces you how to do good research. It forces you how to have good communication. For example, your, your instructors will say it teaches you how to meet deadlines. And if you don't meet deadlines, you don't pass your class, you don't pass your class, you don't get the tuition reimbursement that the department promised you. So it just goes without saying. It's. And, but then you also, and it could be any subject topic, right? But then you now put a topic on top of that, that is, we'll say fire service related. Then you just, you exponentially, you know, increase how much benefit that you can gain from that experience. Another thing I want to lean on too, Chief, is you talked about the adult learner. You, and you mentioned learning how to learn. So let's just throw it out there. You know, when I got hired, and I only got hired 17 years ago, we weren't talking much about the adult learner. We weren't talking much about, you know, how the differences between how a 25 and 30 year old learns versus a, you know, high school or grade school student. But the, the way we teach sometimes in the fire service, whether it be the recruit academy, whether it be to company officers, we, we aren't teachers, right in the profession. We became firefighters and some of us had educational backgrounds in teaching or coaching or mentoring. Some of us didn't. But the adult learner is so important. So from a leadership standpoint, Chief, how important is it to recognize that adult learning is different? And it can be, but we must also recognize as leaders in the fire service that the people that come into the fire service today may be different than the ones that came in 20 and 30 years ago. And navigating the teaching and mentoring might be different. So is that important in your eyes? And if so, talk about that.
- [33:36]
Chief Stephen Dube
You're 100% correct. It's absolutely critical to recognize the differences in learning styles and how we learn as adults. But one of the unique things about fire service, of course, is we have a crew of firefighters that a 2 year, 26 year old person and the company officer is, you know, a 25 year vet, 50 years old. And, and we're trying to teach that brand new person that's 25, 26 years old all the way up to the more senior person and everything in between. And so those individuals have different experiences for, from their education and how they learn. Think of from when I started in the fire service 39 years ago, when you did 17 years ago, and that young man or woman that's starting today, the just the differences in technology alone and how we learn. So 17 years ago, when you started, did you see many people in the fire station listening to podcasts?
- [34:39]
Berlin
Not zero.
- [34:41]
Chief Stephen Dube
Zero. Exactly. So clearly when I started, we didn't do that. You know, and so evolving with the times, not only as a learner, but how we're presenting information to learners absolutely has to change. We got to keep up with those times. So as firefighters who are not educators, one of the things that we need to do is learn how to educate our people. What those, what that instructional methodology is and how we can apply it. When we're teaching our firefighters how to improve whatever skill or whatever topic we're talking about, evolving with the educational times, if you will, is very important. Technology has changed everything, but it's absolutely changed the way we learn as individuals, but it also has changed the way we present information to learners out there.
- [35:38]
Berlin
So a question I have, Chief, is how are we doing that in the fire service as these say technical technology waves or changes take place as new generations into the fire service. Us recognizing that there's these challenges, we'll say, and then the necessity to adopting the adult learning style, for example, like. Right. Like we'll use the recruit academy as an example. The recruit academy, historically known in the fire service, is you show up, you be quiet, you listen, and you just, you. You take orders and you go. We see recruits fail, but we're not. But sometimes we don't recognize that it's not due to lack of wanting to do the job, but it's just the lack of not learning in the same concepts that once worked 25 years ago. But our current instructors, for example, were never instructed, were never educated on making sure that they knew the adult learning theory and how to adapt and the. Your teaching style to meet the employee. We'll say, how. How are we navigating that as a fire service? Or I guess, how did you navigate that at Colorado Springs to ensure, like, we'll say, your training officers, your executive level chiefs were in the mindset of, we got a new wave of firefighters or generations coming in. Are we preparing our people currently to be able to then teach and mentor those coming in?
- [37:02]
Chief Stephen Dube
It's a great question, and it's one that I think the fire service is continuing to learn as, as an industry. Right. As a profession, how we can better educate people. And I want to, you know, ask you a question real quick. You said when a. When a recruit fails and they leave the academy. Right. Well, the first question we should be asking ourselves as adult educators is, did that recruit fail or did we fail that recruit? The way we instructed that person, was that the best thing for him or her and how they learn. So, you know, very simplistically, right. We, we say we have learners in three buckets. They're auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners, right?
- [37:46]
Berlin
Yes.
- [37:47]
Chief Stephen Dube
Well, the reality is we're all, we may have a preference in how we learn, but we use all three of those. But the key for the instructor is to get to know those recruits well enough to learn what their backgrounds were. How do they learn? How do they like to learn? What's their preferred method? Not that they get a pass and you know, oh, well, this person wants to learn visually. And so that's all we're going to do with them. They don't know. They're still going to have to listen and they're still going to have to put their hands on. And. But if we know that about them as adult learners, I think that's one of the most Important things as educators or you know, as a firefighter who's not an educator. But training others can keep in mind knowing your audience, getting to learn about those individuals and how they can best be successful. Or said another way, how can we as an organization put them in the best position for them to be successful individually?
- [38:49]
Berlin
I couldn't agree more. And I love how you went that route because you said it so simply in the sense that yeah, if someone fails, we won't even just use recruit, right. We'll just use an employee. If an employee fails, it could be at the academy, it could be at a promotional exam, it could be whatever who failed, did the person fail or did the person mentoring fail? Because as we talk about ownership, as we talk about training, like there's like, there's different levels of mentorship that could have taken place to help elevate someone, or it could have been, you know, self ownership that just didn't put enough work ethic in one thing. We talked about baseball earlier and I know March Madness from the, you know, deep of March Madness. And I'm sure Chief, you know, obviously John Wooden very well was John Wooden's, you haven't taught until they have learned. And so it was such a phenomenal concept because it's like, yeah, I can stand up here and teach. And it's not just at the end of my two hour lecture, you know, dust my hands off and okay, good job, good luck everybody. No, it's about all stand up here and teach. And it's if you didn't learn it, okay, I really didn't teach you anything. I gotta find a different methodology, I gotta find a different way to ensure you, you grasped the information, otherwise we all just wasted our time. Now with that being said, obviously, you know, an individual has to be able to learn as well, but just simply standing up, standing up in front of a class and lecturing doesn't mean you are effective at teaching.
- [40:16]
Chief Stephen Dube
That doesn't mean that transfer of knowledge has occurred.
- [40:18]
Berlin
There you go. That's what better said, doesn't mean transfer knowledge took place.
- [40:22]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah, so it's always questioning yourself, right? If, if I happen to be, and I had the, you know, great fortune in my career of being assigned to our training division as a lieutenant and I had the opportunity to be cadre for four different training academies for entry level firefighters. Right. Recruit academy. I had to learn how to teach those brand new firefighters how to, at the end of four, you know, 16, 18 week academy, how they could be effective. You know, 25% of that crew, they were one of four firefighters on that crew and they had to be prepared to contribute and do that. So as a member of the training cadre, I had to learn how am I going to teach them so that they can be effective at the other end. Right. And like I said, just because we stand up in the room and present the information doesn't mean that, that they all received it. And so you have to go back and you know, we do that through a variety of methods. Right. You give quizzes, you test, you absolutely do hands on skills to, to see if they've learned. But if they haven't, you know, again, first look in the mirror, what did I do or not do as an instructor that they're not getting this information and how can I continue to learn and evolve and grow as in this particular case that we've been speaking about lesson years as an instructor.
- [41:49]
Berlin
Was that challenging with the cadre? We'll say if you were, say your cadre was of 10 of you, but not everyone believed in that philosophy. Will say your philosophy of the adult learning concept about the adult learning theory or you know, if they aren't getting it, what am I doing wrong? Not every cadre member had that same philosophy. How challenging was that dynamic? Because some, we'll just say some are of the mindset and I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just different mindset of if they don't get it, they're not cut out for it. So there's obviously a, a challenge between even cadre members and teaching philosophy for those on your team. So how was that dynamic for you?
- [42:28]
Chief Stephen Dube
So it was something that we evolved and constantly iterated in the organization that I got to work for at Colorado Springs. So when I first went out to the training division as a lieutenant and was getting ready to, to teach, I honestly didn't get a lot of feedback about how to do that. Now I had, you know that, that ubiquitous fire instructor one class right. Where they provide basic EdMath. But as we evolved as an organization and our academies were becoming bigger, we had assigned training division staff, then we'd bring in people from operations on a temporary assignment.
- [43:08]
Berlin
Yep.
- [43:08]
Chief Stephen Dube
To work in the academy for four months and then go back to their operations assignment. But again, being purposeful, learning, being intentional about it, we got to the point where when those new cadre would come in for that short term assignment to help educate new firefighters, we would give them some basic, you know, educational methodology or instructional methodology techniques and background, you know, and spend a day with the cadre just Talking about those things, how they're going to teach, what the expectations of the organization were about. You know, we're not hazing, we're not putting people down. Now they have. Yes, they have to learn and they have to perform. But we're not. We're trying to be more purposeful about not being negative about, again, setting people up for success.
- [43:58]
Berlin
So there's a more or less train the trainer, train the instructor portion.
- [44:03]
Chief Stephen Dube
Absolutely.
- [44:04]
Berlin
And it's not just you show up this day. All right, you're our next instructor.
- [44:07]
Chief Stephen Dube
All right. Right.
- [44:08]
Berlin
Go teach hydrants now.
- [44:09]
Chief Stephen Dube
It's exactly right.
- [44:10]
Berlin
Yeah. And let's. So is at Colorado Springs like a professional development path in terms of like you. You get into this new role, say you're a new lieutenant, new company officer. The new company officers obviously is going to be in charge of training themselves and their crew. Right. They're responsible for their crew level training. But not all company officers are created equal in terms of being effective instructors. As we talked about. How did. How was there any kind of program or curriculum in place at Colorado Springs that. That taught people how to be good, effective instructors?
- [44:43]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yes. And the. The answer would be it's something that continued to evolve and that it's evolving in that organization today. Yes. There was a. We call them, you know, we had policies and procedures manual, some people call them, you know, standard operating procedures or operating guidelines or something. But we did have a policy that outlined career paths for people. Right. What they had to do to prepare to move up in the organization. Then there was an officer development academy for people that wanted to become an acting officer. They had to go through that education. Well, part of that education they would get is, you know, how to teach and train and talk to one another. You know, those soft skills.
- [45:25]
Berlin
Yes.
- [45:26]
Chief Stephen Dube
That we talk about. Sure. There was operational and tactical education that went along to being a company officer and doing incident command and all of that. But also part of that acting officer academy was what we just talked about. And then after, you know, and all this. This didn't happen overnight. Right. It evolves over time. Then people would get promoted for a while. We would take them off the line and for two weeks teach them about their new role. And they would spend time in each of the different divisions within the fire department. And so the training division is one of them. And they'd get a little bit more about EdMath. But part of promoting through, you know, the preparatory steps to take before you promote it was, for example, completing the fire instructor one class. So they were all getting that, you know, as they progressed through the ranks, as they were moving up the take people, promote them, take them off the line and have them spend time in each division. That's pretty costly. When it was a budgetary issue that would ebb and flow, other times we weren't able to. But then it evolved more into, you know, task books. And now there's a task book for lieutenant, captain, battalion chief all the way up. And part of what's in that task book is how do you teach and present information to people? So it, you know, it didn't just fall out of the sky. It was something that evolved in the organization over a long period of time that different people in the organization thought about it. And how can we get better at this? How can we improve? And where Colorado Springs Fire Department is today isn't where they're going to be five years from now. They're going to continue to evolve that and make it better.
- [47:07]
Berlin
Yeah. Even talked about intentionality earlier, right? There's intention behind what you're talking about, whether it be taking people off the line for a week or two, a task book, go get instructor one, instructor two, even, or, you know, none. None of these are solo the best, but they're all pieces that will only increase or improve your chances that success will say, right, you take all of them out, okay, that's. That's the worst thing you could do. You add one, okay? It's better than nothing. You add two, okay, that's. You're getting better. So a variety, but also a number of things. Just like go out and taking classes, right? You go out and take 10 classes, you're going to be 10 classes better than you were without taking 10 classes. And so. So, Chief, going back just a little bit, we were talking about, you know, instruction, instructors, if you will. We're talking about training. But you mentioned a very important concept that I want to highlight. You mentioned you look in the mirror as instructors. You know, you find out what's effective, you find out what works, you find out what doesn't work, at least I'd hope. And if something isn't working, hopefully many of us fire service leaders take the time to reflect but also look in the mirror. So can you talk about that? Right? Because not everyone wants to look in the mirror, right? Not everyone necessarily takes time to say, you know, what. What am I doing wrong? Or what can I do better? Right? Right, wrong or indifferent. And I know that there's also a story about this regarding, you know, your selection and the meeting with the mayor. So if you might talk a little bit about that.
- [48:33]
Chief Stephen Dube
You bet. So I think, Berlin, part of the, the human condition is when we receive bad news or something doesn't go our way. Whether we didn't get that promotion or, you know, in the context of new firefighters in an entry level training academy, you know, if, if I were to have failed out my natural, I think the human condition, the natural reaction is to look outwardly and blame others. Well, it was the instructor didn't do a good job or, you know, I didn't do well on that promotional exam because those darn assessors from out of state don't know me well enough and they didn't rate me high enough. And so we tend to look outwardly. But I think it's very important as individuals, especially individuals that are interested in lifelong learning, is to turn that lens around, if you will, or look in the mirror. The concept of looking in the mirror first and saying, you know, well, maybe I wasn't successful at that promotional exam. It wasn't those, it wasn't anybody else, it was me. I, I have to own that. And if I look in the mirror and I can identify what, you know, where, what my shortcomings were, maybe that will help me learn and grow into the future. And when we were talking prior to the recording this podcast, I mentioned a story about that. When I was a deputy chief in the Colorado Springs Fire Department, I had been a deputy chief for five or six years, so I felt pretty well established in my role. And we had a mayor who had been in office for about 18 months, an individual that was very well known throughout the state of Colorado and certainly the Colorado Springs area. By the time he became our mayor, well established professional who I had met prior to him becoming our mayor, and then obviously when he became the mayor in my role as deputy chief, I interacted with him quite frequently. So somebody that I had a lot of respect for. Well, about 18 months into his first term, he was making a change at the fire chief position within our organization. And the other deputy chief and I knew that that was coming and we wanted to be prepared. We wanted to make sure that the mayor knew that we weren't just being reactive to what was coming down the pike. We were being proactive and we made plans. So between the two of us, the other deputy chief was, we wanted to have him become the acting fire chief. We identified an acting deputy chief and an acting battalion chief, kind of that, you know, down the line. And we were all prepared with a plan for when the mayor made the Change with fire chief position. And so, sure enough, one afternoon, the telephone rings, and the message to me is, hey, be to the fire, or, excuse me, be to the mayor's office in 15 minutes. Oh, great. Okay. And so I talked to the other deputy chief on the cell phone and find out he received the same telephone call. So off we go, and the two of us meet at the mayor's office, and we're sitting in the lobby waiting, and the mayor comes down the hall, and he says to my counterpart, hey, come back to my office. And Steve, you sit right there. Oh, okay. Well, I'll wait, Mayor. No problem. So about 10, 15 minutes later, the two of them, the mayor and the other deputy chief, my counterpart, they come walking back out of the mayor's office to the lobby, and the mayor says to my counterpart, okay, you have a seat and wait, Steve. You come back and talk with me. So I go back into the mayor's office, and he says, well, hey, Steve, I want you to know that, you know, I selected the other deputy chief, your counterpart, to be the acting fire chief. And so because I'm not very bright, I'm thinking, hey, this is great. He's walking right into our trap. Not really our trap, but he's. He's helping us implement our plan, and he hasn't even really heard it, to my knowledge. Maybe they talked about it 10 minutes ago, but. But I'm thinking, oh, that's great. And so that's what I say, right? Gosh, Mayor, that's fantastic. You've made an excellent choice. I think he'll be an outstanding interim fire chief, and I hope he applies for that job. And, hey, thank you very much. And I kind of start to stand up and get out of my chair to leave his office. And he said, steve, have a seat. And. Oh, yes, Mayor, sure. So I sit back down and. And he said, well, I wanted to tell you why you're not going to be the interim fire chief. And again, I'm not very bright, Right. So I go, oh, Mayor, you don't owe me that. That's fine. I'm very happy for. For him. He said, no, I want you to hear this. And so he proceeds to tell me that I'm not going to be the interim fire chief because I'm not very well liked or very well respected in the organization. Well, wow, did that come out of left field? Right. Like I mentioned, I'd been in the deputy chief's role for five or six years and pretty comfortable and thought I was doing an okay job. Not Great. But, you know, I'm managing. Okay. So, long story short, we had a really good 10 or 15 minute conversation about that perspective that he shared with me. Again, not at all what I expected to hear when I went to the mayor's office that day, but it was, it became very interesting. And to turn it back to the kind of the discussion of learning from everywhere and turning that mirror around, looking at yourself in the mirror, I could have blown that off and said, you know, the mayor doesn't know what he's talking about. I have no idea who he talked to to get that information. But it. Because part of the reason is because it was somebody that I really had a lot of respect for personally and professionally and just an outstanding leader in his own right. I went back and I looked in the mirror for Landon, said, okay, why did the mayor tell me this? What can I do about that to change that? So by looking in the mirror and not trying to place the blame or not trying to blow it off, I was able to learn from that experience. And like I said, a very good conversation that I had with him about kind of where he got his details and, and why it absolutely influenced the last, you know, eight years or so of my career. And I, without question, made changes in how I approach my job. And I tried to be better, especially at how I communicated with people, people I tried to build on making better relationships. But the bottom line is I tried to learn from that feedback that was unexpected but was very good feedback. Because, you know the cliche feedback is a gift. Right. And what you do with that gift is up to you and your attitude and how you approach it. So I took that unexpected information that could have been very negative, and I looked in the mirror and tried to learn from that and then apply it to the remainder of my career. And frankly, to this day, Right. I've been retired for about a year now. Obviously that story had an impact on me because I'm talking about it some 10 years later and almost 10 years later. And I still try to do that in my interactions with people. Today, as I mentioned at the open, I'm at that phase in my life where I'm trying to give back to others. And so I still want my interactions with others and how I learn to. I want to have that opportunity and keep applying those things as a lifelong learner.
- [56:32]
Berlin
That's, that's such a great story. And it just goes without saying because, yeah, like you said, many people could have just said, ah, I don't know what he's talking about like that. It's just one opinion. Right. But then the flip side is, like what you said is you looked at it as well, why did the mayor think of that? Like, what was it? I want to know why. And I'm going to reflect that. I'm just going to go ahead and say and assume here, Chief, that due to that unexpected feedback, we'll say that helped you get to see continued success for the next eight years of your career, like you said, right?
- [57:08]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah, I hope so. You know, one of the interesting things about leadership is I could talk all day long about what kind of a leader I am and my leadership philosophy and how I apply leadership in my work and day to day life, but that opinion of myself isn't necessarily how I'm viewed or how I'm seen by other people. Right. So if you wanted to know really what kind of a leader Steve is, you need to go back and talk to people in the Colorado Springs Fire Department or at the National Fire Academy, on the Board of visitors or, you know, fire departments I've interacted with. When I'm out doing accreditation site visits, they will be the ones to tell you whether or not I'm a good leader, a bad leader. I have a sense of how I interact with people and things like that. And all of those opportunities to learn are there for us if we take them and not, you know, put a hand up and stop that and say, well, they don't know what they're talking about. You know, like again or again, like we have discuss. Sometimes looking in the mirror and seeing what I'm doing rather than casting blame is. Can be incredibly educational.
- [58:21]
Berlin
Absolutely. Well, just goes with the entire theme today. Look in the mirror, learn from everywhere. I mean, it goes with it. Chief, let's talk about the pivot, because I know you went from three years at Casper, you went to 36 years to Colorado Springs. This may be a big pivot in your career. I know people that shift fire departments, maybe ranks, maybe leaving the, the bargaining unit into, you know, into management. But everyone usually has some kind of situation, assignment, we'll say, that really propelled their career. Would you mind sharing something? What's called a pivot, something that kind of took place in your career that kind of set you on path to say, you know what it was because of this that kind of helped me to where, you know, I got my career.
- [59:04]
Chief Stephen Dube
The thing that comes to mind that really forced me to think differently and to learn and evolve was at the time, the city's emergency management function was part of the fire department. So the fire chief was the fire chief and the designated emergency manager for the community. So embedded within the fire department was at the time called the Office of Emergency Management. And so I'm mid career, right? I had finished my first master's degree and I still work in operations as a captain in a fire station and loving life, right? Running calls and had a great crew and life was great. And unfortunately, I had to have knee surgery, so I had a knee arthroscopy. And I'm on light duty at the headquarters building. And I'm also on the battalion chief's promotional list. So the fire chief comes up to me one day in my little light duty cubicle, right? And he said, hey, walk down to my office. I got to. I want to talk to you for a minute. So I get down there, he says, hey, I'd like to promote you to battalion chief and assign you to the Office of Emergency Management. What do you think? Well, when I picked my chin up off the floor, right, like I said, chief, Office of Emergency, I go, you want me to go to oem? Yeah. He said, that's all I know about. I don't even know how to spell oem. What, what do we do? I'm a firefighter, right? I don't know anything about that. So he smiled, very wise, experienced man who I learned a lot from. And he just kind of smiled and said, well, think about it, talk to your wife. Because it was going to mean going from, you know, shift work to days. And that opportunity evolved over about a month. And eventually the bottom line is I was promoted to battalion chief and immediately assigned to be the director of the Office of Emergency Management. So now every day I'm not wearing a uniform, I'm putting a suit and tie on and going to work. And I was having to learn the job while I was doing the job of emergency management. Well, I don't want this to your listeners to think that I'm minimizing the fire service, right? But what that, how that forced me to pivot is it took my lens from being very narrowly focused on fire operations, you know, responding on calls, you know, being the best firefighter and best emergency medical provider that I could be. And it opened up that aperture from, you know, we'll say about 10 degrees to probably about 190 degrees. And it forced me to recognize, hey, yeah, we're going out and we're doing our thing as a fire department, but there's a lot of other folks that are involved in this. Most of the Time, law enforcement's there, maybe the private ambulance service, because we didn't have our own transportation, the people where we would take patients to the hospital, all those different agencies were very important to how successful the fire department was. But as firefighters, we didn't necessarily pay attention to that. We didn't recognize it doesn't make us bad people. It just meant that we weren't opening up our view of the world to recognize that. So the pivot was I was forced into interacting with every department within the city of Colorado Springs, with the majority of the departments in El Paso County, Colorado, with the state of Colorado, with fema, with hospitals, schools, all these different areas of the community that were out there that we interacted with every day. But we just didn't think about it that much. And that really broadened my horizons about what it means to be an emergency provider, to help make a community safe. And I learned that fire department is not the only agency in town that's trying to help make citizens safe and to have a thriving community. So it just really opened up my perspective.
- [63:18]
Berlin
It kind of goes without saying that you grew in your own skill set. We'll say you learned a whole lot from in a division that, first of all, that you didn't really aspire to go to. It added so much perspective that you said, as you mentioned in your career, it helped pivot you and propelled your career in a position that you were voluntold more or less to do, to double down on that. Have you ever seen an individual that was in the same similar situation as you, where they were voluntold to go to a position, one that they probably didn't aspire to go to, that didn't take away so much at the end of it, to the point where they were like, you know what? I learned nothing from that. Meaning, I guess where I'm going with that is I would like to assume that everyone that gets put in a position that they were uncomfortable going to came out of it growing a tremendous amount and always said, you know what? It was not as bad as I thought. And. Or I'm so glad I did it, I wouldn't have taken it back.
- [64:19]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah, I think that there's lots of people in the fire service that, especially when you're asked to do something that's outside your comfort zone. Right. You mentioned being voluntold. So, you know, maybe you get come down to the boss's office and they say, hey, now you're going to be assigned from where you're at today to a different role Tomorrow. And they weren't expecting it, they weren't prepared for it. It may be a change in schedule. And in the fire service where we often hear about this is going from operations to a staff job. Right. Because of the schedule change. And every one of us, if we admit it, we got hired so we could ride on the fire engine and go out and help people in the community. Well, when you go into a staff job and you're getting off that fire engine, that's very different. I would submit that you're still helping the community. You're just doing it in a different way because like for example, in training, you're helping to educate our firefighters who then can use that new knowledge to go out and apply it in the community and serve the community. So you're still doing it. It's just a little bit of a different perspective. But sure, you would see people in probably every fire department in the country that this, where this happens, that somebody goes to an assignment and they don't want to be there and so they try to make life miserable. They, you know, try to become close, might kind of cross their arms and don't, you know, try not to learn something. But the fact of the matter is, as human beings, whether they admit it or not, they are learning and they're growing and they're taking experiences away from that that they're not maybe admitting to themselves that they gain and then they go back out into operations and they perform better, even if they were resistant to it. But you know, on your podcast you've talked to leaders that talked about creating a culture where it's good to go into those staff jobs and people were lining up to fill those jobs because they know it's creating opportunity for. That's a cultural thing. And I would submit that that ebbs and flows throughout organizations depending on what the needs of the organization is, who the leaders, I should say what the needs of the organization are, who the leader is currently and what emphasis he or she puts on those other positions and things like that. It'll vary over the lifetime of a career. Hopefully though, whether they want it to be there or not, people go into different opportunities throughout their career, open minded and learning from those things and at the end being better for it.
- [66:57]
Berlin
I take it that you read books, Chief? Obviously love to read. Love, yeah. Higher education and books. What are some of your favorite books as a. As you would recommend to. To our listeners?
- [67:09]
Chief Stephen Dube
I'll take you to back to John Wooden. Right? So there. John Wooden. There's a number of books about by him and about him, biographies about how he coached. And one of the things you mentioned that you haven't taught anything until they've learned it, that is attributed to Coach Wooden. One of the other famous things that he has, and, and I don't remember the specific book because I've read two or three about Coach Wooden. One of them was that, you know, in the first days of practice he would teach their basketball players, especially the incoming freshmen and sophomores, because back in his day, freshmen couldn't play, you know, varsity basketball at college. But, and you probably have read this, if you've done anything with Coach Wooden, he would teach them how to put on their socks and how to tie their shoes.
- [68:01]
Berlin
That's right, yep.
- [68:03]
Chief Stephen Dube
You know, and these, we're talking about 18, 19, 20 year old kids who they've been playing basketball since they were in elementary school. Right. And the first thing he does is teach them those basics.
- [68:15]
Berlin
Yes.
- [68:16]
Chief Stephen Dube
And so when we talk about reading books, and not necessarily reading books in and of the fire service, but for example, a biography on Coach Wooden and one of the things he did with brand new freshman basketball players would teach them how to put their shoes and socks on and tie their shoes to be able to be prepared to play basketball. Well, how can we apply that to the fire service? If I take out basketball coach and put fire coach in and I take out freshmen and I put in trainee, I'm teaching them the very basics about how to put their PPE on. Right. This is a structural firefighting booth. These are structural firefighting pants. And you start from the very beginning. So again, learning all the time, learning from everywhere. That's an example of how you can read something that has nothing to do with the fire service, but apply it to the fire service. And again, my challenge to your listeners is to participate in, read about, do things outside the fire service and be open minded enough to think, how can I apply this to my profession as a firefighter, as a company officer, as a chief officer? And so I tend to read a lot of nonfiction and a lot of biographies and a lot of history. And when I would read biographies, it's okay, what did this leader in their profession, what did they do? And how can it be applied to the fire service? And we may have to massage it a little bit. It may not be a one for one relationship, may have to evolve their thinking to how it could fit in the fire service. Because we're a unique bunch of folks. Right? We are, but that's the, the challenge about reading and then applying and so one of my favorite books that I think can be directly applied to the fire service is by Doris Kearns Goodwin. And it's A Team of Rivals. Right. And that book is about Abraham Lincoln and what he went through and what he experienced on the campaign trail in the 1800s. Right. The mid-1800s. We think now because of recency bias, that this is the worst politics that have ever happened in America. Well, I don't know, maybe the people in the mid-1800s when they were going towards a civil war, there probably wasn't a lot of friendly dialogue between those two camps. Right, right. And so what at the time candidate Lincoln went through on the campaign trail and he knew that there were people that opposed his point of view. Then when he became president, he was establishing his cabinet. The very simple story is he chose people from the other political parties of the day and people that were his rivals and that he debated against and made them part of his cabinet so that he created this notion of having different perspectives all around the table so that when he made good or made decisions, he would had been learning and was able to hear about different perspectives and then apply them to do what was best for the country. Well, I think when we talk about being a company officer and having a crew of people, we're not all like minded in that crew of three or four firefighters. Right. Or you know, the command staff of the group of chief, all the battalion chiefs and the assistant chiefs and deputy chiefs. However the organization structured, we're all very different people and how can we learn from one another and make better decisions for our organization even though we're all different people? And I think that very simplistically is what you get out of a book like A Team of Rivals that Goodwin wrote about President Lincoln.
- [72:10]
Berlin
Yeah, well, let's, let's stay there for a minute because Team of Rivals is a great example of what can be accomplished if you bring in perspectives onto a team that are different than yours. Different strengths, different skill sets, different perspectives and knowledge. But let's talk about how sometimes we don't do that in the fire service. Meaning how many times have we went to a crew and I want to go to that crew because we think alike and we're the same, or I want this person to come work with me because we're into the same things. Not saying that's a bad thing, but or, or we'll even use the, we'll say like a cadre of instructors, like, oh, we, we don't bring in that instructor, they think differently or they're not on the same, we'll say, quote, unquote page as us, but we just talked about like things that can get accomplished at the grand scale if you do welcome people that don't think like you. Right. And how powerful that can be. So skipping ahead of that and I'll just talk about your teams chief, you at the executive level. Did you find yourself establishing teams at the executive level that thought differently, that had different points of view on, on topics on divisions and the way you operated like a team of rivals, because you knew that although you didn't see things the same, you knew by different perspectives, even people on the different side of things like team of rivals, how you can come together and accomplish a whole lot if you did welcome those teams. Sure.
- [73:40]
Chief Stephen Dube
I think that the human part of the human condition is you want to surround yourself with like minded people. Right. So we're, we're going to, you know, beat the word to death. Right. But as a leader or somebody that's building a team, you have to seek out different opinions. What tends to happen depending on who the fire chief is and who he or she wants to promote around them? They tend to have people that are like minded. Right. So again, you have to be very thoughtful about making sure that we're not just going down the same path because we all think the same way. And so, you know, the term of course is groupthink and we want to avoid that. And so again, we have to be thoughtful or purposeful about not letting group think enter into the conversation when you're trying to make decisions, whether that is at around the kitchen table at the company level or whether it's around the conference room table at the headquarters building. Both of those dynamics can fall victim to groupthink and not challenging one another. And so I think as leaders, it's important for us to create an environment around us where you can speak truth to power, you can question one another, you can throw the what if out there. Now the caveat to that is you don't do it disrespectfully or rudely or attack the messenger, that's clearly not going to be effective. Right. But if in a very respectful manner you ask questions of one another and challenge one another and say, have you thought about this? But you do it in a professional manner, I, I think that can be very effective. And, but again, it's easy to say you have to be thoughtful about it, you have to do it on purpose. Right. You have to be intentional about. That's easy to say. It's Much harder in practice.
- [75:51]
Berlin
Absolutely.
- [75:51]
Chief Stephen Dube
Sometimes people's feelings get hurt or sometimes leaders and let me back up and even take that the word leader out. Sometimes people make up their mind and they're not going to hear whatever somebody else has to say. That could happen around the kitchen table with the crew. Right. You could have a three year firefighter and it doesn't matter what the 12 year captain is telling them, that firefighter is going to bow their neck. And, you know, you're not changing my mind about it. So it's not just. It happens everywhere within our organizations. And, you know, the sooner we learn about that and can address it and think through it and work through it, the better we all become as an organization. And then ultimately that means we're going to serve our community better.
- [76:37]
Berlin
Well said there, Chief.
- [76:38]
Chief Stephen Dube
You know, you've heard people talk about the. If the environment in the, inside the fire station or inside the fire department as a whole, you know, isn't a good environment from an interpersonal standpoint, it's not going to be a good environment out in the community, isn't it?
- [76:56]
Berlin
Right.
- [76:57]
Chief Stephen Dube
So if you have a crew that is dysfunctional in the confines of their fire station, when they go out in the community, there's no switch that's going to flip and all of a sudden they're going to be, you know, customer service driven and respectful to the community. No, they're not. And it's up to the leadership, whether it be at the company officer level to recognize that or the battalion chief or above them to make sure that we create that culture for people to be successful, positive and go out in the community and do good things. That starts with doing good things to each other inside the organization. Absolutely.
- [77:31]
Berlin
Get your, get your own house in line before, you know, because people see it. How about action items, Chief? If you were talking to, let's say, young firefighters today, we've talked a lot about, you know, learning from everywhere. We talked about never stop learning. We talked about, you know, building a diverse team. We talked about, you know, staying away from groupthink and a whole lot of other things regarding this concept about just continuous learning. What would you suggest to new firefighters and how to accomplish that?
- [78:03]
Chief Stephen Dube
Couple of thoughts, Berlin, and thank you for the questions. It's been such a wonderful experience today. But for firefighters younger, especially those that want to are thinking about moving up in their career, I think be open minded and keep your eyes and ears open. Be a sponge, take in as much information as you can. Learn about the right way to do things. But look at those wrong ways of doing things as well and learn from those. That being open to learning throughout your career starts when you're a brand new firefighter, right? And one of the professors that I had in grad school at the Naval Postgraduate School, he said that you're applying for a job. And so he's talking to, you know, mid late career professionals at that in that program. And he said you're applying for a job every day of your life, you just don't know it. And what he meant by that is that people are watching you. So as a new young firefighter, you need to do good work, right? Work for a fire chief who had a great saying for new firefighters. I want you to perform and I want you to behave right. It's pretty simple and do your job and follow the rules kind of thing. But while you're doing those things as a new firefighter, observe the people around you. Be open minded to change and to evolving how you do things. Maybe what you learn in the academy, you can learn even better once you're out in the field. Right? You can learn more efficient ways of doing things with your experience. But continue to keep an open mind, keep your eyes and ears open and be willing to try new things. I think that's probably the general action item for those younger firefighters who are moving up.
- [79:56]
Berlin
How about emerging leaders? So this could be, you know, leaders that are new in their roles. It could be new company officers, new training officers, new mentors. But those that are kind of up and coming, emerging in their new roles, if you will, what would you suggest to that group to continue their, their growth and the concept of got to keep learning?
- [80:16]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yep. Well, a couple of thoughts. You know, take advantage of the opportunities that are presented before you. And I recently wrote something for the Colorado Springs Fire Department's training magazine and said, don't expect the organization to provide you all the training, all the education, all the opportunities that are out there. You may have to invest in yourself. So as a new leader, try to get out there to some of those conferences, challenge yourself to learn new ways of doing business. But learning and growing in that role as a supervisor, most importantly as a new supervisor, I think for that new company officer is to have in mind what you've learned throughout your career up to that point. Write it down and set expectations for your crew. Early on in my career, I heard somebody say, oh, you know, as a company officer, I'm going to go into a new crew and I'm going to kind of sit back and observe and see how I'm going to fit into that crew. And I thought, well, that's kind of weird. As the leader, don't that seems kind of backwards to me. And so as I learned and grew as a new young leader, I took those things that I had learned from others and what expectations I wanted to have happen, and I wrote them down. And then the very first day, when I would walk into a station with the new crew, we'd have a crew meeting, you know, before, as soon as, you know, we had a routine, check the trucks, then you cleaned up the house, and then you sit down and have a crew meeting. So that first day, as soon as we finished up with, you know, all those things to get the day going, sit down at the crew meeting, I say, hi, I'm Steve. Here's how I'm going to do business. Here are my expectations. And then we'd have conversations about those expectations. And then I said, I'll talk to each of you individually about them, and there's room to grow and flex all that. But this is how I like to do business. And you can imagine most of those things were around primarily safety. You know, how we're going to operate on emergency scenes to keep ourselves safe, to make sure that everybody goes home at the end of the shift. But after that, then over the next couple, three shifts, I would sit down individually with each person and say, okay, here. Remember this list of expectations we talked about? How do you feel about that? What feedback do you have for me? What can you live with? What can't you live with? And we'd talk through those things and learn and grow. Then after that, as a new leader, once you set expectations, it's holding people accountable. So the interesting thing about accountability is everybody that I ever met in the fire service wanted accountability for someone else. Not necessarily for them, but for. Well, we need to hold them accountable. Who are they? You know, they are us. They are we. We need to hold ourselves accountable. So once you set those expectations, then hold people accountable. That's the hard part. And learning about those soft skills and learning about having courageous conversations, learning about giving good feedback, that's where that new supervisor needs to spend their personal development so that they can be effective as a company officer.
- [83:36]
Berlin
Yeah. So how about chief officers? What can chief officers do to make sure they have that mindset of continuous learning and learn from everywhere?
- [83:47]
Chief Stephen Dube
You bet. One of the interesting things that I've observed in my career, and I experienced it in our organization, is as we are moving up through the organization and we're Learning and growing. And as we're having opportunities for training, the organizations typically require that. Right. You have company training that you're responsible for going to, or sometimes individual training, for example, your EMS continuing education hours. But then once you hit that chief officer rank, sometimes fire departments don't require their chief officers to attend training. And so I would offer that. Don't stop learning just because you've reached the position of chief officer. There's still learning to be had and take advantage of those opportunities. Attend training with the crews that you supervise. Like, especially at the battalion officer, assistant chief level. It's important as chief officers that we stay up with what they're teaching. For example, new firefighters in the training academy. Because as an old guy, how I was taught to do things may be very different than what is being taught today. So I just need to keep up on that and keep fresh. But also, I think my advice for chief officers would be continue to learn. But also, when you're interacting with people, know that regardless of whether you're saying anything or not, you're always being watched. Right. So what you say, what you do, how you behave, you're modeling the behavior every minute of every day when you're at work. And frankly, in my opinion, you're being watched off duty as well for your conduct off duty and how you represent the organization when you're not in the uniform. Right. But one of the most important things, I think, especially from the relationship standpoint, is words matter. And so be very thoughtful and careful about the words that you use and how you use them around people. And these are things that I learned from mistakes that I made. You know, sometimes you say something and before it's even out all the way out of your mouth, you're trying to grab those words back with your hands and put them back.
- [86:07]
Berlin
Yeah.
- [86:07]
Chief Stephen Dube
And you, oh, well, that's just part of being a human and make a mistake. But for chief officers, those opportunities are constant, if you will, to have influence. And if you aren't careful in how you deliver those messages, sometimes they can be perceived very negatively.
- [86:26]
Berlin
I'll add to it, not just, you know, chief officers, but as leaders in general, and even, you know, at my level, at the company officer level is you said something very important, which was everybody's always watching. Model behavior. Watch what you say and words matter. And it's also watch what you're not saying and watch what you're not doing, because.
- [86:44]
Chief Stephen Dube
I couldn't agree more.
- [86:45]
Berlin
Yeah, leading is what are you doing, but then what are you not doing that you should be doing to lead us.
- [86:51]
Chief Stephen Dube
And so that's right.
- [86:52]
Berlin
I love it.
- [86:53]
Chief Stephen Dube
You know, I had a boss one time who did a thing called start, stop, and Continue. And so he gives us this card and he said, hey, write down the things that I'm not doing as your boss, as your leader that you want me to start doing. Then write down the things that I'm doing that you don't think are effective you want me to stop doing. And then write down the things that I'm doing that you think are good, and if you want me to continue doing them. So stop, start, continue. And that was such an impactful event. I ended up using that when I was a chief officer with the company officers that I supervised as a battalion chief. And when I was doing annual evaluations, I would use a version of that when I was having one on one conversations about performance at the end of the year. You know, just little things like that that you pick up from people are so impactful.
- [87:49]
Berlin
Start, stop, continue. For listeners and for myself. I love that piece.
- [87:53]
Chief Stephen Dube
Right.
- [87:54]
Berlin
Well, we're here, Chief, because of the leadership challenge you mentioned. John Payne, Chief Payne out of Bremerton, Washington. Challenge, dude, today you heard me say earlier, it's. I'm still humbled each and every episode that members or guests will come on and challenge someone else and say, you know what? Got to have this person's perspective because they will add value to the fire service and the listener base. So is there someone else out there, Chief, that you would like to formally challenge to help us further the conversation on the kitchen table?
- [88:25]
Chief Stephen Dube
You bet, and thank you for the question. I would like to submit the leadership challenge to Fire Chief Matt Love of the St. Cloud, Minnesota Fire Department. And we talked as we were preparing for the podcast Berlin, about Chief Love a little bit in the context of mentorship. Right. And so Chief Love is one of my mentors and one of my favorite leaders. And when we work together, well, he's probably at least 15 years younger than me, maybe closer to 20 years younger than me, but he became a chief officer in his late 20s, early 30s, and he found that he loved the leadership aspect and the administrative side of the fire service. And early on in his career, he became a chief officer. He's way more successful than I would ever dream of being as a chief officer. And yet he's 20 years younger than me, and I still learn from him every time we talk. And I'll give you an example of Chief Love as a fairly new fire chief and creating, like, a tagline for the first fire department that he's chief of, and it's such a different way of thinking that I would never have thought of their phrase was a community centered people organization. Wow.
- [89:58]
Berlin
Wow.
- [89:59]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah. Think about that. We are people organizations in the fire department. We're all about people and all about relationships, and those things are so critical. And he. He made it part of their mission. Right. It's a community centered people department. And I thought that was fabulous. And it is. So he has. He's been chief officer in three different states. He's won awards as the. In Florida as a. The chief officer of the year and the. The county that he worked in. He's taught at the United States Air Force Academy's National Character Leadership Symposium. Just an incredible person, and he's very, very focused on his people. And I think he would be a great addition to your podcast and for your listeners.
- [90:53]
Berlin
That's awesome. There's. Well, there's no doubt about it. And thank you so much for, for helping us continue the challenge on the show. But before I close off that question, I want to lean on something real quick. Chief, you said one of your mentors is 20 years younger than you. That's a phenomenal. That's phenomenal. I know sometimes, oftentimes not saying this is wrong or right, it just is. Mentors are usually, you know, as people that are older than us, people that have experienced things way before us, people that are just, you know, I've just seen more life career than us, but that's not necessarily always the case. Right. I have a mentor, two of them actually, within my department that I reach out to all the time for advice. Both of them are a little younger than me, and both of them are, you know, less time in the fire service than me. The overall theme today was learn from everywhere, and I think you closed it off right there with a bow on everything, saying that one of your mentors, the person, the one person that you could have challenged, of all the leaders and people, you know, you chose some of those 20 years younger than you. So I think that is awesome and it goes without saying, but can you talk about and close to put this bow on the top of everything, that, yes, mentorship and leadership can come from anywhere, Even someone way younger than you.
- [92:04]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yes, it can. I think that's the notion of you can learn from wherever you are in life. Everything around you is providing you leadership opportunity. And mentors. Well, there are people that have been mentors to me that I have never talked to. They have no idea. They're My mentor, but because I followed what they, you know, read their book or heard them on a podcast. I mean, they've taught me something and mentor me. That makes me go back and think to. And I think if you're willing to learn, willing to have an open mind, it doesn't matter whether somebody's older than you or younger than you or has more time on the job or less time on the job for you if you want to, you can learn from everywhere and never stop learning. Make this career a lifelong learning opportunity and use information and that education from all around you and especially from people below you in the organization. Right. We talked about earlier in the podcast how technology has changed. Well, you know, when I. There were no, believe it or not, when I got hired into the fire service in 1985, there was no computers in any fire station. I can remember when one of our firefighters who was young like me, he went and bought one of the first, like Apple little desktop computers and brought it and set it in the fire station, you know, and we would all go look at it and point at it and stare at it and what is that thing? And what. Well, gosh, now look at us. How we're able to do podcasts with you in Washington state and me in Wyoming, and then share this with people across the country and how that's evolved. All that is learning from everywhere, being open minded, taking as much as you can in to better yourself, which will hopefully better the organization, better others around you, and serve our community to the best of our ability.
- [94:04]
Berlin
That's awesome. Oh, thank you so much, Chief. Appreciate that. I'll reach out to you and to gather Chief Love's information to see if he'd be willing. And I think he did talk to him ahead of time and he's already accepted the leadership challenge so that we'll reach out. So before we close today, Chief, I do want to say just thank you so much for taking the time, hour and 20 minutes out of your day to help us spread the conversation on leadership. But before we do close, I would like to say, do you have any lasting leadership thoughts you'd like to leave our listeners with before we close?
- [94:36]
Chief Stephen Dube
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I would say this, I mentioned it towards the end, and that is the importance of relationships in our world. And this is something that I was not good at. I am inherently normally very introverted. And so as a young person, young firefighter, I absolutely did not understand the value of relationships. I was not good at them. I didn't know how to establish them. And that impacted me as I promoted in my career, not in a good way. And I wasn't good at speaking with people and talking with them. And maybe I was a little too rude or too arrogant. But the bottom line is relationships matter. They're incredibly important. How you communicate with people is incredibly impactful. Words matter. So pick your words carefully and work on developing relationships throughout your career. Even while you're learning about your career, keep working on relationships as much as you can. So being intentional about learning, being intentional about relationships are things that I think will serve people well as they move through their careers in this incredible career we call the fire service. I think it's a great day to be a firefighter. And like I said, I will forever be honored to have put on a uniform and say that I was a firefighter in the communities that I worked in. So I'm also incredibly thankful to you for the opportunity today. Very humbled and blessed, and hope that your listeners found something that they can use in the future.
- [96:19]
Berlin
Absolutely. No, thank you. And I think you said it very well. It is always a good day to be a firefighter. And thank you for taking the time to help reiterate that and share your thoughts today. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable. We hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.