← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 85: Adrian Sheppard, Fire Chief - Succession Planning & Strategy
01:01:22
Loading summary
Transcript114 lines
- [00:02]
A
What we want to do as far as far as building that capacity for our people, we want to give them responsibilities very early on and we don't mind if they're successful or if they fail, but we want to put them in a fail safe environment, okay? Grow and develop, okay? Build those competencies and by the time that you do get into a position, you've been there before, but you've been there and attested environment and in a safe environment building. The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from.
- [00:49]
B
Perspectives around the globe.
- [00:50]
A
From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to CEOs, our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.
- [01:07]
B
Good afternoon and welcome to the 85th episode of the Kitchen Table. Today we're back in my hometown in the east side of Washington as we welcome Fire Chief Adrian shepherd to the show. And today's conversation is focused on succession planning and strategy. Preparing fire service leaders for executive level. Adrian shepherd is a distinguished fire Chief with over 29 years of experience in fire safety, emergency response, and community leadership. A former commissioned officer in the U.S. air Force, Chief shepherd holds advanced degrees in human resources, security studies, and disaster management, alongside specialized training from institutions such as the Naval Postgraduate School. Currently serving as the Fire Chief of the city of Redmond, he leads efforts to protect over $40 billion in property, including major tech firms like Microsoft and Amazon. Known for his strategic planning, operational efficiency, and commitment to collaboration, Chief shepherd is dedicated to building safer, more resilient communities while fostering strong relationships with both his team and regional partners. Good afternoon, Chief. How are you?
- [02:12]
A
Good afternoon, sir. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [02:16]
B
This is good. It's a pleasure to have you on board today. Well, beautiful day, obviously, out here in the Pacific northwest. Another rainy, 45, 50 degree day, but just another day out here in the Pacific Northwest. How are things going out your way?
- [02:27]
A
It's fantastic. As you said, it's another Pacific Northwest day. A little bit of water outside, but we have that to thank for all the greenery that we have throughout the year. So just loving it. Every day is a good day for me.
- [02:38]
B
Yeah, it's awesome. I love to hear it. Well, today we're going to talk about obviously, leadership, but specifically succession planning and strategy, but more for executive level, but obviously all levels. But before we get into that conversation, I want you to share a little bit about Chief shepherd and then we'll just dive in.
- [02:54]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so a little bit about me, my background. I'll just start with Family first, you know, got a wonderful family, got a partner, and I've got two beautiful daughters. They're young adults now. My oldest daughter just recently graduated from West Point and off doing her thing, so really happy about that. And my youngest daughter is down in San Jose getting ready to graduate and go off and become news correspondent. So pretty excited about that as well. As far as, as you mentioned, I've been in the fire service just under three decades and started my career in the city of Oakland. Didn't grow up with an interest in being a firefighter or anything like that. It purely by a happenstance that I was standing on a street corner in San Francisco and a gentleman pulled up in a car and he was out recruiting and he pulled over and asked me if I were interested in a career in the fire service. We ended up having lunch. I took San Francisco's test at the same time I took Oakland's, and because I lived in Oakland at the time, I decided to take the Oakland job. So it started a career.
- [04:09]
B
Well, question on that before we dive into the main topic today. You mentioned recruiting. So recruiting is something that we don't necessarily think about when we talk about the fire service being that there's so many candidates that apply, but not necessarily an overabundance of positions available. How important is recruiting in the fire service in terms of bringing in the individuals that aren't just the fit, we'll say for the fire service. But that will obviously help us expand, you know, the scope of the fire service, the people that we're hiring expand upon the, you know, the diversity that we have in our communities in our fire service. So as you mentioned, recruiting, talk a little bit about why recruiting and, you know, diversifying the workforce might be super important.
- [04:53]
A
Absolutely. And that's a great question. I think that today's fire service, the modern fire service, is more agile, more able to adapt to the needs of the community nowadays. And I think that we got a little bit more intelligent about how we're going out there and getting people. So when we talk about recruiting, what we're talking about is talent acquisition. And that talent acquisition is when you look internal to your organization and you look at some of the deficiencies that you may have, you actually turn around, look outward and start recruiting people in to your organization that can fill those gaps. We know that we have to be more responsive to our community's needs and the more diverse our communities become, especially here in the Pacific Northwest where it's just becoming more diverse than ever. We have so many first generation people coming into this area, we have to be able to be agile to that and reflex by having people with language skills, more people from diverse backgrounds. So it's no longer the prototypical firefighter. And the prototypical firefighter possibly could be defined as a white male in his mid-30s or something like that. But now more than ever, we've recognized that expanded need to have to open that aperture, if you will, and get a more diverse workforce that is future ready for the people who are coming into our communities and so we can better serve them.
- [06:25]
B
Future ready. I think you said something so interesting there or key said future ready because sometimes we're always thinking in the now what's best for us right now. But we should obviously be thinking about what's going to be the best for this community, this department, our communities of the future. What has the city of Redmond done, out of curiosity, that helps bridge that gap in those deficiencies, if you will, to help broaden or diversify your workforce to know that you and your fire department are able to serve your communities better?
- [06:55]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And that diversity goes across various dimensions, if you will. You know, it's not just, it's just not ethnicity, you know, it's not just gender, cultural fluency and understanding, as I said, you know, you can, you can find those deficiencies that you have in your organization and look outward and recruit people in. But one of the first things that you need to do is do a climate assessment of your organization and then try and build in that fluency within your organization. Oftentimes I've seen where we've done recruiting and brought people in and we thought that we were doing the right thing. We were trying to bring a diverse work group in and I'll just say more women into the fire service, but it's been a male dominated culture all this time and we didn't build in that capacity within our organization to receive people appropriately. And that led to issues. And so what we wanted to do here in Redmond is make sure that we built that cultural fluency and understanding, prepare our current workforce for the new workforce that is coming in. So we do that kind of simultaneously. We're always doing that outreach, always looking to get good talent to come in. But the same that we have going around here in the Rev and fire department is that we just don't want to put good seeds in bad soil. And so we're trying to make sure that we put that nutrients into our people, give them that understanding, that growth, and then plant those seeds for the next Generation of this workforce.
- [08:26]
B
Climate assessment, I've never even heard that term before, but obviously it goes without saying. Right. No matter who you hire or who you bring to the organization, it's like if your organization is not ready, you might not be accomplishing the goal in which we're trying to accomplish. You said there may be issues and it sounds like you address those issues. But climate assessment, I think that's something that every organization in any industry can. Can benefit from, if you will.
- [08:51]
A
Absolutely.
- [08:51]
B
Well, right. Going right into this now, as we talk about going into the future, talk about future ready building the workforce for the future communities that we serve, let's talk about succession planning and strategy. So I'm just going to lob it out there, Chief, and give you the floor and talk about what's the importance of succession planning and strategy in the fire service, specifically when we talk about upcoming leaders.
- [09:11]
A
So I'll give you a different answer than most people will give you about succession planning.
- [09:15]
B
Perfect.
- [09:16]
A
Succession planning is not about an individual and it's not about a person. Succession planning is about the organization. And at a tie into some of the things that I said previously, you have to make sure that you look into your organization. Fired services are built on these competencies. We build people up throughout their careers. You look into your organization and you find that talent within your organization and you really want to try and start cultivating those people for the next iteration and the next phase of their careers. First and foremost, they have to express a desire. But again, it's not about the individual, it is about the organization. I'm doing succession for the organization. So you may have a desire to be the next fire chief and I may have a desire for you to be the next fire chief too. But I also have that desire for 10 other people as well. And I'm going to try and navigate you and have you touched all these different competencies to get you ready for occupying this seat. And so it really requires somebody, a leader who takes a genuine interest in people, a leader who understands people, who understands how to grow people and develop people and always tie it back to what is the mission, what is the vision, what are the goals of the organization? Do you have this value set that we're looking for? Do you have the temperament? Can, can you comport yourself appropriately? These are all things that we're looking for. Because end of day, just like your organization, my organization, we're all a brand. And we've got to make sure that we are getting people who can brand this organization appropriately. And so Part of that succession is making sure that they're the successor to the brand and can make sure that they carry that brand forward, the organizational brand. So it's not just the individual, it's the department you mentioned.
- [11:12]
B
Find that talent. You talk about cultivating people and succession for the organization. When does that begin? So, for example, you, or let's say your executive chiefs, you know, the individual on your team, when are you seeking those people out? Like, for example, are you waiting until they're chief officers and then you're saying, okay, are you now, look, what's your next step? Or are you even looking down to the fire firefighters and company officers and, you know, finding out, you know, their end goals, kind of what their aspirations are and start building them up, even though they're, we'll just say someone that's 27 years old, six years in the fire service, but, you know, they have the leadership capabilities, capacity to work ethic and all that. Are you even looking down that far to start developing them that early?
- [11:55]
A
Yeah, great question. I'm looking at them before they're wearing our uniform. Part of that recruitment process, the outreach that we do, we just went through a whole interview process, and one of the things that I said to one of my chiefs is that person right there is going to be the person that we send down to Olympia to represent us with all the legislature. That's how far I'm reaching. I make it more than certain. Even before you come into the organization, you talked about fit. Are you a good fit to the organization? Are you filling a blind spot that we have? Yeah, we need somebody who maybe has a political arm. I can use you. Okay. Because it's not about just dragging hoes, you know, it's something that we do so little nowadays. So what are all the other things that we need to do to preserve what it is our profession is? And so I'm looking very early in people's careers. I'm looking to see what's important to them. And this is really how you socialize with your people. I think that as a leader, you need to be approachable, you need to be visible. Right. And so going down, talking to people, sitting at the beanery table, something like that, having a conversation with them, finding out what's important, hey, guess what? That's kind of important to me. Can I give you some roles and responsibilities and see how you do? I think you may have heard something I said previously, but what we want to do as far as building that capacity for our people, we want to give them Responsibilities very early on. And we don't mind if they're successful or if they fail, but we want to put them in a fail safe environment. Okay, grow and develop. Okay, Build those competencies. And by the time that you do get into a position, you've been there before, but you've been there in a test environment and in a safe environment.
- [13:46]
B
That's very inspiring because what you said was give responsibilities to individuals early on so they can grow and develop. So when we talk about firefighters, specifically firefighters across, you know, the American Fire Service, we have the responsibilities of doing the skills that you mentioned, pulling hose, throwing ladders. We're doing these skills and we are rarely, unless we're taking an administrative position, I will say the training division or something, you know, a day shift spot, working, you know, four tens or whatever it may be. Other than going to those spots, the most of us are, are showing up to work and we don't have those extra responsibilities. We can grow and develop. We show up to work, we respond to calls, we go to training. So not everyone has the opportunity to develop and get ready for positions like what you're saying to then succession plan up to become say a chief officer or fire chief maybe one day. So how does you say go out and have conversations, which is absolutely necessary. You got to get down there and ask what their people are doing because assuming what someone might want to do might not be sufficient. So how are some ways that individuals are gaining these responsibilities and opportunities early? Say a 25, 28 year old who you say the organization has identified that this person is probably going to do a lot of things for us in the years to come. But if they're sitting in the firefighter in the jump seat, how are you able to bring stuff out of them when they're riding in the jump seat?
- [15:10]
A
Let me answer that a couple of ways. We're making that contact with them again, socializing with them, making more than certain that we have an understanding of each other. Not only do I know them, they know who I am. The administrative functions of a fire department are always going to be understaffed. Your admin is never going to be as big as your operations. We operate with a, in the Redmond Fire Department, we have a lot of SOGs, standard operating guidelines. And for me, I, I draw a distinction between what a guideline is and what a policy is. So SOP versus an SOG. And I look at SOGs as something that's operational. And so one of the things that I do is I, I want to reach out to the people who are on the streets. That's where the answers are, in the streets. Here are some SOGs. Why don't you rewrite these, send them back to us. We'll clean up the language, don't worry about all that, all the conventions and stuff, but send it back to us. Because you know better than I about operational functions. Now, I could do all the other SOP and administrative functions, but I need you right now, and they should understand that I actually need them. I need you right now, and I need you as the subject matter expert. And so I really try to have that outreach and make sure that it's important to them. I also answer this way. When I got here, when I arrived here in 2021, one of the things that we were doing is we were rewriting our. Our strategic plan. And part of that was to come up with mission, vision, values and goals of the organization. Now here I am, I'm coming from outside of Washington into this organization. They already have a culture in this organization. They already have their own institutional knowledge, right? And here comes this outsider. Is it appropriate for me to sit in a room at an admin and try and come up with the mission, vision, values, goals, or even is it appropriate for my senior staff who's already had a full career? So one of the things that we did was we pushed all of this down. Mission, vision, values and goals. Young members, firefighters of the organization at the company level, come up with the mission, vision, values and goals. And it was twofold purpose for that. First and foremost, I wanted to engage you, and I wanted you to define what it is, but I also wanted you to live it. And every single time you see the mission, vision, values and goals, you own it. You say, those are mine. I said I wanted to do that. Those I identify with that, and they're going to live that for some time. And so that's how you engage them very early on. You'll see who rises to the top, you know, so, yeah, that's. That's part of it, you know, getting engaging people very early on at all levels of the organization.
- [18:09]
B
Yeah. Does it. Out of curiosity, does it. Do you find challenges when we'll say fire chief comes up or the, you know, senior staff, you know, reaches out to young members of the organization, say firefighters that have this, we'll say innate talent or someone that expressed their capacity, if you will, or desire to maybe be a fire chief one day, an individual that might be 28, 30, 32 years old, only been in the organization a few years that senior staff reaches out to and gives special assignments or opportunities, if you will. And some of the other members who've been there 10, 15, 20 years are like, well, you know, how about me? Why are you reaching out to those that are younger than me? How does that. How does that dynamic or how does that go?
- [18:47]
A
Yeah, so it doesn't go like that. We have assignments for everyone. There's plenty of work to go around.
- [18:52]
B
Yes, there is. There always is.
- [18:53]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So we're never done, and we've got plenty of assignments for everyone. And. And I'm very fortunate that I'm in an organization where people at all levels of the organization want to be contributors to our success. And so. And that's my take on it. We need to be partners in progress at every level of the organization. So, yeah, come forward. You know, I've got something for you. And I appreciate your inputs.
- [19:18]
B
Partners in progress. I like that. I hadn't heard it termed that way before. Here's a unique question for you, Chief, because, you know, you might know this about me. I'm huge into sports. I love, you know, watching sports. I'm a spectator of it. I love, you know, the intricacies of strategy, recruiting, playbooks and stuff like that. Is it wrong, if you will, for an individual to just say, someone that's new to aspire outwardly and say, you know, one day I do want to be chief officer, one day I want to be a fire chief, but they've only been in the organization two years, five years, or. Because, you know, the cultural. It's almost like, you see at times where it's like, hold on, junior, you know, you know, put in your time, you know, and, you know, because one thing that I heard, Russell Wilson, you know, people, the listeners here, Stephen Northwest, know, I'm talking about his. His motto, if you will, was you got to be delusional. And what he's meant by that is you gotta. You gotta think that you can be the fire chief. You gotta think that you can win a Super bowl and be the mvp. Yeah, you might be a rookie, but if you're not thinking that you can be that good, like, what are you doing? You just. Are you aspiring to just be mediocre or average? So at what time or level is it okay to. How young you are to. To think that, yeah, one day I can be a fire chief. Yeah, one day I can be a captain, One day I can be the union president. Even if you're only 22 years old. So does that question make sense? Is it okay for an individual to have those high aspirations?
- [20:42]
A
Absolutely.
- [20:42]
B
Young. Yeah.
- [20:43]
A
I think you have to have audacity. Right. You know, a young kid doesn't say, hey, I want to play peewee football. They say, I want to be in the NFL.
- [20:56]
B
Right, right, right.
- [20:57]
A
And then there's graduated steps. Right?
- [20:59]
B
Yeah.
- [20:59]
A
Well, these are the steps to that, and we have to recognize that. I think that oftentimes we find in the fire service that we try to limit people.
- [21:06]
B
Yep.
- [21:07]
A
Right. And then we form this opinion about them. Exactly. That's not who it is. I am. I. I like that audacity. One of the funny things that I have a. One of my mentors is Rahman Ali Muhammad. He was a fire captain in the Oakland Fire Department, and he helped shape and develop me throughout my career. And he often remarks on how I was the only person who made battalion chief and applied for chief of the Oakland Fire Department the very next day. Yeah, I have that audacity. I think I can do it. And I think that. I think you have to have that. You have to have that level of confidence in yourself, and you, being an athlete, would know that. I put the ball in my hand, coach. Right.
- [21:52]
B
Absolutely.
- [21:53]
A
Put it in my hand, and I want all my people to have that same thought. I also think they need to have this thought, too, because the ball can go only into one person's hand. But you need to be a team player, and if it didn't go into your hand, then you support the other person, whether you be their lead blocker.
- [22:09]
B
Yep.
- [22:09]
A
Right.
- [22:10]
B
Yeah.
- [22:10]
A
All right. Whatever it is, you're going to do that for that person, because you have to. And this is not the right terminology, but hopefully it fits here, but it'll fit elsewhere when we speak. You have to be. Learn how to be a good loser, too. At times, I have to stand tall. You know, five people wanted a position. One person got it. You stand tall, and you know that you were in a group of very competitive people, and you support the person who gets it.
- [22:36]
B
Absolutely. That's. That's a great way to put it. Right. Because, you know, adversity challenges. Right. We all go through them. It's, you know, like you said, it's a team game, and, you know, you got to support the next person. No one wants a sore loser, if you want, you know, putting it that way.
- [22:48]
A
But.
- [22:49]
B
But like I said, stand tall always, and your time's coming. Right. I mean, I always believe that just because you didn't get an assignment or promotion or whatever, it's not the end of you right, there's, there's another one coming.
- [23:00]
A
There's another one coming. And there are a lot of departments. It doesn't always have to be inside your department. I was never the chief of the Oakland Fire Department.
- [23:08]
B
You go.
- [23:08]
A
So there you go.
- [23:09]
B
I love it. I love it. So let's talk now about preparing for executive level, because I'm going to go ahead and call it chief and I wanted to see your thoughts on this. Within fire departments across the fire service, sometimes there's a, what do you call it, like cultural, if you will, or a lack of, we'll say individuals stopping at certain levels, whether it be at captain, whether it be at battalion chief, individuals not wanting to leave the union to go into an administrative role. So talk about that dynamic. But also how do we get people to recognize that stepping up into an administrative role one day is okay? How do we prepare people to start thinking that way and preparing that way, that way. It's not just, you know, toward the end of your career, you're like, okay, I guess I'll go to that spot. I'm going to retire in a couple years. But it's okay to also have executive level officers in their 40s, in their 30s even. So they could be a part of the organization over the long term for 10, 15 years. And not just, you know, okay, now I'm the fire chief, but I really only got a couple years left. So talk about that dynamic and then how do we encourage people to secession plan all the way up?
- [24:12]
A
Yeah, well, you know, New York City just elected a 34 year old mayor. John F. Kennedy was a very young president, you know, so I don't necessarily need to put an age on it.
- [24:27]
B
Right.
- [24:27]
A
And I also think that people, people find their station within the fire service. And by station, I mean their capacity, not an actual fire station, but they find their station where they're comfortable. Some people are very comfortable at being an apparatus operator and that's fine. You're probably going to be the very best apparatus operator there's ever been. So I want you to be where you feel you need to be. I also think there's the, there is something that, you know, there's the Peter principle too. You could get beyond your scope and your abilities and just because you were hungry, but you didn't build that capacity into that, that hunger and desire. I have a deputy chief who's probably one of the most effective deputy chiefs I've ever seen in my life. Didn't come through the fire service, has no background in the fire Service whatsoever. You wouldn't know it by having a conversation with her. She's that good and she's able to hold space with people. But again, that's that going out there, finding that talent. Okay, so people should, at any level, we should be able to put people at any level into a position that they feel that they can actually perform. And then for the people who are going to make that transition, there is a, there is a wide gap between being at the company level. Once you start getting into the, the middle management level, the battalion chief level, you start to think a little bit differently. You see things differently, but you're still thinking tactically. But once you get to that deputy chief level and to the fire chief or assistant chief level, that is a different brain. That is no longer your tactical brain. It's not the same job. And that's why you can recruit somebody who's never been in the fire service to do these roles. And there are people who are going to listen to this and think differently. But I can tell you the metacognitive versus the cognitive. Cognitive is tactical. You see something, see fire, put it out. And you know all the things to put that fire out. You know, when you arrive. I don't have time to think about all this different strategy. What I have time to think about is tactically, I need to make a rescue. Tactically, I need to make sure that I don't. This fire doesn't communicate to the buildings adjacent to it. Tactically, I need to put this fire out. It's very clear line of sight for them. That's not what you do at the executive level, this new brain that you're using and you can build this capacity. That's when I talk about that competency based viral curriculum and giving people jobs early on and allowing them to fail. Yeah. So you can think differently because this part of the brain is the metacognitive brain. These are the known unknowns. Okay. These are the things where, when I said you had that clear line of sight, you don't have the clear line of sight now. Now you have to have the ability to see around corners. Okay? You have to be able to make assumptions about the future. So where I frame it, I frame it from the, at the company level and thinking in seconds and minutes. And that's very important, very important. You've got to think in seconds, get stuff done. And this fire needs to be out in minutes. Well, at the executive level, you can't think in seconds and minutes. You've got to think in years and in decades to build a firehouse. And how do we get that money for that firehouse and apparatus and how do we get money for apparatus? And that's a thing, 15 year purchase on that apparatus. All those different things, building an organization, those are long range plans and that takes a different brain. And so there's a world of difference between the two. And so anyone who aspires to be a fire chief or deputy chief or an assistant chief, you working at that executive level, I would say start to train your brain for the long range thinking. Think differently about problems because oftentimes I see the conflict between the executive level and the company level. And anecdotally I'll tell you this, and this actually happened to me and I had a good mentor and chief Mark Hoffman of the Oakland Fire Department. And we'd have these large meetings up at the fire admin and I had the poor behavior of saying, why don't we just do this, why don't we just do that, why don't we just do. And I think Chief Hoffman had had his full, his fill of me saying, why don't we just. And I can recall him looking down this long table of all these chief officers and he says, adrian, if it were just so simple, don't you think we would have already done it? And that's where there's that disconnect. It is far more complex at the executive level for all the long range planning. And you're doing this for the membership, remember, you know, when it's not just when you, let's say you build a firehouse, a lot of people think of the envelope of the building. They think, four walls good to go, you got a new firehouse built. No, there's a DEI component to it, you know, but group, you know, it's a mixed gendered workforce. It's people who identify whatever way nowadays. And you have to think about that, you have to think about reducing your liability, you have to think about health, you have to think about all these different things. You have to think about your standard of COVID and where are our sleeping quarters in accordance with where our apparatus are. Right? Because you build it too far away now. You extended your response time. So all these different things, you have to think about all of that and it has to go into a standard recovery. People say, oh well, you can just put a firehouse right here because you have a plot of land. Doesn't work like that.
- [30:50]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, think differently is what you said. Adaptive thinking is kind of what I heard there too, right? Not for these Technical solutions that just do this. I love how you phrase that, too, because a lot of times we do say that. Right. Like we do. Right. I'm guilty of it. Why don't we just do this? And that will fix that? Well, it rarely if ever will solve the problem at, you know, at the systems thinking level, because it's never like you said, if it was that easy, like someone else would have thought of that way before what you just said. So it's. Yeah.
- [31:19]
A
There's a second, third, fourth order effect of every decision.
- [31:22]
B
Yeah.
- [31:23]
A
And you have to really think about that critically.
- [31:25]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, one thing that you mentioned, which I haven't heard in a while, which I'm glad you went down this path. You talked about the Peter principle. And so the Peter principle, as. As obviously as you know, it's for the listeners, is like, we, we. We do so well in our positions, but we promote up until we're no longer competent. But this happens in the fire service, meaning I'm not saying that we promote incompetent people, but where I'm going with it is we will be really, really good at our job as firefighters. Right. We're really good at the hard skills. At the task level, we become very, very good, especially if we've been doing it for 5, 10, 15 years. But then we promote individuals that were good at fighting fire. We promote them into roles where they're not fighting the fire, they're managing the people and supervising and leading the people who fight the fire. But we didn't promote them because they had the skills to manage and lead. We promoted them because they were really, really good at being firefighters. So there's a gap, if you will. And I'm going to say there's a wrong gap, but it's a gap that it's present and we know it, but we don't address it always. And what I mean by that is, as you know, Chief, in the Executive Leadership Academy at the University of Washington, we address some of these things on the project that my group worked on was officer development. And when we polled everybody, it was. We changed it. We're like, we don't need officer development. We want leader development to develop people. And one thing that was globally recognized that was lacking was what we just said is our officers needed and wanted leadership developments because they knew they were already good at fighting fire. They. They were. They were going to be able to get promoted and say, hey, I can help you fight this fire, but my job isn't necessarily to help you fight this fire, is to help lead you, motivate you, inspire you, make sure, you know, you know, we're able to manage conflict in our firehouse. So where I'm going with this, Chief, is there's a gap between, you know, as we go up in the ranks, we aren't getting necessarily developed in the capacities that we know we should be. How do we get there?
- [33:18]
A
Yeah, well, I think you have to build that capacity. And again, going back and recognizing people who are talented very early on and growing, develop, cultivating that, you know, you. You want to align them as best possible for the next position. You're absolutely right. And then I don't know how much of a gap there is, but there is that there is a gap where we tend to say, you know, Adrian Shepard was really good as an engineer and for the listen and listening audience. He really was. But. But does that make him good as a company officer? And if we haven't provided training for how to be a good leader, how to work at the company level, you know, how to manage your crew, how to manage your day, all these different things that go into just at the crew level, you know, if we haven't given you that, but you were really good at being an engineer and getting people there. Well, one doesn't define the other. Right, right. And so you have to build that in, and then you validate that. Right. You validate that through a testing process. And through that testing process, you get good candidates, but that doesn't mean that that person is going to be successful. So then you give them the expectations. I think one of the things that often hear is, how do you. How do you evaluate people? How do you evaluate, oh, what's their appraisal? What's their appraisal? And I never hear anyone say, did you give them the expectation first? Right. It's usually a year later that you get an appraisal. And this is the first time hearing that you were graded me on this.
- [35:02]
B
Right.
- [35:03]
A
So every single time you get a position, promotion, something like that, or you move horizontally into a new role, what are the expectations for that role? What are you going to grade me against? And so giving people those expectations, I think that helps prevent people Peter and out.
- [35:25]
B
Okay.
- [35:26]
A
Because they have realistic expectations. We kind of built that in. We baked that into the whole process to get you there.
- [35:32]
B
Yeah.
- [35:34]
A
What I see is at the fire chief level, and. And I could say, because I'm a fire chief, no one's ever asked me to, you know, to demonstrate that I can do an expel Excel spreadsheet. You know, no one's ever asked that. I can, but no one ever asks that. No one's ever asked anything administratively. You know, they just say, oh, you have all your certifications, your ICS 400 and 300 and you know, whatever certification, and none of that. You're leaving all of that behind because that is a role that you work through people to get done. Your job is to build this organization. And that is a totally different task than what people have done at the company level. And so, yeah, people will fail if we don't actually test appropriately and place people appropriately.
- [36:32]
B
Well, you just made me think of something. And what if we did that? Let's, I mean, obviously this is a big leap here, what I'm about to say, but I just want to run down that path. If we know that an individual, let's say a company officer, we'll just use that level for the example. One thing that we want them to be able to do, have the capability of doing is helping build the organization, whatever that looks like. We could define it any way we want, but we say that that's what we want them to be able to do once they get to the company officer level. What if we built that into our. We'll say, whether it be a development process or a promotional process, where, yes, obviously we need to focus on strategy and tactics, right. Command and control and all that stuff. But we say we're going to give you the knowledge, skills and abilities. We're going to put you through a one week class and then we're going to test you upon promotion, your ability to build, quote, unquote, the organization. What does that look like? Like, I think that in it of itself would help prepare our individuals from petering out because you've, you've tested them on their ability or capacity to build the organization versus, hey, this is our traditional testing process. Go through a tactical scenario, go through an interview and boom, you know, make it to a candidate list and then get promoted if there's enough positions.
- [37:42]
A
And, and there's another component. Right. U. S. Leaders have a responsibility to mentor your people. Right. Hey, you're, you're a new lieutenant. How sweet is it if your battalion chief comes and speaks to you who previously held that, that position?
- [37:58]
B
Yeah.
- [37:59]
A
And I can share with you that when I was a brand new lieutenant, I made a pretty egregious mistake and could have gotten in a lot of trouble for it. It was a fire and I canceled the assignment thinking the fire was out at children's hospital. And it was actually a Working fire. And the battalion chief came off the freeway and reassigned everybody. I knew he was upset with me, and. And he says, I'll talk to you when we get to the firehouse. And there's a couple different ways that could have gone. Right. But he came in there and he knew this was a growth opportunity for this young lieutenant. And he took me into the officer's room, and he talked, and he talked for probably two hours straight. I didn't say a word. And he told me about all the things that were so simple that get people killed. And he had been on the Mills College fire, which was a fire they had in Oakland at Mills College. It was a vegetation fire. End up killing three firefighters. Not a big fire. And he said it was a simple fire that got three people killed. And I just listened to him. And he asked me at the end of that, he says, is there anything that you want to say? I said, no, I just want to listen. I want to grow. I want to learn. That was an opportunity. He could have written me up. I don't know if I would have learned anything from getting written up. I would have just had a sour taste in my mouth. But the fact that he sat down and developed me more, I carry that forward. And I think differently because of that moment that he shared. That is the simple things. And so you can do that at any level of the organization, for any function in the organization, you know, whether people are running lights, whatever it is, you know, slow it down, son. And I can tell you why.
- [39:50]
B
Hosting a conversation, you know. Yeah, yeah. That can really inspire. It doesn't always have to be pen to paper, but, I mean, it could. But it could also be something as simple as, here, let me sit you down. Let's chat for a little bit. And hopefully you take away, you know, a few things from this conversation moving forward. And obviously, I think that was far more powerful. That's. I was going to say this is probably, what, a couple. Two decades ago, maybe that just took place for you. Here we are talking about it. Yeah.
- [40:16]
A
23 years ago.
- [40:17]
B
23 years ago. Wow. That's.
- [40:19]
A
Wow.
- [40:20]
B
What challenges do you see regarding fire service leadership in the near future, and how do we address that challenge?
- [40:28]
A
Yeah, so we're moving at a rapid pace right now. You'll hear a lot of people say the challenges that we have are recruitment. Yeah, that's a challenge. And we've talked about that already. I think that challenges in retention. This generation doesn't necessarily get a job and stay for 30 years any longer. They move on to new things. So that's a challenge. But I think one of the biggest challenges that we have is really adopt and adapting to technology. And technology is coming at us at a rapid pace. You know, us living up here in the Pacific Northwest, in particular in the east side, we're in a tech heavy environment. And so it's very easy for us to reach out and get somebody. I had a gentleman come over from Microsoft recently to help build out some tools for me. But you know, that's the biggest challenge for departments. What technology are we going to use? You know, using data to tell a story is a big challenge for people. What are our predictive analytics that we use? Right. And validating that? I think those are big challenges because if you haven't been tech savvy and you find yourself in that sweet spot period of time where your generation wasn't tech savvy, but the situation requires that you're going to be challenged. And if you're not tech savvy and it goes undone, then the entire organization hurts. Part of my role when I got here, part of the mission given to me by the mayor was to make sure that you had a master plan, a strategic plan, a functional plan. Those had to be done. And so we set about doing it. And we've yielded so much from that. And not to be disparaging on anyone who's worked in this role before me, had this seat before I did, they didn't get it done. But we had firehouses that needed maintenance, but they were never on the CIP because people didn't use data to tell a story about that great need. And so I think the biggest challenge for leadership nowadays and for the fire service is to the reliance on data and quite possibly the over reliance. Because what I don't want, I think data and I think technology in and of itself amplifies the decision making process, but it doesn't replace judgment. And I think that you have to still be a person who's able to make a judgment call, but use all these tools, have that reach back capability to look at the data that's being presented to you. What's that reporting tool saying? And can you validate that for yourself?
- [43:29]
B
Yeah, well, so you talked about technology. Now me being a millennial, I embrace technology. I grew up with technology and technologies is easy for me, but obviously I recognize that it's not for everybody. So change is hard, right? Fire service, what's the saying? Firefighters hate change, but they also hate the way things are. So change is difficult, but technology is Here. And it's coming. It's not going away. It's moving at a more rapid pace than ever before. So regarding change. Chief. And talk to emerging leaders, younger, older, older generation, newer generation, whatever it may be. Changes is always going to be hard. But what's some advice that you would give to firefighters to be able to embrace change because change is necessary.
- [44:10]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I think first and foremost, having that understanding that it is necessary, that we can't stagnate. Right. And know that you were a part of the change when you were brought into the organization, you were changed. And so you have to make sure that that is perpetual. And so. But embrace that, you know, and it's good. It's just like stretching. It hurts a little bit.
- [44:37]
B
Yes.
- [44:38]
A
And you have to stretch, and you have to stretch your mind, that plasticity, to make more than certain that you can grow and develop. But change is inevitable.
- [44:50]
B
The.
- [44:50]
A
We're constantly evolving. That's part of the maturation process. You know, if I just look back, I look back at our organizations and, you know, it's always funny, I walk inside and this is an oversimplification, of course, but I walk inside the beanery and I see people eating salads, you know, and there's a protein drink there or something like that. And you don't see sodas anymore, punch. There's not tubs of ice cream anymore. It's not all this fried food. We've constantly evolved as an organization. We wanted to be healthier and better. That same type of change means that our people, our people have changed, and that's an indicator that they do things differently. They're going to do the job differently. And all of them have a device in their hand, and that's part of change. So they've got information readily available. There's sometimes when I want to talk to some of my people, I can text them. I have all my people's phones in my phone, their numbers. And it's just change. It's more rapid, the pace of which things happen now. It's instantaneous.
- [45:57]
B
Right.
- [45:58]
A
We have information at our fingertips now, so that you have to exist in that environment as well, where information is readily available to you and to others as well. And so how do you stay informed appropriately as a leader? How are you able to have conversations with your people? Because they're going to be just as informed as you. And how are you able to take. To sit with your people and even have the understanding that they may be more or better informed than you are?
- [46:31]
B
Yeah.
- [46:31]
A
And accept that. Right. Grow and develop and accept that.
- [46:34]
B
Go and develop. I love that. Accept it.
- [46:37]
A
Yeah.
- [46:37]
B
All right, here we go. Here's a good one. If there was one, just one. If you can create one policy, a new one today, or implement a new program or something along those lines in the fire service, what would it be? Say money weren't an issue. What's one thing that you would like to implement? Because, you know, we would create whether better morale, it would, you know, improve efficiency in the fire service, whatever. What would it be and why?
- [46:59]
A
Yeah, well, the one that I would do if we were living in such a fanciful world and it wouldn't take money or anything else, it would just. It would be so simple. It'd be the. The easiest policy, one sheet, and it would just be the don't take it personal policy. Yeah, don't take it personal. People don't come to work trying to systematically deconstruct the fire service or take shots at you. That's not what we're doing. Okay? We're trying to keep things moving. And you shouldn't take it personal. When you feel that you've somehow been aggrieved. I think that you should be willing to have a conversation with somebody. Right. Hey, when you did this, this made me feel this way. Oh, well, let me explain the reasons why we did, what it is we've. We've done or why we've implemented this. And maybe you walk away feeling better. But, you know, the policy that I would have, that I just wish everyone would follow is don't take it personal.
- [47:56]
B
Don't take it personal. I love that. It's simple, right? Sometimes things don't have to be so complex. I get it's.
- [48:00]
A
Yeah, that's simple.
- [48:02]
B
All right, one more, Chief. If there was a non negotiable, we'll say something for a leader. They cannot do this. This trait is a no go. Something that is just non starter, non negotiable, and a strong leader. What would that trait or characteristic or.
- [48:17]
A
Action be in a strong leader? A non negotiable? Hey, that's a great question. I think that in order to be a strong leader, and I'm going to say this full throat, and I think that a strong leader is not afraid to show their vulnerabilities, their weakness that they're not all knowing. You know, that I am relying on the 200 members that I have in this organization. I'm relying on every single one of you to do your job. We're a brand, just like your organization. You're a Brand. But the brand isn't done by me. It's done by every member of the organization to uphold. And so I think that as leaders, you have to have that understanding. Every person is equally as valuable as the other to include yourself. And we are all reliant upon each other. And so be humble, be vulnerable, be able to say, I don't know that. I don't know that. You're going to have to teach me that. There are a lot of things I don't know about the fire service. And my people are so gracious to me and give me that grace when I don't know. But if I. If I act like I know, they'll see right through it.
- [49:38]
B
Yeah.
- [49:38]
A
So people.
- [49:39]
B
I love that. Okay, so I have to stay there now for a few minutes because I love vulnerability. So that's hard. You know, it's not, you know, it's not easy to just to be a vulnerable person, let alone a vulnerable leader, especially firefighters. Right. We like to, you know, have the right answers. We like to, you know, be right at times. But, you know, if you were to pull, like, I'll just throw this out there. If you were to pull 100 people in the fire service, the ones that are going to be probably more vulnerable, in my opinion, would probably be more senior members. Those with rank will say, you know, the new person, it's going to be. It's going to be harder for them to show vulnerability. Right. Because they got to do their job. They don't want to get written. Exactly. So how do we encourage people to be more. More vulnerable earlier in their careers?
- [50:24]
A
I think you demonstrate it well, understand why people at. Earlier in their career. It's like, we're parents, and sometimes, you know, your kid will tell you something. When they're young, they'll tell you something that you know is not truth. Truthful. Right. Is your kid a liar? Probably not. Your kid is probably telling you what they think you want to hear because they want to please you. And the same thing for a young firefighter coming into an organization. They may try to appear to be more learned because they want to please you. They want to be that competent firefighter. And it's okay. I don't want to call anybody out. I just want to build on where we are, what your knowledge is and what I know your knowledge is, and build it from there. Right. But I don't have to call you out on it. I just need to continue to grow and develop you.
- [51:19]
B
Yeah, I love that. I love the vulnerability is. I think it's so important because it's how we are able to learn from each other. It's how we're able to, you know, build relationships on a deeper level if people are able to open up more. Be vulnerable.
- [51:30]
A
Yeah, I think you. And you stated it. I think that as you get older, you be. You're. You're allowed to. Maybe you allow yourself more often to be vulnerable. Accept young people for. For where they are and why they don't expose their vulnerabilities. But that, again, that comes from just having a conversation with somebody, you know, it's okay, you know, but it's not your place to disabuse them of that in front of other people or something like that.
- [51:58]
B
It's just.
- [51:59]
A
Yeah, no problem. We'll get you there.
- [52:01]
B
Absolutely.
- [52:02]
A
They'll learn to be vulnerable.
- [52:04]
B
Yeah, they'll learn to be vulnerable. I like that. Host conversations. People learn to be vulnerable, but you got to show vulnerability yourself as well.
- [52:10]
A
Right?
- [52:10]
B
That. All right, chief, you book reader, you like reading books?
- [52:14]
A
I do, yeah. I read a lot of books.
- [52:16]
B
Yeah. Awesome. Give us a. Give us a couple books that some of us can lean on. Purchase one today because it's influential. It's great. Leadership book or just a good reading. What's something you'd recommend to the listeners?
- [52:28]
A
Well, a guy who passed away a few years back, who I personally got to meet and know, who I really valued was Colin Powell. And because of my military background, I had gone through some of the trainings that he had gone through, and. And I'd use some of those lines and certain. Certainly some of the learnings from our similar type training. And when I read his book, it worked for me. One of the very first things he says inside the book is, leaders eat last and you put your people first. And so that resonated with me, and I thought that was a really good book. So for any young person who aspires to be a better leader, I think that you would see that Colin Powell was a very humble leader. He was very humble with me. I accidentally had called him Colonel when he was a general, and. And he corrected me so gently. And. And I always appreciated that, you know, and it just. It fostered a friendship. So, yeah, it worked for me. Was a good book. I think that you would have to. And this is fire service specific, but team of teams, Stanley McChrystal. It's a good book. Teaches people. I think there's a book that you and I both read through some of our learnings, but, you know, adaptive Leadership, I think that that's something that will help you because you have to, you have to understand the dynamic. And the dynamic is, it's just that it is dynamic, it's changing. And you have to understand who you are as a leader and how to be able to change in the environment in which you are. And so, and then Simon Sinek has put a lot of good stuff out there. And so I like Simon Sinek. I read a lot of his books.
- [54:19]
B
That's perfect. I love all those books and all phenomenal recommendations. Well, Chief, as you know, because we continue this conversation in the fire service, because we don't want it to end, perspectives matter, differences and opinions matter. Philosophies matter. So with a leadership challenge, it allows us to continue the conversation to bring on more philosophies, messages, perspectives. So, as you know, I like to ask, is there someone else out there that you would like to formally challenge to come onto the show to add to the conversation?
- [54:51]
A
Yeah, and I, I, you know, I've listened to a couple of your podcasts and I, and I enjoy them and, you know, they've all been in the fire service and I, and I just want to open that aperture a little bit. And for the King County Fire Chiefs Association, I've been on the education board and we've brought in speakers from various disciplines. And you know, over the past couple years, some people that we tried to get in, Gene Krantz was one of them. And Gene Krantz was an instructor. A speaker, not an instructor, but a speaker when I was in the Air Force. And he came in, he was the mission control director for the Apollo 13 program. And so to listen to him talk about this capsule out in space which had a catastrophic failure, and for them to actually have to go to the mock up module and assemble tools to fix the problem and then relay that up to space and then reroute that space capsule around the far side of the moon, be out of contact and hope that these people are still alive, and then bring them back to Earth was incredible. And so having somebody who, you know, that's really that critical level of thought that you need to have. And so having someone like a Gene Krantz speak on your podcast, I think would speak to firefighters who often find themselves in situations where the answer is not defined. There's another one that, who recently spoke, who got, I believe, two or three standing ovations at the King County Fire Chiefs association when she spoke, and that was Rhonda Cornham. And so we reached out to Rhonda Cornham. She says, well, I really don't do too many public speaking events, but I love firefighters, so I'll do it, and. And I'll give a little bit about her, and I'll tell you why I think it's important. Rhonda Cornham is medically trained doctor, a high degree, a pedigree in medicine. She also was an aviator in the army, and she could have chosen whatever she wanted to do in her career, but she went out on search and rescue missions. And during the 1991 war, she was out on a search and rescue mission for an F16 pilot who had been shot down. Well, unfortunately, she was shot down. When she was shot down, several members of her crew were killed. I think there was only one other survivor, and she was under the wreckage of the helicopter. She had been shot. She had broken arms, and. And she was taken hostage. And for her to tell her journey of knowing that she was going to get out of this, that it couldn't be, doesn't get any worse. I'm good. I'm okay. We're going to make it. I think that firefighters need that resiliency built into them. Oftentimes we think that we're in this environment and that she's on, you know, just. Oh, this is just horrible. No, it's okay. And you have to have that introspection and that conversation with yourself. I can get out of this. And so she got a couple of standing ovations, and it was so well received. And I. I would challenge you to have someone like her, if not her, to sit with you and have that conversation. I think it would serve the fire service so very well and the broadest perspective, as it's helped the US In King County.
- [58:41]
B
Absolutely. Wow. Well, thank you for. For helping us widen the perspective and scope on this show. The theme, I guess, the things that you've talked about very frequently today was think differently. Challenge yourself to think differently. Search those outside perspective, because that will only help us here in the fire service, the listeners, to be able to broaden our views, widen our perspectives, to think differently. And I think this would help us with that. So thank you so much for that. What I want to say is, first of all, thank you so much for giving us an hour of your time today. You and I, as you know, Chief, can go on for hours, which we will. Obviously, I'm gonna see you on Saturday, and I'm sure we're gonna chat once we go offline here for a little bit. But before we close today's show, what would you like to leave our Listeners with, with what I call the lasting leadership thoughts before we close.
- [59:29]
A
Yeah, just the leadership thoughts. I think that, you know, and as I reflect back throughout my entire career and sitting in the capacity in which I'm in, I think that I would share with anybody that, and you've heard it said before, how wonderful a career this is. Oftentimes I go to these retirement dinners and, you know, a person's up there and they've got their beautiful families and they're speaking and, and they're teary eyed because they're leaving something behind and it touches me and I, I feel that, you know, yeah, you're leaving a part of yourself behind, but you're leaving something behind because you gave so much of yourself throughout your career. And so though you're going to be sad, I appreciate the fact that someone is sad when they're leaving because it says so much about who it is they, they are and who they were while they were here. Giving of themselves, give of yourself, give, give, give. I said partners in, you know, very early on and partners in progress. And I think that that's what we need to do at every level. But as a leader, you need to solicit that through your people and. Yeah. And when you walk out the door, you'll have a legacy that you can stand proud on and you could be sad and drive by every now and then. You don't have to go in. You can just drive by and smile and know that you had a hand in that.
- [60:59]
B
Yeah. Wow. Great words and great way to close she. That's so much appreciation in that. Thank you so much. Well, I'll close, chief, and then we'll chat. Thank you everyone for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope that you found this time valuable and we hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Till next time, be safe, be intentional and stay curious.