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Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 97: Jim Whitney, Deputy Fire Chief - Lead Where You Stand
01:26:28
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Go with grace, Be humble, but don't be afraid of moving things forward. Have the grit to stand up for what you believe for and ask hard questions. That's the most important thing. Let the Beanery table be a place of bonding. You know, be a place of community, be a place of learning and inspiring others. That's truly what it's about, and your organization will be better for it. 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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Podcast Host Berlin
CEOs,
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Chef for Extension Good morning everybody and welcome to the 97th episode of the Kitchen Table. And on the show today we have a friend, colleague, mentor of mine who's Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney from the City of Redmond Fire Department. Jim Whitney is an accomplished fire and emergency medical services leader with more than three decades of experience spanning tactical operations, organizational leadership, and public safety administration. He currently serves as Deputy Fire Chief for the City of Redmond Fire District 34 and Northeast King County Medic One, where he oversees complex high demand fire and EMS operations within one of the Pacific Northwest's most dynamic response environments. A dedicated labor leader for over 20 years with the International association of Firefighters, Chief Whitney has played a pivotal role in labor management collaboration, contributing to meaningful advancements in workforce conditions and organizational effectiveness within the fire service. Chief Whitney holds a Master's degree from Naval Postgraduate School center for Homeland Events and Security, where his academic work focuses on homeland security, emergency management, and the integration of public safety systems. He is widely regarded as an ethical, forward thinking leader committed to shaping a resilient, adaptive and and inclusive future for public safety professions. Good morning, Jim. How are you today?
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Good morning, Berlin. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Yes, of course. And I'd like to say, you know, Pacific Northwest is great to be home because we have the nice weather which we had for the last like 10 days, but we look outside and it's typical Seattle weather.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
It's crazy. The heat's back on. T shirts and shorts now. The heat's back on.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Exactly. But the kids out there, they're still in shorts because, you know, around here we'll take anything above 40 degrees. Well, thanks for again for being on the show and this is going to be an awesome conversation because you and I have known each other for a few years now. We've sat in classes together, you know, sat in leadership stuff together and we work side by side each other. So Chief before we get started with our conversation today, can you share a little bit about Jim Whitney, kind of your early career, maybe family life as well, and kind of the roles that led you to where you are today?
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, you bet. So my career in the fire service started somewhat late. Honestly, I was came up. Well, let me back up. I'll talk family first. So my family is everything to me. My kids are now 30 and 28, off doing their own things, living life. And a huge part of my life in growing up through my career was focused around family and taking care of them and their needs. And this career has been incredible for that. It's given me the opportunity to be not just a dad, but be a coach and be involved in their lives in every aspect of what they were doing on the sidelines, at plays, at the schools, for different events that were happening. And my wife's been an incredible part of this development for me too. Just that, that trip and hugely supportive of me as I've gone through it. I was heavy into the construction industry. I have had two careers that I've had interlaced through the fire Service. I did 20 years of commercial construction working on projects between 25,000 to $7 million projects. Not huge, but mostly, mostly tenant improvement type stuff, which was an awesome career. It was fun. While I was doing that, I got recruited into the fire service, went through academy in South Puget Sound in the Tacoma area with Lakewood at Steilacoom in 1990 and started my career then as a firefighter and then became went to had the opportunity and transitioned through from that time in Pierce county to Vashon island and started my career on Vashon as one of the first career hires there in the Fire Service 1994 and was fortunate enough to be in the King county system and be exposed to King county paramedics at the time that were there. I loved the fireside. I got into it truly for the fireside to pull hose and throw ladders and do all that kind of work. But obviously saw a lot of EMS in the process. And the medics that we had on Vachon were South King county medics that were only on Vachon. They had separated from South King county and come over there to retire, come down in their career. And they became mentors to me in the kind of the EMS side and exposed me to medic one and they told me no. Several times I tried the test for medic one. They said, nope, you're not ready. Nope, you're not ready. So I just continued to do the Fire stuff came up through the ranks there as an officer, battalion chief and for training, health and safety. And then they gave me the green light and said, you're ready. You're ready to go to paramedic training. And went through a testing process, but kind of had the acceptance from them to go and went to paramec training in 2002 and absolutely love the experience. I know some people hate it. I went there and thrived in that environment. But when I came. So I got out of school, came back to Vashon and I was there for another five years and it was. Or not quite five, about four and a half years. And I was spinning because I. I wasn't seeing the call wine that I saw while I was in Seattle and all those things were going on in my head. I was still actively involved in training. They let me keep my training position and I still was doing training, which is the connection point back to zone three training and the airport. I was actively engaged over there with as we were. We had the third Runway development starting to happen in all those neighborhoods and things that were going away, which is an incredible experience for me because I got to meet those. The up and coming leaders. That's where Bill Mack and I had reconnected and. And others and super fortunate. But at the time about that, about 2006, Evergreen Medic One and Redmond were becoming one. There was a transition that was happening there. We were on Vacheron, we needed medics. So we were hiring laterals that were leaving Evergreen because they didn't want to go to Redmond. And they were telling all these horror stories. And I was listening to them. I'm like, that sounds like where I need to be. So I applied and fortunately got hired here and came here to do both the fireside and. And be a medic. And there was. That was. It was just the most incredible opportunity for me to come here and start my career in. In zone 1. Developed the relationships throughout the entire zone, not just with Redmond Fire and connected to all the other fire departments and agencies that were here and grow alongside some incredible people that are still with us today and some of have who have retired and just continue to develop. And then through that process, I promoted in Redmond on the EMS side up through to the medical services administrator. Sat in that seat for about six, six years, five years during the COVID when Covid happened and being a representative for Seattle King County Public Health to Zone one when. And we all know that Life Care center of Kirkland was the kind of Ground zero, initially, at least we thought, for the. For the entire United States. And that exposure was tremendous to me. I mean, it was just, I need to really grow and be challenged and tested in an environment that was being watched not only within King county, but across the entire country and maybe the world to some degree. And I was super fortunate to be with an incredible team, right. I had Chief Hoover. Bill Hoover and I had. Had already had a relationship, and he was part of that team. Joel Bodeman, who's a battalion chief in Kirkland. Now, the three of us, there was tons of people, but the three of us were at the heart of it and really trying to establish how. What response look like and policy development around how we'll keep our people healthy and safe and how do we continue to respond to that event. And it, I mean, sounds super, super immature now, but, I mean, initially we thought we were locking it down, right? It was going to be. We were going to keep it inside that facility. We had. The night the phone call came in to me was February 28, 2020. I had a phone call from Public Health at 11:30 at night, confirming that we had. We had tested four patients on the 28th. We thought we'd find something out on Sleep Year. We thought we'd find something out on the 29th, what the status was. But we got that call at 11:30 night. That three of the four we tested were COVID patients, and they were the first known COVID patients in the United States. So it was off to the races. And probably for the first 48 hours, we thought we were locking that space down and it was just going to be in. We were going to keep it inside. Life Care center of Kirkland. We had through the night. We determined that we had 18 firefighters we had to put on quarantine because they'd been in that building in the last 14 days. So we looked. We looked back to February 14, Valentine's Day, as kind of our benchmark initially. And any firefighter that had been in that space in that time was put on quarantine. They got the phone call in the middle of the night to lock themselves down at home. We shut down the tones of physicians that had been involved in the responses throughout that day. Wow. We also had three medics in the same boat that we put on quarantine. And that was kind of our start to the weekend. And like I said, for the first 48 hours, we were just locked in. There was going to be that. We were all. And we're. We're setting up Comms with the state of Washington and King county and people nationally listening in. And we're in a room, and I was in the back just watching what was happening, learning. And one of my medics came walking in the room, came up and whispered in my ear and said, hey, I'm pretty sure we were on a cardiac arrest on Monday. This was on. So we're on. We're Sunday now.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Yeah.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
And he goes, I'm pretty sure we were on a cardiac arrest last Monday with a patient that had been released from life care center in Kirkland. And we were up at an adult family home in Bothell. It was kind of this, we're sitting in that room, all this briefing's going on. And it was sitting back in my chair. It was like an aha moment. I was like, holy crap. We haven't even thought about patients that have been released from this facility. Where have they gone? We were thinking about our people and our firefighters, but we hadn't been thinking about the fact that it was a re. Half the building, half the facility was skilled nursing long term, and the other half was rehab facility. So every 21 days, they were turning people out and sending them to a different location. And that was kind of the opener to contact tracing. Right. It was. All of a sudden we brought in tis from Redmond to be involved. And we were just dropping pins on maps to find out and going through files to find out what people had been released from the facility and where did they go? And they were mostly north King county, but there were some in Pierce county, some in Vancouver, Washington, some in Vancouver, Canada, some in New York. I mean, the disbursement was pretty broad. Yeah. And we literally were going, these are the next. These are the places that. That we need to be thinking about for where Covid exposure could be next. And that was. We're into Monday now. Just starting to put all this together and make those phone calls to those places. And the rest of the country was still watching us. Even King County's the Zone 3 was still watching us. Just go through this. And we. Our failure was this, is that we were doing good work there. We were starting to find discovery, but we had forgotten about something. And there's still 911 calls coming into that facility. And there's sick, sick patients, sick respiratory patients. And most of the calls are cardiac arrest calls. Right. That are coming out. And I had the opportunity to run home and I was driving back. I was about 4:30 in the morning on. I think it was Monday morning. And One of the MSOs called me and said, hey, we got a problem. He goes, there's nobody working inside the facility. The staff was gone. There's probably 300 people inside. There's still patients that still need care. And the crews were not communicating with the crews. We hadn't been talking to the crews. And that was a wake up call for me. It was like we've been so focused, just kind of drinking from a fire hose about that facility and what's inside there and all of a sudden realizing that it's no longer just that facility, it's other places. We had our backs turned towards the crews and that was a wake up call for me about my people are the most important thing to me, right? If I take care of my people, the mission will always get done. And we. I made a phone call to the chief of Kirkland, our fire chief in Redmond, and just said, look, we have to, we have to go out. We have to stop everything we're doing or allow other people to do that, but we need to go out and sit at the beginning table with every single crew that's coming through. And we need to have real conversations about what the threat is, what's going on, what we're doing to protect them, making sure they have everything they need and allow them. It's kind of. That's where a lot of this came from for me, is we have to go into the room and have hard conversations because we failed them and we need to allow them to have conversations with us about what they're experiencing, what they're seeing, and have better daylight about how we support them. And it was, it was difficult time, but it was such a valuable time in my development in my career because again, I was fortunate to have the relationships, probably honestly better relationships than the fire chiefs had with those crews. So putting me in the room, it wasn't easy, but it was, it was good because I was. But not all that long ago. I was with them in those responses and going into those calls with them, not, not well at life, but not Covid life care. But they knew me and trusted me and I was able to sit there and listen to them. And as long as we acted upon it, and we did, I mean, back to Bill Hoover and Joe Baltimore and those guys did a great job of. Not only were we tracking what was going on with patients inside there, but now we started tracking our people and how do we better take care of them and inform them, make sure they have what they need, which included getting the feds involved and bringing teams in from outside to support us or at least attempting to. We, you know, we. Recognizing that the staff wasn't there legitimately, they were scared to come to work, too, or they were sick, really. Trying to identify how we get people inside. And activating the DMCC locally and getting Dr. Mitchell involved, who was incredible in helping us identify how we could get staff inside. Initially, we couldn't get any help from the feds. It was all local hospitals teaming up to bring nurses and docs inside that facility and us supplying them with equipment in there, trying to. Because the hospitals weren't ready to take these patients either. They. At that time, the hospitals didn't have the ventilation systems to handle that volume of patients, so we were shuttling. I wasn't doing anything but that communication with the dmcc. We started moving patients out of hospitals to different locations that weren't respiratory patients so we could open up respiratory beds locally in different hospitals so we could start moving patients to those. It was high, super high speed. But it was an incredible opportunity for me to. To have full immersion. Right. I couldn't get out of it. And really learned a lot about. About policy development, about navigating politicians and press and. And most importantly, taking care of our people. Right. Really, really truly recognizing the mission's always there. We have to. We're here to take care of the mission, but how do we make sure that our teams are completely ready to support that mission? But most importantly, know they're taken care of in every aspect. Yeah. Wow.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Talk about the.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
The.
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Podcast Host Berlin
The leading and uncertainty and the, you know, not knowing what's in front of you. I mean. Right. Leadership becomes easy if you know what your problem that you're going to be facing or dealing with the problem that you're now facing, and you have time, if you will, to kind of come up with a solution. But talk about, bam. The pandemic.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Or at this point, I guess, you know, it wasn't even a pandemic at this point. It was a Covid case, you know, a virus. And the first of it, you know, it's like, all right, well, here we go. And it turned into this. I mean, talk about that uncertainty and being forced to lead.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah. And it prepared me for. For Naval Postgraduate School, too, the center for Homeland Defense and Security, because it really got me to a place where I value those signals. Right. We were. We were as King and King County EMS was awesome. King County EMS was incredible. The King county fire chiefs, the way they came together and supported the, you know, that. That response, too but even before COVID hit our shores, there was preparedness going on and there were signals about what was happening in other places. And I don't think I appreciated them nearly enough to a place that I do today. Thinking about emerging threats. And when we see. And I'll play that I'll end on this is having awareness of those things that are out there that we're seeing and signaling. This goes back to the Homeland Security piece and what's the nexus between our public safety and what we do every day to homeland Security. And, and I think it totally plays in. You look at what's been happening in California, in Nevada, with the, these clandestine bio. Biolabs that are being built up in these neighborhoods. And they're manufacturing. We don't know what they're manufacturing. Right. Is it good for good or for bad? But they're manufacturing biochemicals in residence. Neighborhood, neighborhood, residential neighborhoods in those two states. I'm guessing they're probably in other places, too. And what's the risk that we stumble across those or our people stumble across those on a durian response because of a health issue or whatever? And even not, maybe not to the same degree. I think that's more of a threat than, but I think even to the same degree of watching what's going on right now with the ship and the Hunter virus down in.
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Podcast Host Berlin
That's right.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
That's right. What is that? I mean, ships have been sailing that area for forever, but all of a sudden we've got this outbreak of a Hunter virus on that ship. It's not, probably not a big deal, but it's something for us to be thinking about and be aware of. But I do think the bigger threat is the clandestine labs. Right? They're in our, they're in those neighborhoods in Nevada and California. The likelihood is they're around us, too, somewhere. And what's the risk of one of our people stumbling across that? And will we view, will we be aware enough to be able to, to navigate safely without our people getting hurt?
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Podcast Host Berlin
Well, thank you for that. That's a, it's a great introduction and intro into what we're going to talk about because we're going to talk about dealing or, you know, leading through uncertain times, leading where you're at, conflict and all that. So now let's dive into it, this topic for today, this concept of leading where you're at or leading where you're. Where you stand and what that means to kick us off.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, you bet. So again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. This is A topic that I'm passionate about, but it's also one that frustrates me a little bit in leadership. And what I mean by that is that there's so much written out there about leadership and oftentimes gets over it's words on paper, right? There's so much information that's out there. People talk about leadership all the time, but it truly is about what you do and how your actions display to those that you serve. And when I say those that you serve in the position I'm in, that's not just the public, it's also the crews that I work with every day and lead and bring, make sure that they have the right resources, the tools they need and all those things. It's truly about accountability back to me as a leader to make sure that I'm. I'm providing for them everything that they need to be able to go out and provide for our community in the best way. And you mentioned, or in the past, you and I have been involved in a couple different opportunities that you've presented through some of the classes that you're putting on. And Bill Mack has been one of those people that has been a mentor to me my entire life as a kid growing up and then getting into the career in the fire service and following him and reconnecting and then following him in that career. And you mentioned this earlier and you're not wrong. That was one of his pillars was, was leading where you are and taking advantage of every opportunity to be in a position of leadership, no matter whether you held rank or didn't held rank. But, but be in a position where you could, you could help move the organization forward, raise the bar, make us better every day. And, and I love that mentality and it honestly came from, I think for Bill and truly for me in my development was in through sports, right? It was that same mentality in sports. How do we get better every day and make our as a team and build a level of character as a team that we have trust in everything that we do, that culture, I guess the culture of trust and everything we do and strong fundamentals that makes it so when no matter if it's day to day operations around the station, we click and if we are in crisis mode and we're struggling at 2 o' clock in the morning with a really difficult scene, we're able to come together in that same mentality, same behaviors. Everything shows up in that same crisis moment as it does on the day to day when we're sitting around the station doing Basic train on the beanery table, etc. So I love the topic and thank you for bringing it forward.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Absolutely. And so here's a, here's a question that I have because this is one that first of all intrigues me but it fascinates me not because I believe. Well, I do believe there is poor leadership out there. I do believe that. But sometimes I do believe, going with the topic of leading where you're at, no matter tenure, rank, you know, position in the organization, that sometimes we'll have those with less tenure, we'll say, or those with less experience or rank to be great leaders. Meaning we can have phenomenal officers or firefighters that have so much leadership capability, maybe more so than the officer. That's not a knock per se on the officer. But as you know, leadership is about your own development, it's about your own growth, it's about how much you are, are putting yourself in positions to be out there, to lead actively. And so how does that in your mind dynamic? Well, first of all, have you seen that to where you know, we have non ranked individuals but phenomenal leaders in an organization, but in an organization say of high rank but lesser effective. How does that. Have you experienced that?
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, for sure. And for me it really is about. It's not a title. Right. And I guess that's the best way to say this is. We get so sucked into titles in the fire service, in particular about public safety and in corporate America that that becomes the mantra. Right? That's who, that's who we steer to, to, to make the decisions. For me, it's not that way. Right. I'm, I'm not the subject matter expert on everything I have, I have a team that is an incredible team that I get to work with. And when I say team, it is certainly within the organization that I work with, but it is, as you know, for us it's regional. Right. We work as a regional team all the time and we have something pretty special up here that I don't. It's not necessarily everywhere in the nation and those we. I lean in heavily on the team, the subject matter experts around me that really know the work better than I do, they own it, they have. My job is to set expectations with clarity and just say, look, these are the things that we really want to do. And then being smart enough to be adaptable when as things come forward, having those difficult conversations that bring out awareness for everybody and getting to a place where there's discovery happening that we are using those young leaders say, maybe young, informal Better is probably a better term. Informal leaders that are bringing stuff forward and listening, listening with authenticity to really learn from that and then being willing to make decisions based off of that information that's coming at us or set direction based off of that information that's coming at us. And I think that it is so important for an organization, a healthy organization, to be in a position where we take that information in from those subject matter experts. And oftentimes they know better than I do. They're the boots on the ground. They're seeing it every single day. And there's, there's different rank matters. I'm not trying to say rank doesn't matter by any means, but, but they are seeing things every day in the field that I'm not seeing. And they have a fresh perspective of what, how things are changing, technology, etc, that we can advance. And my job is to support that, figure out ways to advance that technology or advance that training, advance those concepts.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Absolutely. And you, you mentioned difficult conversations, and I know you presented at one of our, you know, conferences, if you will, a few months back, and basically we talked about conflict and we talked about difficult conversations which people will say, you know, in today's age or today's generations, they're not communicative or whatever. I think that's an excuse because we're seeing people of the previous generation and the previous generation not having the ability to have difficult conversations. So I know today also we're going to talk and I know we're jumping around because I love this topic. I don't want to skip over it is the topic of turning up the heat and that conflict. So can we talk about that for a minute? Because conversations today, we'll just call it what it is. People are struggling to have hard conversations. It's a true story. So can you talk a little bit about that, that dynamic?
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, it's something I've leaned into a little bit, as you said, trying to build a little bit of a curriculum around it to teach, because I think it's such an important topic, is that. And I don't know if conflict's the right word. Right. When people hear conflict, they, they shut down to some degree. They do. And that's why I said difficult conversations, because I think it's important that we're willing to have difficult conversations. And the reason the conflict is that it creates an environment for us where we do turn up the heat. And you've heard me say this. Turn up the heat without burning down the house. Right? Kind of the concept is love It. I use it. I'll try and put a principle out there a little bit. It's a 60, 25, 15 principle, right? So 60% of the time, the common place that we sit, not just in the fire service, but I would argue in society right now is we're complacent, right? We're just sitting in a spot where we are coming to work. We're doing. We're going through the process. Not that we're doing things bad. We'll stick to the fire service. Not that we're doing things bad, but we're not advancing things. We're not willing to have hard conversations about what to take to advance things. And by being complacent and being that 60% area, we're really not focused on touch, tapping into people's passions. We're really not finding the things that they're. That are super important to them on. On any side of any topic. And I think that's. It's not dangerous, but it's. It's not advancing us, right? We're not raising the bar. We're not getting better every day. We have to turn the heat up a little bit. And that's the. And again, use the word conflict or difficult conversations, turn the heat up a little bit to get into that 25% band. And I think that 25% band is where productivity comes from, right? That's where we get in the room together and we really have discovery if we listen. Listen to learn, right? I think that's an important part of this, is we have to be in the room together. We have to listen to learn together, not listen to speak, not listening to my turn to have an opportunity to say something, listen to learn, and fill in those gaps in both directions or for all people at the table, you know, the kitchen table, I think that this is a place this can come out. The caution is we have to stay out of that 15%. Right? That 15%. When we turn the heat up too high, it gets too hot, and then it gets destructive. That's when the real conflict happens. That's negative, and it doesn't help us move forward. It causes more problems. So if we can find times, it doesn't have to be all the time, but find times where we get into that productive space, that 25% where we have those conversations that are. That provide that discovery, it fills in those gaps. Now I'm sharing things that you didn't know. And it's my passions or the passions of the job or the seat that I'm sitting in, but I'm also hearing those things from the seat that you're sitting and doing the work every day. And it's kind of those aha moments. We start putting it together and asking real authentic questions of each other. It's almost like a patient exam, right? Yeah. Open ended questions where we start and then we start closing them down when we get closer to the issue and really start discovering, okay, now I get it. Now I, now I'm learning something about why. What's going on here. And then the trick is to be to, to not be afraid at that point, to step back a little bit and go, okay, let's be, let's have the humility to, to be adaptive. Let's make some changes. Because we have to make changes. I can't stay in moving in this direction that I'm moving. Yeah, yeah.
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Podcast Host Berlin
So yeah, I love the, is the 60, 25, 15. Is that my math add up? That's correct. 60, 25, 15. So here's an interesting thought that I have is I often have. We'll have conversations either on this forum or, you know, outside and I'll be, either be talking to an individual with a lot of tenure in the fire service, we'll say, or a chief officer, we'll say and we'll talk about these things. We'll talk about, you know, what are some of the challenges in the fire service or you know, what are some things that we need to really work on. And oftentimes we'll talk about difficult having those conversations. But I have those. It's, it's common that I hear that a lot from chiefs, which is great. But we need those types of thought processes and mindsets and priorities to be of the company officers or the five year employee to be like this five year engineer or this brand new lieutenant to be in the spot where they know that having these difficult conversations is so critical that they need that skill, if you will.
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Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Right.
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Podcast Host Berlin
Because like if we're here at the top and us chiefs will say, not us myself, I'm not a chief, but up here are thinking this and knowing this and wanting this. How are our ground level troops or boots on the ground? How are they learning this stuff? Right? Because we're not teaching this in the academy. We're not, we're not putting them through this type of training and development. Like we'll say that you went through some of this through your, we'll just say through your development through the years or say, you know, these are concepts you learned, let's say Naval Postgraduate School. Or in any other further train that you went to. But, you know, the 80% of us aren't going through those programs.
- [30:48]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, it's a great point, and you're right. It's a. It's an area in the fire service, historically, at least where I am, that we haven't done a really good job. We've done. We do a great job at training on tactics and training on those skills, the fundamental skills of the fire service, whether it's EMS or suppression or technical rescue, etc. We do a great job focusing on that stuff, but we don't do a really good job of focusing on the soft skills. And especially as we promote people up into leadership positions as company officers, et cetera. But even informal leaders, we just don't do it. And I've been super fortunate. My exposure has been through, obviously, an incredible career, but I spent a lot of time in doing union work and learning through from that side, too, of how to navigate forward, whether it was policy development or grievances or labor contracts and those kinds of things. And truly being. Learning to be very open, honestly, maybe to a fault sometimes, but. But recognizing the value of having really strong conversations like that to get there. And, and yes, Naval Postgraduate School really brought that out. I mean, I'm sitting in a room with experts from all over the nation in their skill set, feeling as though I'm not sure that I should be in the room with them. And then having conversations about leadership or having conversations about the difficult topics that are perceived threats for the, for the nation. And, and realizing that I'm listening to the room and there's strategists in the room, there's operationalists, there's policymakers, there's government officials, all these different people in the room. And just sitting back and listening, you can hear then starting to pick up and go, oh, my gosh, they're almost talking about the same thing. They just don't realize they're talking about the same thing and figuring out a way to lace that all together. And sometimes it takes turning up the heat, getting that passion out of people and. And again, doing it in a way that we stay in that 25%. We don't get into a place where it's too hot. Yeah, but it's a passionate topic of mine. I think, to your point, this goes back to the whole concept of the beanery table or the kitchen table is that a lot of that stuff happens in that space. Right. We know in the fire service that can be. It's the boardroom of that station. Right. And really good things can come from that or really destructive things can come from that depending on, depending on how those conversations are led. And a good company officer that can navigate those waters really makes a difference. And it is getting to a place where we're not just coming in and turning the crank every day and being complacent and doing the same thing that we always do, but going in there and asking questions and not to overuse the term, but really almost like a good patient exam. Right. Start it with open ended and start really kind of getting people to insert themselves into the conversation and again provide more discovery and then tightening it up as we, as we go through that process. Go. Okay, let's. This sounds like this is really the area that we need to address and getting a little bit more detailed on how we ask those questions to get more information back that's specific. And in turn what that creates then is an opportunity, hopefully. And this again, this is, this is education. We need to do better for sure. But an opportunity for the company officer to turn around and go, I got it now, thank you. Now I'm going to go up, work up the chain of command and have this conversation and ask these questions. Because at the top, the chiefs owe you this. Right? They owe you, they owe you. The reason why we are either doing or not doing certain, certain things. We should be able to explain that to you very openly. And if we aren't, there's a whole different thing there. Right. There's a culture problem.
- [34:19]
Podcast Host Berlin
Yes.
- [34:20]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Within that organization if we're not able to have those conversations fairly and let people know why we're doing certain. Yeah.
- [34:26]
Podcast Host Berlin
Well, I like to ask this question and it's, it's unquantifiable, but I always like to just throw it out there to see your thought is what would our crews and our organization effectiveness look like? Because, you know, you said it perfectly. You said, you know, we're already training so well on the tactics. Right. We're doing our ems, our medic school, like we're doing those skills, you know, second to none. Right. And as we should. That's that, that's. No one would argue that we're doing too much training in those areas. Right. No one would ever argue against that. But now imagine, and I want your thoughts on what would we look like, how effective would we be, how much more ability would we be able to have difficult conversations, we'll say in the firehouses, at the crew levels, if we all had training in these areas.
- [35:12]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, it would be huge for Us and it's. It goes back to another, another project, you know, succession project that you're working on sets. And it's all about that. Right? It's about succession. It's about developing the next generation, whether they're formal, informal leaders. But this would make us, I think to your point, makes us if we have the time and capability to put into it to do this type of education and find the right people to do it. Yeah, of course it can advance the fire service significantly. Right. Our capabilities. And another thing we don't focus on. Well, I'll say and I think it's part of this honestly is that we don't focus well on what truly are. What are emerging threats for us. What's coming that is going to impact us as a fire service. That's part of that conversation. It's part of that. It's part of growing a little bit and recognizing that we aren't. We're stuck. We're at the crank every day. Right. We're coming in and we're in that 60%. We're being a bit complacent because we're not focusing on the emerging threats as much as we should. Now I say that but you have to recognize, I have to, I have to recognize and we all do is that there's an investment associated with that. There's an investment in time and there's. That takes away from other areas and I appreciate that. But any place that we can insert it, we should. Something that I want to do here, I'd love to see us do it regionally because I don't think individual apartment could do it is really focus on what is officer development look like and do it, insert it at every level of promotional process. Starting a driver engineer and maybe even in acting positions. But what I mean by that is that maybe as we do this and there's places that are doing this is not new but we need to adapt to it here for sure in Redmond and I would love to see us regionally do it is when you promote to a driver engineer we pull you from the line for a week and we spend a week doing a week long essentially academy. Hey, welcome to the next promotion. This is a week long academy. And as we go to a lieutenant we do the same thing but maybe it's two weeks of time. So we. And we build upon that education that's been happening as a firefighter that came through probation and now we're going to take it to the next level and we do some of these soft skills sure, there'll be a component of that that would be tactics, but the, but a little bit heavier on the stuff that we don't touch enough, which is those soft skills about the relationships and interaction and how do we turn up the heat without burning down the house and those kinds of things. And then as we go up through the ranks at the BC level, maybe it's three weeks, we pull them off the line and we just spend three weeks together. And it would be for us in this region, it would be awesome to do that as a regional thing because now we're creating, not only, not only we provide in that education, but we're recreating those relationships across jurisdictions that are going to respond together every day anyway, which just makes us that much stronger when we go on Those calls at 2 o' clock in the morning and I can look across at the, at the other battalion chief and catch an eye and go. And know that we got each other, we know each other, we try. We've already built that trust. Kind of like the baseball team, right? I know I got the fundamentals to get it to you, and you have the fundamentals to execute on it when you get it. And that would make us super efficient in the fire service. And once we're there now, we can really start talking about those emerging threats and how we handle those and how we use the tactics we have to handle those emerging threats that are coming.
- [38:19]
Podcast Host Berlin
I love that answer, that response, if you will, because so obviously I respect the fact that, yes, you said there's a financial investment in that. Of course, you take one person off the line. Usually promotionals don't happen in ones, they happen in fives nowadays or tension. So obviously there's so much time investment in finances, all of it. So I respect that. So. But where I'm going to go with it now is I've heard this type of thing and I'll just use example fdny. I had Mike Dugan on the show about a month or two ago and I asked him the question, what are they doing? And he said exactly what you said. We pull lieutenant off the line. They go 40 hours a BC off the line. I think at one point one of the ranks, maybe it was Milwaukee, because Paul Conway was on the show. It's like they're off the line for like eight weeks. But at one point in time that didn't exist is my point. And I know we struggle in the fire service, as you know, Jim is like, you know, the way we've always done things, right, you change it up, that becomes weird. Like, but at one point in time, everything we did was new. Like, like all we did in the fire service 80 years ago was put out fires. We introduced EMS, tech rescue, you know, all that. So everything has been a change. So. But I love how you said regionally because I'll ask the impossible question and I obviously, I know we're recording. When are we going to implement something like that? I love how you said regionally because when you say regionally, you're including me now because I'm your neighbor and like, we talk about that, but we haven't done it either. Our, our partners aren't doing it. I love how you said regionally because people are talking about this departmentally, but you took it a step further already. So when, when, when can we see, when can we do something like that?
- [39:53]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
This. Yeah, I love it. So I mean, between you and I, I mean, beyond this podcast, that's one of the things I really want to work on, right? It's one of the things that we actively talk about at the, at the ops Chiefs level is, look, this is a, it's beneficial to all of us and it goes back to funding, right? It goes back to cost and expense. Because if we're doing it for two or three people, it doesn't make sense. If we're doing it for 10 people, it starts to make sense. And maybe it's not right at promotional time, but maybe it's six months after promotions happen. The bottom line is now we've got somebody in these roles, let's take the time to expand their exposure to other things. And I think it can be done regionally. It is. Again, at the chief's level, it's stepping away from the crank, right? It's getting out of that 60% and stepping back and going, hey, we have to have these difficult conversations and we have to move this stuff forward and be strategic about our thought process and think about how can we take this to the next level together, because we respond together every single day, right? And, and why not train together in this capacity too? Not just the tactical side. We do a great job training that that way now, but let's train our people on the soft skill side too. So we start. They have, now they have a resource, they have phone a friend. When they have a difficult situation, whatever it is, they can pick up the phone and call the other person that's working across them on that same shift and, and connect and just go, hey, this is what I'm looking at. Well, how would you handle It. And I think some of that happens now. Don't, don't make me. I don't want to make it sound like it doesn't because it does. But, but more formally, really tap into some of those soft skills and the things that we do and provide that opportunity and I think we can get there. I think there's movement at my level. We have to be better about stepping away, stepping away from the crank and taking the time to really focus on this stuff and move it forward and toss the egos out. That's part of it too. And I think this is everywhere in the fire service. It's just the stigma of our agency. Can't do it the same way your agency does. Which is, which is foolish. Right. I mean, we're, let's face it, we put, we're doing the same stuff across the nation very similarly and we can do it together. Yeah.
- [41:54]
Podcast Host Berlin
Yeah. And I hope, you know, we, I hope we do hope sooner than later. And yes, I do know it's, it's hard to always implement something new is hard. Sustaining something is somewhat, somewhat easier. I don't want to say it's easy, but I hope, you know, soon and someday we'll, you know, implement something like that. One thing, Jim, is I know you're big on relationships. Right. I know you're a well connected individual. Were you always that way? And the reason I say that is what I've heard is like when you get, for example, to we'll say a chief officer role, we'll use deputies and above, we'll say, and we. I know this is applicable to any rank is you don't have to have the answers to everything. But what you do need is you need to be great with fundamentals and you need to be able to know how to find the answers to things or how do. You said phone a friend a second ago, which I love. Were you always well connected even as, you know, before you became, for example, a chief officer?
- [42:48]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
No, I think I was fortunate in where we are, where you and I have grown up in our careers in that our system works pretty well regionally. And for me, being part of the Medic one system made me be more adaptive to the rest of the agencies because I wasn't working for one agency. Yeah, my, my home agency was, was technically Redmond, but. And I started my medic career in South King County. So I was, I was down there first and kind of got to adapt it as a young, as a young medic down there. And that interaction with other people, having been in the fire service with them already. But now. And, you know, I talked about the. What we know as South King training today was just getting started when I was down there as a firefighter and the third Runway at the airport, we had the opportunity to start bringing those resources together and really working together in an environment that across jurisdictions, were training together. And that was maybe the start of it for me. And then Medic one really made it, so I didn't have a choice as a medic. I was running with, with Woodinville, Eastside, Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue, you know, dual Carnation, et cetera. And I was going on calls with those individuals all the time. I was never at one station. And that built relationships of trust because we were running calls together. We were. We were. We were being tested. Right. We were not only sitting at the Beania table, having dinners together and talking about what was going on in life with our families and building that trust, but we were then going out on calls, some of the most critical calls, at 2 o' clock in the morning and recovering from those calls together and responding and doing the best work we could do to save people's lives and then coming back and recovering together from those. So that built really strong relationships for me across the fire service, for all of Zone 1 into Zone 3, and a touch on the Zone 1 with Seattle Fire. And I've been super fortunate from that to. To be in a position where people have grace with me. I can fail and do things wrong. And they know I'm going to push the limits because they've watched me grow up with my family and coaching sports for my entire life as an adult and pushing kids and hearing those stories and recognizing that. And I don't like this word, but I'm a failure, right? I've had my failures for sure, whether at work or at home or on the fields with those kids. And I haven't. I've had the. I've had the humility to share. Yeah. And I've had from my. The people I've worked with the grace to. To talk me through it and watch me recover from it and grow from it, honestly.
- [45:09]
Podcast Host Berlin
Yeah.
- [45:09]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
So I've been super fortunate from that perspective to be now in a position where I get to work with all those people still. And it was some of the best stuff for me when. When Covid happened, because those connections all existed. It was super easy to navigate through that together as a team. And. And it's been super fortunate for me my entire career when we've hit difficult things and Being able to phone a friend. Right. And step back and go, absolutely, this is where I am. How do we. How do we. How would you navigate this? What can we do together? Or to collaborate on things and move things forward together, because we, We. We have the same beliefs and. Yeah. Or have those hard conversations.
- [45:49]
Podcast Host Berlin
Exactly, Exactly. And I, I asked the question because I've noticed, I've observed, we'll say some of the most successful leaders in the fire service, we'll just use that because this platform is primarily fire service. But I've noticed that the most successful individuals are very well connected. They've had. They've got relationships. They can phone a friend any time of the day. And I'll just use this just to provide context. Not to say that you can't be successful and not build relationships. That's not what I'm saying. But I do know that you build relationships. You're well connected around you regionally, and we'll say globally are successful. Would it be wrong to say that if you want to be highly successful in the fire service as a, as an effective leader, you got to be able to put yourself out there. You'd mentioned fail. You have to, you know, take on, we'll say, assignments or projects that maybe aren't the most highly coveted. You have to be well connected, go outside your organization, build friendships. If you see yourself as being an effective leader later or now, but later.
- [46:55]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
The one thing I would say is this is that is it. It doesn't. I was fortunate to have opportunity to learn the way I learned with, With. With people around, growing with me, and again, having the grace to allow me to be able to make mistakes and recover from. But I would say this is that it's not, it's not something you can't do if you're not coming up through the system. This would be what my takeaways would be. Obviously, your character matters. Right. Lead where you are, but act as though you want other people to behave right. First off, be humble, be adaptable, be authentic, be compassionate about what you're doing and expect that from other people. The passion and ethics that are there, make sure that that's happening. But behaviors matter too. And I think that really having the courage to risk, to go out and take chances, and the grit to battle through those, don't back down from them. And that doesn't mean fight. I'm not saying fight all the time, but have the ability to not be afraid to step into the room and have hard conversations, ask hard questions and navigate the heat. We've kind of talked about that. Don't go in and blow it up because that doesn't get us anywhere. But, but don't be afraid to have those hard conversations or put crazy ideas on the table if we're going to want to grow and then, and then be able to navigate those. I didn't have the relationships on the political side, which I'm navigating now. Right. I'm learning that whole aspect, but I'm using the behaviors that I learned in the fire service coming up through the ranks in the same way when I go back and deal, whether it's with city hall or directors and deputy directors or. Or executive leaders within city governments, because it's not just Redmond, it's. I'm working with the others around us as well, but also at the state level or the federal level. Go have real conversations. Because here's the thing that I'm learning is that they don't know. If we don't take the time to have conversations with them and turn the heat up a little bit. That's, again, that's where the passion comes out. But it provides discovery for us about the challenges they're facing. But it also provides them with discovery about why those issues are such important issues to us in the fire service and, and how those are advancing. Right. Again, I keep talking about these emerging threats. It's no joke. Right. And you'll. That exposure you'll get. I know you're going to, to NPS for a little bit. I am, yeah. In short order. And that's going to be awesome for you. And you're gonna, you're gonna see behind that curtain and go, oh my God, now I understand. Get what he's talking about, these emerging threats, because it's true. There's stuff out there. It's not half. It's not the big. It's not the. I shouldn't say it is the big stuff. It's not the day to day stuff. Right. It's the stuff that could be coming at us that we need to prepare for. And as a fire service, we need to be ready to do that. And our elected officials need to know, hey, this is real for us. And this is the exposure of my people. How do I keep them safe in these environments and take care of them? I need this from you to support me in making sure that we take care of our people in this way. I've been challenged to take that courage, my character, take that courage and have the grit to have those hard conversations run into that storm and not Be afraid to do it because they need it from us as well. They need to hear it. Otherwise they're not gonna.
- [50:08]
Podcast Host Berlin
And that's, that's also what's hard too, is because we'll say some individuals are in better positions to bring things forward. Right. You mentioned something which I love. I wrote it here. Put crazy ideas on the table. I actually, I love that. But it does take courage, right? Because we'll. We'll go here with. It's always easier to sit in comfort, right? In anything in life, specifically when you're at work. Like, it's easy for everyone to show up to work and just do the bare minimum and, you know, to not, you know, turn up the heat. We'll say, right, for an idea or a project or change the way we do things to better ourselves, to better equip ourselves for emerging threats. That does take courage, but not everyone will do that. And so I love how you, you know, that's something that we need to find ourselves more in. Now, I'm not saying obviously every single day, go, go challenge the status quo every single shift, every hour. No, like, you know, but there's a balance between how comfortable are you where you're at and are you trying to turn up the heat or ask the hard questions of other people. And if the answer is no to all the above, I think that's where you get stagnant and that's where we become complacent. Going back to what you said and so put crazy ideas on the table. So let's sit there for a second. You've done it. I'm sure. I'm certain you've done it. But it takes courage, right? Maybe at one point you were ridiculed for like, Jim, no, you know, that's dumb. Or we need leaders to be able to do that for our people or for the organization or for our community. Because not everybody's doing it.
- [51:39]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, Yeah, I totally agree. Informal and informal leaders, right? It's like I said, that you crews on the, on the crews that do the work every single day are. Have visibility way better than I do. And I think that encouraging them to bring these ideas forward is super important. What's important too, is, and to step it back just a little bit is make sure that people understand. Takes time. Especially when we bring crazy ideas forward. It takes time to navigate those and get them to a place. But that doesn't mean don't do it. That just means let's get on table, let's be patient, knowing it's going to Take time. But every single day, we're going to move that thing forward. We're going to build momentum on this topic, because until we. We either prove, yes, it can be done, or we prove, no, there's no way we can do this. We're going to continue to move it forward and push it to create session. And I'll give you an example right now. I mean, we're living it right now. As you're aware, we brought in the electric fire engine. Right. To our city a year ago. And there's been a little ridicule on that. We've had some struggles associated with it. Not necessarily the apparatus it's got. It's done actually really well. Pierce has a piece of equipment that works really well for. It's not perfect, but they're adapting with us. They're helping. We're sharing with them the failures that we see with that, and they're making changes to their product to make it better in our environment with all the hills and stuff that we have here, which is awesome. But there's been a lot of agencies out there that looked at us and go, what are you guys doing? And what. What are you thinking? And to Chief Shepherd's credit, it's been awesome. Right. We're gonna prove. We're gonna prove concept one way or the other. And fortunately, the city of Redmond has the revenue to make this happen, and they. They're backing it full. It may not be perfect, and it may not get there for the fire service. I think it will. But there's. I know there's people out there that don't believe it will. But my job right now is to proof. Proof the concept. Yes, it will work, and it's going to be the. In my. There should. Certainly there's an environmental impact there. There's no doubt about it. Yep. I'm less concerned about that and far more concerned about firefighter health and safety. And that's my focus, is if we can prove this concept and Pierce can get that. That piece of equipment working the way that. So it's comparable to a diesel engine in response capability, and that. That becomes something that is the new standard for the fire service.
- [53:52]
Podcast Host Berlin
Yep.
- [53:52]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
That. That will. Will hit it out the park. Right. That'll be the biggest advancement firefighter health and safety that we've made in the last 20 years, in my mind. Yep. And that excites me. Right. So. But at the same time, there's people going, what are you doing? What are you thinking? And it hasn't been perfect. Right. It's been hard to get our infrastructure right inside the stations to be able to charge it appropriately as quickly as we want it to. It's happening, but it's so, so slow because you're working with third and fourth party individuals that it's not their priority. It's our priority. Y. So that's been a challenge. And then you're. And then you're navigating, you're proving the concept of the equipment. Thank. Thank God we got a great partner in that. That they're listening to us and they're coming out and evaluating everything and they're make. They're adapting to it, making changes to the gearing and all that stuff to get the performance where we want it to be. Yeah, but, but to your point, there's still people out there questioning the. The that why we would ever take that on. But I have the opportunity because I work for a city that believes in it, they're willing to fund it, and a fire chief that's 100 behind it. And I'm super excited about it because I do believe in better communication. It's quiet when it's running and pumping a thousand gallons a minute. You can talk like you and I are talking right now without the noise and it's not putting off diesel emissions and it performs great on the fire ground. The biggest question we have is performance. Getting to the how fast it gets there's in a hill environment. If it's on the flat, it'll be the diesel truck the other day. But it's pulling the hill stuff like that that we're challenged with right now. And then obviously charging, making sure the infrastructure exists to charge it. So. But that's an example. And it's like we're all in. I'm gonna keep pushing it forward until we prove we can't do it. And if we prove we can't do it, that's okay. We pull back. Yeah. But if we continue to get it right, we're going to do something that's great for not just Redmond, but great for the entire fire service.
- [55:34]
Podcast Host Berlin
That's. Well, I'll just sum it up in what. Number one, that's humility is kind of what I heard there too is if it's not going to work, first of all, your number one priority is we're going to prove that the concept works and we're going to run with it till we can't. And then there's going to be some humility there and say, you know what? We tried it and now we're Going to pivot, Right? But what I'm going to sum up everything you just said, and I'm just going to say that's what leadership is, is taking on what others won't and sticking with it, knowing that you'll probably get ridiculed, right? Because you said, and I don't know the whole history on it, but, you know, it was working. It's not working. It's cost a lot of money. It's not performing to what everyone expected, but believing in it and, and continuing with it, because that's leadership. And I'll. I said this in a previous episode, but I'll say it here because I watched. I watched college football and I love Kirby Smart and you know, Nick Saban, all them, but he said this thing is, as a leader, you don't always get to explain everything to everybody. You might get ridiculed, but you're going to take the shots, and that's leadership. You're not going to have the ability to always justify every decision to everybody. But you're okay with that because you believe in it and you believe it's right for the people in the community and the people you serve. And so that's what Redmond's doing. And I'm just going to say what I just heard there was the definition of leadership, because we're going to run with it because we're supported by the board, we're supported by the community. It's going to be best good for firefighter health, at least the biggest advancement in 20 years. You said, like, there's all kinds of wins there. So you're going to run with it knowing you'll probably get ridiculed, but it's because it's for the right thing. And so I, I love that. I, I was inspired just by you telling me that because I hear leadership, people will not take on the hard work because they're scared of getting ridiculed. They don't have the courage.
- [57:18]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
The one thing I'll add to that is the crews. The crews are incredible, right? They're behind this thing. They love that rig when we. When we take it and send it back to Pierce and say, hey, make these tweaks. Tear this. Tear the ring and pinion out, Put new in. This is why. I mean, they're telling us why they've come out and evaluated. But when the truck goes away and goes back to Hughes to have that work done, the crews miss it, right, because they're behind it, too. They believe in that rig. They see the potential there. And they're, they're, they're proud to be leading in their way, too, from that, from their level in, in communicating with myself and with the manufacturer about the things that they're seeing and they're learning while they're, while they're running it and sharing that and watching that become something different. Right. It's not, we're not staying in the same lane. We're not just saying. We're not sitting at the BE table and complaining about it and dismantling it. They're there at the beanery table challenging each other. What. What about this? Maybe we should try this with it. Maybe we should. Next time Pierce comes out and rides with us, we should do these evolutions with them so they see it in practice, and that's exactly what they're doing. And, and by doing that, we're getting really good information back to Pierce Manufacturing. And they're, and they're. And Pierce Manufacturing is responding right. They're going in and making the changes that we. Based off of what they're seeing and hearing from our crews. And it's super exciting to watch. And I think it will be successful. And I'll end it on that. Is that. I think in the end it's going to be successful. We're. We're queuing up our second one right now. If assuming that what we get back in performance in the next evaluation is what we think it's going to be, we're probably pulling the trigger on a second one that'll be working in the downtown core of the city.
- [58:52]
Podcast Host Berlin
So that's exciting. That's exciting.
- [58:54]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
We won't go all the way, Evie. Sure, sure. But, but again, proof of concept, because we have the capability to be able to do it. The backing of not just city government and government around us, but also the crews are like, they're going to give me thumbs up or thumbs down. If it's thumbs down, crew say, no, don't do it. It's not there. Then we're. We won't do it. Yeah, they. They say, yep, we. We're confident that we can do it. Then we'll pull the trigger on the second one. Just to add to the, add to the, the data. Right? I do it.
- [59:22]
Podcast Host Berlin
I love it. Oh, I love it. I'm excited. I'm excited. I was in Redmond earlier this morning, and to think that there. That was in your jurisdiction just a few hours ago, right before this call. That's exciting. I had no idea you're teeing up another one. And that's. I'm excited to see what the future brings. Because if that's the future, it's. It started right here in Redmond, right? I mean, it's, that's, that's, that's super exciting. We just talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about, obviously, conflict, leading where you're at. We talked about having courage, a lot of concepts here. Now, as far as for a listener, right, if there was something that you were going to lean on to say, young leaders in the fire service should be focusing on this, what would that be?
- [59:59]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
I'll tell you, I think when I talk about, when I think about leadership, and I kind of started with this, is that don't look at his words on paper. It's truly actions. And it's, it's, it's about culture that you establish, not necessarily within the organization, but you establish within your crew that you work with on a daily basis. And it's how you interact with that team. It's your team, right? When you're coming to work, it should not be dreadful. It should be something that you're looking forward to, to come and be. Not that you're getting away from your family, but you're coming to be with this other aspect of your life. And it should be fun and exciting to be there. And you should be in a position that the culture is acceptance, acceptable of moving things, right. Building momentum around stuff. And that doesn't mean something new every day. To your point, it's not like challenge the challenge things every day, but it should be, it should be. There should be momentum there associated with what you're doing and becoming more tactically competent, better fundamentals, growing in those soft skills, taking care of the community at a higher level, being involved in those special events that are happening out there just to touch the community, but doing it not just as you, but doing it as your team. And it starts at the company level and builds from there. Again, the boardroom, right, the beanery table, where things happen is how do you inspire, take to take care of not only the development of your. Of your rookies and who's coming in, but also the development of yourself and the development of your, your, your company officer. And if you're at the, if you're the company officer and you own that station, I would say this is, recognize that. That's. It's. We do a thing here now. We give, we give our, Our captains get a mailbox. It's got their name on it. And it's very intentional. Right. The chief shepherd brought this too. And I think it's awesome is that your name's on the mailbox. So when people drive by that station and look at it, it's an. It's a reflection on you. It's how you take care of it and how you. How that station, the character within that station exists, what it looks like on the inside and the outside. That's all about you as the company officer. It's not just your role, but you're there to set the expectation for everybody else that's. That's working within that station with you. And. And how do you do that? So I. It's.
- [62:22]
Podcast Host Berlin
This is.
- [62:23]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
This is the best career there is. Right. And if we're destructive, we break it down. And, and destructive. Things that are destructive take a long time to recover from, honestly. I mean, if. Name the topic. But if. If we're in a position where we're just dismantling things to. For whatever reason because we're not having hard conversations because we're not going out and turning the heat up a little bit, but we're just pounding our fists on the table and creating an environment destructive that probably takes five years to recover from, depending on what the topic is. Right. And if it's just between you and I, it may take weeks to recover from. But if it's a bigger issue that's affecting labor management and potentially affecting executive leadership within the district or the city, that's really hard to fix. Takes time. Not to say they can't be fixed, because it can be, but it takes a long time to fix it. And if it's five years, that's probably a quarter of your career or a fifth of your career.
- [63:16]
Podcast Host Berlin
Absolutely.
- [63:17]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
And is that how you want to spend that time? Right. Or do you want to be in a position where we're stepping away from the crank? We're coming up with good at good questions because we should be. Anybody should be able to answer those questions. If we can't find the answer, there's a problem. Right. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's the starting point is just be in a position where you're. You're helping the department grow every single day. Raise the bar for the entire organization, no matter what. If. If. If I can't reach the bar because I'm not performing as well as everybody else is, that doesn't mean hold the bar down for those that are performing super well, raise it for the people that are performing well, and everybody will come up that we may never. I may never achieve the bar. Whatever. You know, whatever that expectations, I may not be able to get to it. But if, if, if you. If Berlin can get to that bar and, and his team's getting to it, that's good. We need to have those conversations, Continue to set the expectations, hold people accountable, but don't stop because one person can't get there. Because if we do that, then we're stuck. We're not going to move forward, and we won't win games. I mean, honestly, it comes down to, you know, as a team, we want to perform at a super high level. And I think that's it. The other thing I would say is don't be afraid, right? Have the courage run into the storm. The, you know, the. I use the analogy. My son gave me this actually when he was going into the. Into work or business world, and he talked to me about. He has this, this picture on his wall in his office at home. And it's. It's the buffalo, right? And it's a. It's. It's this bat, huge buffalo. And I'm like, what is up with the buffalo? He goes, no, he goes, because you know the difference between a buffalo and all the other animals? Because the buffalo survives because it runs through the storm. The other animals run from it, and the storm catches up to them and kills them. And this is kind of a silly analogy, but it's so true. It's like, that is, don't be afraid to go in and have those. Those conversations. Go in and find out the why, what's happening there and how do we change that? How do we make it better? I was having a conversation yesterday with one of my company officers that's. That's working to promote to. Of a town chief. So we were kind of going through his workbook and he asked a really great question. He goes. He goes, I believe in where we are right now. The leadership works here. But he goes, I've also been here long enough to watch fire chiefs come and go and deputy chiefs come and go. He goes, what happens if. What happens if we get a new deputy chief in here and they come from somewhere else in the country? And it's totally changes everything that we have as as far as the culture that we're building right now and how that's continuing to grow? And I told him, I said, look, I totally get it because we used to use this analogy when we would have. We would have higher. We went through a lot of fire chiefs for a long time here in Redmond. And the analogy is this was when I was a union leader within the organization. I had Been in for about 12 years as a union leader. And I was ready to step out. I couldn't do it anymore. And my wife, my entire career had hated my union involved just because I took away from home true stuff and she didn't like it. And I was like, I'm done. I'm gonna pull a plug. And she goes, what are you talking about? She goes, this is the time, right? You need to stay in there because you're at a position now. You've been here long enough that you have enough new people coming in. You need to help. Help establish the change that you want to see. And the. The at that time, first off, thank you to her. She gave me the blessing to be able to step into that role and do this. But at that time, I use this analogy of, of a new fire chief would come to town. We'd put the vest on the fire chief. He'd zip it up and he'd take off running back to Minneapolis or. Or the neck. And we would sit there and watch him take off running. And on that vest was a bungee cord tied to it to the rest of us. And he would take off running. We'd watch him. And then all of a sudden be like a slingshot. And we would all be going to Minneapolis and make it totally change who we were and everything that we were doing. And then for whatever reason, he would stop or get separate. Separate with. From the organization. And he would take the vest off and we get put person that was going to Denver, Colorado, and we would be off same thing. The. The vest goes on, he takes off running the bungee. We're sitting there watching. The bungee cord gets tight and off we go with them to Denver and then again to California. And to you name, we just went around and around, around. We hadn't. We had no culture. We were just reacting to the new fire chief that was here, that was changing us. And the what that at that time we talked about the change was the vest is still going on, but it's got a chain on it now. And the chain has got. It's got 20ft. And that's our radius and that's our culture. And you can run, but you're going to hit that chain at 20ft. We need you to lead for us and support us and help us grow, but you're not going out of our circle. Our circle needs to become what is becomes our culture. And I told what I was telling the company officer yesterday is like when I'm gone and Chief Shepherd's gone, And somebody else comes in here. If and whenever all that happens, have the courage. Right. Have the courage and the grit to step up as leaders within the organization to say, believe in what we. What we're establishing and what we're creating. We're not done. We're not perfect by any means, but we are adapting and. But have the courage as leaders, formal and informal leaders, that. When that vest gets put on and zipped up, and it's a silly analogy, but it's. But. But when that vest goes on and gets zipped up, have that conversation and have a real conversation. Say you're it. You're our leader. We appreciate having you here. Here's the ground rules for us. We need you to do these things and support us in these ways and advocate for us. But don't take us back to Colorado or Texas or wherever that other location may be, because we are here. We want to continue to grow here. That doesn't mean that we can't change. There's certainly change that can happen. But. But no more. No more of this slingshot thing that was going on. But it takes courage. And that goes back to turning up the heat without burning down the house. And that's true at a micro level in conversations like that that have to take place. Yeah.
- [69:10]
Podcast Host Berlin
Today was about having courage. It's about going out, being proactive, getting ahead of it, and having the conversation. And I love the analogy of turn up to heat without burning down the house. Right. I mean, there's a. The element of like, okay, don't, don't go. Don't turn up way too high. Right. Like the thermostat. You know, you don't want to be paying $1,000 a month on your. On your bill because you don't want 88 degrees in your house. But. But you want to turn up the heat to make it a little bit uncomfortable, because that's what we'll use the word forces change. But if we were able to, because I imagine you said informal, informal leaders. If we're all building this capacity to be better at having those difficult conversations, I believe not just as a fire service, as a society, we will be in a better place. So this is kind of one of those things where I know some people will listen and say, well, you can't really have a. It's different for everybody, which I believe. But I also believe initial frameworks helps, too. How do you suggest. And I'll throw this out there and you tell me what you think, Chief, is like, is this a decent framework? Is. I'M a company officer. You know, I try to host a space within my crews at a certain time of the day and it's usually toward the end, like right before dinner, after, you know, the, the chores, the training and those are done three, four o' clock in the afternoon, where I try to host a space where things are on the table. Hey, what do you guys want to talk about today? Let's, you know, everything, quote, unquote, I know the group can't see me, but quote, unquote, everything's on the table. But I'm creating a space where I'm trying to, we could talk psychological safety, but where people are going to be wanting to bring something up because. Let's just throw it out there, Chief. There's spaces where people are not going to open up. But I guess the question is this is how can we provide some kind of a framework? Right? Maybe, is that a simple sentence? Maybe this is a time of day where we can start to implement this space where we're, we're going to start having these difficult conversations now.
- [71:01]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. And first give you credit because as a company officer, doing that right now is exactly where you need to be. Right? Because that's creating none of this. You can't change, you can't create that culture overnight. Right. If you do, it's not authentic. I mean, if you think you're going to walk into your role as a company officer or your role as a new fire chief or even, even as a, as a young guy that came up through the ranks and then got fortunate enough to become in the position that I'm in today, I think I, sometimes I say fortunate, sometimes I say not fortunate, but, but to be able to be in the position that I'm in today, I still couldn't come in here and flip the switch. Right? It, to be authentic, it's, it takes, I, I, I use the analogy of a dimmer switch, right. You've got to turn it up slow and it's going to be, it's not going to happen fast. It's going to continue to have conversations like that and open the forum for, for, to let people know. Every meeting that I go into, I started off with, with a question, answer. What do you got for me? Before I have an agenda, I'm coming in with an agenda. I've got things I want to talk about. But before I start anything, especially those that are on duty, what do you got for me? Anything you want to know? Any questions for Me that we can do and I hope. And again, I lean into those that are in uniform that may get tapped out on a call because I want them to have an opportunity before they have to leave. And that's true with formal meetings or even just informal opportunities to walk into the meeting room and sit down and hang out with the crews. I always start it there and sometimes it's super effective because there's trust in that room and there's, there's not rushing off to go to the next training or an event that they have to be at. And we have really good authentic conversation back and forth. Other times, different crews, not the same level of trust. It's not as easy to get that going. But being present is huge. Being in the room and owning the converse, you know, having the ownership of the stuff that comes up. Even if it's hard, even if it's hard. Things that come at you as questions, don't get defensive. Recognize that you're not going to change anything in that immediate moment from either side. But be most importantly, and I said this earlier, is listen to learn. Don't listen to wait for my turn to speak. Right. Be open to the conversation and hear what's happening so you truly absorb what the concerns are within the workforce and what things are happening there. And maybe it's not even concerns, maybe it's just wonderful that we haven't done a good job as leadership in sharing enough about. And I think it's super important is to share that information. You know, they say information is power, and it's so true. And if, if you're, I think if you're a leader and you're leading, right? You're, you're, you're willing to share everything. And I'll, I'll be honest, that's a fault of mine too, probably is that some, I get myself sometimes in trouble because I'll, I'll share too much and then it starts the rumor mill at the beaner table and those things start spinning up and it's like, okay, I meant, you know, that's not where I was going. But that, that just means that, that just means I can't get defensive about it means pump the brakes, I got to circle back and we'll go right back out there and have that conversation again. Explain myself better because I clearly didn't do a very good job of communicating. And, and I, I, I, I shared in a way that was, that maybe created a sense of fear or whatever, which was never the intention. So circle back and go. Have, have the courage to go, you know what, hold on a second. I, I, that's all on me. I need to, I need to be, come back out and spend a little more time with you and make sure we're, we're understanding what things happen. And I think the crews appreciate that level. And it's not always easy. Right. There's always competing interests for time. But I'll tell you what, it's the most important time for sure from my perspective and I think at a chief's level, but certainly even at a company officers level, it's still that important time. Take the time with your people to have those conversations. And I love what you're doing is asking those questions the beaner or in, you know, when you have that downtime and establishing that so everybody knows. Because what you're building is that culture of it's okay. Yeah, it's okay to ask questions and it's a great place to be. And, and it provides clarity. The, which is, which is awesome. The one other thing I haven't talked about that I'll just say I think too is expectations. Right? Yes. Expectations are not something to be feared. Expectations are freedom. And what I would suggest is, and again, I'm learning we're not perfect by any means. But what I would suggest is as you build out expect for at whatever level within an organization is allow for whoever those expectations are going to inform and impact that they have part of their, part of the play in the development of those expectations and don't make them too complicated. Right. Keep it simple, but let them be part of that discovery of what those are going to be. And if crazy things get put out there that we just can't do right now, that's okay. Have that conversation. Just navigate to a place where we line up, up. And I don't make it complicated. One pager that just said this is, this is our expert. This is how we're going to behave and hold each other accountable. Not, not from the chief to, to the company officers, but as company officers, we're going to hold each other accountable to this level too.
- [76:06]
Podcast Host Berlin
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [76:08]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Expectations are freedom. Yes.
- [76:10]
Podcast Host Berlin
Expectations are freedom. I love that. And, and the expectations also because my expectations are, is, is arguably too thorough and it's something I'm obviously always working on. But it's both ways.
- [76:19]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Right.
- [76:20]
Podcast Host Berlin
And so it's my, here's my expectations. But what are your expectations of me? We'll say firefighter to company officer because there's things that I have to, and I always say this is, you got to lead differently. Right. You can't lead one way for everybody. And what, what really annoys me, Chief, if I can, I'll just be quite honest is, is when we'll, we'll just use the example of a struggling firefighter, we'll say, and I, I actually honestly believe the best leaders are those that help struggling firefighters. Because your job is easy if you have the class valedictorian, chief's company from the academy show up to your crew. This guy's crushing it. Sure, they were crushing before they got there. But it goes to. You talked about grit, courage, work ethic to help someone elevate their skill sets when they are struggling to begin with. But I guess where I go with that is you have to lead differently because I have to lead different crews differently. And that's not inconsistency, that's knowing your people really, that's just adapting to their needs and wants. And if you don't, you're not being very effective because you're just, you can't lead one way always.
- [77:25]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
It's a great point. And you know, I, I think, and we preach this a lot is take care of your people all the time. Right. And have another area to talk about at some point, whether it's through your succession project or other ways. Yeah. Another soft skill for leadership is emotional intelligence. Right. Understanding what's going on with people and recognizing a couple different things. But I'll touch on two, is that one is changing performance. What happened that's caused something to change in this individual. There's something else going on there. Right. You see something totally different than what you seen before. And I know that's not exactly what you're talking about, but I'm just going to speak to it really quick because that's a wake up call. Right. We should all recognize that and go, we've got a ton invested in this individual. They're part of our family. Something's going on in life that's, that's impacting them in a negative way. Not that it's our business necessarily, but have, have the grace to go and, and try and identify how we can support them in other ways potentially that we need to rather than just look at as a job issue. That's a problem. Right. That's first, that's one side of it. The other side is, and I said this a little bit, alluded to it a little bit earlier, and this is true with all teams is that, and this is not an out, I want to say that right up front is that we're not accepting everybody. Sometimes people just can't do it. But not everybody's going to be the same. Right. When I coached baseball for years when kids were younger, there were certain times in my life in dealing with parents or dealing with boards that people would say, oh, Jimmy can't do that, so we're not going to do it for. Nobody's going to get to do it. Like, absolutely not. Right? You're not, buddy. By saying that. Because guess what? Berlin can do it. And Berlin's performing at a high, at a high place right now. It, Jim's meeting the standards, but he's not, he's not performing at the same level that Berlin is. That's okay. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna take the, take it to the next level for Berlin and we're gonna continue to work with Jimmy to make sure that he gets the opportunity to have to get better. Sure. And like I said earlier, I may never get. Jim may never get to the bar and reach it, because we're going to move it again. Right. We're going to push it again. But, but he's going to get better. He's going to come up with the rest of the team that comes up. And what you're developing is, you're developing. And Jim may be super strong in other areas that Berlin's not. As an example. Right. So you're developing a team now that's creating this trust in this environment that they know I'm not, not perfect in this realm, but I'm really good over here. And when, when, at 2 o' clock in the morning, when things are going really sideways, guess who you're going to rely on at different times. You're going to pivot both ways, depending on what those things are. But everybody in the room is going to know where that subject matter expertise lies within that team. And that's how teams win games. Right. If you have one, if you have stud athletes and you have, you have half a dozen stud athletes, but you got 12 people on the team, that team's not going to win. Not going to win. But if you, if you create an environment where everybody's better all the time, getting better all the time, and you, you determine where those subject matter expertise are in there, and you can, you can pivot to those and use those when you need them, those teams will be successful and win. Because it's not just about you as a leader making those decisions. The entire team has, has built a culture around the fact that they know that they can do it together, they can be successful. And anything, anything you challenge them with, even. And I've overused it, but I'm gonna, but I want to go back and recognize even those emerging threats, that we don't know what they are right now. Yeah, there's teams that I know that can address those because, because it will be the challenge that gets thrown in front of them, but they're going to react to it because everything they've done in the day to day has translated to the exact same trust level that they have during those crisis. And they step up in those crisis times together and they win, they win championships in those environments.
- [81:02]
Podcast Host Berlin
I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. And there's a saying, and I'm sure you've heard, it's like on a team, we'll say like a diverse team that utilizes people with different strengths, different positions. Will say, to use sports analogy is if you and I are the same, you know, one of us becomes unnecessary. Like, what benefit would it be on a team, football team? Will say, if you had two Tom Brady's, nothing. Because you can't both be out there at the same time. It just does not work. So you need to go to your point. Is it's, it's interesting because we, we know, and I know this, this word is. It hits differently for different people for whatever reason, why some people would get like, you know, offended by. But like diversity matters and we're talking about diversity of skill sets, diversity of thought, diversity of courage and ability to bring, you know, conversations to the table, the ability to bring crazy ideas to the table. Like, that's, that's diversity in addition to everything else that diversity brings. But without it, we become a stagnant group that's the same, that thinks the same. And then in that setting, a few of you were unnecessary at that point.
- [82:02]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
Yeah, I love it. And I'll add equity. Right. Because yes, everything you're describing is the same. It's like bringing the stakeholders to the table that have the opportunity to be involved in the conversation when, when you're turning up the heat. That's where discovery happens and that's the people in the room you're hearing from that you don't always hear from. It's not just coming from the front office. It's not just coming from the company officer level. It's the firefighters that are watching and going, you know what? Hey, are you, did you see that? Did you, Are you aware of this, that this is going on? Did you know that they're teaching this in the academy now. And it's like, well, no, we didn't have any clue to that. That's. That's equity. Right. You're providing for everybody across all ranks to be involved in that process of discovery. That. That. And if, again, if you're listening to learn rather than listening to have your turn, you're in a position now as an organization that you're. You're starting to pull stuff. And then. Then at the top, whether it's a company officer or at the top, top, as a chief having the courage to adapt and go, you know what? We made a mistake. We're going the wrong way. Let's pivot a little bit and change our. Change our direction. It's not to say we're not going the same direction.
- [83:03]
Podcast Host Berlin
Right.
- [83:03]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
But what we thought was the target on the center of that wall behind me, we knew that's where we were going straight to that target. Now, that target moved a little bit still on that wall, but it's moved a little bit. So maybe not quite as efficient, but guess what? We're gonna have a better product when we get there. Exactly.
- [83:17]
Podcast Host Berlin
And I love the way you say that on that analogy. Yeah, it's on the same wall. We just have to pivot a little bit that way because that's. That's our new target, but it's still that direction. And that was a great analogy. I actually. I could visualize that right when you said that. Chief, as you know, on this show, we continue it because our guests get to challenge the next one. But is there someone else out there, Chief, that you would like to see be on the show and share their message?
- [83:43]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
I would. I'm gonna give you two and one. One. You're gonna get to interact with that. It. When you go back, when you go down to mps.
- [83:49]
Podcast Host Berlin
Oh, nice.
- [83:50]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
One of the professors down there, his name's David Brannan, and he is fascinating. Gentlemen. He's more on the law enforcement side, but really get. You think in a really good way. He's a guy you want to have come. He always says to me, so I'm gonna say say it out to here on this group. He's a guy you want to bring to your barbecue because he is. He is fascinating to talk to and listen to, and he's inspiring all the time, and he's. And he makes it real. He ties it all together. But he's going to talk to you about threats and what they are, both from a domestic standpoint and an international standpoint, and how it. How it overlays. Into public safety. So he'd be my first. You're going to meet him down there. I'm certain of it. And even if you don't, we're going to almost make sure you get connected because he would be phenomenal if we can get him to come on here. The other one I'm going to give you is EMS chief from fdny. His name's Paul Milano, and a guy that came up through the EMS side of fdny. I know you've had FDNY guys on here before, and there's. It's a little bit different. I mean, they're all together, but a little bit different perspective. And I think he'll have a really good way of expressing the challenges we all are facing right now with our capabilities to respond to all the calls and the challenges that we're having with so much call on on the EMS side and wall times and those kinds of things. So my challenge is Paul Milano. Awesome. Fdny.
- [85:13]
Podcast Host Berlin
Well, thank you. And I hope I do get to meet David Brannan and this can continue that. I always say the podcast ends when there's no more challenges. So again, it continues because we'll reach out to these two individuals to help us continue the conversation as long as they take on Chief Whitney's challenge. So we'll reach out. So I do want to say thank you, Chief, for giving up an hour and a half of your time today. A phenomenal message. Before we do close, I like to give you this opportunity. What would you like to leave our listeners with before we officially close today's conversation?
- [85:46]
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Whitney
I think the biggest thing is go with grace, be humble, but don't be afraid of moving things forward. Have the grit to stand up for what you believe for and ask hard questions. That's the most important thing. Let the Beanery table be a place of bonding, be a place of community, be a place of learning and inspiring others. That's truly what it's about, and your organization will be better for it. Awesome.
- [86:13]
Podcast Host Berlin
Thanks, 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. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, and stay curious.