Achieve Greatness

What makes a good company officer great?

Take an honest look at your company for a moment. Would you consider it a great company? How about good? Competent? For the sake of argument, let’s assume your company is at least average.

Why do we settle for average companies and average departments? Is it because we don’t get to pick our crewmembers? Because rookie captains don’t want to stir the pot? Because we’re too lazy to make a difference? Because we’re only here for the money?

Let’s say you’re at work and your family is sound asleep. A fire starts inside your house and everyone gets out except for one person. Upon their arrival, the first-due engine company finds your spouse frantically yelling that one of your kids is trapped on the second floor. I know what you must be thinking: "I sure hope the average engine company is there to save my kid."

If it’s not OK to be average when your family depends on it, why is it OK to be average for your customers? We expect greatness, but settle for average.

From Good to Great
I recently read a book called "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. The book compares similar companies in the same business, such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Both of these companies are successful, but only one of them became great.

The team of researchers who gathered the data for Collins’ book focused on the companies that experienced a sudden transition from good to great. That transition to greatness comes from what the author calls Level 5 leadership—"the highest level in a hierarchy of executive capabilities."¹ In the study, all of the good-to-great companies had Level 5 leaders in place during the transition. Surprisingly, the Level 5 leaders weren’t the larger-than-life celebrity CEOs. Instead, the overwhelming traits that made these leaders great were "humility and will." 

The Level 5 leaders used similar strategies to achieve their companies’ successes. Some of what they did applies directly to what we do as company officers, but some of it is a stretch because of our para-military structure. At the company officer level, we can’t put the right people in the right seats and kick the wrong people off the bus. It doesn’t work that way on a fire engine. I can’t call my chief and tell him to get rid of someone because they suck; instead, I have to re-train or re-motivate them. 
But we can apply the character traits of Level 5 leaders: 

1. Humility and will
2. Ambition for the company: Setting up successors for success
3. Compelling modesty
4. Unwavering resolve to do what must be done
5. Applying the "window and the mirror" tactic

Let’s take a closer look at each of these traits.

Humility & Will
The "Good to Great" author identifies humility and will as the cornerstones for Level 5 leadership. Does this mean extraordinary leaders are meek and mild with no personality? I don’t think so. In a nutshell, it means "always put the company before you." In the fire service our egos can lead us to make bad decisions. I should know—I can recall a handful of times that I’ve been challenged and allowed my ego to lead me. The result: It was like my ego was a stock car, and we crashed straight into the wall of humility. Not once, but every time I made the decision to let my ego lead me, I’ve regretted it.

Oddly enough, I’m able to set my ego aside on the fireground much easier than around the station. Perhaps things move too quickly for my ego to keep up, but what it probably boils down to is that my crew is depending on my decision-making ability to keep them safe while we accomplish our task.   

The bottom line: Your lack of humility can get you into a lot of trouble on and off the fireground. I would be willing to bet that supercharged egos are involved in many firefighter injuries and deaths. Humility in the fire service could save the life of one of your crewmembers—or you.

Ambition for the Company
"Ambition for the Company: Setting up Successors for Success" means making sure the people who take over your position are as successful, and hopefully more successful, when you’re gone.

Many people get a sense of personal enjoyment when they leave a leadership position and everything falls apart: "It ran great when I was there." Unfortunately, this is an epidemic in the fire service and it runs straight down the line from fire chief to rookie firefighter. The "I don’t want the next guy to look better than me" attitude is a shame and a dangerous business philosophy for firefighters.

Training someone to be better than you is the ultimate accomplishment as a leader. As an officer, you should want all the people who work with you to become great leaders. What better compliment than when someone you trained and mentored becomes successful?

Mentoring in the fire service is becoming a lost art to some people because of the "I got mine" attitude. As an officer it starts with you. "I got mine" is fine as long as you make sure your people learn how to get theirs too.

I’ve spoken to several veteran firefighters recently who were disappointed in some of our newer employees’ work ethics. They tell me things like, "It’s a shame that they get off probation and think they own the place," or "So and so forgot what the junior firefighter is supposed to do on day 366." When I asked them what they did about it, most said they did nothing because it was uncomfortable or "wasn’t their job."

Mentoring doesn’t come with a rank; it comes because you want to help someone be successful. Mentoring comes in different packages. Sometimes you take a young firefighter and gently tell them how to improve, and sometimes you put a boot upside their ass (figuratively speaking, of course).

I had a discussion a few months ago with our new training officers, who are tasked with continuing the company officer mentor program our department started a few years ago. They asked for some suggestions on how to run the program. I shared all of the positive and negative things that had happened while I was working on the program. I did this because I want them to succeed. I hope their program blows away the one I was involved in, because it will be good for our department and good for them.

When you can have a hand in something that makes a difference, you know you accomplished something good. When you have a hand in teaching people to be successful, you have accomplished something great.

Compelling Modesty
"Good to Great" describes compelling modesty as "quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered."² Most firefighters, myself included, don’t fit under the shy, quiet, reserved or mild-mannered categories, but I do know some very humble, modest and gracious fire department leaders.

Captain Glenn Crum from the Redlands (Calif.) Fire Department is one of these men. He was always "compellingly modest," which is what I respected about him. I never saw him take credit for the accomplishments of his crew. After a fire, when the battalion chief was handing out kudos, Captain Crum would always deflect the credit to his crew.

This may seem like a small example of being modest, but I’ve witnessed the opposite as well. I’ve been at the tailboard slapping backs with everyone while our company officer explained to the chief how he single-handedly put out the fire and saved the day. As long as these legends believe in their own greatness, we will always have good stories to laugh about at the station.

Unwavering Resolve
"Unwavering resolve to do what must be done" is the ability to do whatever it takes to make a company successful.
Unwavering resolve is one of the fire service’s strong points. I’ve never been on a call when we gave up or left before the job was done. It may take us a while to get it figured out or to get the resources, but we always seem to get it done.

While I was working on Truck 131, we received a phone call about getting a cat out of a wall. We arrived at the house and found an elderly lady in a wheelchair living in a one-bedroom house by herself. She was very upset and pleaded for us to help her. She said her cat had some kittens in the attic and one of them must have fallen between the walls. She knew this because she heard a kitten crying for several days.

My crew went to work trying to get the kitten out of the wall. We moved a washer and dryer, made a small hole in the wall and found the kitten had made its way under the shower pan. It took us more than 90 minutes to finally get the kitten out of the wall. It doesn’t seem like a big deal and it certainly wasn’t a really cool story about braving the flames, but it sure made that lady’s day when she was able to hold her kitten. And I know my crew wasn’t going to just give up because it was only a kitten stuck in a wall. If we don’t give up on the little things, we most certainly won’t give up on the big things.

The Window & the Mirror
When something goes right, Level 5 leaders point "out the window" to all the people who make the company successful; when something goes wrong, they point to the person in the mirror—themselves. Less effective leaders do the opposite. 

As company officers, we are ultimately responsible for things that go wrong. You may not even be involved in a situation, but you have to eat it because you’re the supervisor.

It’s like a major league superstar taking a bean ball from the opposing pitcher. He may not have had anything to do with the reason he’s getting beaned, but he’s the best player and the other team is sending a message, in the form of a high and inside fastball. As an officer and a leader, you must turn away from the ball and take it sometimes. Sorry, superstar, it’s just business. Take your base.

Conclusion
I believe Level 5 leaders exist throughout the fire service. How do we know who they are? "Good to Great" recommends that we "Look for situations where extraordinary results exist but where no individual steps forth to claim excess credit. You will likely find a potential Level 5 leader at work."³

I know we have some great leaders at the Ontario Fire Department. Some are known and some have yet to be discovered. The job of the known leaders is to be talent scouts and develop the future leaders to achieve greatness. If a department is great when you were there, but falls to mediocrity after you leave, you’ve accomplished nothing.

Ray Gayk is a company officer with the Ontario (Calif.) Fire Department (OFD). Gayk is a 16-year veteran of the fire service who has been actively involved with the OFD’s development of engineer and captain mentor programs. Gayk has also been a training officer and currently works on Truck 131 in downtown Ontario.

References
All references taken from the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, 2001, HarperCollins Publisher Inc.
¹ p. 21
² p. 27
³ p. 37