Looking the Other Way

Officers must address situations that need attention, even when they’re uncomfortable

The comic strip opened with Garfield sitting on a really comfortable chair with a bag of chips and a beer, while there was a terrible blizzard outside. Then one of Garfield’s buddies begins to frantically beat on the window, begging to be let into the warm house. Garfield gets very upset, pressing his nose against the window looking at his good friend freezing to death. He exclaims, “I can’t sit here and watch one of my friends sit outside and freeze to death; I have to do something!” So Garfield leaps over to the curtain and closes it.

Does that sound like anyone you know? We see that type of reaction—or inaction—in the fire service from time to time, don’t we? It’s often easier for us to simply close the curtain and pretend something isn’t happening. It takes a special person to confront certain problems and do what we’re supposed to do.

I know I’ve been in a few situations where I looked the other way, even when I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. And I’ve regretted it each time, because the outcome was preventable, and I could have prevented it.

The Right Reasons
When I look back at some of these less-than-stellar leadership moments in my life, I can attribute them to one thing: worrying what other people will think about me.

But here’s the thing about worrying what others will think. It works both ways. People will have an opinion whether you choose to act or not. 

At the end of the day, you can’t help what people think. I’ve found it much more helpful to ask myself instead, “Am I doing this for the right reason?” I ask myself that question all the time.

One caveat: It’s a fairly easy question to ask, but it’s often a difficult one to answer. And you must be self-aware enough to know when you’re not being completely honest with yourself. We can easily talk ourselves into things and justify our actions. Have you ever watched someone make a terrible decision and then justify it until the bitter end?

Outside Your Comfort Level
As an officer, you can’t simply close the curtain on the uncomfortable situation, although some officers choose that road and are much better suited to climb into their comfy chair and pretend nothing is going on.

When you watch something happen that needs some immediate attention from someone’s officer, and the officer sits there like a big dope with their eyes glazed over, don’t you feel like going up to them and karate-chopping ’em right in the neck?

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a violent person, so I wouldn’t really do that, but I sure think about it. Maybe I wouldn’t karate-chop ’em, maybe I would just give ’em a good old-fashioned open-hand smack to the back of the head. You know, an attention-getter.  

Let me give you an example of an uncomfortable situation some company officers avoid. Let’s say you have a firefighter on your crew who hates training but really needs it based on some recent poor performances. We’ll call him Firefighter Lumpy.

Firefighter Lumpy is a master of passive/aggressive behavior, which seems to throw a wrench into every training opportunity that presents itself, or anything else that doesn’t pertain to Firefighter Lumpy’s agenda for the day. You know he’ll challenge you before, during and after this drill if you decide to go through with it.

I know everyone reading this article is saying, “This is a no-brainer; we’re taking Firefighter Lumpy training.” Well let me tell you, if it was a no-brainer, I wouldn’t be writing this article. There are many people collecting company and chief officer paychecks who are very uncomfortable with the above scenario.

Beyond the Decision
If you do your job with good intentions and for the right reasons, you’ll generally make good decisions. But you must do more than make the decision to do the right thing; you must have the skills to navigate the uncomfortable situation and follow through to ensure the desired outcome. If a firefighter knows they’re training because they’re being made an example of, it generally doesn’t go very well.

Officers must find a way to present something that may be uncomfortable in such a way as to obtain buy-in from the individual or crew. This is where having some leadership ability helps, because if the individual or crew thinks you’re being less than honest with your intentions, you just bought yourself an uphill battle.

The best way I have found to deal with uncomfortable situations is to develop a very honest and open relationship with my crew. When we have an issue, we deal with it. We try not to let things fester and develop into things they aren’t. If we make a mistake or have some training issues to attend to, we don’t pretend everything is perfect; we talk about them and try to improve the situation.

Making an emotional decision, aka “making it personal,” is a deal-killer. When we make things personal, our reaction to any situation is generally a poor one. Instead, put things into perspective and realize someone’s actions or inactions probably weren’t directed at you. You simply get the pleasure of developing a plan for improvement.

End Result: Respect
The way in which you handle these situations begins to define what kind of an officer you are. I’m sure you’ve seen officers handle these situations in many different ways with many different outcomes. The outcomes are the direct result of what the officer did or didn’t do.

I certainly don’t know the best way to handle every situation. But if I’ve learned anything as an officer, it’s that you can’t simply close the curtain and pretend a problem doesn’t exist. The fastest way to gain respect from your crew, peers and supervisors is by taking care of uncomfortable situations with sincerity and good intentions.

Ray Gayk is a company officer with the Ontario (Calif.) Fire Department (OFD) and currently works on Truck 131 in downtown Ontario. Gayk is a 17-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 has taught numerous classes on company officer development. Contact him at raygayk@verizon.net.