Professional Development: What’s Your Plan?

Several weeks ago, I was leaving for work when I noticed that, upon starting the car and plugging in my iPhone to the USB charger, the mapping app popped up on the screen and automatically directed me to my office. 

That evening, I got into my car to leave for home, and the app automatically provided the route back to my house. This can seem somewhat unnerving and “Big Brother-ish,” but it really is a relatively simple concept, as my son, who is a software developer, told me. Your most frequently used address locations are analyzed, and data that are collected on your driving routes are utilized to try to determine where you likely are headed. It essentially is using an algorithm to determine your probable current and future actions based on past behaviors. 

Establishing and following a structured professional development plan is a lot like a mapping app. Once you identify an end goal, it’s your responsibility to input information into your mental database through a variety of means. Based on this input, which takes place over a period of years, you ideally reach your objective of becoming more competent, and your actions and behaviors become somewhat more predictable. I believe that we can agree that everyone appreciates a capable leader who is steady, consistent and predictable.

Implementing a credible professional development framework that encourages and shapes knowledgeable, well-rounded and experienced officers should be a high priority for every agency. In fact, it should help to form the very foundation of organizational culture. We have the responsibility to ensure that our up-and-coming leaders are prepared to accept that new bugle when their time comes.

What does this process look like, and how do we begin to map out that journey? Much like my mapping app, it takes a variety of inputs to develop a complete, functioning algorithm. If you examine today’s various fire service professional development models, whether it be the International Association of Fire Chief’s (IAFC) Professional Development Standard, the National Fire Academy’s (NFA) Four Pillars, the U.S. Fire Administration’s Fire & Emergency Services Higher Educations Network (FESHE) or the Commission on Professional Credentialing’s professional designation model, all are predicated on four basic criteria: experience, training, education, and ongoing personal growth and self-development. Think of it as a table, with the four primary components of professional development as legs. None are more or less important than the other, and all are necessary to create and maintain balance.

Experience

Our experiential foundation starts the moment that we walk in the door as a new hire—in many cases, even before. It’s more than simply years on the job. Experience comes in bits and pieces, large and small, intentional and unintentional. Rarely does it come with an accompanying certificate, and sometimes with pain and regret.

I remember when my fire chief addressed our recruit class, and he challenged us to take pride in our new profession and to carry on the tradition of excellence. At the same time, he warned us against boastfulness and arrogance. He said that, as city employees, we are part of a much larger team. When we see the garbage truck go by, wave. When we walk past water department employees who are sliding into a ditch, thank them for their service. Then he said something that, at the time, seemed rather innocuous: “If you see a piece of paper on the ground, pick it up.” What was he doing? He was giving us a peek into the organizational culture that we were about to become part of. He was guiding our first steps toward professionalism. To this day, I can’t walk past a piece of paper on the ground without reaching down and picking it up.

As a young lieutenant, I worked with a battalion chief who several of us simply didn’t get along with. He was a rather smart guy, but you never quite knew what to expect from him. He might praise you for your actions at one incident and condemn you for operating the very same way at the next. We worked together at the same station, and the atmosphere there was as intense and stressful as the fireground, because you never quite knew what to expect at shift change. Needless to say, several of us drew out of that assignment at our first opportunity. Competence is incredibly important, but competence without consistency is stressful, at best.

So, how does a negative encounter with a shift commander and a pep talk from your fire chief from the late 1980s fit into professional development? These situations, and countless others, contribute to the experiential database that helps to form the foundation of the leader who you will become. The good, and the bad. The buildings that we saved, and the ones that we didn’t. The victims who we rescued, and the ones who we couldn’t.

Training

Any firefighter worth his/her salt will attest to the importance of training. Training is how we develop and perfect technique. Early in our career, we focus on basic survival and operational skills. In time, we learn how to apply our expanding skill sets to address and mitigate more complex problems. As training becomes more advanced, so do our abilities. This is all part of professional development. During this process, we also discover specific topics and subject areas that pique our interests. Early on, mine was hazardous materials. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree after majoring in biology and chemistry. I found the field of hazardous materials to be well within my scope when I joined the fire service, so this is where I focused my efforts and my training. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, it produces highly competent and effective company officers and program managers. However, as I advanced through my career, it became obvious that my training portfolio lacked diversity. That’s OK at the company level, but a good chief officer must strive to be more diverse and well-rounded.

When contemplating advancement, it’s imperative that we perform a serious self-evaluation and identify those areas where we might be lacking. Once identified, we need to develop a roadmap on how we get there. Without a structured and balanced plan, our educational journey can become little more than an exercise in collecting certificates, which often produces an individual whose formal training background is an inch wide and a mile deep, or a mile wide and an inch deep.

There are countless methods to achieve quality officer training. NFPA 1021: Standard for Fire Officer Professional Qualifications is an excellent resource for fire officer training. NFPA 1021 forms the basis of the fire officer series and is foundational to several credible professional development models.

The prospective officer always should be on the lookout for relevant training opportunities outside of our industry. Municipal governments, colleges and universities and private sector businesses frequently offer training opportunities at little or no cost. Often, these include subject areas that candidates are lacking in, including human resources, financial management and legal issues.

Education

When I applied for my first full-time firefighter position in 1988, I initially was passed over even though I scored particularly high on my civil-service exam. I was disheartened, because I knew that my test score was good, and I thought that my interview went well. It wasn’t until later, after ultimately being offered a position, that I would learn the reason. My training chief said it was because I was “over-educated.” Back then, college graduates simply didn’t apply to be a firefighter, and the hiring panel feared that I would accept the job only to leave a short time later for a more lucrative opportunity. How times have changed. Not only has formal education become highly encouraged, but, in many places, it’s required as you climb the career ladder. I frequently am asked to sit in on assessment centers and interview panels for chief officers. Rarely do I see candidates who are competing on that plane who lack some level of undergraduate and even postgraduate education. As the complexities and expectations of our industry’s leaders expand and more societal demands are placed upon us, the need for higher education never has been more recognized.

The city for which I currently serve as chief is somewhat ahead of the curve, and the bar is set extremely high. You can’t apply for a recruit firefighter position in my department without having documented a minimum of 60 credit hours from an accredited college or university. At some point before my time here, the city leaders decided that the educational level of its employees should reflect the population that they serve. We boast a 98.1 percent high school graduation rate, and 73.2 percent of working individuals who live here have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

That requirement proved both beneficial as well as challenging. We do draw highly educated and motivated candidates; however, it can make achieving a diverse workforce more challenging, and, often, our candidates lack the mechanical aptitude that can be so beneficial in the fire service. I’m not holding this paradigm up as one that you necessarily should strive for; rather, I simply am illustrating that some level of formal education will continue to become more the norm as time goes on.

Continuous personal growth

A couple of years ago, I read about a Georgia man who earned his bachelor’s degree at the age of 88. His explanation for doing so was simply that he wanted to finish what he started … in 1965. He even adapted his learning style to take online courses. Kind of takes away our excuses, doesn’t it?

Upon achieving that fifth bugle—or whatever level of advancement that you strive to attain—it can be tempting to sit back and rest on our educational laurels. Demands on our time increase, responsibilities intensify, and striking some sort of balance becomes more and more challenging. Excuses become easier to find than opportunities. However, once we’ve “made it,” the need to continue learning and growing becomes even more crucial. Our industry is moving forward at lightning speed, and those who refuse to keep up are doomed to fail. Someone once said, “If you aren’t learning, you’re dying.” Nowhere is this truer than in the modern fire service. If you aren’t reading, researching, attending training seminars, participating in organizations or consistently forcing yourself outside of your comfort zone, it won’t take long before you become the proverbial dinosaur that we always bemoan.

In 2003, the IAFC introduced a Professional Development Standards Model, which resulted in the creation of the Professional Fire Officer Development Standard. This model was created on the association’s definition of professional development and was part of the organized effort of our industry leaders to carry the fire service from a job to a profession by mirroring what other professions already knew—that the pursuit of knowledge was a lifelong process.

Where are you?

How do we begin to undertake a process of structured, systematic, personal professional development?

The first priority is to conduct a thorough, sincere self-evaluation. Fortunately, there are systems that already are in place to help you to do this. The one that we adopted and that works well in our agency is the Center for Public Safety Excellence’s Commission on Professional Credentialing (CPC) model. The CPC application process evaluates credibility by requiring the candidate to document a verified level of education, experience and training while ensuring a continued process of personal improvement and lifelong learning through an ongoing renewal process every three years. This helps to keep the fire service professional active and accountable.

A few years ago, at an officer’s meeting, I handed every one of my leaders a CPC credentialing application and required them to complete it. I knew that many wouldn’t qualify for the actual designation. Nevertheless, taking the time to complete the various technical competencies would help them to identify those subject areas where each individual was lacking. I then challenged them to focus their efforts toward online training, brick-and-mortar opportunities and class selection at various events, such as Firehouse Expo, in an effort to fill some of those voids. The results have been impressive. Out of a total of 20 officers who are in my organization, 14 (74 percent) now are professionally designated, and five of those earned dual designations. The others continue to work on their applications. Additionally, two of my engineers achieved their fire officer designation on their own accord before even becoming officers. This is what happens when you make professional development part of your organizational culture.

Whichever path that you take and whatever model that you choose, make a commitment to improving yourself every day. As my friend, Chief Randy Bruegman (ret.), once said, “For both individuals and organizations alike, the constant and systematic pursuit of ongoing improvement is the key to achieving and maintaining excellence.” 

Brian Goss will present “Selecting the Professional Development Model That’s Best for You” at Firehouse Expo. To register, visit firehouseexpo.com.