Return on Investment

In the world of business, if you want to evaluate whether an investment was a success or a failure, a simple formula gives you an exact percentage of your return on investment (ROI). If the percentage is greater than 100 percent, then you were successful in your investment. Likewise, if the percentage is less than 100 percent, your investment cost you more than what was invested. How do ROI principles apply to the fire service?

A company officer’s perspective

When evaluating ROI in the success of your company, the investment isn’t even monetary. The investment is your time, your experience and the passing on of your personal vision to members. This largely is accomplished through effective training and mentoring of those who are under your care and leadership. Although not necessarily quantifiable, the return easily will be visible, and the exponential ROI will yield priceless benefits to not only your company but also your department and, most importantly, the public.

Company pride

Promotions

Once the company officer establishes a company that’s based on confidence and trust, he/she must realize that the ROI is far from complete. There’s a bigger picture that fire officers must step back and realize. It would be so easy to just keep this company intact forever and hoard the expertise, the motivation and the passion for the job. The real challenge at this point is to allow the members to spread their wings and leave the nest. Officers must encourage their troops to promote and to provide the same level of investment in their success as they did to develop their all-star crew. You can’t take a written test for them, but you might be a good resource for a company member who is described as a weak test-taker. Provide that member with your tried-and-true methods of application for study habits and note taking. That said, the real investment comes during your time in the firehouse. If we had anyone taking a driver engineer exam, the entire company was invested in that individual’s success. I made sure that my driver engineer taught that candidate everything that he/she knew. I made sure that everyone else knew that our amount of training would be increasing, and it was welcomed. We had a mindset of “whatever it takes.” There was a bigger goal now: to see a confident and competent member of the company promote.

If your organization allows you to do so, sit in the back seat and mentor the individual while he/she rides in your seat. Furthermore, truly let them be the officer in the house for that day. That’s right, pick up a broom and sweep, clean the bathrooms, so that members can get real hands-on training inside of the firehouse just as much as you will provide for them outside of the firehouse. Let them do the paperwork, let them talk to the battalion chief on the phone, let them come up with and conduct a company drill. On emergency scenes, let them make and own their decisions, unless, of course, it is something that will have an immediate negative effect on life safety.

Teach them to teach

If you want to be a good fire officer and leader, at some point you must learn how to teach. There’s a difference between obtaining a state certification as a fire instructor and being a great teacher. The passion, knowledge, experience and vision that you invest in your company will spread throughout your department. Those members now will spread the message of investing. Imagine the young firefighter who you invested in from the start now promoted and also becoming an instructor. That young firefighter is spreading influence and future investment in other companies.

True leaders have a vision for their own future and the overall future of the fire service. Be a true leader.

Chief of department perspective

From a chief of department (COD) perspective, the ability to evaluate your ROI lies in the success of your organization and the proficiency and effectiveness in how it delivers essential services to the general public. These are the same results that the first-line supervisor searches for, albeit at a company level. While a COD view lies at the 30,000-foot level and encompasses a myriad of elements, it is the first-line supervisor at the company level who possesses the ultimate ability to influence and guide personnel and the organization to excellence. The interactions between personnel at the company level, the leadership and mentoring skills of company officers, and their ability to support the vision and mission of the organization are the primary influences that elevate staff to high levels of morale, commitment and an overall department culture that supports the delivery of outstanding levels of emergency services.

Supporting the efforts of your first-line supervisors in their quest to instill excellence through the ranks isn’t an easy task. However, a good initial place for the COD to start lies in the pivotal “people skills” component of your job. Developing collaborative levels of mutual respect in the areas of communication, loyalty, trust and honesty with first-line supervisors allows you to gain their allegiance to your office and to the organization’s goals and objectives. Put in the effort to cultivate these types of relationships with your officers. If you don’t win over your company officers, you will crash and burn.

Although there are many mathematical methods that are used to measure a variety of fire service ROIs, such as response times and staffing levels, there are very few ways to measure the success and effectiveness of a company from the same perspective. To measure a company’s success, a COD must take into account the unknown side of the equation that measures the operational and “people skill” behaviors, such as the competency, morale, trust, effort, skill and expertise that a company and its leader display at emergency incidents and in their quarters. A company that displays high levels of these behaviors has strong leaders who demand proficiency and who empower, educate, trust and support their people. As the quote goes, “The cream will always rise to the top.”

Here is a secret for all of my COD friends: Your company officers—not you—are the most important employees in your organization. The men and women who spend countless hours crawling down hallways, training, managing emergency incidents, supporting the mission, sharing meals, mentoring and empowering their subordinates to be the “best of the best” are the foundation from which fire departments build thriving teams. These are the leaders of today who are developing the leaders of tomorrow. Acknowledging this fact might be difficult for some CODs to face. If it is, get over it. As a fire chief, your job should focus on developing and supporting an environment in which your first-line supervisors are provided the resources that are necessary to ensure that the daily investment that they deliver to their subordinates leads to high levels of company morale, competency, efficiency and expertise.

Company pride

Company pride is good for the organization. It develops outstanding groups of high achieving firefighters and fire officers; it drives the competitive juices within the ranks; it sets high standards of customer service; it develops confident, trustworthy, reliable, aggressive and skilled teams that are capable of accomplishing any task that’s requested of them at any incident. When I am in the incident commander mode, I routinely order companies that possess high levels of pride and competency and an attitude of success to complete the toughest assignments, because I know that they will get the job done efficiently, effectively and without hesitation. Also, I am informing the rest of the department that if they act accordingly, they, too, will be recognized as mission-focused high achievers.

There are a number of approaches that a fire chief can use to support talented companies and institutionalize high levels of pride.

• Give them thanks. Appreciate the work that each of your units and their first-line supervisors deliver on a daily basis and let them know how you feel. Recognize superior work at an incident, in the firehouse or whenever the company deserves the compliment. Say thanks when thanks are warranted. It goes a long way!
• Don’t think that you are too big to bring yourself to the company level. Big or small department: It doesn’t matter. Visit each firehouse. Sit in the sacred kitchen, drink coffee and break bread. Be a sponge. Listen to what your firefighters and company officers have to say. The information and lessons that you learn will assist you in understanding what makes the individual company function, how you can assist officers and how you can cultivate the same culture of pride throughout the entire organization. Whether the company needs involve training, personnel, equipment, apparatus or other specific requests, always follow through, and if you can’t, follow up with why.
• Provide department approval that allows individual companies or units the ability to develop patches, mottos and logos that have value and significance to the members. Let them customize their apparatus when ordering new and incorporate the logos on their existing apparatus. These logos instill positive, long-term levels of pride to individual companies and the organization as a whole.
• Develop criteria to acknowledge excellence in the firehouse and during emergency events. Establish an annual awards ceremony. Offer “Company of the Year” and “Company Officer of the Year” awards.

Promotions

In my 42-year career (22 as a fire chief), I have tested and/or have been involved in every type of promotional process along the path to my current position. I also mentored individuals through their written and oral assessments. During this time, I saw the best and brightest of candidates promoted and a number passed over for less competent individuals. I also witnessed many unjustified promotions of inferior candidates create turmoil and disruption. These experiences provided me with the motivation to work the trenches with union officials (to the best of my ability) to develop justifiable testing processes that have supported the unbiased promotion of the “most competent” candidate. Although it is a given that the impartiality of promotional testing processes always will be questioned by one of the many firehouse “lawyers” who sit at the kitchen table, there are steps that fire chiefs can take to lessen the effect that these argumentative opinions have on your staff.

Implement a system that’s designed to assist first-line supervisors to prepare subordinates for promotion. If we expect our company officers to develop good leaders who are going to develop other good leaders, we must provide them with the resources to complete this task. Consider implementing dedicated company officer training programs, officer mentoring programs or a written policy that requires personnel to obtain specific levels of fire officer, fire instructor, leadership or incident management certifications prior to promotion or assignment as a first-line supervisor. This can provide company officers with a guide to use when they prepare subordinates for promotion.

Even the best thought-out and well-intentioned promotional processes can be questioned. Develop a structured policy that details the specifics of the written and assessment testing sections, scoring matrix, pre-test certification requirements (if any), testing material and any other information that maintains high levels of uniformity and objectivity. Additionally, keeping politics, prejudice and inequity out of the process should be the goal of every promotional activity.

During my formative first years on the job, I worked for a number of company officers who contributed greatly to shaping my career. Fortunately, by observing the exceptional capabilities, strengths and many faults that were displayed by these officers, I was given the opportunity to pick and choose the behaviors that I wanted to embrace.

If fire chiefs expect company officers to develop the organization’s future leaders, providing them with resources and support is essential. This assistance can be delivered in several forms, including the funding of company training requests, allowing time for in-service training opportunities, use of acting officers to fill temporary openings, supporting study groups, reducing special project assignments during the study period and empowering first-line supervisors to “think outside of the box” to prepare their firefighters for leadership positions.

Remember, people are your greatest asset. Show them that you care, treat them right and give them the resources that they need.

Teach them to teach

Competent officers who understand the concepts behind coaching and educating their personnel in today’s diverse learning environments and who lead by example through their own commitment to education and training shape the most talented and operationally effective companies. Firefighters can’t become respected fire officers if they first don’t gain the ability to stand in front of their peers with confidence in both classroom and hands-on-type learning environments.

I always have credited our triumphs at emergency incidents to the level of training and competency of the responding firefighters and their company officers. I also fully recognize that, although I didn’t have direct supervision, my effort as the COD to provide them with consistent and purposeful training and teaching opportunities definitely was a significant part of their overall success. Some of the supporting methods that have led to these victories include: sponsoring the local delivery of nationally recognized leadership training programs; funding the purchase of state-of-the-art training props; providing nationally certified curriculum and lesson plan materials; and empowering company officers to exploit the teaching skills of their subordinates.

While conversing with one of my current shift captains at headquarters, he respectfully advised me that he would have to stop speaking with me, so he could conduct the drill that he planned for the day. This officer had a plan, and he was intent on ensuring that his staff was provided the training that he deemed necessary for them to enhance their personal skills and level of expertise. I know that not every company officer will embrace the infectious training attitude that was exhibited by this captain, but it only takes one to begin to change the training culture. This captain is the type of officer who, with reliable and trusted support from above, will champion the development of outstanding firefighters and fire companies.

Listen to the needs of those who are responsible for delivering the training programs that are required by your organization. The best support that you can provide is through collaboratively establishing and maintaining adequate levels of funding for the requisite training. Meet regularly, work cooperatively, share ideas and empower those who are responsible with the ability to meet the department’s training goals and objectives, particularly those first-line supervisors at the company officer level.

Gaining high returns on the investments that you make in your personnel takes dedication, collaboration, commitment, resiliency and focus from individuals on all levels of the organization to be successful.