Change Management – Lessons Learned

Please respond to one (1) the following:

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  • Read the article entitled “Leadership Excellence: Communicate Your Vision”. Next, assess the consequences of leaders not being able to communicate their change vision. Discuss the outcomes of a change management plan with an under-communicated vision of change. Develop a strategy for avoiding under-communicating the change vision.
  • View the video titled “John Kotter – Communicating a Vision for Change” (4 min 16 s) below. You may also view the video athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGVe3wRKmH0. Next, assess the means of communication that are available to us as leaders. Review Kotter’s comments regarding communication, and efficient and effective communications. As the leader of a large organization implementing a change, develop a strategy for communicating your vision of change. Discuss the tools that the organization would use as well as the frequency of communication.

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W
E’VE ALL HAD BOSSES WHO APPEAR TO BE

good leaders but who are terrible managers, and

vice versa. Both disciplines take hard work. Man-

agement entails lots of planning, organizing, staffing, delegat-

ing, budgeting, and other responsibilities. Can you be a good

leader and a good manager at the same time, good at one and

not the other, or lousy at both? Yes to all three! A chief of a

small combination fire department who was a great manager

and administrator could justify an ice delivery to the firehouse

on a 5°F day in February and get the funding from city hall,

but he couldn’t lead the members to the breakfast table—he

had no people skills and tended to mess with the troops

regularly. When I asked him why he did that, he answered,

“Because I can.”

Leadership isn’t necessarily what’s on your collar. Respect

for rank comes with that rank, but respect for you as a person

comes with having the right qualities. Think about the best

leaders, officers, and firefighters you have worked with. What

made them what they were? I’ll guess they were trustworthy,

dedicated, and well-read people with great integrity who had

respect for others at the highest levels.

Also think about the worst leaders you’ve come across. You

can learn from the bad ones, too, because you will know what

not to do!

VISION AND A COMMON BOND
Consider the greatest leaders of all time. They were able to

lead the masses and bring them to the place they wanted their

people to be—for example, Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lin-

coln, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and Fiorello LaGuardia. They

all had one thing in common—vision. If you are going to be a

leader in your organization or the leader of your organization,

you must have a vision. Don’t confuse your vision statement

with a mission statement. Most emergency services organiza-

tions have a mission statement that include words like service,

dedication, best, customer, quick, efficient, effective, ability,

and so forth.

But a vision statement is much different. It’s your oppor-

tunity to dream a little and shape your vision into what you

believe the organization should and could look like. Put aside

the budget and all the other current obstacles, and develop

your vision for your organization. Once you’ve done that,

share it with your staff. It may become a group vision at this

point and then start to filter down to the line.

“Our firehouses are 100 years old. We need new quarters.

My vision is to build new firehouses.” Sounds impossible? If

you don’t believe in your own vision to start with, it will never

come to light. You must believe in it yourself to make others

believe that it’s possible. If a vision just came to you and you

responded, “That will never happen,” either modify the vision

while still keeping with your ideals or change the situation

preventing fulfillment of vision.

The leaders mentioned above were effective because they

were also great communicators. They all had a vision they be-

lieved in that they could share and communicate to the masses

and thus change the lives of others. If you want to be an

effective leader within your organization or beyond, you must

have a vision, the passion to make it work, and the ability to

communicate it at all times and at all costs. Most importantly,

you must first believe in it yourself.

VALUES
A leader has to strike a balance among all the members in

the organization. When I ask my audiences where they get their

values, most answer “from home or parents.” We are a product

of our environment. We read about kids in bad neighborhoods

growing up in a single-parent home, surrounded by drugs and

crime; the media reports that some are in gangs by age 12.

Once in a while, we see a success story of one of these kids

who got out and made something of himself, but most do not.

They simply become a product of their environment.

Each member of the organization brings his own set of

values to the table. As a leader, you must not only deal with

them, but you must understand them, too. Your job is to sort

through the pile of values on the table and bring everyone to

a common ground. That sounds easy. It isn’t! It’s hard work

and takes perseverance.

BE PROACTIVE
You must create the environment and lead by example.

Chief Peter Lamb from North Attleboro, Massachusetts, says,

“What you allow to happen without your intervention be-

comes your standard.” He also used the letters of his name to

develop a personal leadership model. I did the same below.

Leadership
Excellence:

Communicate Your Vision

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Use your name to create your own. If you continually let the

tail wag the dog and the day comes when the dog must wag

the tail, you will have to go over Mt. Everest to get there. You

must set the stage, create the environment, set the tone, and

do whatever you have to do, but you must lead at all times,

not just when it’s convenient. You are charged with setting the

tone for ethical behavior, even if you were the biggest prank-

ster in the firehouse. Once you get elevated to the next level,

“You can’t play cards with the guys anymore,” as a former boss

said when I moved up a notch.

SELF-DEVELOPMENT
Before we dive into self-development, consider the “KAN-

TERMAN” GAL (Guidance Acronym of Leadership).

Kidding: Are you kidding yourself and those around you

that you are or can be an effective leader, or are you really

committed? This is hard work—you have to apply yourself

every day.

Accept that you have problems, and work on them. Fix the

big ones first; the small ones will fall in place.

Never forget your leadership role and what your responsi-

bilities are.

Take action every time. Don’t procrastinate.

Evaluate each situation carefully for the best plan that will

result in the best possible outcome.

Remember who you are, where you are, and the effect you

have on the organization at all times.

Make good decisions based on the best information you can get.

Act on everything with diligence and purpose. Prioritize

your work.

Never put yourself ahead of the organization. If you follow

the organization’s goals and objectives, the things you want for

yourself will eventually come.

Build effective relationships. Cooperation works most of

the time, and cooperating with your team is as important as

your team cooperating with you. Sit and listen to members’

points of view and ask for their input. Let them know up front

that you may not use their ideas, but you want to hear from

them. Try a brainstorming session even though the first one

may be more like a light drizzle. If your people have never

been asked to contribute to the cause, you may get that “deer-

in-the-headlights” look. It’s okay for you to start it off with an

idea or two, but then let them do their thing. You’ll be very

surprised to hear what comes from your troops; it lends itself

to ownership.

When you are each locked in your corners, butting heads,

and trying to get to a “win-win,” move to higher ground. Agree

to disagree if you have to, and move on. At least you agreed

on something. When you are conducting a disciplinary meet-

ing, always reserve judgment until after you have all the facts.

Don’t rush to judge! Do your homework; when you’re wrong,

admit it, and don’t get defensive.

In my last command, two members appeared to have made

a serious mistake in their work resulting in what I believed

would be a life hazard to personnel. In anger, I hastily drew

up the papers for a two-day suspension for each member,

which would have resulted in dismissal on their next offense.

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LEADERSHIP ●

Not only did I misjudge their “supposed

bad actions,” but I felt it was my duty to

admit the mistake and make it right. The

disciplinary action was expunged from

their records, and I not only verbally

apologized to the men but also sent

them a letter apologizing to their fami-

lies for bringing undue grief on all of

them. Not only did this make it right, but

these men remained committed work-

ers, and we continued to respect each

other. Fire Marshal Bill Hopson of Ocean

County, New Jersey, says, “If you mess

up, fess up, clean it up, and move on.”

Those are words to lead by.

Learn and contribute. As the leader

of an organization, you are expected

to continually contribute to moving

the organization forward. Generating

new ideas creates excitement among

the members. Try new things. If some-

thing new doesn’t work, try something

else. Get out of the box and see what

everyone else is doing. Smash the box,

and either rebuild it or go without it. Go

to conferences and seminars, and bring

home new knowledge (not just a bag of

brochures) and, most importantly, apply

new knowledge rapidly. If you hear or

see something great at any class, semi-

nar, or school and you get home and

shelve it, you’ll never pull it out again.

On returning from a National Fire

Academy class about 10 years ago, I left

that oversized white binder with a note

sticking out of one page on my desk.

That one page was going to change

the way my department responded to

buildings because of a new method of

preplanning that was contained in this

book. I knew if I shelved the binder, I’d

never pull it down. It sat on my desk

for three months until I got to it. I had a

meeting with my staff; we looked at it,

and all agreed it was the way to go. The

project took 10 months to complete, but

we were better for it.

Show flexibility with your team. That

could mean adjusting working hours for

the administrative staff, accommodating

a shift person with different hours for a

personal problem at home, or bending

the rules but not breaking them.

Develop yourself functionally and tech-

nically so you can speak, operate, and

lead at the proper levels across the board.

You don’t necessarily need to know how

every new tool operates or have it in

your hands when you’re at the higher

levels of the organization, but you need

to understand the concepts so you can

support the need. I can’t make a 4:1 Z-rig

mechanical advantage system, but I know

what it’s for and why the rescue company

needs this device to operate.

DEVELOPING THE DEPARTMENT
Customer focus. Our customers dial

911 and ask us to come and make their

problem go away. The average Ameri-

can doesn’t know or care whether we

are paid or not—“I dial 911 and some-

body shows up and helps me.” That’s

the bottom line. But it goes deeper

than that. You must keep up with your

town’s demographics; few communities’

makeup in the country is stable; people

are always moving in and out, and

the ethnicities, religions, and genders

change rapidly. New cultures bring new

challenges for the emergency services.

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As the leader, it’s your job to keep up and ensure that your

new customers are getting what they need. You may have to

meet with community or religious leaders to better understand

who they are and what they need. An associate of mine works

in a large city where diversity is the norm. An Italian-American

fire officer, his firehouse was in the middle of a Hasidic Jewish

neighborhood. By taking the time to read about and study

their customs, he created a relationship with his customers in

which they were able to understand his fire prevention and

code issues. Approaching your constituents with a respect for

their traditions, culture, or religion will speak volumes and

probably get the code compliance you’re seeking.

You have internal customers as well—everyone in your

department under your command. You need to fulfill their

requests in the station as you would out on the fireground.

Your people are your greatest asset—take care of them. Other

customers include the other municipal agencies (e.g., the

police, the department of public works, parks and recreation,

and so on.) Take care of them the way you would want them

to take care of you when you call for assistance.

Get involved in your community. Successful chiefs I’ve met

have been part of their local Rotary Club or Chamber of Com-

merce. One volunteer chief told me that his apparatus hit a tree

on the way to a call. (No injuries; everyone was belted in.) The

local truck body shop called him and asked if it could fix it for

nothing! He had attended Chamber meetings for three years

with all the business people in the town. It paid off.

Always personally support your department. If the

department leadership talks negatively about it, especially in

public, then what could you expect from your people? Most

of us support our departments by simply wearing a marked

shirt or jacket or by displaying a window sticker on our cars.

Remember, however, that you are now a “marked person,” and

what you do affects not only you but the whole department

as well. When a firefighter gets arrested for drunk driving, the

news will report that “an off-duty firefighter” or “a volunteer

firefighter with 25 years of experience responding to vehicle

accidents” was arrested. It’s even worse if you’re an officer. If

you’re the chief, forget it. What you do and say in a leadership

role affects the entire organization.

Collaboration. If you are at or near the top, discuss with

your companies, divisions, bureaus, and units why it’s impor-

tant for all of you to align yourselves with the department’s

goals, objectives, and guidelines. If you’re a company officer,

lead your members to the alignment “trough,” and have them

take a sip. Many firefighters and officers have told me that

they work in a four-platoon system that has in effect become

four separate fire departments within one. Each shift and

shift commander does it a little differently or, in some cases,

a lot differently. It gets real interesting when a firefighter

is detailed to another shift for overtime and is admonished

by the officer for doing his job the way he knows how. “We

● LEADERSHIP

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● LEADERSHIP

don’t it that way on K shift,” the K shift

commander tells him.

Alignment is key, and leaders at all

levels are responsible for it. Align the

fire prevention bureau with the suppres-

sion forces. Align the shifts. You’d think

standard operating procedures/guide-

lines (SOPs/SOGs) would have taken

care of that. Align the line and the staff.

It’s okay if everyone is singing in differ-

ent keys as long as everyone is singing

from the same sheet of music.

Sharing is another way to get collabo-

ration within your department. Share

your ideas, and solicit new ideas from

within. Share your successes and lessons

learned, and document them. We’re

getting better at that lately; see the Fire

Fighter Close Calls Web site, www.fire-

fighterclosecalls.com, and the National

Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System

Web site, www.firefighternearmiss.com.

If we don’t learn from the past, we’re

doomed to repeat our mistakes. Insan-

ity has been defined as doing the same

thing over and over again and expect-

ing different results. Take advantage

of collaborating with other agencies as

well. Many jurisdictions form task forces

with police, fire, and other municipal

services. Get on to these task forces, and

do some cross-jurisdictional work. As

a leader, you are expected to do such

work; encourage others to do so too.

THINK AND ACT
STRATEGICALLY

First things first: You need to know

who you are. You can’t do anything

until you are comfortable with yourself

and confident in your position. Once

you’ve conquered you, then you can

lead others and make the necessary

changes to move your department for-

ward. You must have your act together

and believe in yourself before you can

pre-sent anything to others. You must

also know your department—every

function, position, policy, procedure,

SOP/SOG, rule, regulation, what to do,

and more importantly what NOT to do.

You have to know your people. The

success of every good leader I have

known came from their ability to lead

and having good people around them

to carry out the mission. As a 19-year

chief, I realize that most of my success-

es came from my deputy and battalion

chiefs, line officers, and firefighters.

I used to love talking to chiefs who

thought they were bigger than their

department members. I always had to

break the bad news: “They’re bigger

than you and, by the way, probably

much better.” They never liked that. Get

that valuable input from your staff, look

at best practices, and benchmark with

your peers and professional associa-

tions. Today’s fire service leadership

has no excuse not be on top of cur-

rent information and technology. A fire

department in 2013 can’t operate like

it’s 1955. Successful leaders are part of

local, county, state, and national organi-

zations so they can get what they need

to stay ahead or at least keep up. Chief

Charlie Dickinson, former administrator

of the United States Fire Administration,

once described “The Five Horns” of a

fire chief: the department, the firefight-

ers, public safety, politics, and integrity.

That last one says it all. If you give

up your integrity, you lose everything. If

you lie to your people and they find out,

they will never trust you again. Some

things you just can’t get back. Maintain

your integrity at all times. Your leader-

ship legacy depends on it.

Part of thinking and acting strategi-

cally is consistency in how you handle

your people when things go right and

when things go wrong. It’s most impor-

tant when things go wrong. Inconsisten-

cy can ruin a department, whether it’s

You must create the environment

and must lead at all times, not

just when it’s convenient.

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● LEADERSHIP

allowing four different shifts to operate

four different ways or it’s preferring

charges against one volunteer when two

of them committed the bad act. Consis-

tency is critical to keeping the ship not

only afloat but upright, on course, and

moving forward at all times. Leadership

makes the world move in a positive

direction, so contribute.

Training the troops, the staff, and

yourself and cross-training are the

hallmarks of strategic thinking. Fire

departments that don’t train or do very

little training are doing a disservice to

themselves and the community they

serve. In fact, it’s more important to do

more training when things are slow than

when they’re busy. When things slow

down, we tend to lose our edge.

A large city on the East Coast reported

an alarming rate of firefighter injuries

in the middle to late 1990s every night

on the news. I called a friend who was

a deputy chief at the time, who said,

“We’re losing our edge because the

number of fires is down. With the influx

of the new kids who haven’t seen a lot

of fire duty like we did in the 1970s and

1980s, we’re getting hurt. We need to do

more training.”

Present opportunities for training.

Take companies out of service if you

can. If you’re too small, get mutual aid

to cover you so you can get out and

train. If you’re a volunteer outfit, use a

neighboring company to cover your area

so you can get to the fire academy at

night or on a Saturday morning to get

in those live burn exercises. There are

many training ideas available through

online programs, books, and magazines.

Bring your members the resources they

need to train and get the job done. As a

leader, it’s your job.

DEVELOP YOUR STAFF
Your immediate staff are the people

who will help deliver your message or,

more importantly, your vision. You rely

on this group of senior officers every

day whether you’re in or out of town.

If you haven’t developed them to your

level, you’re cheating them and yourself.

Bosses that have “held back information

because they can’t know what I know”

need to get out of this business.

You must delegate for development

purposes and stand behind them in case

they should trip and fall. Be there to

catch them, stand them up, and guide

them forward.

There are many tools that you can use

for staff development: setting specific

goals, offering constructive feedback,

rewarding performance, and encourag-

ing training/personal development and

flexibility.

“You do not lead by hitting people

over the head. That’s assault, not leader-

ship.”—Dwight D. Eisenhower

COMMUNICATIONS
This is the cornerstone of good

leadership. It must be clear and concise

to be effective. It’s almost like giving

fireground commands over the radio.

Almost. You must be consistently open

and effective to maintain your leader-

ship. Part of this is dignity and respect;

yes, treat people as you would like to

be treated. Take the high road. Even

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● LEADERSHIP

when the team manager is kicking dirt

on his shoes and screaming profanity,

the umpire quietly takes his hand and

points to the top of the stadium indicat-

ing, “You’re out of here.” Not that you

should throw the person out; remain

calm, evaluate the problem, and quietly

and effectively deal with it. Screaming

matches don’t work; you’ll bring yourself

down to a lower level where you needn’t

be. Show patience and courtesy even

when the other person does not. Here’s

where your leadership skills really kick

in again.

I had an employee more than 10 years

ago with whom I would have confronta-

tions at least weekly. The louder he got,

the softer I got. I called him “Mr. Smith”;

he called me unprintable names.

On the other side of communications,

keep the information flowing. So many

of my seminar attendees say, “They tell

us nothing.” No excuses. Bulletin boards,

e-mail, chat rooms, notices, and good

old one-on-one or group conversations

can get it all done. I tend to send more,

not less, information so they can never

be uninformed.

WHAT WILL THEY SAY?
What will they say at your retirement

party or your funeral? Maybe the stan-

dard answers: He was firm but fair … a

good husband and father … a good boss

… he cared … we learned a lot from him

… dedicated … could be trusted … never

lied to us … and so on. If you think they

may not say the things you want, then

you may have some work to do. ●

REFERENCES
Abrashoff, D. Michael. It’s Your Ship : Manage-
ment Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the
Navy. Warner Books, 2002.

Abrashoff, D. Michael. It’s Our Ship: The No-Non-
sense Guide to Leadership. Business Plus, 2008.

Needham, Robert. Team Secrets of the Navy
Seals: The Elite Military Force’s Leadership Prin-
ciples for Business. Skyhorse Publishing, 2012.

Patterson, Kerry, et al. Crucial Conversations:
Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.
McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Salka, John. First in, Last Out: Leadership Lessons
from the New York Fire Department. Portfolio,
2004.

Sargent, Chase. From Buddy to Boss: Effective
Fire Service Leadership. Fire Engineering, 2006.

Enter 231 at fireeng.hotims.com

● RON KANTERMAN, a 37-year

fire service veteran, is a career chief

in southeast Connecticut. He has a

bachelor’s and two master’s degrees,

is an accomplished author, and lec-

tures on a myriad of fire service top-

ics around the country. He teaches

graduate and undergraduate fire

science and emergency management

and numerous other courses at the

National Fire Academy in Emmits-

burg, Maryland. He is an advocate

for the National Fallen Firefighters

Foundation and writes “Chief Kan-

terman’s Journal,” a monthly column

featured on fireengineering.com. He

co-hosts with Tom Aurnhammer “The

Back Step Boys” on Fire Engineer-
ing’s Blog Talk Radio shows.

Ron Kanterman will present “Leader-

ship Excellence” on Monday, April

22, 1:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., at FDIC

2013 in Indianapolis.

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