Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we give you real tools to train ultimate
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I'm your host, Kevin Housley.
Let's get to it.
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Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors
of the job as a first responder as well as how to thrive off duty.
Looking forward to today's episode which is going to be titled Setting Expectations at
the Crew Level and Beyond.
So expectations gets a lot of chatter around and we all have expectations of ourselves.
We all have expectations of others and in my experience it doesn't usually seem like
we communicate those expectations very well and so I like a quote from Dave Ramsey paraphrased
here a little bit is if you don't communicate your expectations then they're not expectations
they're just dreams.
And so we really can't be getting frustrated with people if we haven't very clearly communicated
our expectations and had a good solid conversation with those folks especially people if you're
in a crew environment of it's a two way conversation it's a two way street it's not just I'm imposing
these expectations upon you and you shall meet them.
You need to make sure that those things that you do expect of other people and that you
expect of yourself are within the ditch banks that they're attainable and that it's moving
you towards a positive direction that it's not just a mandated another mandated thing
because we don't need more mandates in our lives I don't care what organization you
work with we don't need more stuff to be ordered around to do.
So let's dive into today's topic and expectations what are they and who do they belong to.
And in my experience in different careers different organizations different organizations
we've had the fortune to work with there are a lot of different expectations out there
and and a lot of that really kind of comes into company culture or organizational culture.
And so organizational culture is really built around the things that we expect and the things
that we actually deliver upon when we're providing a service.
This could be if you're a sports coach it certainly could be in the home environment
and it certainly applies to us in emergency services.
So I'd like to challenge you a little bit to kind of think about expectations of belonging
obviously belonging to yourself but then if we're working in an environment where we have
other people on the team other crew members things like that the expectations don't just
belong to the supervisor whether that's you or whether it's not you the expectations should
really belong to everyone that's in that environment.
So as an officer on a fire engine I have expectations of myself and I have expectations of the people
that are working with us whether they're assigned to the company or they're not assigned to
the company they might just be visiting for a day on a trade or whatever but expectations
we have expectations of all those and all of those different people all of those different
stakeholders have expectations of me as well and my crew as well as well as the entire
shift in battalion and the entire fire department.
So is that the mile high fire con a few years ago and Chief Scott Thompson from the Colony
Texas had an amazing presentation where he talked about expectations specifically and
he used a really really cool example that I've actually tried to implement over the last
few years of do we know what the citizens the people that are actually paying for our
services of your district or your or your customers at the end of the day if you're
in the business world do we know what they actually expect of you and have you ever actually
asked them and so Chief Thompson gave a story when he came in there as the fire chief they
hadn't really ever taken any of those surveys they didn't really have a good understanding
about what does the community expect us to provide to them and so he went out and he
did basically just a straw poll at the grocery store he stood out in front of the grocery
store and he started talking to the people that were within his community and it was
a very simple question if you call 911 what do you expect of us and so that's something
that I've really tried to do when we're out grocery shopping or we're out in the community
and people you know we are very fortunate where we're in the fire service where we get
thanked for the job that we've signed up to do which in my opinion is completely unnecessary
but it's a great opportunity for us to ask that question of hey thank you thank you so
much for for your service we'll hear that a lot and you know my response is hey we really
really appreciate that you know it's an honor for us to to be in this position to help when
we can and to try to help but your your thankfulness really isn't necessary but thank you for saying
something if you call 911 what do you expect from us and then at that point just shut your
mouth and listen and they'll probably be like what what do you mean what I expect from you
like seriously if you call 911 or somebody in your family calls 911 what do you expect
from us and then just listen and you're going to get a lot of the exact same answers and
I like to ask this to different age groups of people if we have an elderly person that
stops us I like to ask them if we have a little kid where mom and dad maybe made them come
over and say thank you to us I like to ask them as well and the crazy thing that you're
going to find is the answer regardless of generation is going to be the same they expect us to
solve their problem they expect us to be nice they expect us to be competent and they expect
us to help them for whatever we called or they called us for and this obviously is grown
a little bit out of proportion for the way that emergency medical services is being used
as people's primary care doctors and things like that we're not going to jump on that
soapbox today at all so here's a that's a little fun thing or if you got probes on your
crew it's kind of a cool thing to model for you if you're a senior firefighter or you're
a senior leader in your department or organization or you're the officer start to teach them
to have those conversations because it's much more impactful when you hear as chief Brunessey
would call it Mrs. Smith tell you what she expects from you it's much more impactful
than if it's just the boss over there talking about what he expects again blah blah blah
blah blah much more impactful when it comes from the actual stakeholders where the external
customer when we're trying to to provide a certain service or response type so to expand
upon expectations what are they and who do they belong to well they certainly don't even
just belong to the crew they certainly don't just belong to the boss they belong to the
internal and the external customer so everybody gets a voice and we really really should build
the crew level expectations to meet the citizen expectations so if the citizen expectations
are I want you to show up and be competent and to be able to solve the problem no matter
what it is and I want you to treat my family with empathy and kindness and compassion even
if it doesn't necessarily work out we don't always win it's just the fact of the job that
we're in an emergency services we don't always win and some days suck that's all there is
to it some days are really really bad but not every day is really really bad and there's
a lot of things that we can control to make that those bad days just a just a teeny bit
better which at the end of it is a win for both the external customer and the internal
customer so attached in the show notes for this episode specifically is a free downloadable
expectations template and this is a template that I've been using for quite a few years
and have had really really good success both at the company and it's now starting to leach
out across the country to be honest with this this free resource so check out the show notes
or go to firefightercraftsmanship.com and you can get that free company expectations
downloadable there and as you start to use this template make it better don't just don't
just copy what I have there like take that thing and make it better make it your own
make it your companies and so this this document here really is a living and breathing thing
and it belongs to the entire company or the crew depending on what what language you use
around that so let this thing grow make it better add stuff delete stuff but keep it
within reason it shouldn't be this like war and peace manuscript about all of these different
things so try to keep it nice and simple it should be easily digestible it should be
really really easy to understand and really for me in my opinion it should be if I hand
it to you you should be able to get through that thing in less than five minutes and have
a really really good understanding of what that expectations are and the way that we
can do that is by using foundational protocols policies and procedures SOPs whatever the words
are that you use for those as the foundational building blocks for that I don't need to go
through every single one of my SOPs and write all of those into that we know that the SOPs
are there for how do we operate on a different emergency scene call types we know how it's
there how do we operate in the admin world in the firehouse all those sorts of things
but this just maybe take some of those highlight piece out and and one of the ways that I've
used this really really to good success is by giving it to people that are not assigned
to the crew so when they walk in the door we have the book is what we call it and it's
not a book it's just a simple PDF just like the downloadable version you can you can get
for yourself and I say hey when you get a second take a look at this because this is
what's expected of you based on what seat riding position so if they're driving for
us that day as the engineer here's what is expected of you but then also here's what
you can expect from me as the officer here's what you can expect from the back seaters
as the firefighters and when you do that for the first few times it might be a kind of
weird you know because there's not a lot of people out there really doing this and so
it might feel kind of weird but the more you do it the easier it becomes and just be ready
for when you hand them this and say hey I want you to go through this really quick you're
probably going to get are you serious and then the answer to that is simply yep let
me know if you have any questions or we can go through it together if you would like so
boom right away I've set the tone of like yes this is important to us as a company this
doesn't just belong to me this belongs to us as a company and we're excited to have
you here today but we also have some things that we're expecting of you and then you have
some things that you're expecting of me which we'll get to here in a minute when we have
a quick question you know question and answer session after you get through this document
and for all of those conversations where people have either challenged a little bit of like
you seriously want me to read this or they've just been taken aback in every single one
of those situations that person has said hey can I can I keep this this is something that
was really really valuable so I'm going to chalk that up into the win category so just
use that if you're doing something that's kind of new and it might feel kind of weird
for the first couple times just encourage them to take it with them or just be ready
for them to want to take it with them which is awesome because then it grows and it spreads
and it makes things a lot easier on everybody involved so when we include the entire company
to build this expectations document or the book or whatever you want to call it why does
that really work and it works from a perspective of psychological theory that's heavily heavily
researched called self-determination theory and self-determination theory really has three
parts to it and the first part is autonomy so meaning do you have control over your
own life and so when I say hey we're going to have an expectations document and I'm
the officer and I just sit up there and I do death by PowerPoint or whatever the version
of my delivery is and I just say these are the things that you are going to do blah blah
blah blah blah and in most of those conversations I've been involved with growing up in the
fire service there really wasn't ever what do you as the crew expect of me what did we
expect of that officer so when you give them the power to be involved in this and so if
you're if you're new to the company you might have to start and say hey as the new officer
as a new designated adult here are the expectations we are going to try to meet those things if
we don't meet those things here's the process on how we're going to make sure we do but
these are some of those non-negotiables I have as the officer which are all supported
by department policy procedure rules and regs things like that but once that initial meeting
is over or in that initial meeting I say now what do you expect of me boom we're already
tapping into that part of self-determination theory with autonomy because I'm giving them
power to say well this these are the things that are also important to me or you're allowing
them to maybe challenge those things that you've written down which sometimes that's
really really good and sometimes it's just an opportunity for you to be like I understand
that might have been how it used to be here but that is no longer what we're going to
do and this is the standard that's going to set starting today so autonomy is a really
really cool thing and we will do more episodes on self-determination theory for sure but autonomy
and giving people power to have control over their own career path and their their own
ability to be successful and to learn from their failures and things like that is a major
major major component of people being happy at work and here at firefighter craftsmanship
we want you to be happy healthy and strong both at work and in retirement and so if you
might be in an environment where you're really really frustrated kind of use this and look
how much autonomy do I have and if you don't have very much well can you get it can you
get it within that environment that you currently in and if there is just no hope for you to
have any autonomy then simply stated it's probably time for you to look go work somewhere
else alright so the second part of self-determination theory is relatedness meaning well that's
why crew cohesion is so important and we talk about you know the family of the fire service
and things like that but you have to build relationships to relate to people and you
know you can certainly relate to people that you don't agree with we're in a very politically
trying time which with election season coming up is going to get even worse so let's work
on that can we have good conversations I would suggest not having political conversations
at work but can we have good conversations about strategy and tactics with people that
we don't agree with and you don't even have to end the day by agreeing with them but can
I have a good solid debate and conversation and everybody leaves where nobody's just getting
bullied or getting name called or any of that stuff by the end of it but can I relate to
that person and say I understand their perspective where they're coming from I just don't agree
with it and that's okay too so relatedness how do you relate to those people that are
in your company in your fire department in your station within your platoon squad whatever
whatever your environment is can you have relatedness with those folks around you is
there a connection there both at work and potentially off duty as well and that's a
very very important part of self determination three and the final one which is something
we do really really well in emergency services in my opinion is competence if you look back
at your training calendar I would venture to guess over 95% of your training over the
last year is 100% dedicated to competence basic skills competence are we able to perform
those actions when we're called to do so and so I think when we look at this or an organizational
perspective almost all of our training other than mandated things like HR training and
things like that is related to competence and if we go all the way back to what is the
external customer expect from us the number one thing that they're going to tell you
every single time is we want you to be competent and so when we when we do an expectations document
kind of like this downloadable PDF here we are tying into all of these where we were
building a community and a culture that's relatable we're explaining to people how they
fit into that and how they can be super super successful within that culture we're allowing
them to drive what are the expectations and we're also saying hey here are things that
we are going to be competent about and here is what I expect from you based on how you're
riding on the rig today what seat you're in these are the things that are expected of
you and if you are not competent in those then let's go out right now and figure out
how we can make that happen or do we need to get you moved maybe to another assignment
if you're on a specialized company or something like that one of the other advantages of having
this this living and breathing document is that it makes us get back in there and make
sure that the expectations haven't changed aren't too hard aren't too soft based on what
the crew dynamic is if that crew has changed or things like that because if you have a
very very junior and not experienced company then your expectations of the work output
that they're able to perform in a super smart way has to change with that and then they can
grow within that and so maybe then it changes into hey here's some of the goals that we're
working towards here's the basic expectations that are absolutely not negotiable but what
do you what do you expect as that new member to the crew how can we get you up to this
level of where we want to go so I'd encourage you to put this thing on a rotational basis
at the very minimum twice a year where you can go back to this expectations document
and say hey as a company are we meeting these as an individual am I meeting these as a group
are we actually doing what we're saying and so another fun way that you can incorporate
this is to create a company motto what do you want to be known as with your specific
environment your specific company do you in the fire service want to be known as that
company that when they show up everybody just wants you to leave because you're paying the
ass or your bravado and your ego is so gigantic that regardless of how good your basic skills
are nobody wants you around and they can't wait to cancel you as fast as humanly possible
or do you want to be known as that company that when you show up you want to get that
hardest job and you want to be in the mix and you want when you're on the ticket for
that response where those other responding units are like all right cool I know I don't
have to worry about them I can actually give them some really really good work and they
are going to make this problem better I have a feeling I know what answer you would rather
have but this is where some self assessment and going back to that expectation of how
do we treat each other within the crew within the company how do we treat those surrounding
companies around us how do we treat those surrounding companies around us that might
need a little bit of help right how do we be leaders and extend that hey let's let's
get out there and work together and let's create good positive training environments
where we can where we can grow and we can push each other and I can really help you
with those things that might be a little bit sticky or you're just downright scared to
perform how do we how do we figure that out and this document can really be a good catalyst
for all of those conversations to happen I'd encourage you once you have this document
complete that you also provide it to the surrounding companies like I just talked about but you
provide it to your superiors and you say hey if you're if you're on an engine company hey
chief as your battalion chief here is what you can expect from us because these are the
things that we're working towards every day and then also help us be that external factor
where you can say hey to me it looks like you you all are meeting this or hey we could
really really work in these areas here give it to your training division right let them
help you if you have one let them help you grow and push and challenge yourself to make
sure that those expectations are being met so the way that this document has been broken
down is really really simple so it starts with daily checks hey here's what I expect
from the daily checks here's what we expect of each other from the daily checks and then
it goes into specific call types and so for the fire service specific we have different
specific call types I don't have every call type on here but I got the big ticket item
ones like medicals what's expected structure fires how about if we get assigned as the
RIT company how about auto alarm and detector calls and the way that I've laid this out
is because those are the areas to me where I've seen lots of complacency either within
myself or with crews that I've worked with or worked around and so when somebody comes
in and they're a guest for us or they're brand new to our company hey here is the expectation
we're going to overdress until proven otherwise and so we have that conversation so if we get
dispatched to a motor vehicle accident we're expecting all of those to be turned into extrications
we're expecting all of those to have really really hurt people trauma cores things like
that and so that way when we show up and we have no information and we do have a nasty
call or a trauma core it's not we just are saying yeah of course I already expected that
now we just plug that into the basic skill sets that we know how to do or if we get dispatched
to an automatic alarm we're putting on all of our PPE we're getting out the door quick
and so that building is on fire until proven otherwise and so just remember you know with
if we're talking about fire specifically and ventilation limited conditions we have all
this education around ventilation limited conditions but then that first in company gets on scene
and maybe their on scene report says I got nothing showing and so right away all of us
are like oh yeah of course not well which one is it could the building not be on fire
of course or could it be a vent limited condition where it's just not showing me it's on fire
so there's one of the things that you could put in your expectation document of even something
like that if you're noticing some complacency around a certain specific thing then include
that that's a really really good talking point to have as a company and the biggest thing
that I think has really been the most positive thing about having this expectations written
down and handing it to people that are either new or are with us for the day is the training
mentality and so there's a lot of nervous energy around training in emergency services
and there's even more nervous energy and chatter internal chatter for sure about failure and
what failure means so I really encourage you to write down on paper what is our training
mentality what do we believe in and how do we define failure especially in the training
environment and then live that and that might be a little bit tough right so you might think
that your poop doesn't stink but unfortunately it does okay and so this job and emergency
services as a whole has a fun little habit of finding you and kicking your ass on those
things that that you are not confident in it's just the way that it works and so you
need to have a good healthy relationship with failure especially in the training environment
you need to have a good healthy relationship with failure on an actual emergency scene
and how do you respond to that it's really really important and that these are the things
that you can definitely define in this expectations document but you got to have people that are
outside the crew or you got to have those honest conversations within that crew that
says hey these are the things that we've said are important to us and these are the things
that we said we were going to live by and we're not doing that and so you have to have
whether that's the probi or the most senior firefighter or the officer it shouldn't just
always be the officer that's upholding that line because they slip too and it's easy for
them to get overwhelmed and let some things slip so have those external forces have those
internal forces that are really there to help fact check you no gotchas just help you get
better and to grow so head on over to firefightercraftsmanship.com download the free expectations
template downloadable or you can hit that in the show notes and it'll take you right
to that download page as well so thank you for spending your time with us we really appreciate
it we really appreciate you sharing we appreciate you rating and reviewing the show that's really
been helpful for us to grow this thing week over week continue to reach out with questions
and ideas and challenges I've had some really really good conversations this week about some
past episodes especially the psychological detachment episode had a hilarious phone
call that started with hey I'm really really liking this I listen to this psychological
detachment episode which will be linked in the show notes but either you're full of shit
or I'm full of shit was how it started and we had a really really good conversation which
actually led to me wanting to record this expectations podcast so this is actually going to be a two
part series expect expectations part one is going to be how to set them at the crew level
because that's the easiest lowest hanging fruit and part two of this is going to be how do you set
expectations with yourself so as always thank you for for following us thank you for the comments
and the feedback thank you for sharing this show please smash on that follow button on your favorite
podcast player so you never miss one of these weekly episodes and stay smart thank you for
listening to the firefighter craftsmanship podcast where we give you real tools to train ultimate
humor performance both on and off the emergency scene you can find more information on our web
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