Episode 102 - Building Experience And Turning It Into Expertise

In this episode, we dive into how firefighters’ decision-making process works, and how critically reliant that process is on experience. So, where are we missing opportunities to build experience and convert it to expertise?

We’ve come up with a new concept called DIFOS that is a series of questions that can be asked to really examine how a decision-making process evolved. It can be used on-scene after a fire or in any situation where an important decision was made.

Episode 100 - Bob Maynard Part 2: Purposeful Non-Compliance

Photo credit: Maarten Visser This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Bob is the first guest we’ve had to show up to the recording with a powerpoint presentation. And while that gave us a chuckle, it’s a presentation filled with concepts that blew us away…and it’s a presentation that he “threw together” the day before. There’s a lot here, and we barely scratched the surface on some of it, but we really dig into purposeful non-compliance in Part 2.

We also discuss getting everyone dialed in on paying attention on scene, as well as teaching all of our folks to speak up when they see something they think may be important. We also discuss what accident investigation in the airline industry may hold for the fire service, heuristics, and Bob throws in a literal war story from Vietnam about tunnel vision.

The presentation Bob made:

Episode 099 - Bob Maynard Part 1: The Most Interesting Man In The World

Bob on the right.

Bob Maynard is Shane’s father-in-law, and he just happens to also be one of the most interesting people we’ve ever met. Highlights from his past include Chinook helicopter pilot during Vietnam, personal pilot of one of our leadership idols, did 20 years with the FAA, and now runs his own company training pilots to fight forest fires. And while he’s never fought a fire in his life, a LOT of what he knows about flying directly applies to the fire service.

In Part 1 of our interview with Bob, we begin to explore purposeful non-compliance - when you know you shouldn’t do something, but for some reason do it anyway.

The presentation Bob made for our discussion:

Episode 098 - Technical Expertise vs. Judgment

This episode started with the deceptively simple question, “At what level in your organization do people begin to feel and act as if they are valued more for their judgment than for their technical expertise?” We applied that question to our own experience in fire departments, but it’s an interesting question for any organization. And that’s just the jumping off point for a discussion on the nature of judgment, what experience has to do with it, and the other ways you can build and strengthen your judgment.

Episode 097 - George Cowgill on Resigning, Retiring, and Leaving the Birmingham Fire Department

Former Birmingham Firefighter George Cowgill posted a very personal account of his time as a firefighter, and why he’s leaving that behind. If you’ve read it, you’re probably not surprised that it went viral, which is how we came across it.

In this episode, we interview George (in Birmingham) by telephone as he discusses how he decided it was time to go.

Episode 096 - We Debate What the Hell a Psychological Contract Is (and Whether You Can Break One in Good Conscience)

Like the picture above, psychological contracts can be binding, circular, heavy, old, rusty, and sometimes broken.

Before this episode, two of us hadn’t ever heard of a psychological contract, but apparently we all have them. What they really are, who you have them with, and whether or not it’s okay to break them are questions that aren’t so easily answered, but we give it the ol’ Combustible try.

Episode 093 - We Solve The Pay Problem

Spoiler Alert: we don’t really solve the pay problem. That would break a long-standing tradition on our podcast of not solving anything. But there are virtual arms races in some regions as departments raise salaries to compete for what seems to be an ever-shrinking pool of firefighters. Pay is one of those things that we’re all talking about, but we haven’t talked about. So, we took a stab at it.

Episode 088 - The Pathfinder

Every organization has those persons who push the organization from the inside. They advocate passionately for change, but while they’re doing it they can cause discomfort for those around them. They challenge long-held assumptions. They champion new technologies and strategies. They hold up a beacon and ask everyone else to follow into unchartered territory.

It’s important work to any successful organization, but it can be exceptionally frustrating for those who are either appointed by the organization, or those that choose all on their own to be a Pathfinder. Beating a path through the wilderness is hard work, and it isn’t for just anyone.

Episode 086 - Be Wrong Or Do Nothing?

A listener asked us: “At what point is a wrong decision actually worse than no decision at all?”

It’s a great starting point for a roving conversation that gets into whether results matter in that calculus. We also rehash our earlier debate on the nature of luck in the fire service (Episode 082), what the role of intent is, how Pabel dissects an incident moving forward and Bill goes backwards, and the difference between being wrong and making a mistake.

Episode 085 - On Hallowed Ground with Eriks Gabliks

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The National Fire Academy is the home of the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial; hallowed ground for any firefighter. To borrow a phrase from President Lincoln at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA (just 12 miles north of the NFA), the memorial on the NFA campus reminds us “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

While Bill was at the National Fire Academy for two weeks in Emmitsburg, Maryland this last August, he sat down with Eriks Gabliks, the Superintendent of the National Fire Academy. They talked about what the National Fire Academy is, what it isn’t, just how you start out as a volunteer firefighter and end up as superintendent, some of the more popular myths about the campus, why every firefighter should attend a class there at least once, and, of course, we give Eriks The Questions.

Episode 084 - For Bill Smith, A Battle Buddy

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On June 6, 2021, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Smith gave his life while saving others who got caught in a rip current off the Alabama shore. Two of our podcast crew (Shane and Bill V.) worked for Bill Smith for years before Bill retired as Deputy Chief of Operations for Dekalb County and went on to his second career in law enforcement. Receiving the news that Bill died while saving others was a shock to both of them, but not a surprise since that was very much who Bill Smith was.

Last fall, Bill Smith sent Shane and (Combustible) Bill an article about the former Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel A. Dailey’s leadership tips. We’ve decided for this episode, as a tribute to Bill Smith, that we would discuss each leadership tip one at a time.

So, this episode is dedicated to Bill Smith, one of the best firefighters and best leaders Shane and Bill ever knew. And a true “Battle Buddy.”