Combustible

And we wrap up our series on The Pathfinder with Part III, which picks up right where we left off at the end of Part II.

We think that the Pathfinder concept is such an important one, that we actually recorded two separate episodes trying to get it right. But each episode went different directions, so they both ended up being valuable to the discussion.

What do a fire recruit, a 70’s sitcom, and Walt Disney have to do with regret?

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...

This isn’t really an outtake; it’s just a topic that wasn’t really large enough to devote an entire episode to. Bill, all by his lonesome, talks into the mic about the paradox of The Ship of Theseus and what that means for organizational identity…and maybe all of us.

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 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...

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...

As is the case with many of our episodes, we didn’t set out to make an episode about this. It actually was just a spirited conversation that we were having when we realized we should hit the record button. Is it better to be liked or respected? What is the relationship between the two? And what are the advantages of being liked, respected, or even both? Can you truly be both?

How do we as firefighters deal with luck? How honest are we about what part luck plays in our successes? More specifically, how much do we count on the same luck at our next fire? That’s where we start anyway, and we don’t exactly see eye to eye about it in the beginning. But that discussion moves to a very open conversation about how we evaluate our performance on fire scenes, and the process by...

You make the case that you’re the best person for the next step up; only you don’t get chosen. What do you do then? When does a natural amount of disappointment turn into an unhealthy perception of being slighted? How hard is it to get behind the person who got promoted instead of you? And what about those folks who choose to burn the organization down when they aren’t promoted? In this episode, w...

For this episode, we talk with “backstep” Firefighter Austin Kohler, who is only a few years into his career in the fire service. We ask him what he enjoys about the job, and what he didn’t expect about it. And about halfway through, we give Austin the upper-hand and let him ask us questions like: How do you perfect your craft in a position without the upper echelon thinking you're a “turd” for no...

The book Leadership On The Line says a plan “is no more than today’s best guess.” So why do some in our profession get so attached to their plan that they can’t see when their plan has lost all chance to succeed? In this episode, we sit down with Louie Bruno to talk about planning and preparation. Louie’s experiences in Technical Rescue for the last eight years have given him some valuable insight...

What you’re about to hear wasn’t really ever intended to be an episode. It was a side conversation that took place during a recording session in December 2019 that we just happened to record. We sat on it for over a year, but we’ve decided it’s something others should hear. It’s about what to do with a great idea before you try to implement it, and how your “great” idea can be even better. It firs...

We’re issuing all of our listeners a challenge in 2021. It’s only nine minutes long, but the effects could last for many years to come if you’re willing to take us up on it.

We’ll wager there isn’t a firefighter in the fire service who isn’t an advocate of training. But when you call that training “higher education” you start to get somewhat mixed reactions. Make higher education a prerequisite for some promotions, and now you’ve probably got some real disagreement. What’s the correct balance between experience, training, and formal education? How do you measure exper...

How do you figure out if someone is good for your team? Good for the organization? Good for you as a leader? What does it mean to build a diverse team, and how can different skillsets, talents, and perspectives be beneficial? Can they fill in the gaps that the team has, or that you don’t fill yourself? And when does it become unhealthy? When do differing opinions, or goals, or approaches become an...

When you don’t agree with a decision made above you, is it wrong to let people know you don’t agree? For this Ten Rounds we discuss whether telling those you are supervising that you don’t agree with something undermines authority or whether it actually helps you get that thing done. Then, as is the nature of these Ten Rounds episodes, Pabel takes us in a completely different direction to talk abo...

No matter how hard we try to avoid them, screw-ups are going to happen. When they happen, we shouldn’t avoid acknowledging them. Don’t wear them like a badge of honor, but own them nonetheless. You’ve already paid the price for the lesson; you might as well get the benefit of learning from it. In this episode, we go over some of our own personal biggest screw-ups (not counting the previous example...

At the end of our last recording session we only had twenty minutes left to record, which isn’t enough for a full episode. So Hatch suggested we do Ten Rounds. It’s simple: any one of us can talk for two minutes uninterrupted on any topic we want. When the bell ends that round, someone else can either continue on the topic, or start on a different topic. They talk uninterrupted for two minutes, an...

We all should be doing a size-up as we approach any scene. And if you’ve got other units responding with you, someone is ultimately going to be required to give some of what you’re seeing and thinking over the radio. So how important is the size-up? How good are you at giving them? How important are the words you choose to describe what you’re seeing to everyone else that’s still enroute? And what...

In this episode, we sit down with Attorney Lance LoRusso to discuss the dangers of something almost all firefighters engage in: social media. And you can’t talk about social media without talking about the legal ramifications of firefighters taking pictures and video on scene. Even if you don’t post the pictures, you might be surprised where those pictures can get you. We also tackle the very pric...

There is a central concept that runs throughout Pete Blaber’s The Mission, The Men, and Me: That you should always listen to the boots on the ground. We really like that idea. Colin Powell said something similar when he described his “bias was toward the guys in the field.” But we also recognize some wiggle room within the concept, which prompted us to send out a survey to see where our listeners...

This episode is the second part to our conversation with Todd Edwards. We pick back up where we left off last time: with Todd’s view on how to approach the problem of underperforming firefighters in your station. Granted, if you’re good at rehabilitating firefighters, you usually get sent more “projects,” and as Todd explains, it can begin to seem like Groundhog Day. On top of that, you’re not goi...

The illusion of a perfect fire is a tempting one, but it’s also just that: an illusion. In the first part of our discussion with Todd Edwards, we talk about the “perfect fire,” the nature of evaluating our performance at every fire, and Todd’s approach that there are at least three things on every fire that we did well. And when we turn our attention to those things we didn’t do well, Todd explain...