For the past couple of months, I have been telling the bizarre story of my first assignment as a battalion chief. I went through the regular promotional process and received a very good score. Everything was okay (to me), except I suddenly learned that I was way too young to be a chief officer based on the upward mobility timetable expectation of the senior bosses, who were (very) senior themselves. They believed that the testing process would have selected out anyone as young as I was; but lo and behold, the kid somehow survived the promotional obstacle course.
Because I met all the qualifications established by the city’s personnel department, the big guys were forced to promote me. They had the power and the inclination to selectively assign me to a place that would send a message inside the department that it was in the best interest of a very young person not to disrupt the acceptable timing of the promotional process. They had a place to “’store” the misfits-Battalion 3 on the B Shift.
The senior officers used the power of their position to selectively make assignments (big deal) to reward acceptable behavior and to punitively assign anyone they felt was disobedient or otherwise unacceptable. All this assignment nuttiness backfired on them because they thought they were sentencing me to jail, but they actually sent me to school.
One of the major lessons my troops taught me is the title of this month’s installment: “loyal disobedience.” I know that in putting these two words together, I am corrupting the English language even more than I normally do. Together, these words are not very logical and, in fact, are contradictory. The somewhat eccentric troops I inherited when I landed in my new spot taught me how insubordination and loyalty could shake hands in a very practical way because neither word is really that precise and there is a full range of ways that the behavior connected to each word occurs in the real world-particularly in Battalion 3 on the B Shift in the prehistoric period of 1969.
It would be difficult (or even impossible) to engineer the situation I found myself in, between getting beat up by the department leaders and then becoming the boss of the most unconventional group and being banished to a punishment place. My new troops were not concerned about behaving outside the norm of the organization, particularly about how they related to and communicated with their new boss. I quickly learned that their communication style was a lot more like rough-and-tumble discussion hockey than the under-control ballet style communication behavior to which I was accustomed.
Lessons for the “New” Boss
As I got to know the folks in my new battalion, I identified a number of things that were confusing about how they were assigned (punished) and how they actually performed. When I knew I was “sentenced” to my new assignment, I was concerned that the inhabitants of the battalion had gotten in trouble (in some way) and were exiled because of their tactical-operational capability.
As I operated with them on the fireground, they performed very well, which wrecked my initial theory that their substandard level of performance had them banished to the land of misfit toys (last month’s title). Working my way through trying to understand and sort out the difference between my initial unfounded assumption (big mistake) about their capability and what I discovered after I operated with them on the fireground taught me that it was always smart to judge performance at the finish line.
I also concluded that I should not listen to or believe a lot of political junk created when a boss has the power to put people “in their place” because the boss disapproves of some behavior completely unrelated to operational reality. Another part of that lesson is the difference between principle and preference. A smart boss must understand the difference between how I would do something and how another person will get the same outcome doing things in a different way. I live through this process continually when a (very smart) young person, as an example, does something completely different from how I have always done it and frequently produces a better outcome than mine. I have developed the habit of being quiet in the beginning, paying attention, commending the outcome, and logging a better way into my personal instruction manual. I applied this approach to the discussions I initially engaged in with my new troops whose style was very different to me, but they quickly and actively connected to the current discussion topic with very little warm-up.
I quickly discovered that my troops could lay hose and raise ladders, but they were not exactly organizational “angels.” Many of the dominant leaders in the battalion (formal and informal) had very strong opinions, which they expressed in a very robust manner. They also were very skillful organizational rascals: They relished making those expressions in the most unacceptable/uncomfortable place and time and then watched the reactions. Doing this added even more emphasis to what they said. They were in an interesting position to do this because they had been sent to Siberia. What else can the system do to that very vocal person as long as what he blurted out was just on the edge of not being punishable? Doing this required a very interesting skill. Much of what they said was accurate and currently relevant and was delivered and directed to some boss they did not respect.
Mostly, the big bosses in charge and on the receiving end of these meetings/discussions were at a disadvantage because they were accustomed to most members of the department who were well-behaved and under control in what they said and where they said it. When someone who was in their meeting said anything that was out of balance, that boss typically ordered, “Do it because I said so” or changed the subject and went on to the next item on the agenda. Another reaction was that the boss would use his position and authority (power) to sanction that person-how a boss uses punishment (disciplinary assignment) many times reveals more about the punisher than the person receiving the punishment. As a boss, be very careful of creating a badge-heavy negative/abusive reaction just because you can.
Establishing Interactive Communication
I was in an unusual position because at that time I was the permanently assigned battalion chief of these outspoken members, so I was continually attached to and actively engaged with them. I quickly observed and concluded that I owned my own reaction in the communication process and I was the only person who could control how I would fit into the verbal interaction “style” of the group, no matter how energetic the conversation became. When the discussion became very energetic, I developed the reaction to calmly ask a relevant question or make a statement that continued the dialogue. No matter how I was assigned, and even though I was a battalion chief, I was just a part of the gang; so when the discussion got wild, I just actively stayed in the conversation. I think that approach was effective because it required me to critically listen to the verbal mischief and then react in a way that kept the talk going. The power of listening became a huge lesson to me as a baby boss.
I think another positive message I tried to send was that I didn’t mind getting scuffed up a bit in an energetic conversation to convert a lot of verbal energy into a smart solution. I never scolded, corrected, or counseled anyone for what they said or how they said it. There were no “add ones”; what we said in private stayed private.
As we continued to interact, I noticed that the Battalion 3 boys became more involved and effectively directed (verbally better behaved) to present their ideas, opinions, and thoughts; they were more willing to listen and to effectively connect to others in the discussion. This change did not get us even close to a garden club discussion style (thankfully); and as we all continued to hang out together, I realized that I could do my part of bringing out the best in everyone by consciously interacting and positively reacting to their sometimes energetic outbursts. Many times, what I said right after the big initial blurt set the stage for the rest of our talk, and I quickly noticed that they looked forward to expressing themselves when their boss listened to them, valued their opinion, and kept the conversation going.
I developed an unusual habit that created a valuable perspective that influenced how I approached station discussions. When I visited a station, I would not pull up on the front driveway; I pulled around back and parked in the station parking lot. When I did this, I examined the cars/trucks parked in the lot to try to get some idea of what the troops did when they were off duty. In most of the stations, there would be several trucks with building construction and other business signs painted on the doors. Many other vehicles would have hospital, college, uptown office building parking stickers. Most of the vehicles were well-maintained, some were newer, and some were pretty fancy. Occasionally, I would see a very pristine/restored older vehicle, probably owned by a grumpy very senior engineer (that’s also how he took care of his fire rig).
The perspective I developed as I continued the parking lot size-up was that although some boss in the system had created and then acted out a negative definition of these members, a look at their personal rides reflected that they were very successful in a separate, yet major, part of their lives. The longer I pondered this paradox, the more I wondered what human potential the department had wasted with punitive assignment goofiness. When I attached the person to the vehicle, it reinforced my parking lot observations.
As we have written about much in the past, it is a huge waste when the system sends the message that you had best behave in an acceptable manner by leaving your brain at the door. The only problem with that approach is that the person reattaches his brain the next morning and actively uses it for the next two days. Many of these guys had a split personality and were very skillful on-duty/off-duty schizophrenics.
My regular jaunt through the parking lot caused me to recruit the experience, capability, and skill that their vehicles reflected into personal advisers for me, the new boss, who was trying to figure out how to develop my own functional boss behaviors. I was in an interesting position because the bosses above me sent me to Devil’s Island, so I was not going to get much coaching or personal support from them. In fact, they were disappointed that I quietly (and happily) disappeared into the punishment place. The organizational gossip was that the Battalion 3 fruitcakes who sent their last three chiefs back to the mainland (with their dresses over their heads and their hair on fire) embraced me because I was as nutty as they were.
Building Organization Effectiveness
This organizational drama is where this month’s title came from. It means something pretty simple. There is a universal reality that it is typically very difficult for a boss to receive relevant, useful, and doable (practical/possible) feedback on his performance and personal capability. The higher you go, the more intimidating your rank becomes. Most folks just don’t naturally march into the big boss’s office and unceremoniously announce the four major behavioral changes they have observed their boss should make to be more effective. If this does occur, that boss should gratefully sit down, listen critically, take notes on the suggestions, and sincerely thank that person.
A critical performance management model box has “critique” in it. Being able to mobilize the lessons extracted from a standard review into improved future performance is the foundation of continuous improvement. Although this model is applied mainly on an organizational level, the process can be used also on a very personal basis. I found myself in a spot with a group that if you listened to the style of conversation directed at me, the boss, you would think they were being insubordinate. It was just the way they interacted based on the profile of their personality, and this caused an autocratic boss to negatively react to their communication approach and style. I found myself in a position where if I could patiently connect to their style and listen, I could receive a ton of lessons, direction, and input from a group of very experienced and skillful officers and troops who were not timid about describing their perception of my challenges, stage of boss development, and personal reality. What they said was presented in a very direct, blunt manner without warm-up or preface.
I must now make this critical comment: Although we had a very energetic time with each other in a private, internal verbal setting mostly on a very informal basis and I have mischievously used the word “insubordination” (to get your attention) to describe how we interacted, these same troops could not have been more cooperative and compliant with me on the fireground. We had an ongoing discussion about reporting what they could see and sense from their tactical position. Today we say, “If you see something, say something.” They did this very well. I would also add that outside the fire station while operating in the public eye, they were always highly respectful and positive about my being their boss. I very consciously attempted to return that respect to them. How we connected and interacted was a function of our internal relationship and the style we used to exchange information only among us. It was easy for me to understand and internalize their directness.
After being in the battalion for a while, I noticed that while our discussions did not pussyfoot around an issue, we connected with less verbal bombast and better discussion manners. When I interacted with the company officers in particular, we would talk about becoming more effective bosses, and it opened the conversation about becoming more positively connected to different parts of the department and different managers to improve organizational effectiveness. It seemed that the more interested and involved I was with the company bosses and their crew, the more they coached me in trying to become more effective as a response chief. Their advice was invaluable because it directly related to actual conditions, situations, and experiences in the street and in the station, which was exactly what I was trying to figure out. I’m not certain exactly how to define loyalty, but I feel that genuinely helping someone to be personally successful comes pretty close. I also learned that another critical component of being a recipient of loyalty is to do whatever you can to make it easy for that loyal person to help you.
My initial Battalion 3 assignment created the natural inclination and the huge personal lesson for me instinctively to seek out and tolerate a spirited level of interaction. These early lessons created a set of personal capabilities that lasted the next 50 years. I developed a habitual set of concerns when there was discretionary time (most of the time) and the front-end discussion about a project, a plan, or an approach did not promote and accommodate a divergent set of perceptions, reactions, opinions, and positions. When I was in a discussion about something new or some change to something old, I instinctively did not proceed until the issue was discussed, until every position was presented and represented. Many times, discussion-based delay can greatly improve the quality of a decision. I also saw that the more I supported and engaged in an “open for business” message for an energetic discussion, the more skillful my troops became in picking an appropriate time and place where they would actively and effectively present their position.
I now still quietly laugh to myself when I engage someone and then listen to what they say that produces a valuable lesson for me, just as the B Shift boys in Battalion 3 taught me.
Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINI is a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.
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