BY MATT HETRICK AND BOB MEEHAN
It’s hard to believe that in a brotherhood such as the fire service, teamwork is a problem. As the chief of a volunteer fire company in Pennsylvania, I have seen the problems firsthand. It’s not so much on the fireground, where our technical training, knowledge, and skills help us to accomplish what we live for and do best: saving lives and property. We were all born to do this—it’s in our blood; it’s what we do. Technical training, practice, and drills are all vital parts of our profession.
Yet, in nearly every fire station, factions that arise within the ranks can crush good teamwork. We have not done as good a job in addressing the human issues of “playing nice together” off the fireground. If our firefighters do not work well together in cleaning the engines, repairing equipment, or raising funds, the company is not a true team; it’s just a group of people who put out fires.
As the leader of your fire company, building your team to perform at a top level on the scene and in the station is critical to the company’s overall functioning.
Since most fire companies in Pennsylvania are volunteer, we must not only perform well at our fire and rescue responses but must also function cohesively when we are at the station. In functioning as a complete team, we focus on the twin goals of serving the community and returning home safely after every call. These are critical to achieving the high level of performance to which we all aspire.
WHAT IS A TEAM?
Although we hear “team” frequently used at work, we rarely actually see one. The best definition is as follows: A team is a group of individuals who have chosen to align their activities to achieve common goals. The italicized words are most significant.
Dynamics. A group’s individual personalities determine team dynamics. The definition above intentionally refers to individuals; individuality is necessary. We must recognize, develop, strengthen, and properly assign each member of the developing team. Knowing each member’s personality profile is a vital piece of the puzzle. Understanding each person’s style and motivation is critical to ensuring that person’s fit with the team. Developing this understanding is a key component of team building. What are the individual profiles of your team members?
Development. A number of stages are required to transform people from a group of individuals who show up at the same place into a cohesive, balanced, high-performance team: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Each stage is unique and cannot be skipped over, because we are humans, after all. All of the team-building concepts are geared to making the most of our ability to move quickly through the stages to become the high performers we want to be.
Forming is the initial development stage in which we are just coming together to find out who we are and why we are here. At this point, we discover each person’s skills and interests. There are a number of ways to determine the personality styles and behaviors. We can discover who are the leaders, who are the followers, who needs more explanation, and who are the rulekeepers.
Storming is the phase in which individuals in the group establish their dominance in a particular area. The talker, the doer, the one who needs the spotlight, and the quiet hard worker will manifest themselves through their behavior. This occurs naturally; the leader’s job at this point is to help each person find and feel comfortable with his role within the developing team.
Norming. By this stage, we all pretty much know all the plays in the playbook and are perhaps winning more than we are losing. This is the point at which the leader’s skills at people management emerge. The biggest hurdle is becoming an excellent coach, developer, and motivator. The mundane tasks around the fire station must be done just as well as those on the fireground, and this often takes practice and discipline.
Performing. We are now the cohesive championship team we really want to be. We not only do the part of the job we love (firefighting) well, but also do all the other routine tasks off the fireground exceptionally, too. This transforms a group of firefighters into a complete team that can handle all the tasks, whether on the fireground or at the fire station. The leader’s challenge here is to hold off the demotivators, including favoritism, negativism, sarcasm, and jealousy. Champions should act and be treated like champions. Team players should be recognized for their valuable contributions, too.
Change and the team. Even if the team members don’t change, the team will. Personal experiences can create a loss of focus or even change attitude or behavior. Initiative allows some members to move more quickly beyond other members, causing an imbalance within the team. What about a new face, a junior or rookie firefighter? Who will latch on to this probie? Hopefully, not the one who represents the leader’s greatest coaching challenge. Be prepared—careful communication with your crew is required at all times.
Referring back to the definition above, the leader and the team must have common goals. The leader’s job is to ensure buy-in to the common goals of the company while respecting the individual’s personal goals.
Setting team goals. Setting goals is not as easy as saying, “We’re going to save lives and property and not get killed doing it.” As with ventilation or any other fireground task, we need a systematic approach. We must decide where we are now and realistically where we want to be. Goals may be developed on many different levels, and we must all buy in to them. This is where the choice element in the definition comes in. Without this total buy-in, we still do not have a team. With buy-in, our efforts are much more focused toward their accomplishment. How we reach a goal takes the whole team’s input and action.
Effects of team building. One of the immediate short-term effects is greater safety for our firefighters. When we act as a cohesive team, at all levels we are likely to be one-half step quicker, one earful more aware, one second faster to offer help, and one look more observant. These may not make all the difference, although one of them just might. Other short-term effects include a goal-driven approach to problems and issues and the ability of the team leader to more appropriately delegate tasks to personnel based on personality profiles and performance.
Long-term effects are much more important and will pay greater dividends. Most importantly, when we have performed team-building exercises and have continued to do so, we have seen more emerging talent from our pool of team members who are ready to step into leadership roles. These team members are much better prepared for leadership and have a greater understanding of how to deal with the teams and their members. They are more goal-oriented and have generally increased the team’s efficiency and effectiveness than previously promoted team leaders. This is because they have a better understanding of the human factors affecting a team’s response to problems and issues.
By improving your companies’ team building, you can also expect higher morale. When everyone understands and agrees on the expectations, it is easy to limit any second-guessing. This keeps your entire team moving in the same direction.
Do you want less turnover? Then build your team. By creating that championship team, you also create an environment to which people naturally want to belong. People do not want to leave a winner. With team building in place, you can expect not only that your standards will be higher but also that a new recruit will know that up front and will make a conscious decision about whether to join your team. If your new recruit doesn’t want to join your team based on your team standards, he wasn’t going to be in it for the long haul anyway. If the probies aren’t going to live up to the team’s standards, they will eventually quit, leaving you with time and money invested in a quitter.
This is not to say that you should throw out your technical training plan and just do team building and your rescues will be quicker and your fires will magically go out. But, consider some of the important effects that team building could have on your company. Buy a book on team building and give some of the exercises a try, or bring in an outside facilitator for an evening class. The benefits far outweigh the time and money invested to create the championship team that your department and community deserve.
MATT HETRICK is chief of the Ono (PA) Volunteer Fire Company and a 20-year veteran of the volunteer fire service. He is a human resources manager for Supreme Corporation, a national truck body manufacturer.
BOB MEEHAN is the owner of Total Success Associates, a training and development company specializing in personal and employee performance enhancement and teamwork in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
