Latest / B Shifter / Silverback Leadership: Boss Power (Part 1)

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Silverback Leadership: Boss Power (Part 1) · B Shifter

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hey there, before we get started on this V Shifter podcast, this is being released the week of August 10th, 2026, and it will be in two parts.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: This is part one.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_04: Part two will be out later in about a week and a half.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: And this is to commemorate our brand new module for Silverback Leadership titled Boss Behaviors.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_04: The new module is up, it's ready for you to review.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: If you're a blue card IC, you'll get it in the continuing education area.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: So log on, check it out, check out that module.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: Also, I want to mention if you're headed to FRI, Fire Command, third edition, now available to purchase.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: If you're watching the video, here it is the brand new Fire Command.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_04: And you can get this at FRI for$25 off and come home with it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: If you are not going to Fire Rescue International and you still want to take advantage of that$25 off promo, just get on, check out, and on checkout, type in promo code BrunoAllCaps2026.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Bruno 2026 all caps.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: That will get you$25 off.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: That offer expires August 17th, 2026.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: Now let's get into this week's B Shifter Podcast.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the B Shifter Podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_04: Today it's John Vance being joined by Nick Brunicini and Terry Garrison.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome, gentlemen.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: How are you doing?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: How about you?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's nice to have the uh the silverbacks back together.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: Here we are.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: We're all still alive.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_04: That's the first, most important part.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, it is.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Silver hair, anyway.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: At this point in time, every day is a gift.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: That's why they call it the present.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: I knew you'd like that one.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_04: I I we're we're out here doing a train the trainer every morning.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: I I get up and walk into the kitchen and tell the guys, are you ready to shape the minds of America's incident commanders?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go do it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: And Kelvin Alexander's like, JB, you got me pumped up.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So they're so nice to you.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: They want to throw hot coffee at you.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure they do.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_04: Today we will be talking about leadership.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_04: So we we have a new module that is coming out for the Silverback Leadership Program, which is available for a limited time to all blue card subscribers.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I think we want to hit on that because it it this is a limited time deal, right?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Truly.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's kind of slowed down us releasing the things here a little bit.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we're kind of backflowed with them is we've really got two finished.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: We just haven't put them out yet.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So this one will be coming out here very quickly, shortly, within the next week or two.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: But we've been working to other the the plate's been too full, so we've had too much other nonsense going on.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: So the the silverback kind of got hung up in the thing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: But like you said, JV, the whole plan the whole time with this program is we were going to release it as we finished each module.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the benefit for people that are signed up taking our CE program.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they will have the opportunity to go through every single module.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: So even when the last one's up there, when we put the ninth module up, they'll have at least a couple months to go through that.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll let them know hey, you got this is at this date, we're gonna remove this, this, all this content, and we're gonna cook it down into one program.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it'll be, I don't know, probably a 12-hour online program, something like that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: 12, 16 hours right around there.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then here in the next month or two, we're gonna start earnestly figuring out what the three-day in-person cert lab, for lack of a better word, is gonna contain and look like, kind of.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: So having support for leadership is important, and this is really a lot of work that Bruno started that you guys recovered, added to, and put it together.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the last 10 years of his life, he really this is what he was doing was going off and teaching functional boss behaviors and no-brainer management.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I always say I was pretty fortunate because he was coming to the city of Glendale and talking to the fire, whoever showed up.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It could be firefighters, fire captain, engineers, chiefs, and he would show up every few weeks and go through one of his modules.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, once again, we're the curators of this.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we did, is we we grabbed all his information out of the boxes and books and everything that he put together.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really AMP, anatomy and physiology of customer service.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's no no-brainer management, it's functional our functional boss behaviors.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many of my every time I think about them again, I get kind of caught up.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then what we did is we added some of the some of our new programs that we've done, like we added the Phoenix Fire Department Way, the Houston Way.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's some information in there.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a safety survival guide that's going to have some information, just a really well-rounded package of how a leader can kind of help his department move forward, and how leaders within the organization can help to help move that organization forward.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's going to be a good program.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that was the other part of it, is it's the whole thing is really an effort for the workforce to deliver added value service.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: So when you look at the people that are most familiar with the program right now, who have a pretty good idea of what's going on currently in the fire service as far as training goes, have all said the same thing.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: They said, there is nothing else out there like this.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason is because the crazy guy invented it all.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he was running the fire department around the service delivery piece of it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't running it around, I'm the administrative boss of all you, and this is how you show your obedience to the to the leader, and then the icons that we maintain of my leadership power and omnipotence.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Egos eat brains.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's where where that will lead you to.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's too many holes that you build that's gonna trip you up and effectively deliver in service as an organization.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, big problem I see with fire chiefs, and without being too critical, but a big it's like, okay, I'm the fire chief, I'm responsible for the management of the organization and dealing with the council.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're the ops chief, so you're gonna lead the operational piece.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, you're the EMS chief, you're gonna lead the EMS division.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, you're the HR guy, so you're gonna keep people in line through disciplinary processes, and you're the logistics guy, so your job is to kind of get them whatever they need.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, the fire chief works as a team and they all work together to lead the organization.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the second the fire chief looks away from that, he or she is gonna have a big problem because at the end of the day, they're the ones responsible for it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't really delegate as a fire chief your responsibility away to somebody else.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can delegate responsibility to a person, but at the end of the day, you're still responsible for how that gets done.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think a lot of it is is it's just natural, a trap is a lot of fire chiefs think I'm part of the mayor's team.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: So they see themselves as the mayor of the fire department.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not the mayor because the mayor's up there.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're my direct boss.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I can see them and touch them.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I have all that mayor power for the fire department now.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm actually the mayor's representative here to run the fire department.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, see, when you're managing off the work, it's it's you're it's the customer and the person delivering the work, the labor is who you that so that was see, he never let go of that connection.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was never the other fire chief guy who's I'm the imperial dress five bugle, blah, blah, blah, ceremonial leader.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Almost like it's almost like fire chiefs think they're the fire commissioner.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that kind of screws it up because, like, in some systems, like New York City, they're like, no, we need somebody just to deal with the politics of this thing.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then we need an operational person.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the best quotes out of any book was Vinnie Dunn, and he was talking about leadership.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the fire commissioner did something, and his mentor, whoever that was, said, no, that was political leadership.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: The pro the difference, and it's confusing, is like political leadership doesn't have to make sense.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, it oftentimes doesn't because it's political.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: They said operational leadership has to make sense because you have to be able to do it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to be able to recreate.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a dentist, you have to be right on pulling teeth or filling teeth or whatever it is.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: It can't be, oh, I'm gonna make your teeth pretty so you're politically popular.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's a whole different thing.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, were you gonna say something, Josh?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, no, just a sideline.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_04: I was talking to Josh the other day about all these referendums and the possibility of property taxes being repealed and everything else.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, I think we're not to be an Armageddonist, but we're gonna see some tough times coming up.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: And the more the fire department focuses on the work and the more that they connect with the community, it's gonna be harder for the community to cut those services or or gut those services.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_04: And we were talking in particular about a fire department that didn't really care for community interaction.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like you've got to have that community interaction and be about the community, specifically about the work and be good about the work that you do.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_04: And it's harder for the community then to gut your budget.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna need them.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, wait, here's the first the most effective fire bosses.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read a little bit off here off our program because I want to make sure I get it right.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the most effective leaders, fire chiefs, is they recognize kind of the difference between the management role and the connection to management, the fireboards, and the mayors, and their connection to the people actually doing the work, the firefighter.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So here's here's first of all, here's what management wants.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you started it, Nick.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what the city manager, the mayor wants.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to be a part of their management team.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to hold the budget align, they want you to do more with less.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to contract, uh, retain that management control.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to represent the party line if there's a party line within the city, because the city has its own culture, and they want you to hold members accountable, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the management wants.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if I scroll down here a little bit, it says, but what do the workers want?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because the boss needs to realize that, and he also needs to realize this.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: The workers want you to be part of a team, they want you to support them, they want you to understand them, they want you to defend them, represent them, and advocate for them, and they want you to hold other members accountable.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the best bosses are the ones that say, and that's what Bruno did so well because he wrote this.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: He realized that, hey, there I'm fighting this.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is always happening.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there were similar things that the both the city wanted, or your bosses and the workers.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there was half of it was identical.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it is.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the same.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: They want you to be a part of their team and your so it's but you I think there's talented people that could do that.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: They could be part of both and still maintain their Yeah, so their I don't know, honesty.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: I thought you were gonna say sobriety.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that too.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean i i if if if you if if belonging to both groups makes you schizophrenic, you can't belong to both groups.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just and and there's uh some systems you can't.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you it's you gotta pick.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're with them or you're with us.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you think about the role of labor when you have an when you have a very strong labor group and you get a fire chief in there, the fire chief gets really caught in the middle of that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're a collective voice of that membership, hopefully.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they're doing.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then you got management up here, and because they have different missions, they have different viewpoints of just about everything, the fire chief's caught in that middle position.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it being a fire chief is difficult.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the last thing you want to do as a fire chief is go to your members and say, My job is difficult.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard of fire chiefs doing that, where they would say, Hey, you don't understand how hard it is for me.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, fire chief shouldn't do that, right?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fire chiefs should recognize that their job is difficult.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, usually they say that right before they do something horrible to somebody.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: To the members because they have to, because of coming from up on high.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and delivering bad news, I guess, would be fear of an applicant looking for a fire chief job somewhere.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have a buddy of ours who did that, and he was ready to support the members, he was ready to support the city, he was fully engaged, he went through the interview, he felt like he was doing really well.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the very last question that they asked him on the panel was, and are you willing to cut our uh staffing from four to three?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's it, you're gonna have to make a decision about whether that job's gonna work for you or not by the by the answer that you give them.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't go, well, I don't know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can't go back and do that job.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't lie to them and say, Yeah, I'm willing to do that, and then take your position as the fire chief, say, I was just shitting you.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a lot of people that would do that.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they would say, Yeah, I'll go ahead and do it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they had to, no, I'm not gonna do it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You better pick a nice vacation area because you're gonna spend a lot of time away.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: But this guy said, No, I'm not willing to do that, and he didn't get the job.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it's good that he knew that right up front.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're if you're looking for a fire chief job, understand that the management managers want something from you, and the members want something from you, and the labor group.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then how are you gonna and the the best way to do that is by the way, what are your values?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: What do you value?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Nick always says it value the work, value the workers, support what they do, make sure they give the best possible service in the safest possible way.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you say, hey, here's my values, my values are these, and if cutting it to three, cutting the staff into three, that does not match up with my value because I don't think it's safe for the firefighters.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have three and you're you're going into a system with three and that's all they got, sure, go in and support them and help them and do the best they can with three.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But when you hear a question that doesn't support your values or you see an organization going a certain way, it's like, no, I that's not gonna work for me.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Value-based decision making on the front end works really well.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: See, but you can't sustain a system.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: A house divided can't stand.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like when you have an authority having jurisdiction that says I want to get rid of the fire department, I I want to go from four to three to two later, and then I want to take all the power from them so they just do what I tell them all the time.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: That that that that's not gonna be a tenable thing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And now the all of those departments have fire chiefs, and a lot of them will represent that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, I just have to do what my bosses tell me.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the the I mean there's examples of that throughout the history where people did what their bosses told them, and it was a stupid, immoral, illegal thing, and there was a price to pay at the end of it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Usually at a trial.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a trial or the hag exists for a reason.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they it's just so uh and I think that's part of the boss's thing is to keep where you can keep delivering the mail.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can't do that when everybody's shooting and fighting at each other all the time.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge disruption in delivering service, especially for cities.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we've been doing this long enough where we've seen those systems where the union's first impulse is to sue, to blackball a fire chief, and then to sue the city.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Those are very dysfunctional places.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: They're well known.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we used to go to Firehouse in Baltimore and they're doing picket lines wearing neon green shirts the union's wearing, made in Vietnam, talking about how their American workers are getting screwed.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, they're both sides are wrong.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, you guys aren't no one's here leading for the work.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is you're all fighting over something that has to do outside of why you're here.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so this section once again is on boss power.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you understand the position you're with you're in, and you understand the power that you have.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about it a little bit before we went on air here is that there is no neutral position as a boss.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're either you're either moving forward.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nick, Nick said it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you think you're gonna be divided and keep peace and nobody's gonna rock the boat in either one of those areas, you're living a fantasy world because you need to move the organization forward.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, are you gonna move the organization forward in the way management wants?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, they think that is moving forward.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: They think by cutting the resources and doing it more we can do it for free.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: They we can do it more effectively or efficiently, or we can cut down to two persons every night because we don't need four firefighters at night.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard that one.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You guys heard me talk about it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you hear we hear doing blue card going places.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I said, No, we don't do that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: We don't we don't have SOPs like that because we're different.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And like, okay, so you fight different fires, and they say, Yeah, our fires are different.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, Well, I've seen some of your video of them, and they they they're screwed up.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess if that's your definition of different, you're right.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: They are different because of you, is why the not because of the fire.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, so when you're talking to city managers, what I found is we our very first section in this is focus on the work.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can sit across from a city manager or a politician or a council or what a fire board, and you explain the work that a firefighter does, why it takes four firefighters.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why three, you could do it, but here's the things that is gonna happen when you have three.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you got three, okay, we got three, but this way it's gonna when you have less fire stations and your call volume is going up, okay.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't have to build another fire station, but here's what's gonna happen.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Nick always says the human body hasn't changed.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: In about five minutes, they're gonna need oxygen or they're gonna need to be saved from whatever they're experiencing.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I found it best is not to really, and it doesn't always work because I had my own issues with that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like when you explain your role as fire chief, I would tell him my job is to support the firefighters delivering the service because the only reason firefighters exist is to provide that service.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you start cutting these resources, here's how you're gonna impact our firefighters' ability to deliver that service in a safe way.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: They listen, they don't always agree.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that old thing that uh niece Parker says where I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: They get very frustrated by all that because all they see is one firefighter equals$220,000 a year or whatever that is, whatever that number is, and they're caught up in the numbers.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: But once again, focus on the work.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what Alan Brunicini did more than anything, better than anything else.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: He he focused on the work and on the workers.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't add value as an organization until you get a fire chief that gets behind the basic service delivery, the core services, actually understands that.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some fire chiefs that aren't able to really describe the service that their firefighters do very well because they moved away from it, and maybe some things have changed since they actually sat down and listened and paid attention to the operations piece, but they need to stay connected to that so they were able to describe that.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: A politician asking you, hey, I was on a I saw uh somebody fell down on a mountain the other day, and there was three engine companies from different cities.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is all that about?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you need to be able to describe that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, where's the trench rescue?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is up with that?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why was there so many firefighters on that?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you guys just get them out of the trench?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: You got to be able to extra describe that and explain that.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to know the work.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It all goes back to understand the work and then use your boss power, which is what we're gonna continue to talk about.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Use your boss power to support the workers.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the way we see it here today, right?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, advance, one of the you were talking about this the other day.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about a fire department, and they have staffing for twelve hundred people.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what their number is to maintain.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And they're down to 900 right now.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the comments somebody made.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is sooner than later, is this fire department's going to have to explain to the city why they're no longer doing interior firefighting.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's all going to be outside.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: They just can't staff to the levels they need to sustain that kind of an IDLH incident operation.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, see, that would become a leadership thing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, here, like in my own community, the the response times have gone up over the last 25 years.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: They haven't gotten smaller, they've gotten bigger.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I have noticed that that is a very uncomfortable question for local politicians whenever that comes up.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever the media, there's a story where you have to talk about how long it actually takes to get emergency responders to your front door.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Seven and a half, eight, nine minutes.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And see, it's untenable because the public is like, so now reporters are asking, well, if you know somebody's watching their child die, they have to wait 10 minutes for the well, no, that's not what it is.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: So these politicians, they live in a world where they want it both ways all the time, where I have to be physically responsible.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And well, we're talking about the city.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're like the the the budget's short, so they're going to take three quarters of it from public safety.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's where they have to take it because three quarters of their budget is for public safety.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just the math.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, and that's a real thing.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's that you said it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Being a fire chief sucks because you have to balance the budget.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, that's the way the city kind of controls the fire department.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is all the money you have.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, see, at some point, whether it's like, okay, we got plenty of money to hire people, but we can't hire them.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: They won't sign up anymore for whatever reason, or we don't have the money and we can't hire them.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, we can't keep doing this.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: That when we get 10 minutes, we're no longer emergency services.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: You got to call it something else.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you're gonna remake that, that is too big a deal.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: The fire service don't get to do that on their own.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we can't because we're the last ones with the bag, but you the fire teachers are the ones that are gonna have to represent that to the public.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's saying, no, we don't have the resources to do what you want us to do anymore.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: See, that's where the work becomes so powerful in it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Is a lot of people try to dismiss it and put it lower tier, but it has the biggest, it's the heaviest thing that's gonna hit you is when your work is screwed up.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: That that you can't recover from that, I think, as a fire department.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: When you're known for just being a shitty fire department and delivering core services, good luck.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: It took generations to destroy that organization through just horrible, self-centered, ego-based leadership is why you suck, basically.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I would say it took generations to build a good fire department.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, without a doubt.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_04: It's like a library, man.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a millennium to fill it up and 10 minutes to burn it all to the ground.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and we're seeing that now just because of what's going on elsewhere.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: At the highest levels of government, let's say.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: We'll just call it that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Where people that don't actually understand the work.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's the most dangerous.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is somebody that doesn't understand the work but thinks that they're a deity of some kind.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let me let me I mean that that's just that's you talk about untenable.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you something to happen in an organization I worked at.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is you get a city manager who decides he's gonna cut the fire department.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he's had conversations with the fire chief, me, and and it's not going right for him.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: He can't figure it, he can't figure it out.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: He's got it, yeah.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he's got politicians who want him to cut the fire department.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So now the fire chief's up against this whole system.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, brilliant guy, the city manager, he goes, you know what, we're gonna form a committee and we're gonna look at every department within the city for efficiency.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even remember what it was called.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: It it went on for three months.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like Doge.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's an efficient, it might have been.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's an efficiency committee.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna take people and who's on it.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who's on it?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm telling you right now.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, he's reading my mind.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he I'm gonna get some finance people, I'm gonna get some HR people, I'm gonna get Nick and I have drank beer together.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get people from other organizations.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get a guy from public works, I'm gonna get a police Yeah, a bunch of cops.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna get a bunch of cops.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, and we're gonna go through and we're gonna do a deep dive.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love those terms?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna deep dive this week.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, so here's what I want you to do is put together what you you can explain so you can get us all on the same page to explain what the fire fire department does.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: We could do that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Give me a give me three weeks.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you or you just didn't know.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: We showed up with a PowerPoint presentation back when we did those, okay.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's different, and a binder that thick and describe everything we do as a fire department and how we do it and why we do it.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for and it was it took us, so we would do two and a half hour sessions that would last three hours.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And by the and it took us, oh, we had a meeting a week.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It probably took us 10 weeks to go through that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's trying to rush us, like, no, no, you wanted yeah, I'm just doing what you told me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So about about the sixth week, he left the meeting and said, You I'm gonna leave this to you guys.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they had some sort of discussion who you left that with.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: By the by the time we were done describing everything that we did, what did the committee want to do?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Give you more money.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh-huh.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cheapers, creepers, you guys need more money.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do this.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you saved my grandmother.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you guys did this, and what you said about being kind to the people and always focusing on added value.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: This committee went down like this in flames.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what what did he do?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: He he said, well, he wasn't satisfied with the results of it, so he didn't do any other departmental so he just stopped with you?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_04: Never happened with anybody else.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_04: That's ideal, though.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's really what fire chief should be doing is demonstrating the value that the fire department has, explaining it, not not living in secrecy.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_04: No, and there's departments that that hide and you know, it's like, oh, don't tell them what we do.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_04: We we don't want anybody in here, you know, the door station.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Me and two assistant chiefs showed up for four hours a week because we get questions afterwards, and we sat there and explained our entire system to them, and we would bring in subject matter experts too.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I'm gonna bring in.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: I got my own lawyers and city managers and other people, man.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've got ER doctors.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I got better looking experts than you guys do.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing about it is, I could not, we could not have done that if we were to focus on the budget without the work.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's the work, man.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: If we were to focus on the legal without the work, we've got to focus on the work.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: You said it work when the work ends up producing, oh, thank you, you guys got here so quick and you saved my baby.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now, we can abuse the living shit out of that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's saying, no, we you have to give us everything because we save the baby.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, no.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: See, that that's even that's counterproductive.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: My old man used to, he told a story where he goes to City Hall, and they were going to City Hall all the time.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: So he's there with whoever, and there's a deputy city manager, and then two ranking cops get on the elevator and they're going up.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they look at my dad and they say, Oh, Jesus, the fire chief's here.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want, Chief?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad looked at him and smiled, and he just said, More.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: That was it.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: He says, More.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll show it because it's we got video of it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: But he talks about what you did with the PowerPoint and the binder.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: Is he said, we always had it in our pocket.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, it got to the point when I would go to reach to my pocket, my boss would tell me, don't take that out.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, you don't get to do this to me anymore.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, what they did to him is they said, Alan, you know, you you you're the greatest of whatever it is.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: But if you you can't overspend your budget again.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if your overtime is going to be an issue, we need to know sooner.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the and like somebody stayed after from the city managers, he says, they're serious.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: He says, You can't do this to them again.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, Because before it was they had all the money in the world.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, got it.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I and so that was his deal.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: He says, but he says, I didn't end up getting less.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I just they wanted to know more often what was going on.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: So he says, What it did is it produced me, ended up getting more from them.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's at the beginning of every budget year, we would meet as a team, and then we would go to finance and meet their team and tell them this is how much we're gonna be over in over our overtime budget.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the MOU, this is the number of firefighters we have, we're gonna be over this much.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't be over that much.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm telling you right now, on record, this is how much we're gonna be over.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how else to explain that.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, sure enough, three months go by.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys doing on your overtime?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're over this much, we're gonna be right on target for being over at the end of the year, and somewhere along about the third cycle, they found money for us because there's money somewhere in the city, and they found the money, but we were able to describe it to so I got in trouble in one department because I didn't let them know up front.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I uh you can't assume they know that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's notification and and that's not unreasonable.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you work for the authority having jurisdiction, it's like you got this much.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is a yeah, and a fire chief should know that, but it's it's based on the work and the amount of workers.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So 24-7 with 28 spots a day or whatever 100 firefighters a day times 24-7 is going to create this much.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: You need this many firefighters because of the M MOU allows these firefighters this much time off, and then they take this much time.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, your firefighters are too sick.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no, no, no.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did is we went back to the city and I we had our deal, and we showed that the firefighters take less sick leave than any other position within the city.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's all bullshit.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it was so much fun when you got really smart people on staff that can figure that out because it wasn't me.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was the team that we had.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh chief, look at this.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, like in the case of the MOU, the MOU is crafted by the Union Executive Board and the City.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's good by the city council.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not B B and R is in the room, but it's the people who actually the elected officials who are responsible for running the city.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: So anything that was in the MOU as a chief, especially, because you're part of management then, they would come to you and say, we need you to start doing X, Y, and Z with the sick leave program because we take too much sick leave.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, it's in the MOU, how much sick leave that the members can take without having doctors know.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's got it's the rules that they sign, they sign the MOU.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: They agree to Here are the rules that my bosses and my boss's bosses agreed to.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I'm gonna do right here.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, some assistant chief comes to me and says, no, we're gonna do this.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's not now I figured out at that time I just smile and nod, and then they leave, and I'm not gonna do it because the MOU overranks that moron who and the fire chief was part of the MOU.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: So at that time we had a fire chief that just kind of would forget day to day what he had done, depending on what his dosages were.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a different see, and you get used to the bosses you work for, I guess talking about boss power.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that I love, Vance, throughout my career is I had figured out pretty early what you could get executed for and what you wouldn't get executed for.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: So once you knew those rules, there was really not a lot your boss could do to you if you did what you were supposed to.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they can make your day miserable and other things, but well, Nick, and that's the same thing for a fire chief, is that you know, your your city manager manager can tell you to do something, and you don't have to really be rude or mean-spirited like I was at one time.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: You could just say, Yeah, I don't think I can do that.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Check this over here.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when they go check this over there, they go, Yeah, you're right, we can't do that.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: You need to talk to your attorney, or you need to talk to these folks, or why don't we talk to the medical director and how that impacts patient?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess what we're we're just and we I love it because this is only two little slides in an entire boss power section.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the boss, well, it's a way of life, is what it is.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Boss power function has four sections to it.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just talking about the very first piece, which is the boss power itself and and why it's so critical.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no neutral power, it's either positive or negative.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next couple of session sections move through the process and it starts talking.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: We start talking about uh positional power versus personal power.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we could talk about that here, and then it kind of moves down into the different areas that a boss has power over, and then we get to a wonderful part in here, which is boss goofs, and we could talk, but so I guess all this that we're talking about is just the beginning piece of the boss power, and we give a lot of examples and a better way, I think, based on what Bruno taught us.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I like that the other thing you said where there's no neutral, yeah.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be neutral in the thing, so you're never just kind of idling, you're always either going up or down, it it seems to me.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I found the people, the fire chiefs that think that they they create their neutral position by not showing up.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's neutral.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's negative all the way, right?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: But how many times?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's absentee.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have you guys seen that?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, oh, a lot.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And how does that how does the troops feel about it when they show up every day and their fire chief or are one of their and it could happen within the organization someplace else?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: You may have a you may have a battalion chief or a response chief who's dealing with a difficult issue in their battalion, a couple captains or a personnel issue or something going on, and they decide, no, that now's a good time to go to Alaska for about four weeks, and they go absent for a while.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: When they come back, that problem is probably still there and it's festered and it's gotten worse.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_04: Or they don't have a job.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_04: Or they don't have a job.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen that happen too.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, lately I've I've been encountering fire chiefs that maybe they are neutral, but they're they're the monk, I think of it like monkey in the middle, and the troops don't support them or don't feel like they're doing their job, and the city doesn't support them or feel it, and and they're kind of stuck.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: So, how do you get unstuck?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: How do you get out of neutral and into a position where you're you're no longer just you know, unfortunately, what you just described is a credibility problem.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, firefighters they have capabilities and they have credibility, and there's some very capable fire chiefs that will lose credibility based on becoming absent or going and doing some focusing on the wrong thing, like focusing on management, not focusing on the troops.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when you lose credibility, you almost can't get yourself unstuck.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think the monkey in the middle, it's I can't envision what you do in the middle.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're in the middle and you if you've lost credibility by both sides, it is real hard to pull yourself out of that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: It almost takes somebody from, and I've seen this where a labor leader will see that and say, hey man, we got to help this fire chief out because the next fire chief we get is gonna be worse than this, or they're gonna be from the outside, right?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been in from the outside, so I know how that feels, but they're gonna we're gonna end up with some knucklehead.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like you promote so you don't have to work for that idiot.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they keep their fire chief because he's manageable, but they got to help him build credibility.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, hey, let's have you ever heard a union say, let's get the fire chief a win?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So he looks better with management.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So usually pulling yourself out doesn't happen on your own because you're so embedded in that monkey position.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: The city manager who hired you, say he's a hiring board, whether it's a mayor or a city manager.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen them help some fire chiefs out too by giving the fire chief some sort of win somewhere.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, the fire chief, they they have they're having serious one-on-one conversations with the fire chiefs.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Say, you know what, you right now you have no credibility.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're seen as a knucklehead.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you this, and this is all you're getting.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't take this and lift your head out of your arse and start paying attention and doing what you need to do, you're on a very short rope, right?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: I that's what I think.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I do you do you see them pulling themselves out?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: I I I think that happens sometimes.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I think if the if if if one group or the other is committed to the fire chief and they see the value in that fire chief, that's when they're gonna do it.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: And if they don't see any value because the the chief hasn't given it, they're not gonna help the chief out.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: So I think one side or the other could help could help, and I've seen it help.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_04: I've also seen it where the credibility's lost, and they're not gonna help anymore.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: They're done.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: And and and they're gonna look for any excuse to get rid of that fire chief and do a wholesale change.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we also talk about in this area lower down, one of the sections within this function is angels and demons.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when I think of angels and demons, I don't think of a chronic issue with the fire chief, although that could be the case.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when a fire chief does something, the demon gets in his head, and we all know the angels over here and the demons over here.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nick talks a lot about that in his life.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we spend a lot of time talking about angels and demons.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you do something really demonic, really stupid, and you've built credibility up until that point, and you haven't been an absent person, a fire chief or leader, and you've tried in other areas, you there's a chance for you to survive something pretty stupid because one of those two groups may help you out with that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's part of it.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: If like the mediocre do nothing fire chiefs you're talking about that just want to exist, is the good ones, the the people that last the longest in that mode are not disruptive.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: So what they don't do is they don't go to work and screw things up.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: They may be an impediment to progress and other things, and they represent like just being a static do nothing.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fire chief used to say the difference between dysfunctional and disruptive.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you can be somewhat dysfunctional and like, no, I'm gonna put my shoes on every morning and step 15 years into the past, and that's the way I'm gonna run this thing.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, we're not gonna do like take command.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're just I'm gonna give you a card.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if like if you're fourth due, you're also stupid, figure out what do you are, and then just read on and do what that says.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm that kind of fire chief.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I think those guys can last a while because they're they're not disruptive, yeah, they're just dysfunctional.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: But they're not nobody's dying to go to work for them.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I've known some of those guys that were fire chief for a really long time.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, and you wonder how do they do this?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the guys who work with them say, well, he ain't a bad guy.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like the good dude said he's a good dude, you know.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, he the he's a nothing.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, he's not he's least likely to Yeah, exactly.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's not gonna take resources, but he's not gonna get you a new station.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a push.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_04: Can we expound on angels and demons a little bit just so everyone knows what we're talking about?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's uh we need a angels.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Is it the ethics in your body that causes you to do good things, and then the the un the self-indulgent behaviors are what the demons kind of pat you on the head and scream.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_04: My constant struggle was the lack of regard.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: And it and it and and I knew I knew on the team.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the dudes ain't talking like I'm I'm mama studding up for him.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, please.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a horrible ego thing.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's a wretched ego thing.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Angels and here's Bruno's description.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna because you asked.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Angels and demons describe the positive and negative behaviors the boss uses to do with people, places, and things as they encounter below, above, and across from them, their boss activities and situations.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's basically saying here is that every interaction you have, there's a There's a demon, and believe me, I know, or there's an angel.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you and it most of it has to do with interacting with people.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And think about the times in our lives that I'm I'd said it last time where I was getting on the freeway and this guy cut off my wife and she's in the car in front of me.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: My demon says, catch that son of a gun.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's not the right thing to do.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So demons aren't something that is so it's an impulse.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's all that's what it's really an impulse.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always so demonic.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: It could be something really simple and the wrong thing to do, right?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: It could be.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why I wanted to go back.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the worst, those are the worst demons, the ones that wear angel faces.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because that the they get they get deeper in and they can do more damage.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because you think, okay, I'm doing this for the good of somebody or myself.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it really wasn't.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh just a bad idea.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bruno described the best angel force that there possibly could be, and that's the be nice, the be nice characteristics of an angel.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he and you go through here, and some of them are loyalty and approval and admiration.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do they call it?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Reciprocity?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Reciprocity.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Reciprocity.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Reciprocity.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Charlie Munger talking about just it.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: Charlie Munger used Bono as an example.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: From the U2.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Bono's deal was I'm going to be nice to everybody.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And 90% of the time, over 90%, they're going to be nice back to me.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way this works.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're like, oh, well, you're just nice and patient.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: He says, no, I'm self-serving.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: What I do is I figured out how to get this and have a relationship with other people that's beneficial for both of us.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not transactional, is we're just going to be nice to each other as a general rule.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, and that's and then when you do that, people that live that way are able to accumulate more because more people want to deal with them.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of like the work almost.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, that and that whole transactional deal, the people that have interactions just based on what can I do for you so you can do something for me doesn't work out really well in leadership positions.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: No, there doesn't matter.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do it.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: You need to have like value-based I care about people.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Bruno said that once.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to him about something, and he said, Yeah, I don't think he likes firefighters.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he was talking about a chief officer, and I said, What do you think?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, he goes, I don't think he likes firefighters, Chief G.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, maybe he doesn't.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, you know, it's hard to be a leader when you don't like the people you lead.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: We knew a fire chief like that.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, she did the most damage.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look at she cut it the deepest, man.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at some of these demon behaviors, intimidation, fear, revenge.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are three.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just see, and there's fire chiefs that that's their main motivations.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're getting even over something that happened to them.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody somehow assaulted them organizationally.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the And those grievances run deep.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it could be yeah, no, it's a two-headed deal now.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: The demon's always there.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, no, when you we're doing a set of things, we're taking karate so we can whoop their ass two years from now.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why they get the power.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know what interesting thing about that is there's people who like them who because favoritism is also another demon trait.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you start becoming partial to people be for whatever reason, I like the way they look or I like the way they act because they follow me, they tell me whatever.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's another demon.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you start looking at how you but all these none of these mean much until you interact it and you portray it on another person or something in the organization.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: See, I think that's where the work is just it's the tonic for everything.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is especially for us because our work is held in such high regard by all a society.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it really is.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so the people, you said it, Terry.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: When you go and you represent the work to the committee of budget cutters, and and they sit there after about the third or fourth meeting, they're like, no, these guys need more money.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: That what they do for this city is so much more important than like putting a new traffic camera up.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is of a higher value for all of us.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, that's really to be honest, that's the best form of government, is what a fire department does for the community.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you could put all service and government to that level, it would fix a lot of things, I think.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: At least you could identify it and say, no, this is a thing.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: At least we're having the conversation with the people who are running fire departments.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, no, you can't cut the budget because this is what we do with it.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so weird that when you're I've talked to people about these angels and demons before, and I go, What do you mean?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they get this like, this is so simple.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's that was the beauty of Bruno is he would have these conversations about something that seems simple and take them a little bit deeper and by identifying that listen, we all know that there's angels and demons, and the way you feel about yourself it's the human condition, yeah, and the way Shakespeare wrote about um that's the next function.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: Human condition in the next but if well there's a plot.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna I'm gonna get ahead of us.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's a there is a a heading, a text heading in the next edition of Fire Command that says the flesh is weak.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean that's it is 168 degrees, your flesh goes away, Matt.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, uh-huh.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's but you know, just describing angels and demons in a in a way that you can teach it to people, and then you can have conversations on to a big deal.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: You could put pig like instead of having an angel head and a demon head, you could have people like well-known figures in society.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Who do I want to be?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do I want to be that person or that person?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: That person or that person.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know what another interesting thing about the angels and demons is that workers know their bosses when they're being an angel and a demon.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you think you're being sneaky when you're doing something that you're seeking revenge on somebody, or you're trying to intimidate somebody.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: You think you're the only one in the room that knows that you're being an asshole.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody who is watching you know what you're doing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's like we see what you're doing, and he quotes this the prisoners have an intimate knowledge and understanding of the guards, right?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is that so true?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fire department.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know each other.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's a wrap on this B Shifter podcast, part one of Boss Behaviors from the Silverbacks.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_04: Want to thank Nick Brunicini and Terry Garrison for being here.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_04: Join us next time for part two of Boss Behaviors.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_04: Look at the show notes if you're interested in any of our links, and make sure to share this podcast.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks so much for listening to B Shifter.