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Building a Culture of Trust in the Fire Service with Walt W. White · Fire Engineering Podcast

• Nat Kapustin: From MSA helmets and streamlight flashlights to seek thermal imaging cameras and so much more, the firestore.com has everything you need to serve your community safely and effectively. Welcome to Fire Engineering Politics and Tactics. We got a great show for you tonight. We're gonna talk about leadership culture, and we're gonna be talking to Walter White. He was he's been in the fire service over 40 years, a fire service veteran, served nearly 12 years as a fire chief, leading three agencies across two states. And I think that's important because if you're gonna speak to the fire service, you kind of need that wide birth of knowledge. And here's somebody who succeeded. In several fire departments, Sacramento Fire Department. He's also the author of the Cultural Architect: How to Build Values Based Mission Driven Culture, which draws on his career of experiences and offers practical lessons in trust, accountability, leadership development, and lasting organizational change. We all know that we need to do a little bit better at building the culture. What I really liked about this book was it didn't apologize for our culture. It basically said, and correct me if I'm wrong, Chief, that as a leader, you can help create that culture. Chief White, congratulations on the book. And thanks for coming on, Fire Engineering Politics and Tactics. We're here in the Axion studio, and we want to hear about your book, your experience, and what firefighters and officers across the country can learn from you. Well thanks, Frank. First I wanna say thank you for your leadership and for the invitation to come on the show today. Your listeners are the very reason I wrote this book. the book isn't just for chiefs fire chiefs, but for aspiring leaders or leadership at any level of the organization. And I you know after forty years of of living in the fire service culture, I learned quite a few things and I wanted to share those with others. And you're currently a chief right now as we speak, correct? I retired July first of this year. you should have waited till July fourth. You would have put a nice little bow on it, but July July first of this year. And what department did you retire from, sir? the city of Sparks, Sparks Fire Department. And they're in the process of hopefully merging with Rena. Okay. Ha have you taught at FDIC yet? I have not. So maybe this will be a submission for next year. So after decades being in the fire service, was there like a specific moment where you realized that culture, not just tactics alone or equipment, determined whether a crew could be a s whether they could succeed or fail? I don't think there was one sentinel moment, Frank, but just kind of a realization and epiphany over time that, you know, absolutely everything good, great, and wonderful about the fire service and everything Bad, poor, and divisive, it's all woven into the attitudes of our members, the way they think, act, and feel about the job. And that attitude is shaped by their environment, the culture that they operate in. So coming into a department as a new chief or a new company officer, what advice do you have for that? You know, we could we could do the the different rank different ranks. Let's do you're coming in a department as a new firefighter, you're coming in the department as a company officer. And you're getting promoted to chief. What what are three tricks or tactics they could use when it when it re when it's trying to focus on building a culture? Well, in every one of those, the most important thing you need to do is establish trust with your members that you one, that you can do the job if you're coming in as a firefighter, as a fire chief, you know, as you all know, you first you just come in as a a person in a position of authority and It's the members that determine if you'll go on to lead that organization. And that's going to be whether or not they trust you. Because, if I can't trust you, I can't count on you. I can't have you on the team, nor can I be on your team. So trust is essential. And, you know, the big thing to remember when it comes to company officers or frontline supervisors, they're the culture carriers. Most people's experience in the organization is shaped by their immediate supervisor. And anything that you want to do administratively, if it's not driven down and bought into at the company officer or the frontline supervisor level, it won it won't be successful. I I just had a nephew hired in the fire service, got his first job, and I said, you know, you can be a leader at any rank, even being a probationary firefighter, but first you got to know where you're going. And he got hired in a different town that he's not familiar with. So I said one of the best pieces of advice that I got. In probationary school from Jay Schwartz, who was a lieutenant and an adjunct instructor, was go to work a different way every day and leave work a different way every day. And I carried that throughout my career, even up to being drill master. It really helped learn the streets. And I thought, and I also told make sure you can make a pot of coffee, because these kids today they only think they there's a cure. But what do you call it? Those were two pieces. Cause you gotta really care about the job and knowing where you're going is very, very important. You said the company officers are culture carriers. Now, everybody wants to work in that fire department where everybody's on that same culture. But we've seen in departments, even smaller departments, a department could have two firehouses and one culture and one firehouse could be completely different than the culture in the other firehouse. As a chief officer, how do you get those culture carriers to buy into your vision and start taking the fire service and your fire department forward. Well first you touched on a couple of things that I think are important. You know, the taking different routes in and out, that's situational awareness. You can never have too much situational awar awareness. Making the pot of coffee, you're you're honoring a a longstanding tradition, which is part of the culture. But I think what's really important With those frontline supervisors, what they need, they don't need a leader who's gonna come in and just put pressure on them. Typically they put enough pressure on themselves. What they need is someone to come in that's gonna provide them with clarity on the mission, with resources, and be able to recognize when they've got too much on their plate and look at ways to mitigate that. Because if they're not sick successful, you're not successful. And really, I don't think there's anybody in the organization that has almost more influence than a company officer or frontline supervisor. They have the most common, most often, most frequent interaction with the public. The public's perception of us is largely shaped on their interactions with them, not the fire chief. And, you know, they eat, sleep, and work with the crews. So they are the ones that probably have the most influence with. The majority of the department. Now, how do you hold those individuals as somebody who's they're not just overwhelmed, who's just not meeting the vision of the fire chief? Where does accountability come into this? Because your de your book talks a lot about holding people accountable. So how do you hold that individual accountable to get them to put that vision forward? Yeah, you gotta do it the right way. I mean, look at discipline or accountability. You know, discipline comes from the root word disciple, which means to train, to teach, to mold. the objective isn't to be punitive, it's to get behavior modification. So, I have a coaching counseling model that I offer in the book, but I think what's really important, especially in larger organizations, to try and get everybody rowing in the same direction, is that the essential elements I talk about, the value, the trust, the development, the accountability, performance. resilience and succession, that they're all elements that a leader focuses on and creating an environment with each one of those that people want to work in. I also touch on the leverages that help shape those those elements, which are your your structure, your leadership, and your systems, which in the fire service are essentially your your policies, your practices. Your protocols and your procedures. And there's nothing worse on having policies and procedures as a chief that are outdated and not utilized. They undermine the entire organization. What's your take on ensuring that your rules and regulation and your department SOGs are updated? One of the things that Montgomery County, Maryland does that I think is brilliant, is when they issue a policy or a general order, they issue it in draft form and they let Well, first they have a committee that put puts it together. The chief has the final word, but they actually get impact input from their officers. They put together a policy, they put it out in draft form, they let individuals, even firefighters, comment on the policy. They take all the comments, they kind of reconcile them, see if they missed any blind spots, because we all have blind spots. And then once they get the policy to where they need it to be, they put it out still kind of as a draft so that The training division can train everybody on the policy, then they implement it. What's your take on that? I thought that that process was pretty good because a lot of times you see a policy come out and then somebody picks it apart and there's something that somebody missed. Even good people, competent people, there's always something you can miss. Yeah, absolutely. We had a very similar process in Sparks. We called it a 10-day hanging, which was a period of time that anyone in the department could comment, make recommendations, point out. flaws or things that we didn't see from administration. But, you know, and in the city of Sacramento, we also had a policy where if there was something urgent enough that it needed the fire chief to issue a directive, that that directive was in place for up to one year or until replaced by policy. So if that directive was important enough to be, you know, codified in a policy that that needed to occur within the First year of issuance, or that directive went away. So one of the things you touch on, which is critical, is that those policies are current, up, you know, being up to date, legally compliant, and best practice. And some of the ways I've found to do that is one, there's a there's a program out there called Lexapool, which is pretty effective at keeping you up to date, legally compliant. And but regardless, whatever. policy you have, it needs to tie directly to the the organization's core values. If you say that, you know, our people are our biggest asset and we value them, but yet you have policies or practices that treat them as replaceable, then you need to reevaluate your policies because they really need to be in alignment with the organization's core values. Absolutely. And then when I was talking to you the other night, you were at You were at let's some combat challenge world games in Los Las Vegas and you ran through the practice session. Can can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I consider that leading from the front. Sure. I I and I appreciate you bringing this up, although it's a little bittersweet because our team we had a I personally had a stumble on the final run of the final. So we dropped from possible First to third in that event. We were we had a team, relay team breaking bad two point but you know, one of the things I've done throughout my career, and I did for 30 consecutive seasons, was compete in the firefighter challenge. And I I just don't think that you can, you know, the firefighter challenge is pretty significant in the fire service because it promotes firefighter health and wellness and it showcases to the to the public the arduous demands of the occupation. And I just don't think that you can truly advocate for something as important as firefighter health and wellness if you're not demonstrating a personal commitment to it yourself. Absolutely. And we just saw in the news recently, which I thought was really it really highlighted this was the Secretary of War was getting smoked by some young Marines. And everybody pounced on him and like you're gonna expect a fifty-one or fifty-two-year-old male to keep up with 18 to 23 year old, you know, Marines, war fighters, you don't have to win the race to win respect. There's nothing like even in an academy class, when you see the director of training or the chief of the department go for a run or participate in a drill with the firefighters, that that earns respect. Would would you agree with that? Or what what's your take on that? Because I think you exemplify that is here, you're still doing it to this day. But I know your firefighters looked at you and said, hey, if the chief can do it every day, I gotta put forth that effort too, because leading by example is something that your book really stresses. Yeah, I Frank, I I couldn't agree more. You know, what I am just overwhelmed with when I go to an event is the respect that's given to the senior competitors. I'm in the over 60 division now, and I had a whole team of over 60 firefighters and we put on full gear, breathing compressed air, and go through the course. I don't compete so much for glory these days as I do for, you know, to set an example and to to lead. Now, yeah, there's the level of competition now at a world challenge. I mean, more than about two-thirds of the competitors are foreign competitors coming from 20 different countries. So you so you're really measuring up against the best of the best and the times that these athletes are able to perform is is really incredible. But a lot of respect goes to the senior participants who come out and still run in their age division. And I think that's you know, even when I ran as a much younger man, I always thought, man, if I can kill still be doing it at over 50, over 60, like these guys I see. And they inspired me. That I think that's I think that's great. And it's a great example. Your book also talks about three main levers for organizational renewals, for departments that's stuck in that low trust. we've always done it this way. can you go over that part of your book for me? Yeah, the shape those seven elements, which are essential in any organization. I say there's three primary levers. there's others, but the three primary ones are your leadership, which is essentially your leadership philosophy, your communication style. I've always believed in a servant leadership philosophy and a highly participative style of management. Next, it's your structure, essentially your org chart, how you divide up work, who reports to who, what opportunities you create with your organizational structure. Because it's not in left alone that you provide training or classes to allow members to develop, you also have to provide them with meaningful opportunities to develop in the organization. And lastly, it is, it's that's those systems, the policies, the practices, the protocols and procedures. And what's really most important is not only that they're up to date and best practices, but they're in alignment With the organization's core values. Okay, Chief, I gotta push back on you just a little bit here on the servant leadership thing. And I might be in the minority of the fire service, but there's a lot of traps to servant leadership. And I see a lot of chiefs and a lot of fire officers falling into the traps where they, because they want to be servant leaders, instead of putting forth the vision of the chief in the organization. They almost run their shifts based off consensus, and it ends up actually diminishing their command. So let me give you the kind of example that I use. When I was a lieutenant, if the fire truck was dirty, you got a couple different choices, right? You could get on the PA and say, everybody wash the fire truck. Maybe that's not the best approach, right? Or you could go up and start washing the fire truck. And if you're respected and if you led by example, Everybody's gonna start washing the fire truck. Now that right there, I'd say is a little bit of servant leadership. But what I see happening with the individuals that just read the book on servant leadership is then they stay too long as an officer and they continue washing the truck. And what they do is they continue, there's a point of diminishing returns. You washing the truck, getting everybody there together is really good for the ship. Builds camaraderie, builds that trust. But eventually, if you stay too long, I think there's a point where you start diminishing trust that now all of a sudden you're just a firefighter. So I would wash it for a while, do the camaraderie part, and then hand the hose to somebody and leave and go do what I needed to do in the office. So I was never diminishing my own command. I also equated to firefighters want to watch TV on downtime with their officer. It's something that you can do to build camaraderie, but you're not one of the guys or girls on the shift anymore. You can't stay too long. You you think, hey, I'm being a servant leader, but then I'm diminishing myself when I cross that line and I'm not putting forth the vision of the organization. Can you explain your vision of servant leadership? Do I have it wrong? And I mean, you know, I'll get I like quoting Henry Ford. If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Everybody out there became a chief, a firefighter. I've had dinner with you at FDIC. You have command presence. You're calm. You're confident. You're competent. you're somebody that you want to, hey, I want to follow this guy. This guy's here. I just don't want people to fall into that trap of where they only read one leadership book and then they end up diminishing their command instead of reading the culture architect and reading this book and command presence and taking a little bit. without sacrificing their own personality. Can you speak to that servant leadership point? And it's okay for you to tell me that I'm wrong on my own podcast. So that's okay. Yeah, Frank, I don't disagree with you at all. In fact, you know, the in addition to leading by example, is still the accountability. And, you know, it needs to be communicated that standards will not be compromised. And I talk about that in the book. And with those standards, you gotta set the standard, you gotta lead by the standard. And you know, you want there's no chief that can really be successful unless a lot of people in the organization really want them to be successful. So that means you need to get buy-in on that support because nobody does this job by themselves. I don't think there's any one person out there who's got enough personal charisma. to lead an organization unless the people around him want to be led. So I always say, you know, come in as a person in a position of authority, it's the members that decide whether or not you lead, because the only true requirement of leadership is that people follow. Now, throughout my career I worked with a lot of people, and as you know, some some teach what to do, some teach you what not to do. Well, the The organizational culture will be at the lowest level that the leadership leaders will tolerate. So, you know, that needs to be that can't be low. It's got to be a high standard because, you know, this is life and death profession. we not only do we lead by example, but we hold people accountable, we maintain the standard because we need the performance, the public deserves that. But throughout my career, I worked with individuals, some that believed in me more than I believed in myself and they created opportunities for me. And others that really didn't think I had much to offer and were tended to be a little bo more micromanagers. At the end of the day, who do you think I followed? Absolut absolutely. You trailed off a little at the end. And I I think that you've brought up something that's really important. You delivered a really important point. And I actually learned this lesson from Chris Sunwall, who's now a battalion chief in the town I live in, Wallingford. So here's the not a city fire chief. I think I learned it from him when he was a lieutenant. And he said that one of the things that a lot of the company officers get wrong is they always want to mentor their stars on the shift. When your job as a company officer is you want to touch base with the stars and let them grow. And sometimes you need to manage them and show them some leadership. But your real job as that company officer is to find that individual in the margins on your shift who you can turn around. That's where your work should be. And if you look across the fire service, especially in city departments, if you're the one that does the job, they tend to ask you to do more. If you do nothing, they tend to ignore you. And I think your book says that can't be the way. You got to look at your entire shift. It's one team. And I think your book does a good job of saying we need to bring everybody along. Do do do I got the does Chris Sunwall and I got that right? Yeah, absolutely. and you know, outside of the book, you know, one of the great leaders I always learned from was Lombardi, the football coach who and you know, what he told his team was that I don't care whether you like your teammate or not, you gotta love them. And one of his players said, I've never felt so loved outside of my immediate family. And I think a lot of people in the fire service feel that way too. And the way you show that love is by giving them time. That's how they spell it. T I E. You gotta give them your time, your attention. You gotta provide them opportunities. You gotta, you gotta create a safe environment where it's okay for them to speak up and to even fail as long as it's synonymous with development and growth. I like what Elon Musk said. You're either you're either leading or learning. He he considers every failure an opportunity to learn. It's not about failure. you got to be able to fail in the fire service without being a failure. Absolutely. 100%, right? Correct. I mean, none of us started, you know, as high performers. We all were trained, we all learned along the way, and we all developed. And if development isn't an essential element in your organization, you got a hole in your brick wall. And the other thing that I see a lot in departments is this mutual jealousy. Behind, we have the people that we ignore, and then sometimes we have the good, solid men and women of the fire service where there's some mutual jealousy between them that causes a barrier that shouldn't be there. The standard I always use as a firefighter, company officer, and a chief is if I did something stupid in a fire, which I occasionally did, would this individual who I may not personally like or have some little thing with? Would this person risk making their wife or husband, a widow, and their kids without a parent to save me? And if the answer is yes, then I could get over all the other petty stuff and find a way. another thing that you said that I think was interesting was that about loving everybody you work with and giving them your time. My my father, who passed away now, taught me a valuable leadership lesson that served me really well, especially as a union president. But also as a company officer. And he said, listen, when you're either in a manager or a boss, if somebody invites you to something, that means if a firefighter, if a subordinate invites you to something, that means they view you that you have a certain amount of value. So you have a responsibility to give them your time. So show up to everything, but leave early enough so they can talk about you behind your back. And I always thought that that was great leadership advice because it kept Again, that boundary. You have to keep a little bit of the boundary. And I think the military, I was never in the military. God bless and thank everybody who served. But I think the military does a good job with that. The fire service sometimes just wants to be everybody's friend. And I think your your book says to guard against that, but still love everybody, give them your time, show them you appreciate them, and make sure you keep everybody on track. You want to speak to that a little bit? Yeah, and you touch on another part of the book which I call Don't Wonder Wander. Don't wonder what's going on. There's only so much you can learn about your organization from, you know, from staff reports or budgets. You got to get out to where the work's being done and spend time with the people there. I I don't believe I've ever turned down an invitation for dinner at the firehouse, because usually when they're environmenting me, they got something they want to talk about. Now What I had to learn over along the way is that when someone speaks up and gives you some feedback that, you know, maybe a little hard to hear, the last thing you can do is get defensive or shut them down because that person's taking a risk, you know, and they're taking a risk for your benefit. And that feedback that they're providing you is something they want you to have. And, you know, the first time you shut it down or just get defensive, you're gonna lose that valuable feedback. So you also have to discern what you hear, because you know, information comes in three forms fact, fiction, and opinion, and the majority of what we receive is the latter. So I have another guide in the book where I talk about examining the message, the messenger, and the motive. And that's so that you can listen openly but with discernment, because a leader that believes everything they they hear can be vulnerable to manipulation. But a leader that doesn't believe anything they hear can become isolated and ineffective. What you need to do is openly listen and really reflect on on what they're giving you. Because, like I said, a person in the organization who's speaking up and giving you feedback that may be a little difficult to hear, they're really taking a risk, which puts them in that category of leader and a leader you don't want to lose on your team. I like how you're phrasing that. And that's the first time I've ever heard anybody put it in that way, is that they're taking a risk. And and I agree with you, when somebody's throwing rocks at you, definitely look at their motive because sometimes they're just trying to hurt you. But sometimes out of that, you can take, if you take it the right way, like you said, maybe they're exposing a blind spot or something that you need to shore up. But a lot of times the rocks that are getting thrown are constructive. Take them and build something with them. And It's okay as a chief officer, as a company officer, not to respond to everything. one of the things that we had 10 firehouses, 40 shifts in the city, people would say, you stay on message when you go to each firehouse, because I never wanted to create a rumor. I won't wanted to stay there. And if somebody brought something new up, I would always go, That's interesting. Let me think about that. you don't always need to respond to everything as a chief because sometimes if you respond off the cuff, You actually are creating policy just by your words. And you could be undermining your own vision because it's off the hook. So realize that you don't always have to respond. And something I always try to teach people is that when anybody comes at you with anything, I don't care if you're at the board of aldermen, the mayor's office, the firehouse kitchen table, don't ever respond directly after they make the statement. Always ask them a question. It usually narrows the argument. It'll sometimes expose what's going on. It'll usually put them off balance a little bit, but always ask a question. A great negotiator is never going to respond with just another statement. A lot of times it puts you in a bad light where if you just, like you said, listen, ask him a question to clarify how they were thinking. Try to narrow the issue, figure out where you are. And you don't have to win every issue at the kitchen table. That's not your job. as a leader. what's your take on that, Chief? No, I agree. you and I both spent a little time as labor leaders as well. And one big thing that fire chiefs or or chief officers or or leaders in any organization need to learn is don't take the the bait and respond emotionally. You know, you you listen if you need more clarification, you have those follow up questions. And I touch upon that in the book. The cultural architect, you know, I just wanted to do a quick promo here by showing it. Yeah, hold hold it up so they can see the cover. And where can where can they get the book, Chief? It's available on Amazon right now. And I'm in the process of scheduling time to do the audio version of it as well. And one of the things that came up at the challenge was, you know, translation into a couple of different languages. Because there were people there that wanted the book in Norwegian or, you know, Spanish or whatever their language, their native language is. You know, fortunately most most of the competitors that show up, they speak pretty good English, you know, so they understand that as well. But to get back to the your point, and if you could re kind of just Refresh me on that question. On your take on when you're going around to firehouses, you're taking that dinner of not responding to everything that's thrown at you. Cause a lot of new officers have that problem because they think they got to answer every question. They got to answer it right. You're not at a fire. You at a fire, you gotta make a try to make a perfect decision based off imperfect information. When you're at the kitchen, nothing's on fire. Somebody asks you a question, it's okay to get back to them. It's okay not to overcommit. That's what kind of what I was getting out. It's okay to punt or to I call it hitch your cutoff man in in this situation, but you know, there's a lot of trust and transparency. And one of the things I did at Sparks, I when I arrived there, there was fifteen open active grievances waiting for me on the desk. You know, gotta look at those as hey, this is an agreed upon process. You know, you can't take it personal. So what I did was I established what I called a a monthly all hands meeting. And this was, you know, invite to everyone. It was optional. And I would host it online after the monthly ops meeting. And what I would do is I would share relevant job related information and open it up to questions. Because, you know, you really want to kind of keep a lid on the the rumor mill and in lack of information, you know, Rumors will get created. Yeah, you said it having clarity kills that rumor mill. Yeah. And, you know, initially I didn't a lot of firefighters didn't ask questions on that form format, but they would have questions about the information I provided when I went out and did station visits. And that's okay too. but my goal and my objective was to be transparent with them. And answer the questions and provide the information that they wanted to know. Yeah, I think that goes a long way because people want to interact with the chief of all ranks. And it makes it makes a big difference to have that clarity. And everybody wants, no matter who you are, you want a little bit of guardrails. You want to know where the guardrails are. And if you're a boss, they don't want you to be a different person every day. They want you to be consistent, they want to know. What is expected of them so they can succeed in their job. You brought up the kitchen table. And so I want to make, I want to put a point out there. If you're invited as a chief officer to somebody's kitchen table, this is where Dave Polykoff and I disagree. So Dave Polykoff gets up and he washes his own dish. Okay. If somebody tries to grab his dish, he still washes his own dish. I say, Dave, that's where you're failing. If somebody wants to wash your dish, that means that's a sign of respect. So that's when you should, as a chief officer, get up to wash your dish. But if somebody takes it without you telling them, you should just say thank you. And you should always pay for dinner, even if they want to pay for your dinner, because you can't afford to look cheap. Because if you're in a career department or you're in a volunteer department where you're in a higher position of esteem, Generally the everybody else is making a little bit less because you're higher up in seniority. You should pay for your own dinner. You should get up to wash your own dish. Nobody offers, wash your dish. It's that simple. I had a firefighter ask me, say, why every firehouse I go to, whether you're there as the union president or a battalion chief patrol master, they always wash your dishes. I said, Well, very simple. When I was a firefighter, an officer or a guest never washed their dish. I would wash my dish. And three people go, Yep, he's right. This job is so easy if you take care of the kitchen table and you do an extra 15 minutes of housework. It really, it really goes a long way to establishing the culture and you know who you are in the fire service in your reputation. do you want to speak to that? Yeah. you know, you're talking directly about culture. And, you know, I think that leaders, if they take purposeful actions to establish a value-based mission driven culture. And they get to buy into the memberships, virtually all of the problems go away. Now, I I do also agree with you about the dish. I I believed otherwise early on in my career when I was chief of the city of Sacramento. No, I I'm washing my own dish and one of the probationary firefighters, you know, kind of, no chief trying to take it from me. And we got into a little little bit of a scrum near the sink until I heard some nervous laughter about, you know, He was wondering how far he could push this. And I just gave him the plate and said, Thank you. And and I appreciated the respect. But I I was raised in the fire service by firefighters, fire captains, those that came before me that said, whether you like the guy, like the guy, love the guy, hate the guy. If a chief officer comes to this station, you go offer to fuel his rig and wash his his ride before he leaves. And you do, you do their dishes. And offer to do their dishes. And I've reinforced that same philosophy with the crews I had. I was fortunate to be a company officer, a frontline supervisor for 14 years in the fire service. And I really think that's the foundation and my core understanding of the culture and how important it is. Just a quick story that's in my book, Command's Presence, that I love. And I got a picture of it. Jay Jonas, one of the chiefs in New York, we were at a firefighter dedication and In 27 truck in the Bronx, on the stainless steel sink is two firefighters' names in Sharpie. And Jay goes to me and says, says, you know, one of my biggest regrets as I went up the ranks is I started in this firehouse and I never took a picture when my name was on the sink. So when you're a probationary firefighter in that company, you write your name on the sink. You own the sink as a proby until the next proby comes along and then they get acetone, I guess take it off and write the next one down. And I said, that's kinda that would have been cool to have in your office as a chief when your name was on the on the sink. So I always thought that was, you know, if a a chief of that caliber could look back on that, it makes a makes a big difference. Well I I agree with you, 'cause of if if at sometimes I think members, especially newer members, can lose lose track of the fact that you did their job. And you did it for years, Sometimes, sometimes I think they they feel like you just, you know, came came into the fire service as a chief because that's all they've known you as. Same thing. They think you were born they think you were born a chief. Yeah, yeah. Well, my mother was a kindergarten teacher. Yeah. So a lot of my friends from high school, First time they came over to my house and they realized my mom was their kindergarten teacher, it was a little mind-bending for them. But another thing Vince Lombardi said that I really would just resonated with me, he said, you know, the man on top of the mountain, he didn't fall there. You know, he climbed up through the ranks. And sometimes people that have only known you as a chief and haven't seen you cutting holes and dragging hose. they can lose track of the fact that you did that. You did their job, you walked, you walked in their shoes. so I think it is good to get out there with the crews and demonstrate some of that and remind them of that. But I think it's good for any firefighter to recognize, hey, these guys ranks ahead of me. they earned that. And and there's a certain amount of respect, whether I like their personality or not, respect the position, if not the person. Chief, I like what you said that some people, you know, they come in later to the department, you're already a chief. They don't they didn't see you forcing doors and stuff like that. But and you say, well, get out and do it with them in training. That's where, you know, go first as the chief officer, participate in training. Cause on the fire ground, if you're using tools, you're not using your head. As a division chief, I'd always carry a halligan, but I try not to use it. I try to give it to somebody else and let them use it. But what do you call it? But the time to train that To have fun is to get out on the training ground, go through one evolution. Again, you don't gotta be the master at pulling hose or pulling somebody out of a window, but if you do it once, it's really gonna earn respect. And they're gonna be like, here's a battalion chief who's not afraid to to make a mistake in front of us. It just goes a long way in the fire service. we know we can get your book on Amazon. We'd like to see you put in for a class at FDIC. We think that culture's real important. We w I wanna end on one thing because you do talk about mental health a little bit on there. And I'm on the the the I think mental health is really, real important. but I think that we're the pendulum's going too far to the other side now. When I entered the fire service, you know, to be crude, salty chief, we lose a couple kids with bad fire, we're Other individuals are saved. And I always think that for firefighters, that's the worst. When they have the best day of their life, their career, when they save somebody, but a kid is lost at that same fire. It's really hard to reconcile that. And I don't think we talk about that enough in mental health is you could have the best day and the worst day on the same day in the fire service. And I went to the chief, I was vice president of the union at the time, or Secretary of Treasurer and I go, and the chief's salty and he goes, he goes, Frank, this is a tough day. I said, Yeah, Chief, I want to get peer support in every firehouse. are we good with that? And he looked at me and he goes, Frank, that ain't nothing that a blowjob and a shot of whiskey could take care of. And I said, Well, Chief, if you're given blowjobs and shots of whiskey, cancel peer review. If not, peer support, I expect him to be in the firehouse. And I just walked away and he got so red he wanted to kill me. But he got peer support. in all the firehouses. So I think we need to take care of each other. So I believe in peer support. I believe in going to ask for help and seeing things. I if you want to bring a dog and everybody wants to hug the dog, that's fine. So I'm 100% in support of all that. What I'm not in support of that we're having a problem with is people now think it's okay to break down on the fire ground. You cannot break down and have an emotional thing at the fire ground. Suck it up. If you can't handle 20 minutes on the fire ground to do your job, then you shouldn't be a firefighter. Afterwards, you want to talk to somebody, you want to go to therapy, you want to pet the dog. The f as company officers, we should support it. We should watch our people. We as you said, you should love your people, give them your time, watch them in a couple of weeks, make sure everybody gets the help. But in the academy, they're going too hard saying it's okay. There's no feelings officer on the fire ground. You need to do your job first. At that car accident, you're cutting somebody out and somebody's in there. You can't be crying. And I've seen a paramedic break down and throw up in a front yard while we were pulling a kid out of a pool that had a chance to live. Unacceptable. And I don't think we're doing a good we were so bad on one end. And then instead of putting it in the middle and saying we need to take care of people and make sure they have the help, then all of a sudden it went the just, this is all about feeling. So I'd like to hear your take on that. And again, it's okay to disagree with me on this podcast. It's there's no, there's no boundaries here. No, no, Frank, it's all part of the overall wellness. Mental, behavioral health i is an important aspect. And I worked with some of those same chief officers. I was part of the critical incident stress management team and a peer, peer support counselor. You know, and they they called it the cry and towel program, but these were also guys that smoked, drank and were on their second or third wife, they had their own ways of coping with stress that that probably weren't as healthy as you could have. But you've got to understand, recognize that, there's there's generational changes on this job. You you get work in the fire service, you work with people that when you're twenty, you work with people that are fifty sixty. When you're fifty sixty you're you're working with kids that, you know, you were on the job before they were born. I remember when I started in the fire service, we used to talk about work life balance, but we didn't mean it. You know, I mean one of the best abilities a firefighter could have was availability. And the, you know, the mantra was like I got more time than money, you know, so I'm gonna work any every bit of overtime that's offered. that's not always the case. In fact, you know, I actually had overtime grieved. and so it the There have been some generational changes, and I'm not saying that they're, you know, less tough or or or not even smarter than we were, because, you know, anybody that entered the fire service during our era, Frank, made a lot of sacrifices, you know. but your your family pays the price on that too, of the, you know, loss of endless time and attention from you. Because, your commitment to the job and everything. So there's a balance. And I there's a balance when it comes to behavioral health. And we do need to find that balance, just like you're saying. You know, there has to be that resiliency, which is one of those seven essential elements that has to be a standard part of your organization. But at the same time, you know, we need to look out for the members of the department. not just from a physical health but from a behavioral health perspective as well. That's awesome. If you could tell our viewers one more time where they can get their book, and it's been an honor having them on second. Yeah, the cultural architect, it's a known problem. It's available now on Amazon. And you know, I'm I'm just humbled by the feedback that I've been receiving so far. The book has received nothing but five star reviews and sales are going pretty good. I was able to do a short pitch at the Firefighter Challenge on their live stream, which went out to an international audience. And you know, so I I'm excited to to see this grow and to do my part now to help contribute to healthy fire service culture. And I really think that your listeners are who I wrote this book for. And I genuinely appreciate your leadership. And you share on this platform with me so that I could share share the book and and the meaningful lessons I believe are inside of it. Well, honored to have you on the show, Chief. That's it for politics and tactics tonight. Check out Chief Walt White's book. Also check out fire engineering books and videos for great books. Hopefully, we'll see an application for Walt to teach at FDIC. The applications will be coming out right after this FDIC. And Sorry, our co-host PJ can't be there. We have a great show booked coming up in November. We're going to have the union president and secretary treasurer of the Denver Fire Department on to talk about some issues that they're having. Stay tuned for that. That's it. Thanks to fire engineering. Thanks to Walter White. And check out his book, The Culture Architect. Have a great night.