The Only Way to Win 

Kevin Ryan 

In the December edition, I wrote about making the wise investment in your members as a leader. The article ended by stating when the team wins, you win #winning. The winning hashtag gets thrown around the Baltimore City FD Hazmat Operations Office when a success is encountered. Success is determined by the yardstick you use to measure it. Framing your successes in a positive manner refocuses your team. A focus on succeeding allows it to expand. A principle in the psychology world says what you focus on expands. My personal experience finds this to be true. I always try to use positive terms. There is plenty of negativity in this world so it’s refreshing to be absolute.  

Larger scale success such as handling a dangerous incident usually starts with small victories along the way. Here is a good example of what I am referring to. Every Tuesday is training day for the BCFD Hazmat Team members. Relevant training that is quality and timely is provided each week based on the shift working (The BCFD has 4 shifts). Sessions last from 45 to 90 minutes depending on the topic involved. Quality is the main goal when our training is delivered, regardless of time. A productive 45-minute session can be just as powerful as a 90-minute session that just fills time. A training session that goes well and engages the members is a small victory each week. Eventually these small victories translate into big wins when it’s, “Go Time” for real. The small wins we get every week in training equal out to larger success when the game is on the line. The members of the BCFD Hazmat have come through in the clutch with several notable incidents this year. Incidents involving nitric acid, suspicious letters, mixed chemical reactions and others have challenged us.  

The hashtag #winning has been used a good bit by us this year. The real reason that we are winning is because the team is winning. Success cannot be claimed by just one person. The only way to win is to trust the member next to you. Specifically, I am talking about relying on the member next to you to do their job. Every member has a role to play on the team.  

Leadership is the mechanism by which winning is possible. A leader must set a playbook for the members to follow then step back and allow the players to execute. Deputy Chief Hudgins, in charge of SOC, has given us what we call the “Hudge’s 9 Pillars of Success”.  The 9 pillars are a playbook of what is expected from our leader. The real brilliance in these is how simple and easy to follow they are.    

These are the “9 Pillars of the Hudge”:  

1. Just do your job
2. Loyalty is important  
3. Keep him informed  
4. Keep it simple and minimize the show
5. Be nice: to the Chain of Command and to the Public
6. Be there for the members, listen to them
7. Look good, optics are everything
8. Never underestimate the ability to guage how an individual will think or act
9. It goes through his command before it goes to someone else’s

Here is my take on each of the 9 Pillars:  

1. Keeps you focused on your role in the team  
2. To the team, to the Chief  
3. No Chief likes to be surprised  
4. Be as efficient as possible  
5. Respect goes a long way whether it’s with another member or the public  
6. Take input, check the ego, someone else may have a better option   
7. Poor optics can ruin an operation even if false  
8. The most powerful skill you can develop is to be able to read people 
9. The Chief should never be undercut by another, we work for him.   

The leader has the obligation to set the standard for the team. Expectations such as the ones detailed above clearly set a high bar for our SOC teams. Subordinate members in the chain of command have the obligation to lead up and down the chain. Military leadership books detail this concept, most notably in the Extreme Ownership series (I highly recommend these books). A company officer or crew leader is key in this role. This member needs to be willing to take the direction from above but also set the pace for their crew. The crew leader’s job can be made more difficult or easier depending on direction from above. Directives that are concise, achievable yet flexible allow the crew leaders to perform and raise the standard. In my experience, micro-managed crew leaders lack creativity, have no gumption and always strive for the minimum. Crew members are the backbone of any team. These are the ones that do the dirty work at every incident. They train, learn and come through in the clutch. Several of these home run hitters have surfaced in our incidents this year.  

Assessing our members in training allows us to employ their strengths and weaknesses. Training is key as it allows us to assess our weaknesses then attack them to raise the standard. A team is only as strong as its weakest link. We are fortunate in the BCFD to have highly motivated members at all levels of Hazmat. In the grand scheme of hazmat response, the real winner is the public we serve. Respect and trust the members you train with at all levels, the team wins, you win #winning

Kevin Ryan

Kevin Ryan leads the Baltimore City FD Hazmat Operations Office. A 31-year veteran of the fire service with 26 years of experience in the world of hazmat response. He is a Level III instructor and adjunct at the BCFD Fire Academy.