After being a supervisor for a while, you realize that people demonstrate similar patterns of behavior no matter where you work. Thankfully, for those of us in the fire service, most of these behavior patterns are positive and productive, but occasionally we need to give some folks’ behavior a tune-up.
Mistakes vs. Behavior Problems
Sometimes, people who’ve made a mistake are confused with people who have a behavior problem; I can assure you they’re not the same. Someone who makes a mistake most likely had good intentions and tried to meet an expectation, but they made a bad choice or something didn’t go as planned. Someone with a behavior problem is an entirely different animal. Company officers’ true personnel problems stem from those folks who don’t have good intentions, usually have a significant attitude problem and generally choose to be disruptive for some reason.
And unlike personnel problems, mistakes aren’t necessarily a bad thing; there’s value to an honest mistake. If we try to accomplish a positive action, but for some reason our attempt falls off the tracks, we gain a valuable lesson, and the process leaves a lasting impression that we can draw from in the future to help us make more informed decisions. Simply put, mistakes help us gain experience.
Behavioral problems, on the other hand, don’t lend a tremendous amount of value to a person’s life and they don’t necessarily help an individual gain experience that can benefit them in the future. For company officers, personnel problems are very frustrating because they take time away from other, more productive things we could be doing. If the problem is serious enough, it can affect everything else a company officer is responsible for due to the time it may take to solve the problem and/or handle the situation.
The one constant with personnel problems: The longer they go unchecked, the bigger they get. In other words, if the company officer ignores the problem, the individual will most likely assume they can get away with their actions and will repeat them. Personnel problems start when people make poor decisions about their personal behavior. Failing to handle the problem quickly and effectively becomes the supervisor’s poor decision. So if dealing with employee problems isn’t your cup of tea, you probably shouldn’t be a supervisor.
Common Personnel Problems
Below, I’ve highlighted some of the more common employee problems a company officer will face. The list is in no particular order, but if you’re a supervisor for any amount of time, you’ll eventually deal with all of them.
The Inherited Poor Performer
This can be one of the most difficult problems to take care of because most of these people have developed their poor performance level from years of little or no supervision. When you’re a company officer to someone with this problem, your first inclination is to seek out their former supervisor and punch them. But what we’d like to do is often very different from what we can do legally, so focusing on and dealing with the poor performer’s behavior is probably the better route to take.
The Excuse Meister
The excuses people come up with truly amaze me. Why can’t people just say, “I screwed up and will do a better job”? Instead, we get an avalanche of nonsense that pours out of their mouths in an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. We’ve become so accustomed to the “Excuse Meister” type of behavior that it has become the norm to blame someone else and divert attention away from what really happened.
The Piss-Poor Attitude
Trying to change someone’s attitude can take a great deal of patience, determination and commitment, because the person may not even realize they have a problem. Maybe nobody’s ever brought it to their attention, or maybe they have been told, but they simply disregarded the information. I’m not sure how people get away with maintaining a bad attitude, but this is one of the most challenging employee problems, because there’s rarely something in writing that defines a poor attitude. It can be difficult to define or even describe a poor attitude in words or on paper, but you know it when you see it.
The Lazy Lump
The Lazy Lump is the person who seems to get away with doing a whole lot of nothing. The most challenging thing about lazy people is they’re rarely called out for being lazy. Most firefighters would rather pick up someone else’s slack than deal with the problem. The same could be said for parents that pick up the house at the end of the night after their children have made a mess. The parents didn’t make the mess, but they pick it up because sometimes it’s not worth the hassle of trying to teach the kids to pick up after themselves.
Responsibility & Accountability
Before you even begin to correct a problem, everyone needs to realize what they’re personally responsible for. That may sound very basic, but not all employees truly understand what their responsibilities are until you sit them down and clearly outline them.
Once you’ve had that discussion, your personnel must also understand that you’ll hold them accountable all the time. Chief Summers from the Chino Valley Fire District once told me, “You throw a few people out of the helicopter, the other people start paying attention.” Put another way, when people realize that you mean what you say, and you hold them accountable for their action and/or inaction, they come around fairly quickly.
The Biggest Lesson
The most significant lesson I’ve learned in dealing with personnel issues is that we have to care about what we’re doing. If you don’t care, then don’t waste your time with discipline, because you’ll fail miserably. Plus, you’ve got to have a certain amount of courage to inform someone that they’re behavior is detrimental to your crew and/or department.
I’m a parent, so I relate many things to raising children. For the most part, firefighters looking to promote willingly put themselves in the position to become supervisors, just as people often put themselves willingly in the position to become parents. We knew what was ahead and made the conscious choice to step up to the challenge. But if you don’t truly care about your job, you won’t deal with challenges properly. As a result, your crew will be left without proper guidance–and that could have dangerous or even deadly consequences.
Conclusion
Although most people in the fire service are hard-working, positive people who love their job, there are a few whose behavior can be disruptive and even dangerous. Dealing with personnel issues is one of my least favorite things, but I chose to take on that responsibility when I became an officer. So as officers who willingly stepped into the role, we must realize when there’s a problem and deal with it quickly and professionally. Remember: The little problem you deal with today is the big problem you won’t have to deal with tomorrow.
