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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Why are
soft skills so hard?
A typical
job call for a fire chief or deputy fire chief’s position requires candidates
to demonstrate some specific competencies such as
Knowledge
of relevant legislation;
-
Labour
relations experience;
- Fire
command and emergency management experience;
- Eight
to 10 years of “progressively responsible fire service experience” – (I love
that one, since everyone in the fire service gains progressive responsibility it
is meaningless in this context);
- Post-secondary
education in fire service administration, public administration or business administration;
- Driver’s
licence.
These are all taken from a current job call. I won’t dwell on how poorly written and/or
irrelevant some of them are – that is a topic for another day (competency versus
credential). But I will point out is what is missing.
Looking
at the headlines about what is happening in the fire service can help us
determine what gets fire chiefs into hot water. In the past couple of weeks,
fire chiefs have been held accountable for decisions they made or actions that
were taken by their firefighters that were far removed from the sphere of
fire/rescue operations. One has been removed from his duties for sharing G8
training information with his deputy and firefighters. The details of this are
covered elsewhere in the media, but I’m still shaking my head over how
preparing his personnel for their duties has been branded a “breach of national
security”.
Here’s
hoping that it will all be sorted out when the powers that be realize that he
was doing his job.
Another
chief has been terminated after firefighters used apparatus to block access to
the town’s offices in a dispute over budget cuts. Unless it can be shown that
he authorized the action, or had prior knowledge and did not act to prevent it,
this also appears to be an overreaction. In both cases, the rank and file of
these departments stand in support of their chiefs and are calling for
reinstatement.
Besides these
examples, what often gets fire chiefs and town councils into expensive and
protracted damage control may be harassment suits (sexually or racially based,
or just plain nasty behavior), improper or unjustified terminations,
discriminatory hiring or promotional practices and other situations that
revolve around managing people and organizations with effectiveness, foresight
and political acumen. None of those competencies appears in the typical job
call. They are not hard to define, but they do require more effort in a hiring
or promotion process to examine in an objective and defensible manner. For
executive level positions such as a fire chief or deputy fire chief, the effort
is justified.
Therefore,
for the candidate, these are competencies worth developing. Get yourself
educated. Participate on municipal committees outside of the traditional fire
service sphere. Read everything you can get your hands on. Know what is
happening in your town, province and country.
Just
don’t forget to keep your driver’s licence current, because apparently that’s
really important, too.
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Peter Sells
Written by Peter Sells on 2010-07-19 10:05:24
Denny, thanks for your reply. I don't have any inside information on the case, but as I said in the blog the council had better be able to show that the Chief had prior knowledge of the blockage. Having said that, the blockage itself was completely unprofessional, even juvenile.
And thanks, Jim, for your reply. Most of the post-secondary programs in Public Admin or Leadership will deal with HR management and political decision-making. Don't forget to look beyond straight 'Fire' programs since all managers deal with these issues. There really isn't a lot of difference between the job of a Fire Chief and that of GM of works, water, waste management or transportation.
Keep the comments coming! Peter | Denny
Written by Denny on 2010-07-17 06:56:18
The Muskoka Lakes Councils Actions on the fireing of Chief:Sawkins has destroyed years of having one of the best departments its just one big mess, Thanks Council you've done another fine job, | Guest
Written by Guest on 2010-07-15 10:50:41
Specific Fire Chief/Deputy Fire Chief training on personnel issues, trends and political navigation are almost non existant in the Fire Service world. For a keen individual, there are tose circles outside the fire service that do offer these types of training. But where does one find out about this type of training? Who offers this type of training. Can we get this training brought to our region fro group training? This is a subject that most Chief Officers are doomed to experience rather than being trained to handle and hopefully overcome to help secure their job and family if a crisis of this magnitude hits their departments. Thankfully I have not experienced this in my career but my heart goes out to those that have experienced this stress and pain. In the Service to the Public, Jim Smith, Deputy Fire Chief |
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