Effective Delegation Tool for Leaders

Early Saturday morning I went to the Long Beach Fire Department’s Training Center to attend a traffic control class for CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) members. The CERT program manager, Firefighter/Paramedic Jake Heflin, a highly respected and nationally recognized expert in emergency preparedness and response as well as a sought-after FEMA-certified trainer, came in a [Continue Reading…]

Accountability: It’s Not Just for Field Operations

Throughout my varied career, I understood “accountability” to mean that people are held responsible for doing what they are supposed to do, with consequences for poor or non-performance. It wasn’t until several months into a project with a client that I discovered that the fire and rescue service uses this term in a very specific [Continue Reading…]

Framing: A Critical Leadership Skill

Although there are many aspects of our lives over which we have little or no control, the fact is that we ALWAYS get to choose how we experience any given situation. Framing means putting something in perspective so you and others can understand it quickly and accurately. It is an essential leadership skill because it [Continue Reading…]

How to Inspire Employees to Engage in Community Service Activities

Recently, a PIO asked me for advice about how to get recruits and members involved in the department’s community service activities. I told him that his message must be compelling. The fastest way to grab any audience’s attention is to tell them up front what’s in it for them to do whatever it is you’re [Continue Reading…]

How to Help Employees and Stakeholders Embrace Change

Resisting change is part of human nature. Yet change has become the new “normal” in today’s world, including in the public sector, where change tends to occur at a glacial pace, if at all. These two facts illustrate why it’s critical for public safety leaders to help their employees and stakeholders embrace change, or at [Continue Reading…]

Is What Happens after “Thank You” Hurting Public Safety in YOUR Community?

Is your community’s level of public safety suffering because of how your employees respond when stakeholders say “Thank you?” Consider this scenario: a family was involved in a multiple-vehicle crash that left them trapped in their burning car. Law enforcement officers took control of the scene and assisted with the rescue as firefighters put out [Continue Reading…]

Consolidation: Panacea or Pandora’s Box?

There’s a lot of talk about “consolidation” going on in the public safety arena these days, as well as some action. For example, municipalities such as Naples, FL are beginning to combine adjacent fire districts; others such as Long Beach, CA are consolidating their police and fire dispatch centers; and still others, such as Sunnyvale, [Continue Reading…]

To Demonstrate Your Value, Focus on the WHAT, Not on the HOW

Public safety agencies have a poor track record of demonstrating their value. As a result, politicians and administrative decision-makers inadvertently make poor choices when allocating resources. They just don’t know the impact of their decisions on public safety. The most effective way to change this unnecessary reality is for public safety professionals to start re-focusing [Continue Reading…]

Public Safety: Top Priority or Collateral Damage?

Note: This post originally appeared on my Optimize Business Results blog on August 31, 2011. During the first few years of the economic downturn, police and fire departments across the country often were protected to the extent possible from budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs. After all, isn’t public safety a core function of local governments? [Continue Reading…]

Why Insisting that Employees “Do More with Less” is a Mistake, and How You Can Stop Making It

Note: This post originally appeared on my Optimize Business Results blog on July 4, 2011. One of the biggest and most preventable mistakes I see employers making in response to layoffs, furloughs, and budget cuts is what I call the fallacy of “doing more with less.” The admonition to “do more with less” has become [Continue Reading…]