IGNITE: Making a Difference

 

 What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. - Jane Goodall

[Photo by Jo Egbert (handler), Denali (Mini Australian Shepherd); Georgia (French Bulldog), Amanda Thiel (handler)

Challenge #39 - 2022 WFLDP Campaign

Challenge #39: Effective leaders challenge their learners with manageable difficulties.

• Ensure environments provide a safe place for people to learn.
• Use tactical decision games and sand table exercises.
• Assign coaches.
• Delegate tasks that stretch your team members beyond their comfort level.

How to Get Better at Receiving Feedback

"Feedback" by giulia.forsythe is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

How to Get Better at Receiving Feedback 

by

Shelia A. Grady, SHRM-SCP
Division Chief, Human Resource Services
BLM-National Operations Center

As both a leader and a follower, I view feedback as one of the most important tools that I receive to do my job well. Feedback from my leadership helps to ensure that I meet their expectations. Feedback from my staff helps me to be a better manager. Feedback from my customers helps me to hone my skills and provide better service. At times, feedback is delivered in a manner that challenges my ability to absorb what is being shared without getting defensive. I’m sure that I’m not alone is this. Do you ever get defensive when someone give you feedback? 

I recently ran across an article titled How to get better at receiving feedback. In the article the author, David Burkus, gives four simple steps to help leaders receive feedback and grow from it. 

1. Start with thank you! The very first response to give when someone gives you feedback should be a response of gratitude. Don’t get defensive. Don’t offer to explain what they might not understand. Instead, take time to offer your thanks for the gift you just received — the gift of feedback. 
2. Restate what you heard. Whether it’s praise, criticism, or some other type of feedback, take the time to restate to the person giving it what you heard them say. Just a quick “What I hear you saying is _____” can have a powerful effect on your conversation. 
3. Mention what you’re changing. Listening to feedback alone doesn’t bring about growth; it’s only when feedback is used to figure how to act differently (or start or stop acting) that growth happens. You don’t need to tell those who give you feedback what you’re changing right away. Once you’ve figured out how to apply the feedback, be sure to share it with those who gave it. 
4. Seek out more feedback. Feedback isn’t a one-and-done intervention; it’s a process. You’re growing, changing, and improving all the time — and to do that you’ll need more feedback.

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Shelia A. Grady, SHRM-SCP, is the Division Chief, Human Resource Services at the BLM-National Operations Center. All opinions are those of the author.

Best Practice #13: Provide Efficient Help

 

Give learners a visual alert with any instructions and also when helping individuals. Be positive, be brief, and be gone. For example, for a TDG the map graphic and instructions are written on the dry-erase board and then read to learners with the scenario. Questions from learners about what is required are directed to the visual alert on the board. Questions from learners on their ideas are given brief positive comments with rapid identified areas for improvement and then the teacher quickly moves on. This forces learners to engage and not to rely on the teacher for extensive assistance.

[Click here to download Learning in the Wildland Fire Service.]

IGNITE: Attitude Matters

 

Attitude is the little thing that makes a big difference. - Winston Churchill 

[Photo: Tallac IHC]

Best Practice #12: Challenge

Effective leaders challenge their learners with manageable difficulties. Start the lesson with a question, problem, or puzzle that challenges prior knowledge and experience and engages learners immediately. Guided discovery! 

[Click here to download Learning in the Wildland Fire Service.]

Challenge #38 - 2022 WFLDP Campaign

Challenge #38: Effective teachers/leaders hold their people accountable.

• Watch/listen to “Jocko’s Issue With Holding People Accountable.”

• Tie all instruction back to the fireline with life-and-death decisions they will face in the realm of complexity.

IGNITE: Bigger Than Self

Your strengths are irrelevant until you put them to use in service to something bigger than yourself. - Dan Rockwell, leadership expert

Best Practice #11: Attention

 

Keeping learners engaged means holding them accountable (being in the moment, alerting them to the exam and to the operational fireline connection), indicating and making the relevance meaningful to them, and providing them prompts and the means to actively take notes. The relevance in particular is essential: Do not underestimate the power of purpose. Tie all instruction back to the fireline with the life-and-death decisions they will face in the realm of complexity.

[Click here to download Learning in the Wildland Fire Service.]

IGNITE: Choice Not Chance

“It’s choice, not chance, that determines your destiny.” - Jean Nidetch

[Photo: Asheville IHC]