Growing a Team

(Photo credit: Carson NF, Tres Piedras RD)

 Growing a Team

(Submitted as part of the 2015 Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge IGNITE the Spark for Leadership Contest)

Task

The main task of the Growing a Team project was to build, cultivate and share a straw bale garden. Straw bale gardening can be done anywhere water and sunlight are available. The bale is saturated, and then fertilized with very inexpensive nitrogen pellets. Within two weeks the bale starts to naturally decompose and become its own organic planting ground. The general gardening idea along with tips and tricks was derived from the book Straw Bale Gardens by Joel Karsten. Our team’s garden was constructed behind the fire cache at our ranger station in northern New Mexico. We substituted alfalfa bales for straw that were donated to the effort by the range program.

(Photo credit: Carson NF, Tres Piedras RD)

(Photo credit: Carson NF, Tres Piedras RD)

Purpose

The purpose was to put together an easy, minimum-effort garden. The garden was intended to serve as a “zen” spot. Anyone could escape to get away from their desk or away from the phone, snap into a string bean, take a breath of fresh air and reset the mind so they could more effectively tackle the rest of the day. The garden was to be constructed by multiple functions to create team input, buy-in, ownership, and mostly shared benefit.

(Photo credit: Carson NF, Tres Piedras RD)

(Photo credit: Carson NF, Tres Piedras RD)

End State

The end state was to be a non-obtrusive but pleasant diversion for members of the office to reap some homegrown produce. I don’t know what it is exactly, but there seems to be a quiet joy and satisfaction derived from enjoying produce that is picked by the individual. It is instantly therapeutic. In this day and age when there is so much emphasis on natural foods and their health benefits, this provides the vehicle for your team to enjoy the benefits of an improved diet. This would take a well-planned and fairly prolific garden to successfully accomplish but is easily conceivable and theoretically not difficult. I don’t mean to plug the book, but detailing straw bale garden success would just be reinventing the wheel. Our garden was mildly successful but as most things go, the first try is usually less successful than desired. A larger group to share the burden would have been helpful but also the honest trial and error of garden placement will have an effect on results as well.

Aaron Livingston
Assistant Engine Captain

Carson National Forest, Tres Piedras Ranger District

For more information on the Growing a Team project contact Aaron @ alivingston@fs.fed.us

IGNITE: The Heart & Spirit

People are the heart and spirit of all that counts. - Max De Pree

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership‬ ‪#‎fireminis‬

Nominate Someone Today!

Avoiding a One-Size-Fits-All Leadership Style

(Chief Kelly Zombro, CalFire, talking about the 2003 Cedar Fire near San Diego, CA)

How many times have you taken a profile or survey to help you identify your leadership style? These profiles can give you a idea of your overall leadership preference. However, what individuals need to realize is that leaders should adapt their styles as the situation warrants. How you prefer to lead and how you should be leading under a given situation may be very different things. Avoid leading with a one-size-fits-all mentality.

Situational Leadership
Leaders use a variety of power sources and leadership styles to influence others. Being able to select the most effective leadership tools in a given situation is an application of situational leadership.
Power can be defined as a person’s ability to influence the actions of others. How leaders use power shapes others’ perception of their ability to lead. A leader’s ability to read a situation and apply the appropriate source of power enhances their ability to lead.

The more visible power is, the less it works. The less explicitly leaders rely on power to accomplish tasks, the greater their power actually is. Those who rely on position, reward, or discipline power have less real influence on others. On the other hand, those who are able to rely on expert power and respect power—less overt forms of power—often influence in ways that have more far-reaching and deep effects.

To gain power, the most effective leaders give it away. By giving away some power to team members, leaders actually increase their influence and strengthen their ability to lead. Leaders also use different leadership styles as appropriate for the level of experience of the people involved and the situation.

With inexperienced people or time-critical situations, leaders use a directing style, explicitly telling people what needs to be done. As team members gain experience, leaders increasingly seek team members’ participation in discussions and decision making, working together to devise plans and actions.

Leaders keep sight of the long-term goal of being able to delegate most tasks and responsibilities to experienced and capable team members, setting the conditions that enable them to grow as leaders.

At every step of the way, leaders judiciously employ the amount of supervision required. They provide adequate feedback to make sure people can successfully accomplish the mission yet avoid micro-managing competent team members.

(Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, pp. 38-39)

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper

• Read and discuss Daniel Goleman's Harvard Business Review article "Leadership That Get's Results."

IGNITE: Vision

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight with no vision. - Helen Keller

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership‬ ‪#‎fireminis‬

IGNITE: Stress

Stress isn't working 15 hours at a job you like; stress is working 15 minutes in a job you dislike. - Kathleen Lane

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks.#fireleadership #fireminis

Trust and Empathy

(Photo credit: National Public Radio)

I often listen to podcasts when I fly commercial, as I'm not really one for conversations with the stranger sitting next to me on a long flight.  One of my favorite podcasts is NPR's Ted Radio Hour, which weaves together clips from several Ted Talks and interviews with the speakers on a given topic.  On one flight, flying from Tucson to Boise on a roundabout itinerary that took me through Portland - gotta love early-morning cancellations - I found myself listening to a show entitled "Trust and Consequences," and finding lots of ideas that fit in well with fire culture.

IGNITE: Leadership Failures

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. - Samuel Smiles

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership‬ ‪#‎fireminis‬

Fire Transforms

An Introduction: Peter Carpenter from The Smokey Generation on Vimeo.

Individuals enter the wildland fire service; firefighters emerge. For many when fire "gets in your blood," you have a hard time ever giving it up. Through the brotherhood or sisterhood, bonds are made and teams formed.

Peter Carpenter was a Redding Smokejumper from 1959 to 1961. Listen to how a career in wildland firefighting transformed his life in this video from The Smokey Generation.

How has a career in wildland firefighting transformed you?

******************************************* 

What is your story? We challenge you to become a part of this amazing  project and share your leadership stories. Bethany Hannah began The Smokey Generation: A Wildland Fire Oral History and Digital Storytelling Project for her master's thesis. All members of the wildland fire service, not just hotshots, can share their stories by following her example. Click here for potential leadership questions. Visit The Smokey Generation website for complete information.

IGNITE: Keeping Our People Informed

Keeping Our People Informed

Fire leaders show respect by keeping people informed—describing leader’s intent for assignments, providing timely briefings and debriefing, identifying hazards, and answering questions at appropriate times. By keeping our people informed, we consciously create a command climate that fosters appropriate initiative by subordinates. – Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, page 50

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership ‪#‎fireminis

Tough Decisions Save Lives

(Photo credit: Con Tanasiuk/Getty Images)

Do you have what it takes to make a tough decision--a decision that could put your career on the line, yet save lives? Even if lives are not at stake, we all experience tough decisions throughout our lifetime. We never really know what we are capable of until we are placed between a "rock and a hard place."

Wildland Fire—A High-Risk Operational Environment

We are asked to make tough decisions under a compressed time frame, given limited information, in a complex and high-risk environment. This operational environment routinely brings together people, machinery, and the destructive energy of wildfire in the close, three-dimensional space of the fireground and its airspace.

Wildland fire operations have inherent risks that cannot be eliminated, even in the best of circumstances. Incident management and response is a competition between human beings and the forces of nature; leaders struggle to manage the effects caused by wildfire and other natural and man-made events. The environment can rapidly and unexpectedly change from normal to emergency conditions to complete chaos.

The environment requires a variety of missions across the operational spectrum, ranging from education and prevention to prescribed fire and fire use to full fire suppression. Increasingly, fire leaders find themselves responding to all-hazard incidents.

Although most danger is close to the fireground, many others besides firefighters have important mission roles. The operational environment is akin to that of an aircraft carrier: although only pilots and aircrew routinely fly into combat, everyone on the ship makes significant contributions to the successful mission—and all aboard have to be prepared to respond to any unfolding emergency.

In the wildland fire service, firefighters, dispatchers, managers, technicians, support services, medical staff, law enforcement, the military, and others are brought together in rapidly assembled temporary teams to accomplish a given mission. These teams have unique capabilities, limitations, qualifications, and experience.

Fire leaders must have the ability to integrate these varied resources into effective and responsive temporary teams.

(Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, p. 10-13)

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge

• Watch the History Channel's The Man Who Saved the World and PBS's Secrets of the Dead - The Man Who Saved the World about two incidents that could have changed the course of human history during the Cold War. 
• Discuss how critical thinking and courage can bring calm to chaos.
• Share personal experiences or historical examples of similar situations.

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper

• Work with your team to develop a lesson plan for either of the above videos or the movie motion picture The Man Who Saved the World and submit to the Leadership in Cinema steward for consideration in our library via email at BLM_FA_Leadership_Feedback@blm.gov.

What Drives Us Defines Us

Do you know what motivates and engages those you lead? Society has changed from being motivated by biological drives and rewarding the good and punishing the bad to more outwardly driven motivators.

One of the principles of a mission-driven culture is "service for the common good."By focusing outward instead of seeking internal rewards we can make a difference in the world around us.

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper

• Read Daniel Pink's book "Drive." 
• Develop a discussion guide to use by small groups for "Drive."
• Read and share our three-part blog series on motivation and "Drive."
• Motivation - The Art of Autonomy
• Motivation - The Art of Mastery
• Motivation - Purpose & You

IGNITE: Make a Difference Now

 Focus on making a difference now, not changing the world later. – Dan Rockwell

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership ‪#‎fireminis

Close Calls and Trusting Your Intuition with Dan Pickard

Close Call, Trusting Intuition from The Smokey Generation on Vimeo.

Have you lost your situation awareness and experienced mission creep? Is your worst-case scenario playing out in front of you? Dan Pickard, Entiat Interagency Hotshot Crew, shares personal stories from the fireline. There is a fine line between success and failure in our business. How can you increase your margin, accept risk, and fulfill the mission? Most importantly, should you even be fighting the fire?

Operational Tempo
(Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, p. 31)

Operational tempo is the speed and intensity of our actions relative to the speed and intensity of unfolding events in the operational environment. Within this context, fire leaders plan, prepare, and execute operations proactively, rather than continuously being forced to react to the environment.

Successfully maintaining operational tempo is not solely about speeding up to match or exceed the pace of the environment. It is also about knowing when operations should slow down and why.
Fire leaders balance activities such as planning, preparation, and action. Too much time spent planning increases the potential for missing opportunities. Too little time spent planning increases the potential for error. A judicious assessment encompasses the capabilities and endurance of resources.

When employing people, leaders weigh expected gain against potential risks. Using too few resources keeps teams from building the momentum needed to gain the advantage. Using too many resources can lead to confusion. Tasking resources beyond their capabilities leaves the team exhausted and unable to respond to an unexpected change in the environment.

We are most vulnerable to accidents and errors when the operational tempo is changing, especially when it changes quickly. Maintaining good situation awareness in spite of change in operational tempo represents a considerable challenge.


The key to managing operational tempo successfully is monitoring the changing environment and capabilities of the team, and then applying good judgment to determine whether to push forward or pull back while making necessary planning and resource adjustments.

An Introduction to the Concept of Margin 

IGNITE: Duty, Respect & Integrity

The values of duty, respect, and integrity should weigh heavily in any ethical decision. – Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, page 64

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership‬ ‪#‎fireminis‬

What Do Your Handprints and Footprints Say About Your Leadership?

(Photo credit: Steve Mason)

Have you ever thought about the size and impact of your handprint and your footprint?

I am not talking about the physical measurement of your hand or foot. Nor am I talking about your "personal impacts and the sum total of your better ecological practices"* (although that was actually the inspiration for this blog). I am talking about the positive or negative influences you have on those around you--both those you do and do not know.

Similar to Newton's Third Law of Motion where every action has an equal and opposite reaction, our actions may be felt directly or indirectly, be intended or unintended, and have a positive or negative effect. Awareness of how our actions impact others is a skill every leader should develop and develop well. This requires that we not only take a critical look at ourselves, but also seek and respect feedback from others.

In a previous post "Leaving Your Fingerprints Behind," I spoke of the decision to lead  and the impact we have on those we lead. My inspiration for that post was General Mark Welsh's quote "The only 'fingerprints' that last are the ones you leave on your people." As a leader we have the opportunity to "touch" a lot of people. What do your "handprints" and "footprints" have to say about your leadership? Here are a few idioms/phrases or titles/lyrics that come to mind. (Some could be either positive or negative, however.)

The Positive Print

• "Reach Out and Touch Someone"
• Walk the talk.
• "Show Me the Way" or "Walk This Way"
• Lend a helping hand.
• "He ain't heavy; he's my brother."
• "Walk a mile their shoes."
• Land on one’s feet.
• "I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love..." 
• Having one’s finger on the pulse.
• Reaching across the aisle.
• Tear down the walls.
• Hand it to someone.
• Keep one’s feet on the ground.
• "If You're Happy and You Know It"
• Put one’s best foot forward.
• All hands on deck.
• Knowing something like the back of one’s hand.

 The Negative Print

• Pull the rug from under one’s feet.
• Ruling with an iron fist.
• "Under My Thumb"
• Rule with a heavy hand.
• "I'm gonna walk all over you."
• Kick 'em when they're down.
• The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
• Put one’s foot in one’s mouth.
• Dig in one’s heels."
  
• Biting the hand that feeds you.
• Force someone's hand.
• Wash one’s hands of something.

What idioms or titles can you add?

The impacts of the prints you leave on those you lead can last a lifetime. Leading with authenticity and heart creates trust. Trust builds teams. Teams work together to change the world.
 
****************************************************
About the Author:
Pam McDonald is a writer/editor for BLM Wildland Fire Training and Workforce Development and member of the NWCG Leadership Subcommittee. The expressions are those of the author. Inspiration for the blog came from Daniel Goleman's A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama's Vision for Our World.

*"Handprint" concept of Gregory Norris of Harvard School of  Public Health.

IGNITE: Adding Value

 Adding value to people with high potential who are hungry to grow is one of the best investments a leader can make. – John Maxwell

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership‬ ‪#‎fireminis‬

What are the Characteristics of an Ideal Hotshot?

Characteristics of an Ideal Hotshot from The Smokey Generation on Vimeo.


Characteristics of an Ideal Hotshot from The Smokey Generation on Vimeo.


Characteristics of an Ideal Hotshot from The Smokey Generation on Vimeo.

In these short videos, The Smokey Generation asks Nick Glatt, Wolf Creek Interagency Hotshots, Dan Garcia, U.S. Forest Service FMO, and Dirk Charley, U.S. Forest Service Sierra/Sequoia Tribal Relations Program Manager, what makes the ideal hotshot. Check it out what they have to say.

FITNESS FOR COMMAND
(Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, pp. 61-62)

Our position as leaders requires us to take people into unpredictable situations where mediocre leaders can be quickly overwhelmed in a crisis and make dangerous errors in judgment.

We accept the responsibility to demonstrate fitness for command as leaders in the wildland fire service. Fire leaders prepare for command by learning the applicable technical and leadership skills, by gaining the requisite experience, and by developing the physical, mental, and emotional capabilities through training, certification, and evaluation of behavior.

******************************************* 
What is your story? We challenge you to become a part of this amazing  project and share your leadership stories. Bethany Hannah began The Smokey Generation: A Wildland Fire Oral History and Digital Storytelling Project for her master's thesis. All members of the wildland fire service, not just hotshots, can share their stories by following her example. Click here for potential leadership questions. Visit The Smokey Generation website for complete information.

IGNITE: Ethics & Mission

Although some may judge that leading ethically compromises short-term gains, leading ethically allows us to accomplish more than our mission. – Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, page 64

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. ‪#‎fireleadership ‪#‎fireminis