KEYS TO BEING A SUCCESSFUL CHIEF
VOLUNTEERS CORNER
Like it or not, we are living in a new world. Not just a different world, but a brand new world, where the changes are so profound, so sweeping, and so swift that you no longer may be able to control your life—much less achieve the success you want. The new volunteer fire department is exploding with social, political, and cultural change. New technology, instantaneous communication, and global economics are shrinking the earth and pressing its diverse peoples into uncomfortable relationships and unexpected competition. The new world can be very tough and very disorienting. But it also presents unbelievable opportunities if you choose to see them.
As the new’ volunteer fire department emerges, you must choose from two very sobering options:
Option I: Ignore that you are living in a changing world—see it simply as a passing phase—and risk the eventual disintegration of your career and lifestyle as you currently know them.
Option 2: Recognize that this is a new world, and begin the challenging task of preparing yourself to share in its potential and its benefits.
Tile obvious choice is Option 2. But Option 2, like Option 1, comes with a very stiff price. To make the second option work, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to equip yourself to succeed in the new world. The 10 “keys” that follow are critical to attaining the personal and professional success you desire.
Key 1: Develop a new-world attitude. The foundation of your success is the total, uncompromised acceptance of the new world and your role in it. You must develop a positive attitude about the new world and yourself. You must teach yourself to see only the new world’s possibilities and be blind to its obstacles. Accepting the new world and developing a positive attitude will position you for success, but taking action—putting the 10 keys to work every day of your life—is the ultimate requirement for achieving the success you want.
What is the new world? Every day as the sun comes up, a new world is born. Yesterday is gone forever. You cannot change what has happened. With a new-world attitude of looking at today as only today, you will succeed in the new world. Don’t look back and wonder why, look at today as a new world.
Key 2: Become a master of change. Change is the culture of the new world. Change has always been part of your life. But most of the time, it was so slow, so evolutionary you didn’t see it as a dominant or controlling factor. In the new world, change is the dominant factor. Look at the things that confront you relative to firefighter safety. Change is in the wind. That change relates to the value of a firefighter’s life. We in the fire service are finally asking, “Why should we risk our lives unnecessarily?”
Change results from action, and the people who make things happen are the architects of the new world. You must seize the opportunity to make things happen in every aspect of your life and your department. It’s the only way you’ll be able to influence the outcome of things.
Key 3-‘ Become totally flexible. In the new world, you choose some change and some change chooses you. You must prepare yourself to deal effectively with change that chooses you.
Change that is forced on you can leave you in a state of shock. Your comfort zone is invaded, your plans upset, your rythmn destroyed, and your psyche shaken. Change can immobilize and defeat you if you let it. You need to understand your comfort zone and the things that affect it and then learn to deal with them.
The primary antidote is to develop total flexibility of mind and action. You must respond to change—not react to it. When change impacts you, take some time (at least 24 hours) to clearly assess it before you plan an appropriate response.
Be flexible in your response to change. More times than not, changes that initially upset you actually turn out to serve your interests far better than you think.
Key 4: Become a creative thinker. The new world demands new ideas. To be successful in the new world, you must take a totally new approach to the way you think. You must become a creative and innovative thinker.
Most people are lazy thinkers— they do just enough to get by. To succeed in the new world, you need to become an active, if not a downright aggressive, thinker. You have to get your brain “juiced up” every time you need to solve a problem or generate fresh ideas.
Open your mind to a different view of the world. Break the routine. Look at every problem and opportunity from a new perspective. It’s like looking out from the tip of a 100-foot aerial ladder after you have been viewing the world from the operations position all your life. You’ll be surprised at all the new things you can see!
Becoming a creative thinker requires you to come out of your comfort zone. Creativity takes guts. Being a successful fire chief leading a successful organization of people means taking a chance once in a while. If the fire chief does not make things happen, who will?
Key 5. Become a people person. Working with people to get the results you want always has been one of the most difficult challenges. In the new world, it’s going to get even tougher. As the world is drawn closer together, you will be surrounded by an incredible mix of people in your personal and professional life. They will be of all nationalities, ages, races, religions, cultures, languages, educational levels, and personalities. You must see beyond their differences and recognize the special value each person possesses. Study what motivates each of them, and develop an appreciation of how the differences can actually work to your advantage.
Spend time with your people. Go into the fire station and see what is going on. Ask firefighters what is going on. Realize that when you do, you must be willing to take a chance; you also must be willing to address the things you hear from the firefighters. Your ultimate success depends on your ability to accept, understand, and lead the diverse group of people the new world will inject into your life.
Key 6: Become a great communicator. Communication is the mast powerfi.il tool you possess and probably the most underutilized. Its role and influence on literally every aspect of life in the new world will be enormous. Harnessing its power will be an absolute key to your ability to make decisions and to educate, motivate, influence, and persuade others. To become a great communicator, you must understand and appreciate the role and potential of all forms of twoway communications—both outgoing (speaking, writing, personal-image projection) and incoming (listening, reading, observing).
Regardless of its form, communication can be your greatest source of power in achieving what you want in the new world. Don’t underestimate its value, and do whatever it takes to seize its power.
Key 7: Become a global networker. Most of us grew up in a time when the pace of change was relatively slow and career and personal loyalty was very high. It was easy to become relaxed and comfortable with a fairly small group of personal friends and company or industry acquaintances. If that describes your life today, you are putting yourself, your family, and your career at risk.
In the newworld, where change — sometimes dramatic change —is a daily occurrence, fire chiefs come and go with bewildering speed and suspect logic. Protect yourself against these potentially devastating associates. A carefully built and actively maintained network w ill provide you with an incredible source of new information, ideas, and options. Join not only fire service organizations but also general community organizations that can help you as you move into that new world. Doing so will open your eyes to new opportunities and create new avenues to deploy your talents. It will build confidence in your ability to be successful in new ways and in new places.
Key 8: Become a strategic planner. To achieve long-term sustainable success in the new world, you must develop a vision of your future and create a strategic plan for realizing it. The new world is going to do everything it can to knock you off your feet. It will bombard you with conflicting messages, confuse you with its complexities, and sidetrack you with radical changes. It will flip you around and turn you upside down.
Finding your way in the new world is much like setting sail on the open seas. Unless you have a clear vision of your ultimate destination and a carefully conceived master plan for getting there, you will lose your way and ultimately fail. And, much like that sailing trip, your journey in the new world will confront you with many unforeseen obstacles. You must be prepared to adjust your course. But never, never lose sight of your ultimate destination.
Key 9: Become a dynamic goal achiever. The new world does not reward goal setters, but it pays off big to goal achievers. Setting goals plays an indispensable role in building your road to success. It puts you in control of your life. It makes you a better decision maker because you know what’s important and what’s not. It establishes your targets, focuses your energies, and gets you back on course when you’re spun around by events or circumstances beyond your control. But setting goals is not enough: Only through the constant and progressive achievement of your goals can you attain the success you desire.
Key 10: Become a student for life. To succeed in the new world, you must create and maintain a competitive edge for yourself. To stay ahead in this fast-paced game of survival, you constantly must acquire new knowledge and new skills. You must develop a broad base of knowledge and a variety of skills so you can move quickly in new directions, seize new opportunities, and avoid disastrous twists of fate.
If you are banking on what you learned in school to keep you competitive in the new world, forget it! If you don’t have a personal-development program in place right now, you must start today, or the new world will pass you by.
To w in in the years ahead, you must prepare yourself with the 10 keys. Then get out of that front-row seat, get up on the new-world stage, and give the performance of your life!
