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Grant Writing
Grant Writing |
H.E.A.T. We're all familiar with the expression, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen". Of course we know that this is also true of the firefighting industry: "If you can't deal with the heat, don't get into the game". We're going to take these one step further to say: "If you can't deal with the H.E.A.T, stay out of entering into any administrative or line officer position of a fire department. H.E.A.T. is an acronym for Help, Experience, Attitude, Training. If you're going to become an effective administrative or line officer of a fire department, you're going to need to endure the crucible on many occasions and that means you're going to need to deal with the H.E.A.T. Help is something every officer needs to get to their position and to be effective in meeting the requirements of their responsibilities once they are in their office/responsibilities. Help comes from senior officers, junior officers, other members of the department, and from all eight (8) of the different levels of politics an officer, both administrative and line officers, need to identify, develop, and deal with to successfully function and fulfill their responsibilities. You need help from senior officers to mentor you, you need junior officers to help you make sure you've got all of the bases covered and that as you delegate responsibilities and tasks to them, they fulfill them eagerly and efficiently. Effective officers, and leaders generally, always bring their junior officers and other subordinates up to their level of performance, encourage and inspire them to perform, because this is what raises the level of function and chances for success of the entire officer corps, both line officers and administrative officers and for the department generally. Experience is necessary, because if you are going to move up the ranks, this will require that you know how to do every job/office subordinate to you, so that you can educate and train the officers in those positions, or do those jobs in the event of absence or deficiency of those holding those offices. The E in H.E.A.T. could also stand for Encouragement, because as an officer you will need the experience of encouraging others (senior officers, junior officers, & all other members) to do a better job in their positions and to learn to do their jobs better as well. Remember, as an officer the higher you raise the level of performance and encouragement of others, the higher you raise your own performance. When the entire officer corps is doing this, you'll see that "rising tides lifts all ships". Experience also comes from beyond the fire department. As an example if you have a member who is an accountant, chances are they would be great candidates for administrative positions of treasurer or secretary, if not higher administrative positions. A fire academy instructor would make for a good candidate as fire chief. A chemistry teacher would most likely be a good candidate to develop as a training officer or as an officer of a HazMat team, etc. Someone with an M.B.A. would make for a good president or treasurer. Thus, as an officer you and the department will benefit if you have these skills are you have other members of your officers' crew who do. Attitude is a key element in fire department leadership, in that as we just looked at encouragement of senior officers, junior officers, and other members; an officers attitude will permeate throughout the department, certainly down the line. We will look at attitudes more closely later, however for now we'll consider just a few such as: 1. I'm the ___ officer of this department, and we'll do things my way, 2. Everybody needs to do what I say and not what I do, 3. I know what I'm doing, I don't need to follow written procedures. 4. I've been a member here for __ years, and we've always done things this way. 5. I know what I'm doing, I don't need to learn anything new or consider other suggestions. 6. I'm new to this office, so I'll need a lot of help and support to see how I can do it best and better serve the company. 7. We need to get all officers working as a team to come up with the best ways we can to grow and improve our department. 8. We need to get as many of our officers and regular members as much training as we can, so that we all become better officers and we have a solid crew of up and coming officers to carry on our tradition of excellence. Training is an important element to effective officers, because it not only includes previous training, both fire department and non-fire department related, but also future training, such as taking a VFD Management Course and going through it no matter what it takes and how long it takes. Training is also important for line officers in the form of fire ground tactics, leadership, risk identification and management, and all other essential elements of being an effective and professional line officer. Training is a continuous process. It can be (and usually is) an very independent and personal process of growth. One can also self-train in the areas where perhaps there are no formal training programs available in their area or available generally. This can be done by on-line research, on-line course work, and by going to bookstores to get texts that either pertain to the topics of the needed training, or at least have several chapters which relate, that can be easily adapted to the management of a fire/EMS department. Training is further enhanced if you try to teach something you've learned to either senior or junior officers, or others. By doing so, you reinforce the information for yourself and then you are more able to adapt and internalize the learning. The the best form of training, beyond by demonstration and in addition to enrolling and participating in a training program, is by reading, researching, reasoning, and then ultimately relating these (teaching) them to others. This of course works because it follows the proven principle that the "best form of teaching, is demonstration". Exercises: 1. Think of your position as an officer. How do the principles and concepts in H.E.A.T. apply? 2. Think of other officer positions in your department. How do the principles and concepts in H.E.A.T. apply? 3. Think of an office you might pursue in the next year or two. How do the principles and concepts in H.E.A.T. apply?
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