You have sat down on the family sofa numerous times and watched the same thing on television; death, destruction, pain and suffering. You watch in amazement as you see the piles upon piles of derailed train cars stacked on top of each other. With the dark, black smoke plume rising several hundred feet into the morning sky. Or the report of the large mall complex on fire with people injured and trapped. Or the plane that has crashed into the apartment complex. Today’s fire departments respond to a wide range of emergency incidents that can occur anywhere, with any size fire department. Now, picture your department as being the first in company. What immediate action can you take as the company officer to make to situation make a turn for the better? If your first response happens to be “OH S**T!”---That’s perfectly normal. But if you freeze up and can’t get past that moment of mental paralysis, your life could be in danger and so are the lives of your company. If you happen to hit the wall of mental paralysis, then you haven’t been practicing your trade. If you are the company officer who has lost your enthusiasm, you can bet your department’s morale is low and is in the smoldering stage. So how do you restart the five-alarm blaze of enthusiasm or recharge your company’s battery of motivation? With an enthusiastic backdraft! You need to introduce some fresh air, fan the flames of motivation. To be an enthusiasm arsonist so to speak. Enthusiasm and motivation are contagious and spread like wildfire. But you have to work long and hard at it. So let’s get that enthusiasm flowing in your company! Now is the time to be honest with yourself. At what point are you in your career? Are you happy where you are at or do you want to climb the ladder of success? Do you want to obtain the position of Chief Engineer? I know I do……. Are you the officer you’ve always wanted to be? Have you grown on your strengths or have you been buried in your weaknesses? You know your answer and I know mine. In the past I wasn’t sure if I should open my mouth and shout orders or stand back and try to learn the “tricks of the trade.” But now is the time to motivate, so I hope the members of my department are ready for their new officer to emerge. I plan on implementing several of my ideas, which will produce a better environment for my firefighters. You may have to apologize to the members of your company for not being a good leader, but you can also tell them about your new attitude towards the department. Tell them you are wiping the slate clean and starting over. They deserve nothing less than the best from you and what you have to offer as their leader. If they happen to ask me about the sudden change in attitude, I will use the large number of firefighter deaths in my state. One firefighter death is one too many.
