Helloooo Probie...

Leadership 101: Ignorance

Each day that we come to work, we face a new set of challenges. Building construction is constantly changing to lessen the cost of the building which in turn means inherently less safety for us, new materials for those items being placed in those buildings are changing and inherently more toxic to us, and on a more personal note, our newest personnel are coming to us with less and less life skills, which inherently makes them less likely to “get it” as quick as “we did”.

The newest employees (generalization) do not have the same life skills that the generations before them had. We see this in any number of ways but we do see it. Sometimes we as supervisors view them as “stupid” or “unable to learn” which could not be further from the truth. These new employees often lack the basic life skills because they come from a “microwave” generation—where everything is done for them and they just have to know how to use the microwave or they want it right now. This generation has not had to fix the lawn mover because it was cheaper and easier to buy a new one or they have not had to sharpen an axe because their parents hired someone to cut the tree down.

While I know I am making a number of generalized statements and that we in fact have great people coming to work with us. What I am challenging you to do is to look at HOW you train the “Probie”. These employees come at life from an entirely different perspective than we did and by the way, we came at it from a different perspective than those before us as well. For me (or anyone) to try and give you all the methods on how to reach them would be foolish. This means YOU must do some homework and become a “Student” of your new employee so that you can learn just how to communicate most effectively with them. To simply say B.I.A.T.C. (Because I am the Captain) has limited educational benefits—although at times it will boil down to this.

As I close, if you take a look at your shift, you will notice the Probie gravitating to at least one person. That person will be able to communicate to the Probie more effectively on a learning level than your rank will. You may want to work with that other person to influence the Probie’s attitude towards learning and what you will find is that all three of you will grow professionally.

Not a lecture just a thought.

Larry Everett,
FCFD - Batt. Chief 5/A