How to Build a Culture of Mentoring in the Fire Department

The quality of leadership in many fire departments varies greatly over time. This is because there is an uneven sharing of knowledge from one leader to the next. It is my belief that this comes about as a result of many factors, primarily that the leaders in far too many fire departments are changed on an annual or biennial basis.

It takes time to become comfortable in a new role. So if the chief and other officers are changed every year, you are being subjected to a built-in organizational problem. Just about the time that everyone is able to find their way to the restroom, a new team is put into place. While it may be that the leaders are moving up through the ranks, when a new leader is elected, that person wants to bring their stamp of approval to the position. Each new chief wants things to go their way, and when they are done, the next person will do the same thing.

There seems to be no continuity in the way that the collective knowledge of people is carried forward in a conscious and consistent manner. The tacit knowledge within the brain of each leader never seems to make its way into the mind of the next person. In this way, the train of your organization moves forward in a succession of halting, random and jerky motions. There is no consistent train of organizational thought that guides the changing roster of leaders in the direction that is consistent with the fire department’s mission, goals and objectives.

Share your knowledge

It is my guess that many of you are not aware of the need for sharing what you have learned during your career. For some people, this is simply a matter of modesty. You might say to yourself (and others) that you really have not learned all that much during your time in the fire service. You consider yourself to just be one of the gang. For others, it is a lack of understanding as to what you need to share. And to still others, you have no idea that sharing can occur.

Each of you developed within the organizational context of a given fire department. It was the way in which the culture of that fire department valued knowledge that determined how you would feel about sharing. Some organizations gain and share knowledge as a regular part of what they do each day. Others drill continually and work to share the explicit knowledge that they have gained in other classes and by the reading of fire service publications. Sadly, some organizations do little about knowledge.

Let me suggest that you can have an impact on the knowledge-transfer process within your fire department. Some of you may suggest that because you are but one person, there is not much you can do. I can hear some of you now: “Harry, how can you expect one person to have an impact on the culture of their organization?”

I know from personal experience that a single person such as yourself can have an impact on knowledge within an organization—as long as you have an idea and are willing to do battle with the forces of ignorance and complacency. Many years ago, I took it upon myself as a mission to share what the other, older members shared with me when I was a young lad in the fire service. Similarly, you must be willing to do what is necessary to keep knowledge moving from generation to generation. You must also be ready to accept the slings and arrows of persecution from others to get this job done.

It is important to note that not everyone can do this, but those who can owe a duty to their fire departments to work at sharing the knowledge they have acquired during their careers. To be completely honest, it is the sort of information that probably is not found in a textbook. It is therefore critical for you to recognize your tacit knowledge—the type of knowledge that is in your head and not necessarily in any book or class—and begin to share it with others.

Mentoring—an ongoing process

How then do we share this collective? It is through a process called mentoring. It is a one-on-one interaction between a veteran member of your fire department and a new (or younger) member of your organization. Zachary (2005) speaks of mentoring as, “… a self-directed learning experience driven by the learning needs of the mentee.” In other words, it is all about what the person being mentored needs to learn.

Before moving on to a discussion of mentoring, let me stress that mentoring is different than coaching, although some people want to use the terms interchangeably. They are different because coaching deals with tasks, and mentoring deals with knowledge. “Coaching focuses on boosting performance … [while] mentoring focuses on achieving personal or professional development goals” (Zachary, 2005).

Let me ask a critical question: Should your fire department develop a mentoring program? The simple answer is yes, as a lot of time, talent and knowledge will be lost or wasted if you do not create such a program. This is never an easy task, because the first thing you must do is to somehow make the concept of mentoring a part of your fire department’s organizational culture. That is what I hope to be able to help you with in this commentary.

It should be noted that the creation of a mentoring culture in your fire department will always be a work in process. It is an ongoing journey, rather than a destination. If done properly, mentoring can work to breathe new life into your organization.

Following are some of the ways mentoring can help your organization:

· It helps to establish ownership by working to bring many into the process rather than vesting power into the hands of a few.

· It works to encourage sharing.

· It can bring integrity to your entire department.

· It can expedite information-sharing.

· It supports concepts such as feedback and goal-setting, which can strengthen your organization.

· It can improve the level of trust among organizational members.

· It can help to shorten the time to begin new projects and processes because people will have become accustomed to learning and sharing knowledge.

· It can tie the past to the present, and then allow for a smoother journey into the future.

Developing a mentoring program

Assuming that you decide to create a mentoring program, there are a few things to consider. In order to move forward, you must first develop a thorough understanding of where you are today.

You must also select the correct people for the mentoring process. It is critical to select as mentors people who have the right background, temperament and experience. It’s important to avoid selecting someone who might drive wedges between people in your department, rather than bringing them together in a sharing and caring process.

Once the decision has been made and the people have been selected to be mentors, you need to conduct a meeting (or a series of meetings) to discuss what you hope to accomplish and how you intend to achieve those things. It must be an open and positive discussion. It is important to develop a list of tasks that will guide you on your journey into the world of knowledge-sharing.

Another important step is pairing the mentors and the mentees. You need to allow people to develop a relationship. They must interact in such a way that they feel comfortable together and learn to play off each other. Zachary (2005) speaks to the predictable cycle that a mentoring relationship undergoes, suggesting that, “… the four phases—preparing, negotiating, enabling, and coming to closure—build upon one another to form a developmental sequence.”¹

Let me present a description of each of the four phases suggested by Zachary:

1. Preparation: There are two parts to the preparation phase—self-preparation and relationship preparation. Each side in the relationship must work to know themselves and understand the other person.

2. Negotiating: In the negotiating phase, the mentor and the mentee engage in a back-and-forth interaction so that they can create learning goals, ways of measuring and how they will choose to define a successful interaction.

3. Enabling: The enabling phase is normally the longest part of the mentoring interaction. In this phase, the mentor works to share what they have learned with the mentee. However, if this is to truly succeed, the mentor must come to understand the background and makeup of the person being mentored.

4. Closure: Bringing the mentoring relationship to a close requires the development of an understanding on what has been learned and how it can be applied in the future. The mentor provides a supportive and encouraging transition to the next phase of organizational membership.

A great deal has been written about the importance of creating a positive organizational culture and the need to overcome the negative aspects of an organization’s culture. It is through the process of mentoring that the generations of an organization come together and share the positive aspects of their culture and work to eliminate the negative (and perceived negative) aspects of an organization’s culture. The key to creating this success comes from the process of building mentoring into your organizational way of doing business.

The organizational mindset must become accepting of mentoring as a new component of its structural makeup. They key: As time goes on and you move ahead with your mentoring program, you need to allow it to weave its way into the fabric of your organizational tapestry. But it will not just happen. It will require a great deal of effort on the part of all members of your organization.

Mental lending library

Let me close by making a simple statement: A true sign of success will be marked when your people begin to speak of mentoring as something you have always done. Let me suggest this as putting a positive spin to the phrase “we’ve always done it that way.”

Each of us is like a mental lending library. We each have the opportunity to share the lessons that we have learned through the living of life. But be warned: Tacit knowledge is a fragile commodity, and the library is only open during the course of our lifetimes. We must therefore be generous in how we share what we have learned.

Do not waste time. Work to share and help your fire department create an organized way to share what the veteran members have learned. To not do so can result in a tragic waste of hard-won knowledge.