Do you ever feel completely overextended, whether in your personal life or in your professional life in emergency services? You feel like maybe the departments that you work for, the organizations, the companies that you work for and lead. Maybe chasing too many opportunities, things that are very, very undefined or just trying for the next big thing.
If that sounds like something that might happen to you, and I know it certainly happens to me quite often, more often than I'd like to admit, then you're going to want to stick around for this firefighter craftsmanship podcast episode about how you can be a hedgehog instead of being a fox. Welcome to the firefighter craftsmanship podcast, where we're coaching you to deal with the stressors of the job as a first responder, as well as how to thrive off duty.
My name is Kevin Hasley, a human performance coach and a firefighter since 2005. I've been able to coach over a thousand emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better prepared for the job, and how to be happier and healthier at home. Let's get to it with this episode about being a hedgehog and not a fox. This comes from the amazing book, Good to Great, from Jim Collins.
This is an extension of some previous podcast episodes where we talked about some concepts that are laid out in this great book, Good to Great, from Jim Collins. This comes specifically from chapter five, which is titled The Hedgehog Concept, Simplicity Within the Three Circles.
The more that I read this chapter, I've read this chapter a few times over, and the more that I think about the simplicity of the three circles, which we'll talk about here in a second, I think that the relevance to emergency services, especially emergency services in 2024, and the demands that we are put upon us, whether it's people using emergency services, 911 systems specifically, as their primary healthcare provider, or their primary mental
healthcare provider, or their primary sociological provider, especially for you police officers out there. I think that the hedgehog concept is something that we as leaders in the future of whatever industry we're in need to really take a good, solid look at as we continue to ebb and flow and figure out what is the next phase, what is the next iteration of emergency services actually look like.
The fact of the matter is, the abuse of the 911 system is rampant, and it's happening in every single community out there. I would even venture to guess that it's happening in the volunteer systems, which is really putting a strain on volunteer organizations and really tasking those communities no different than the larger city systems where we're seeing an egregious amount of 911 calls for things that aren't 911 related.
Now that doesn't mean that we're going to go out there and when we have a 911 call, we ran a pretty good one the other night that was just complete nonsense, but we need to make sure that we still have a good attitude. We have a great opportunity to serve these people and figure out maybe what the root of their problem is.
Also educate them on what some other systems or services or things like that are available to them and provide them with good quality customer service regardless of where we are within our rest wake cycles or within our shift work cycles. So not always easy to do, very, very easy for me to sit here on the podcast airwaves and be like, oh yeah, you should have a great attitude on every single 911 call that you run. But just like you heard me say before, awareness is foundational.
And so just be aware of what's that inner dialogue happening with you and how does that inner dialogue transfer into customer service? How does it transfer into the mentality and approach and attitudes of your crew, your station, your shift battalion, etc. So in good degree, chapter five, they talk about a fable of the hedgehog and the fox. And really what it is is the fox is very cunning.
He's got lots of strategies out there to try to trick and seize prey or work a tactical advantage of some sort. And the hedgehog is a very, very simple creature. And he does one thing very, very, very well, and that's play defense. And so when the fox is hiding in the bushes and the hedgehog walks by, the fox jumps out and the hedgehog in this fable says, oh, I thought we've kind of already gone over this.
And he balls up as little hedgehogs do with his little spikes and creates a impenetrable defense for the fox to overcome and the fox eventually gets bored without prey and has to go find something else to do. And so the concept of the hedgehog is what can you do better than anybody else in the world and really, really focus hard on that versus chasing what the next shiny new opportunity is.
And so if we look at this from an emergency services perspective, it's sometimes very, very hard for our organizations and our leadership to figure out what is the hedgehog concept actually going to be for us as we work for city councils, boards, the communities that maybe want us to do all these other shiny new things. But I'll speak about the fire service specifically.
If we look at the iterations of the fire service over the years here in the United States specifically, right, it went from just running fires to running EMS. And now we're kind of tasked with all different things with tech rescue, hazmat response, being people's counselors, talk therapy, being EMS providers, transport, if you have a department, you know, that runs an ambulance service, transport, extrication, and then somewhere in there is fire response.
And we are the only game in town that actually does fire suppression. And so it's probably important for us if you work for a fire department to have a hedgehog concept that has something to do with fire suppression. And that includes both engine and truck companies, squad companies, heavy rescue companies, all of those firefighters are involved in fire suppression. And so maybe the hedgehog concept for fire service specifically would be something to do with fire suppression.
And we can't necessarily control what the hedgehog concept is going to be or should be for our specific fire department or our municipality or your organization if you're not in the fire service. But we can control is what is that hedgehog concept in a couple different arenas. If we're talking professionally, what is the hedgehog concept specifically for us as emergency responders or employees or leaders of an organization?
And how does that fold into maybe that hedgehog concept of our crew or our company or our team of people that we work with. So an example of a hedgehog concept and we've seen this this gets a lot of exposure and justifiably so. Airtime is different training companies out there basic skills training so we could easily make an argument that irons and ladders has it for sure one of the top couple forceful entry classes in the country.
And so irons and ladders really figured out their hedgehog concept initially was forceful basic forceful entry that was residential initially and then it expanded to commercial forceful entry as well and just teaching the basics. And so we see other companies other basic skill companies or tool manufacturers or things like that that put out training content as well that where their hedgehog concept might be through the lock a respectful forceful entry.
We see hedgehog concepts like nozzle forward where it's about engine to door and water on the fire fire suppression overall. And I'm sure in police and emergency medicine and all those there's different different companies that we can very very clearly see those people that are kind of leaders in that space. And so kind of take a look at that of hey what can I be the best at and how does that fold into my overall goals and can I just kind of focus on being the best.
And so you know some of the the detractors might say well if I only focus on forceful entry then I'm not going to know how to stretch hose lines or put water on the fire. But the reality is if I get really really good at forceful entry and I spent a lot of time basic skills training on forceful entry.
I'm probably also have a training mentality that I'm going to go out and I'm going to stretch hose lines I'm going to work on water application I'm going to work on water mapping I'm going to dive into the textbooks. I'm for sure going to be looking at well how are buildings built. How do people secure their buildings if I'm if I'm looking at forceful entry considerations how do I read those from the exterior on and on and on and on and on.
And so I could I could really focus my hedgehog concept on something like forceful entry or us here at firefighter craftsmanship. Our hedgehog concept is we are going to be the best in the world of treat teaching emergency responders how to be pre-zillion. So establishing resiliency before we need it as emergency responders. And the fact of the matter is this is human performance psychology based.
And so if you're a human yeah I might use some terms out there that are emergency services based or fire department based. However, the concepts are going to work if you are a living and breathing human. One of the ways that we're working towards being the best at training pre-zillions for emergency responders specifically is through our pre-zillions for the emergency seen class. And you can get all that information at firefightercraftsmanship.com.
Click on training and you're going to see that self-paced online virtual offering that is one step in the iteration of firefighter craftsmanship's hedgehog concept. So overall let's look at that hedgehog concept as Collins and team defined in chapter five of Good to Great. And really it comes into three different circles. And the three circles kind of all intersect like a Venn diagram.
And in the middle of that intersection that little teeny colored space in the middle of these three circles that crosses across all three circles is what you can identify as your hedgehog concept. And you can really, really get after that and really ebb and flow and grow that thing.
And then from there from that hedgehog concept we can filter decisions through it's no different than our guiding principles when we have a tough decision coming up and we know who we are we know what our why is we know what our guiding principles are. And you can check out the guiding principles podcast from firefighter craftsmanship in the show notes. I will link to that episode in there.
But when I have those really, really solid guiding principles and I know who I am as a person not as my occupation I can really filter a lot of those decisions through it. And so this is another way to do that using a hedgehog concept if you are running a side business or you're trying to figure out how to create higher performing teams what is that hedgehog concept that you're all working towards. So the three circles are number one, what are you deeply passionate about?
The second one is what can what can you be the best in the world at. And then the third one is what drives your economic engine. And that one's always kind of weird for us at work for governmental agencies where we don't necessarily control the budgets and things like that.
And for us it's not like we can just come up with a new line of revenue and emergency services come up with a new product a new product offering that meets the market and make more revenue that's just not how most of our organizations are funded.
As you know in a firefighter craftsmanship say an entrepreneurial venture there is certainly opportunities to create products or to team up with other organizations affiliates things like that and really chase something that's shiny and new but maybe doesn't overall benefit the hedgehog concept of again for us at firefighter craftsmanship training emergency responders to be pre-zillion.
And so how do how do these things intersect and so if we look back at like the forceful entry organization example, they're deeply passionate about that and that might come from pain a lot of times change comes from pain. And so that might have been an emergency response issue that happened where we could not get that door opened and maybe there were some catastrophic consequences to that. So passion can come from a lot of different things. It's just something that you're excited about.
Maybe it's something where pain has created, hey, this is something we have to solve. So a problem identification and then what you can be the best in the world at. And so, you know, an example from like the sport coaching world would be if I'm talking to a basketball coach and maybe they're not looking at, hey, we want to be the best in the world at free throw percentage.
Maybe they're drilling down even further and they decide, hey, we want to be the best in the world at this specific thing with defense. So maybe it's like tipped deflections on passes or something very, very specific to that.
But they know that if they put in a lot of work on tip deflections, you know, in practice, they put in a lot of work on tip deflections in games that deflections of the basketball can lead to turnovers, which lead to fast break opportunities, which lead to points on the board. It also leads to frustration of the other team. It messes up what they're trying to do with their offensive schemes on and on and on and on and on. So we can get really, really hyper focused.
So think about that in your context. What is something that you can actually be the best in the world at? And you don't necessarily have to go out and broadcast it to everybody, but what is something that we legitimately can do better than anybody else? Are you on a hazmat team? Is there something within hazmat that your company, your crew, your shift, even your fire department, that you can legitimately be the best in the world at?
And so when we look at that from these three circles, what are you deeply passionate about? What you can be the best in the world at and what drives your economic engine? So if we go out and we're a hazmat team and we want to be the best in the world at using a four gas monitor, let's say, and identifying quickly what's the difference between monitor drift versus there's actually a presence of something in the environment. And so maybe that's something that you're passionate about.
We need people that are passionate about hazmat. We need people that are passionate about four gas monitors. And so there's an opportunity for those people that are into that sort of stuff that they are passionate about. So they want to research it. They're going to kind of know the ins and the outs. They know how all the sensors work. They know how the bump tests work on and on and on. And they can be the best in the world at that.
And now they can start to communicate those things, make it teachable, make them useful for the line and start to broadcast that information out.
And so when they work very, very hard at that, even though they're not creating new revenue streams per se for their fire department, they're going to create leadership economic objectives where, hey, that company over there has been working really, really hard on teaching us all how to be better on natural gas calls, leak calls, odor complaints, CO calls, detector calls, all those sorts of things.
Now you are earning economic objectives in the leadership capital space that's going to help you down the line as you try to get better monitors. You try to educate more people. You try to get more funding or for more hazmat texts or whatever on and on and on. So don't necessarily think about what drives your economic engine is actually like a new line of product because in the emergency services world, that's not necessarily relevant.
Well we can certainly capitalize on things like creating leadership capital from those up and sideways and down the chain of command when we do this sort of stuff. And a lot of this kind of goes into all the concepts that we've been talking about a lot lately and in the last podcast episode with Preston Lyons, he talked a lot about kind of building some of that leadership capital. He didn't really use those words specifically, but he talked about being patient.
He talked about trying to get other people involved. He talked about trying to get people up the chain of command involved, get them to training classes, things like that. So potentially a firefighter like Preston Lyons, maybe he's deeply passionate about organizational change in a very specific realm and maybe let's just say that's engine company of fire suppression work.
And so now can Preston be the best in the world at figuring out ways for his department specifically that he works for to how to accomplish those organizational change. And so it doesn't have to be how, how does, you know, a big fire department, city Chicago, something like that, how do I impact their organizational change? No, I don't necessarily, if I don't work for Chicago, I don't necessarily need to be worried about that at this point in the game.
I'm trying to figure out how to create more use and Preston as an example, how to create organizational change for the fire department that he does work for. So can he be the best in the world at that for his specific situation? And then what drives the economic engine? Well, it is creating a like minded group of people that surround me.
Some of those people have more power ability than others, more decision making ability than others, etc, etc, etc. And so this hedgehog concept can be a very, very good way for us to stay focused for us to stay patient and for us to actually get measurable results. When we have measurable results, we're less frustrated, we're less burned out, and we're happier and healthier at work. How about in your personal world or at your home environment?
What is something that you can do that falls within the hedgehog concept in your personal life or your personal environment? What are you deeply passionate about? What can you be the best in the world at? And what drives your economic engine? And so if we look at that from a personal relationship standpoint or as a parent or as a, you know, an interpersonal relationship, or what about even just for yourself? So there's a lot of talk about mental health and emergency services.
Can we have a hedgehog concept that we use just for ourselves to make ourselves better, stronger, more resilient, happier, healthier, all of those sorts of things versus chasing the next new fad, let's say we're chasing, we're trying to lose some weight, and we know that we need to clean up our nutrition. So versus chasing the next new fad, can I use a hedgehog sort of concept of what are you deeply passionate about? What can you be the best in the world at?
And what drives your quote unquote economic engine in the space of nutrition? It doesn't mean that I have to go out and go back to school and become a registered dietitian. It just means can I filter the decisions that I make in regards to nutrition and education and the people that I surround myself with and maybe the services that I pay for or the type of food that I buy on and on and on through a hedgehog concept. So marinate on that one a little bit. Let me know what you think.
I've been thinking quite a bit about this hedgehog concept over the last couple months. I would love to hear what you think on this. Hopefully it's spurred some excitement in you and you can get out there and continue to push hard, to grow, to be happy and healthy and strong both at work and at home. So thanks for spending your valuable time with us here at the firefighter craftsmanship podcast.
We really appreciate all the support, continue to shout out with some questions, some topic ideas, some guest ideas. We've got some pretty fun things planned coming up. We have very exciting times here in the firefighter craftsmanship world specifically, which we'll get into more in the next couple months specifically. So as always, please share, rate, review this show. We really appreciate all of you that have taken the time on Apple Podcast.
You can scroll down to the bottom and give us up to a five star rating. You can even drop a couple comments in there if you would like. And that really helps us grow this show organically. And we appreciate all of you that have shared this. Feel free to reach out to me at ffcraftsmanship at gmail.com or hit us up at firefightercraftsmanship.com. And we're on Instagram and Facebook or you can find me at Kevin Housley at LinkedIn.
For any training opportunities that you would like to talk about or just to say what's up. Stay smart.