The Leader as the Coach

Coaching in the Fire Service

When it comes to workplace performance, or human performance in general, three tools that are usually on the list of useful resources are the processes of coaching, counseling, and mentoring. We see this used in many aspects of our lives such as work, home, sports, religion, and politics, just to name a few. For those who seek out coaching, counseling, and mentoring, often this person has the intrinsic drive and motivation to progress and succeed. In our professional lives, managers and leaders use these tools as a form of external motivation to help their employees progress in professional development and ultimately, organizational success. Because these development tools are used around the world and in most aspects of our lives, we should ask ourselves the questions, what does each one of these really mean? Are they all the same? Or should each one to these be a very specific tool, where the better we understand it, the more powerfully the tool will be?

Coaching, Counseling, and Mentoring

In this article we are going to focus on the topic of coaching. Before we get into the specifics of coaching, it is important that we first define the differences in coaching, counseling, and mentoring.

Mentoring:

When someone with seniority offers informal advice to someone with less experience. A mentor can be seen as a guide or sounding board towards long term personal or professional growth. The mentor speaks the truth and is willing to provide tough feedback while also acting as a cheerleader. Mentorship can often be looked at as:

·?????Long term

·?????Informal

·?????Development driven

·?????Based on looser parameters for growth

Coaching:

A partnership that provides a thought-provoking and skillful process that inspires those being coached to maximize their personal and professional potential. This can be described as:

·?????Short-term formal and structural

·?????Specific and measurable

·?????Performance driven

·?????Co-created

·?????Achievement/goal oriented

Counseling:?

A professional relationship that empowers individuals to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals. It is an agreement to provide feedback with a higher-level of self-disclosure. This overlaps with coaching but has a high level of boundaries in place to protect both the supervisor and the subordinate. Counseling is often:

·?????Long-term

·?????Retrospective

·?????Subordinates functional level is usually decreased

·?????“Why” oriented

·?????Diagnostic

·?????Councilor is seen as an authority

In the fire service, the coach, counselor, and mentor can create a higher level of service to others. After defining all three, it is easy to understand that in the fire service, the role of coach can be taken on at any level in the organization. For example, the brand-new firefighter who joined the fire service after 8 years in the logging industry and 4 years in the construction industry, could easily find themselves in a position of coaching more senior members in the practice of axe and saw work. Combined with the right attitude and social skills, their expertise with these tools might make them the perfect coach to improve performance or the action of performing a skill. However, when the coach is the subordinate, it is important that the relation is co-created. For example, if the senior member is not accepting of the coaching from the junior member, a successful outcome can be much more difficult to attain.

Respect can play a huge role in the success of a coach. Some aspect of respect that play a role in this are the coaches skill level, trust, integrity, personal and professional values, ability to build relationships, and their ability to explain and share the mission and vision of the team or organization.

Why Should we Coach

In 2012, I committed to an endurance running race that was so big I was having trouble wrapping my head around it. Leading up to this race I had years of physical training under my belt. Although I was nervous about the physical task that lay ahead, what I could not understand was how to prepare for the logistical and nutritional challenges, not to mention the mental resilience involved. As the race continued to get closer, my running was really coming together. However, I continued to wrestle with questions such as, what do I really need at each aid station, what do I need to eat while I’m racing, how do I continue to stay motived and keep my body moving forward when in severe pain and my mind is telling me to stop.

During this time, I was a certified endurance coach. When I started my self-built training plan for this event, I thought that because of my background I had all the answers, well maybe most of the answers. Moving closer to the event my nerves told me otherwise. By chance, I came across a sport nutritionist who was kind enough to listen to my story and what I was attempting to accomplish. While I was explaining to him my worries about caloric intake and how to stay fueled when I was going to be moving for many hours, he said one simple thing that changed the course of my preparation. He told me that I had to stop looking at this like a race, and simply consider this event a nutritional challenge while moving. He went on to tell me that obviously I was not going to win the entire race, which might have hurt my ego, but was very true! He alluded to the unnecessary pressure I was putting on myself, reminding me that this was not my entire life and it still needed to be fun. Of course, after this conversation I immediately hired him as my coach. Ultimately, I believe this decision allowed me to complete the event successfully. This event has been one of my biggest personal accomplishments to date!

My point is that even when we think we have it all together, having a coach can play a significant role in individual or team success. The fire service is challenging in many areas. At the task level, we don’t perform in front of a mirror, so it can be hard to recognized functional movements that need to be changed. When you are in a rut and have made a string of mistakes, it can be easy to lose confidence. If the mindset of you or your team is off, it can become easy to take shortcuts. At times, you may not want to use your peers as a sounding board. And often, when all members of your team are task saturated, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture. Having a coach or being the coach can change all of that.?According to Kinlaw (1996), here are 10 things a great coach can assist with:

1. A coach can be a confidant.?

2. A coach can help you see your blind spots.?

3. A coach can provide objective feedback.?

4. A coach provides another set of eyes.?

5. A coach can keep you accountable.?

6. A coach can be a sounding board.?

7. A coach can be another source of creative ideas.?

8. A coach can help you create your vision.?

9. A coach can help celebrate your successes and be a source of strength when you fail.?

10. A coach can help you process life.?

What is Coaching

Coaching can be defined as a partnership with a person or team to inspire someone to maximize their personal and professional potential. When looking back at counseling and mentoring, these can both fall under this definition. So, what separates coaching? When coaching firefighters, our focus should be task or goal specific. The goal of coaching can fall in the SMART goals category. Coaching should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Let’s use the example of a firefighter who has learned the basic skill of stretching an 1-3/4 attack line but needs to move from a competency level to a proficiency level. When tying this to the SMART concept, we must first make the goal or outcome specific. We are no longer just pulling the line and placing it at the entry point.

Being “specific” means that we are clearly defining the stretch that will be performed, for example, the accordion forward. With this stretch we are deploying it for a specific reason. The student and coach should be able to verbalize the purpose of the accordion forward by using statement such as, “This will be used when there is a direct line of sight from the deployment site to the target. The firefighter will need at least 25 ft. of space to walk towards the target, and it can be used at most alpha side entrances”.

Continuing with the accordion forward theme, the outcome should be “measurable”. With task level skills, an easy way to measure this is through use of a stopwatch. The coach can establish a baseline time that begins and ends at specific points while performing the task. As the coaching session continues, the coach can measure positive improvement by seeing a decrease in the amount to time it take to perform the task from start to finish.

“Attainable” can be defined by common practice. Is this a skill that is reasonable for a firefighter to perform given a specific situation? An example of a skill that would not be considered attainable might be, requiring a firefighter to move a charge 5-inch hose from the middle of street to the curb allowing access for additional companies. A task like this is based on brute force and not technique and has a high probability of causing injury. Contrary, a single firefighter stretching a 1-3/4 attack line to a target is not only “realistic” but a mandatory task performed at most fires. Requesting a single firefighter to move a charge 5-inch line is not realistic.

“Timeliness” of stretching an accordion forward can fall into a few categories. This can be timely for the individual event but could also be timely in the firefighter’s career. For example, is this a new task that the firefighter is learning in the recruit academy or is it timely because this is a perishable skill that has not been utilized in some time.

How to Coach successfully

Three coaching characteristic that help better define success in coaching are as follows. The coaching process should result in continual improvement in performance. Next, the coaching session should be accomplished through conversation and continual practice that focuses on the individual or the team. Last, the conversation and practice should be disciplined and specific enough to give clear direction with little room for autonomy. In a coaching session, autonomy can, and often will create confusion. For example, we all understand there is more than one way to perform a task. That works great when we are already skilled at the task. In the cognitive early stages of learning, we should focus on first competency stage then the associative/proficiency stage. After this we can begin to learn other methods creating our plan B’s and C’s using the same step-by-step process. These later steps are called the autonomous stage of learning which is discussed by Fitts and Poser (1996).

Coaching should not be based on theory but rather function and method. A coach should be providing information and feedback based on proven results. In the fire service we can be tasked with being the coach quite often. Prior to your first-time coaching, how much training did you receive on how to coach? Without specific training on how to coach, the coaching session can become a random conversation without the benefit of education, commitment, or higher levels of performance. A coach must be able to deliver a clear picture of what the expected outcome will look like. Coaching takes preparation and methodology to create success. In other words, prior to taking on the task of coaching, the coach must decide what success looks like in terms of the outcome of the coaching session. Is the goal to work on the competency/cognitive level, the proficiency/associative level, or the mastery/autonomous level of a skill or task? By first understanding the level of coaching that is needed, we can then define what the results should be.

When it comes to the methodology of coaching, it is important to begin with 4 main pillars. These can begin with the concepts of core values, beliefs, or a personal connection. Through this relationship and communication, you as the coach, begin to understand where this person is at and can meet them where they are. Once a baseline is established you can identify what they want success to look like and help them to build a roadmap to it. Along this path, one thing that is often overlooked yet important is continual follow-up.

Establishing the right relationship

Looking back at the success of my endurance race and the coaching I received, I can recognize that in my first conversation with my coach, I realize that we had similar views and values when it came to endurance sports. Like me, he was a father and talked about struggles that he had finding balance in his work, sports, and family life. We shared a passion and understanding of the achievement that comes with the metal and physical pain of training for and competing in these large events. This basic familiarization laid the foundation for a trusting relationship. It was like putting on that old familiar ball cap that fits just right.

Understand where the person is at

Before my coach and I talked about where I wanted to go in endurance sports, my coach took a considerable amount of time to understand not only my athletic history, but also, my mental health and what brought me to this point in my life. Understanding these things about me allowed him to anchor my purpose for competing, which ultimately created a never quit attitude.

Defining where they want to be and creating a road map to get them there

My goal was simple. I wanted to run 100 miles and needed to complete this distance in under 30 hours. If I was having a great race, I wanted to finish in under 25 hours. Having never run that far, I set my goal at 30 hours. Some additional challenges in the race were that it was held in Leadville, Colorado which sits at an elevation of 10,200 feet. In addition, this race involves going over mountain passes of up to 12,600 ft. My coach was able to build a very specific plan with details of what types of food to eat and when to eat them based on duration of the race and efforts that were needed during specific geographical location.

Following up

I hired my coach to build me a one-time plan with ongoing communication. The communication leading up to the race included feeding me bits of advice and encouragement along the way. And of course, he was waiting to congratulate me and hear all about my race adventure after completion and to give follow up advice. This speaks not only to his professionalism as a coach but also, the relationship that was created in the early stages of this journey.

Since that race, I have seen so many similarities in my fire service career. In the fire service coaching successes that I have been lucky to have been a part of, each of the 4 pillars played a key role in the successful outcome. In the most successful outcomes, the pillar of follow up is the one that has allowed that person to continue to grow within their rank and beyond.

Conclusion

Great coaches can be found within all ranks, departments, and teams in the fire service. Because each coach can be unique with their own background and skill set, it can be hard to determine what makes them great. To help with this, I will give a short list of some character strengths identified by Gallup (2000) to point you, the coach, in the right direction.

·?????Great coaches are energized by committing time to interacting with other about their coaching strengths and methodologies

·?????They are naturally curious and ask questions that enable others to make their own discoveries

·?????Quickly build warm, supportive relationships

·?????Know how to put people at ease

·?????Gain satisfaction by investing in others and seeing them succeed

·?????Believe that people are ultimately responsible for their own success

·?????Have a natural ability to pick up on other strengths

·?????Maintains the highest levels of coaching ethical standards though, integrity, excellence, collaboration, and respect

An important thing to remember is that each one of us in the fire service can be tasked with being the coach on any given day. We all come to this profession with our own unique and diverse background. This is one of the main reasons that fire departments can be successful in our modern day all hazards’ environments. We may not have a background in education, but with the right mindset and methodology, each of us can successfully coach and positively impact the careers of others and the organization.