On November 11 and 12, FIRE 20/20 held its first Mastering Change in The Fire Service workshop at Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Services training academy in Rockville, Maryland. Montgomery Country participated as well as NIH Fire Department, Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services and Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Developed and facilitated by Hanley Brite, CEO of Authentic Connections, with assistance from Larry Sagen, the overall workshop rating was 4.55 on a scale of 1 to 5!

Hanley: How do you interpret the ratings?

“When evaluating the effectiveness of the workshop, I ask myself two questions. How empowered does this senior team walk in, relative to creating change in their organization? Are they more empowered walking out?

“Based on the very high overall rating and my observations of the learning that took place, I believe the answer to my second questions is a resounding ‘Yes’!

Hanley: What’s the structure of the two-day workshop?

“Day 1 is 'change from the inside out'. Participants look at themselves as individuals attempting to lead and bring about change in their organizations. This first day is ‘introverted’ as the chiefs and their teams get assessments of themselves as change agents and what they need to work on and continue to develop.

“Day 2 is 'change from the outside in'. It aligns who the participants are and what they know to real-time situations using very specific frameworks and models. Using a mapping process, they get an assessment of the organization they’re trying to change and what they can anticipate as the resistance and blocks they’re going to run into.

“We have everyone bring their own case to the workshop. The pre-workshop material asks: What is something in your organization that you can change and see a significant, measurable result in 90 days?

“There are two reasons for the 90-day timeframe. It allows the learning to be applied and it gives participants a real-world take away. This workshop is not motivational—we’re not focused on getting people juiced up—where people may feel better but can’t do anything differently. The material is highly relevant to the here and now and the day-to-day problems and challenges that leaders face in the fire service. Our goal is to have participants finish this workshop on Wednesday, and on Thursday do things that will make a significant difference.

“One of the important principles of this workshop is that no one creates change by himself or herself. So when participants leave the workshop they’ve already begun to build their coalition for change because they’re working in a team.”

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“As we change the culture within, the use of an implementation plan is very beneficial. I found the mapping process for change strategies the most helpful. We are using the mapping process to implement even small changes within the organization.”

Jonathan L. Mattingly, Fire Chief
National Institute of Health Fire Department

The next Mastering Change in The Fire Service workshop will be hosted by the Arlington Fire Department on February 3 – 4, 2009 for fire departments in the Dallas, Texas area. If you would like to host a workshop in your area, or for more information, contact us: info@fire2020.org.