Hello, I'm Brian McGuire, President and CEO of AED, and I am here at the Mirage Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, where we hope to see you March 29th through the 31st at our annual Summit in Condex. Now, these halls might be empty right now, but we are planning and working with the Mirage Resort and Casino so that you have an incredibly safe and educational experience at Summit. We hope that you and your colleagues will join us here in Las Vegas March 29th to the 31st for what is promising to be a great Summit. We have Paul Ryan as a keynote speaker, as well as two great panel discussions that you're not going to want to miss, and several breakout sessions guaranteed to deliver value to your dealership. Again, we look forward to you joining us here at the Mirage, where they have taken many, many steps to ensure that we have a safe and fun experience. So I hope you'll get your mask and join us at Summit March 29th through the 31st here in Las Vegas at the Mirage Resort and Casino. We'll see you there. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main event sanctioned by AED Board of Directors and Small Dealer Committee. We are live from Zoom. It's time! Good morning, everybody. How about that opening, huh? Well, welcome to the AED Virtual Small Dealer Conference. We're very excited to have you all here with us this week. As you can already see, this is not your typical Zoom meeting. We have a lot more in store for you for the conference. But before I get into that, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce AED's president and CEO, Brian McGuire. Brian, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Phil. It's great to be here virtually with all of our members who are tuning in for the Small Dealer Conference now. It's my pleasure to be coming to you live from the international headquarters of AED here in Schaumburg, Illinois. It's not quite the venue we thought we'd be hosting our seminar in, but nonetheless, we're glad that you've chosen to invest in your dealership and take advantage of what promises to be a great Small Dealer Conference. And special thanks to the staff here at AED who has put a lot of time and effort into making this a very, very good conference that I'm sure you're going to find a lot of value. So we hope that you stay tuned throughout today and tomorrow and you enjoy the sessions that have been put together and get a lot of value out of it. And we look forward to seeing you at Summit live and in person March 29th through the 30th in Las Vegas. We'll see you there. Thanks, Phil. Thank you, Brian. Now, before we introduce our first speaker this morning, Chief Haig, I mentioned that we have added a couple features for our conference attendees this week. So we're going to try out a few new things. The first thing that I want you all to do is pull out your cell phones. This is going to be one of the few conferences we're going to ask you to be on your cell phones for a significant amount of time. So pull your cell phones out. And we're going to utilize a little app called Poll Everywhere. So here are the instructions to participate in the polls and the questions that we will be displaying. And this is going to help us learn a little bit more about you guys, our attendees, and help our attendees learn a little bit more about who all is here with us. So pull out your cell phones if you haven't already. Text the word AEDEVENT444 to the number 22333. Now, you can also pull this up on your internet browser from your mobile device or your computer and go to PollEV.com backslash AEDEVENT444. So, again, text the code AEDEVENT444 to the number 22333. You only have to do this one time to participate in the conference this week. So, again, text the word AEDEVENT444 to 22333 or visit the website from your phone or computer. Now, while you're texting that in, a couple of things. So Zoom uses a lot of resources on your computer. So maybe try shutting down some apps. It would even help if you had like a hardwired connection for your internet for an optimal experience. Also, our speakers are prepared to take your questions throughout the conference. You can submit those by using the Q&A feature at the bottom of the screen. And by now, you should have all texted the word AEDEVENT444 to the number 22333. And we're going to kick things off with two questions just to get us warmed up. So tell us where you're from. What company do you work for? And where are you located? Marshall Machinery out of Pennsylvania. How's everybody doing in PA? Hopefully pretty well heading into the end of the year. Who else do we got here? Another Marshall Machinery. Alpa Equipment. Luby Equipment. Burris. Seeing some familiar names here. Seanburg. The great city of Seanburg. Got Corelli on the call out of Baltimore. Ditch Witch of South Louisiana. Ingram Equipment. Texas State Rentals. All right. Really cool. St. Louis, Missouri. Middletown, New York. Nice. All right. Well, it looks like you guys have the hang of this. So I've just got one more question. It's a very serious question. It's about upcoming AED programming. Who would you like to see speak at an upcoming AED event? I don't know who put this together, but you have four options here, and it doesn't look like there's any wrong answer. A, Chuck Norris. B, Chuck Norris. Somebody said A through D. All right. Text that in to 22333. While you guys are doing that, I don't know if you heard, but Chuck Norris recently made the headlines. Apparently he had a little run-in with the coronavirus, the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. And when asked for comment, the coronavirus said it was still quarantining for a few more days after being roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris. So hopefully we roundhouse kick that into outer space and we'll be just in time for getting together in Las Vegas in March. All right. So results are in, and unsurprisingly, looks like Chuck Norris is the winner. Again, I don't know what we could do about that, but we'll put your, you know, insight to use here and see what kind of strings your association can pull on that front. So stay tuned. All right. So we're going to get right into it. I'm very pleased to introduce our featured speaker this morning. Chief Craig Hague. Chief Hague is a 37 year veteran of the fire service. He served for more than 25 years as a fire chief and a chief executive officer leading departments in both Illinois and North Carolina. He is known as a no nonsense, innovative leader focused on consistently doing what is right for the residents, businesses, visitors, and his employees. He has published more than 30 trade journal articles on a variety of leadership topics. And he's also the author of a new book, the dynamic fire chief management theories and principles for strategic organizational leadership. Today he's going to discuss critical points for organizational success that you can take with you back to your own dealership. Please join me in welcoming chief Craig Hague. Chief, if we go ahead. There you go. I think we have me unmuted now. Yes. You're good to go my friend. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you, Phil. I appreciate it very much. I am not Chuck Norris, but I'll do my absolute best this morning to take us through and provide a little bit of training for us. Well, I will just tell our attendees I am super honored to be here this morning and to get the opportunity to present and to kick off this small dealers conference. I had the opportunity to present a few weeks ago to the HR and finance groups and I really enjoyed my time with those folks. I suspect the question this morning going through everybody's mind is, so what in the world does a fire chief have to sort of tell us that will be helpful to your organizations and how you lead your teams? Well, I would suggest that our worlds are very much alike. You see, the job of today's fire chief is not that of senior firefighter, but rather the fire chief of the day, that position is really the chief executive officer, the CEO, if you will, and carries all of the same responsibilities one would think of when you actually hear that title. Not only do we hold responsibility for emergency services and how that's provided to our communities, but we're also responsible for finance, both revenue and expenditures, human resources, legal, marketing, compliance, vision casting, succession planning, and a whole variety of different issues that go along with running an organization, which I suspect is exactly what you do on a day in day out basis. The challenge, I think, like for many of you, is that most fire chiefs found their way to the top spot by being good firefighters and they were never really actually trained to be organizational CEOs. Now when this occurs, what we find is there's some really, really great people out there who are immensely talented and very, very dedicated to their organizations and suddenly they find themselves ill-equipped to do the job and the tasks that are required for the position that they now have. What we find is that this creates huge frustration and it makes their organizations not run very effectively. Now we could talk a lot about these various skills and I could share a bunch of different insights that I've learned over the last 30 plus years of serving in the top spot, but in the short amount of time that I've got with you today, what I want to focus our attention on is people. I want to talk about the people that we serve, whether it be in the fire service or emergency services, the people that I serve, or the people that you serve through your dealerships. And I will argue that both groups want to know you. They want to know who you are personally and they want to know who you are as a business, just like they want to know who we are as leadership of their emergency services and they want to know who we are organizationally. And beyond that, they want to be known by you or they want to be known by our emergency service organizations. They want us to actually know something about them and something about what their needs are and how we can assist when they need us to help. You see, I believe regardless of our role, whether you're the principal, whether you're the branch manager, whether you're the service manager, an HR professional, the finance manager, or the fire chief, what it all really boils down to is that each one of us are in the people business. That's what we do. And when I think about that a little bit more in depth, we all have customers, we all have clients, we all have constituents, we have employees, we have friends, and our job is to provide the assistance that they need at the time they need it. Now I put this picture up on the screen, I'm sure based on the group that I'm speaking to today, you're familiar with that piece of equipment. I'm not sure if the company that actually sold it to this small construction firm is with us today, but they had a problem with their machine and all of a sudden their machine is on fire, and we as our fire department gets dispatched to the scene. And we're going to solve the problem, we're going to put the fire out, and they're going to have had a pretty substantial loss for a small company when they lose this valuable piece of equipment. But when I talk about that we need to know... Can we get your PowerPoint up here? Is it not showing? No, it's not. Okay, let's see what I'm missing here. Meanwhile, I'll play some more music by Wham or Rick Astley or any number of late 80s pop icons. I thought we had shared the screen. Let me try one more time, Phil. No problem, no problem. Looks like we've got quite a few people here with us today. We've got more than 60 attendees on the call. Cole Young, how are you? Craig Drury, Dave Hosh, a lot of familiar names on here. Glad you guys had the time in your schedule to focus on some professional development topics. What's that do for you, Phil? You see my screen now? Yes? I do not. Do not see the screen. There we go. All right, good. Throw that into presentation mode and we're off to the rest, Chief. There we go. How's that look, guys? Is that better? Perfect. All right. I'm not sure what the technological issue was there, but I think we maybe have it fixed. I appreciate it. We're all just moving through it day by day, right? It's a little bit of a challenge. So, as I was talking about, guys, you know, when we think about what it is that our customers need, as you can see here, I show you a picture of a fire we had in my community, but it's more than just going out there and putting out the piece of equipment that's on fire. As an example, for that small business, they're going to have a major diesel leak that is going to be coming out of that machine. It's going to be leaking into the ground and all of you are fully aware the EPA challenges with spilling of diesel into the ground. So, for us as a fire department, us trying to really look after the best interest of the people that need us when they need us is that not only do I need to put that fire out and that machine is going to be damaged beyond repair, but the best thing I can do for them is address that diesel leak so that they're not going to have those big EPA charges and the remediation cleanups and all of those different types of challenges. And I think that becomes the key, whether it's in my business or whether it's in yours. We need to know what our customers need and how to assist them when they're having a problem. I think the key is that we become the trusted face to the people that we deal with, the deal, the customers that we interact. I think it's very, very important that we emphasize how important those customers are to us. And I think it's very important that they know that we understand their needs, that we understand what it is that they're trying to do in their day-to-day business. They need to know that we're there to help them and they need to understand that we will not intentionally hurt them in any way. An experience that's drilled into my mind, my dad spent 43 years working for John Deere. He was in leadership at the harvester plant in East Moline. And I remember being there at the plant on his very last day, the day he was retiring and getting ready to walk out. And we were all there and we were taking a tour through the facility. We were riding on these trams pulled by John Deere lawn and garden equipment. And he was showing his family the factory and some of the product that was being built there. And as we were going through that tour, we noticed this group of individuals that were walking through the factory. And the, my dad immediately instructed the tram driver to stop. And he jumped off of the tram, he went over and he shook hands with the people that were walking through the factory. They were taking this tour, told him how much he appreciated them being there, how much he appreciated them buying our product, and what a great company Deere and Company was to both work for and to produce equipment that was going to help them to do their job. And I remember when he got back on the tram, I was sitting next to him and I said, who was that? What was that all about? And he explained to me that that was part of Deere's gold key program, where they actually will bring in folks that have purchased equipment. And they try to get them in at the time in which that piece of equipment is coming down the assembly line. And they actually get the opportunity to start it for the first time while it's on the assembly line process. But that as managers, how important it is for you to interact, for you to show your appreciation to those customers for the work that they do, and for their loyalty to your company. And I was just struck by that being instilled in an individual that spent 43 years with that company. And in the last hour, hour and a half that he was actually going to be working as a full employee for Deere and Company, that that was still in there. I mean, that is what I think we need to be thinking about. And how do we build those relationships and show those customers just how important they truly are to us. But not only is it for our customers. I think we need to show that loyalty, and that support and that understanding for our employees as well. We absolutely have got to have a good quality product, whether that be the piece of equipment that you you build or you distribute through the dealerships, or whether that is the services that I provide as an emergency service provider, when someone picks up the phone on the worst day of their life and dials 911 and asks for us to come provide assistance. We've absolutely got to have a good product, we've absolutely got to be able to take care of the people that need us and the people that that reach out to us. But beyond a quality product, I really believe that it comes down to people, both our customers as well as the people that work for us, and the relationships that we have. Phil talked about a new book that I've got that I've got coming out that will be published shortly after the first of the year. And I make this comment, I go the people that you impact, and the lives that you touch, they are what are really important. And they are your true legacy as a leader. And I think that goes with the customers as well as for our team members. As I as I think about this, and I think about the world that I live in, as well as the work that that each of you do. I think there are two key aspects for good organizational success is when you talked about you got to have a good product. Absolutely, we know that. But I think the two key aspects is that one, we've got to have quality customer relations. We need to be the trusted faces of the industry that we're in. Our customers need to know us and they need to know that we are there to help them at the time that they need assistance, that that we can be trusted. And I think that's really, really important. And the second component of that is, is that we need to know them, we need to know what they do. We need to know what they generally need. And I think for a lot of us, we're in a position where we actually get to know some of our customers on a personal level. And that really builds on this, this trust factor and this becoming the trusted face aspect that I think is so important. You know, they may buy your product once, but it's the relationships that continue to keep them coming back. And just like in my business, they may rely on us once. And if it's a good experience, they're going to trust us and they're going to support us and they're going to tell our elected officials how important we are to continue to provide the service. But when our service isn't what it should be, when that product that we deliver is not what it should be, then we're going to struggle. And I think there's some real similarities between what you do and what we do in the emergency services field. I believe that your greatest strength in serving your customers is really the quality of the people that are on our teams. So the challenge for us as we look at this is to say, well, where do we find those quality individuals that are going to work for us? How do we find them? How do we select them? How do we bring them in? How do we develop them so that they can truly make an impact on the people that need us? You see, oftentimes, many of us, whether it be in my role or you in the dealerships, you get to be out, you get to have that direct contact, you get to interact day in and day out with your customers. But we are not always there to be able to do that. We're not always able to do that direct interaction. So then the question becomes, who interacts with you? Who interacts on your behalf when you're not there? You know, our relationships are managed by the employees on our team. And we've got to make sure that they share our values and the values of our company so that those interactions can be sound and professional, and they can address the needs of our customers. So I want you to think for a second with me. Just grab a piece of paper. I know that many of you are in your offices. So you may want to, you may, if you're going to write notes down, you may want to shred this document as soon as we get done working through this. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to, on a piece of paper, I want you to make a list of the employees that you personally depend on to carry out the mission of the organization. Who are they? Who are your team members? If you're in a larger organization, maybe it's your managers, maybe it's your supervisors. If you're in a smaller role, who are those people that work with you individually that you personally depend on, that you know well to carry out the mission of your organization? Think about those individuals. And as you get those into your mind, I want you to think about their individual strengths, their individual weaknesses. What attitude do they bring to the table each day? What's their commitment to the organization? What's their commitment to the vision of your company? And I want you to think through that for a second, wrap your arms around that, and then ask yourself this question. If I knew what I know today about that particular individual, and that person was in the hiring process to work here, would I hire them again? Yes or no? And the question becomes, well, what can we learn from that process? Now, I would suspect many of you, like within my own organization, if I go through and I do this exercise, I will find that there are some individuals that work for me that if I will have known more about them, I would have taken a pass. And yet, there are individuals that And yet, there are individuals in my organization that I depend on every day that are absolute rock stars and carry the vision of my organization, carry my personal vision forward, and work extremely hard to meet the needs of my customers. Well, the question is why? And how do we know what that is? And how do we assess that? Now, if you've made that list, and you've written those names down, you've thought through that, probably don't want to leave that laying around. But I want you to get it in your mind so that you know where you're at. And we can we can work through some of this stuff. Because the question becomes, what can we learn from the hiring process related to these employees? For our good employees, what strengths did they bring to the table? What were we able to glean? What were we able to figure out that if we could duplicate that in other employees, would make our business more successful? And likewise, if we said, we have some employees that maybe have some challenges that they don't always meet the needs of our customers, they don't carry forward the vision that we've got, things just don't always go the way they should, they don't represent us personally, the way we would like them to, in every case, they just don't get it. Well, what could we have recognized in the process to say that's not going to be an employee that we want to bring into our dealership and serve our customers? I think we can learn a lot if we stop and think about that a little bit. On the screen, you'll see, I stole this from Amboy Fire Protection District. It's a fairly small fire protection district between the Chicago area and the Quad City region of the state of Illinois. It's a part-time and volunteer organization, pretty high quality group that I get to interact with and I like to work with on as they reach out to me. But they've created a check sheet where they've just outlined, okay, as we go through the process of hiring our candidates, everything from the application phase to the interview phase to the reference checks, what are the red flags that are out there that would give us an indication that this may not be a good employee that we want to bring into our department or into your situation, into your business? Are there red flags and can we find them and can we figure out what's going on? And are those things that will impact the service level of those employees? They listed some of the red flags and I know this is a little different for emergency service scenario, but they talk about theft from an employer, or theft in general, driving under the influence. That's a big deal if we've got folks that are driving our vehicles up and down the road, whether they're from your dealership or whether they're my emergency services vehicles. Do they have histories of suspended driver's license? How about drug usage? Violence, violence in the workplace or domestic violence. Can we figure out what's going on there? Lack of follow-through, unexplained things, or as I like to call it, when you're going through the process and you look at the application and you talk to them through the interview and you go through the reference check and two and two just doesn't add up to four. Maybe that's not an employee that we actually want to bring in and have working in our organizations. Now, I understand from when I was with your HR folks here a few weeks ago, you guys are having challenges in hiring employees and I just want you to know I think that is pretty consistent. We are seeing some of those challenges in emergency services as well. I will say to you that in the fire service today, we are washing out about 80% of all candidates that come in the door and make an application to join our organizations. Now, just to give you a little bit of a background so you can wrap your arms around what our hiring process involves, because we're hiring public safety personnel, we have a lot of testing aspects that go into it to ensure that they're going to be good team members for us. So, there's a physical ability exam, there's a general aptitude test that they take where they're scored and then we send them through a multitude of interview processes. And as we're sending them through those interview processes, each opportunity is scored and then they end up on a hiring list where they're in rank order. And for ease of understanding, if you're number one on that hiring list, when we have a vacancy in our organization, we call the number one candidate and we offer them the job. We make a conditional offer to them and when we make that conditional offer, it's based on they pass the other aspects of the testing process. We send them through a psych and we send them through an in-depth with law enforcement, we send them through a polygraph, we send them through an in-depth medical review, all to determine whether or not that candidate is going to be a good fit for us. And what we're seeing in our business today is a challenge and it sounds like you're seeing very, very similar challenges as I understand in the hiring process. We're washing out about 80% of all candidates in that post-offer process. I used to talk about that if I wanted to hire one new firefighter, I actually would have to hire two because I knew that there was an extremely good chance that one of the candidates wouldn't make it. I've actually learned as the years have passed and that percentage has increased, we're almost down to I'm going to get one out of every three that I make an offer to. And for us, there's a huge financial process associated with that testing. So we're trying to figure out before I ever start to make the conditional offer, are they going to be a good fit for our organization? Are they not? Well, as we've worked through here in my department, the thought process of hiring candidates, we've come up with what we call the 80-20 rule. And I've got that on the screen for you right now. And it's in essence, our rules for hiring new team members. And what we have found works really, really well is that if we build 80% of our assessment criteria 80% of our assessment criteria focused on the candidate's heart, and then 20% of that assessment criteria based on what they know, what they bring to the table, we do pretty well. So to kind of break this down a little bit and help you understand what we're thinking here, as we start to evaluate candidates, we're looking for when we talk about that heart component, we're talking about things like motivation, we're talking about passion, we're talking about areas of greatest pride for them, what do they just feel so strongly about that they're able to do and their skill set and bring to the table? What gives them a huge amount of pride? What's their level of compassion? What's their ability to think and to reason? And I'm not sure where you guys are at, but we've had a lot of trouble with candidates in the not too distant future, coming in the door and lacking the ability to think, the ability to reason, the ability to process through the various situations that they're going to get into. We look at what's their commitment to the team? What's their fortitude? Because it's going to get hard. It's going to get hard in your business, it's going to get hard in our business, there's going to be challenging days. Hopefully there's more good days and challenging days, but we all have challenging days. Do they have fortitude to stick with it? And what's their love for the job? Do they love what it is that they're doing? When we think about that, that's that heart aspect that we're trying to assess. And then from the other side of the table, what do they know? What's their education? What's their certifications? What's their past experiences? What other job skills have they had in the past? That's when we focus on that no aspect of it. Now, what we have found is that in the fire service, we're really good at training individuals. If we hire a candidate that has got the right heart, but they lack in what it is that they know or what they bring to the table from the skill set, we're pretty good at training them and developing them and fixing those deficiencies on that side of the table. But if we hire a candidate who has all of the right education, they have all of the right experience, they bring to the table all of the things on that resume that look spectacular, but they lack in their heart features, we oftentimes just simply have a bad employee. Because I can fix a lack of knowledge, but I can't fix a heart problem. And so we have determined, at least in our business, and I would ask you to think about that for your own environment. How do you assess? And what are you looking for in the folks that you're bringing to your dealerships to serve the residents and those customers that you have? Now, I'm going to share with you some of the interview questions that our team has come up with. And they they're designed to focus in those two areas. So we asked things like, well, what interests you about this particular position? What do you know about us as the employer? What do you know about our business? What do you know about our dealership? Did they do some research? Or are they just, you know, on one of the internet ad sites where they're throwing resumes out there, hoping something will stick to the wall? What do they do to prepare for the interview? If they really want to work for you, they're going to do some research. They're going to evaluate what's going on. They're going to know what your business is. They're going to know what you're good at and they're going to prepare before they walk in the door to talk to you. We want to know what personal achievement they're most proud of. I talked a little bit about that pride aspect when we were just a second ago on that last slide, we were talking about the heart. What makes them proud of the job that they do? And how do they share that with us? What does public service mean? That's a big question, I think, in public safety or whether it's in your world. What does public safety mean to them personally? What role in the team do they prefer? We all work in teams and we all have different tasks. Which one do they want to do? Which one are they best at? Where is their area of gifts and strengths and how can they apply that? How do you handle the job duties that you don't necessarily like to do? How do you overcome a mistake? If you didn't have to work, what exactly would you do? And then what sets you apart and why what would make you, in our case, a great Hanover Park firefighter? You know, that question is it relates to how do you handle the job duties that you don't necessarily like? I always love the candidates that come in the door. And in my organization, we do. We're a fire department. We do fire work, but we're also the ambulance service. And about 72, 73 percent of our work is actually medical related. So I always like to ask these candidates, I'm like, so tell me what it is about the job that you don't like. What is the worst part of the job for you? And, you know, I get these young folks in the door and they sit there and they're like, oh, gosh, let me think. I don't know. Oh, you know, I don't think I just don't think that there's any aspect of the job that. I don't like. You know, I usually follow it up with, well. Are you sure? You know, we deal with patients in various states of illnesses as an example. You know, at three o'clock in the morning when this is your 20th run of the day and you've got a patient in the back of the ambulance that doesn't smell very good and they just vomited on your shoes. Are you going to love that aspect of the job? Are you going to dig in? And are you going to serve them based on how they need to be served? Usually I get befuddled looks when I ask questions like that, but the question comes down to is, I think, as we're assessing our folks. Do we ask the tough questions as it relates to, you know what, guys, there's going to be there's going to be hard things and everything's not going to be rosy. And how do you handle that? How do you do it? And can you stay focused on dealing with the needs of our customers? And then we switch over and we talk a little bit about how do you feel about education and how do you feel that your experiences have prepared you for the position I've got a hand. We talk about goals. We talk about what they're going to do to achieve their goals. And then I'm very, very interested to find out what do they expect from us as an employer? Because if I'm really going to take care of that employee so that they take care of my customers, then I need to know what they need from me. And whether or not I as a provider, I as a business can actually meet those demands for that employee. And I think it's okay if you get into a situation where you say I can't do that or we can't do that or you pick a different employee because you can't meet their needs. But oftentimes for those really great employees that we want, we need to think about what their needs are and how we can meet those. As I think through this, as I think through it from the economic standpoint, I really believe that employee quality drives our business revenue. Whether that's on your side or whether that be on my emergency services side. We talked about who represents your business when you're not there. And how do you want them to act? How do you want them to perform? And did you as leadership actually tell them what your expectations are? For working for me, I stuck the rules up here on the screen. And I'll explain them to you. I'll talk through a little bit what I tell my folks. My number one rule, and this is for my supervisors. And if you think about it from the emergency services standpoint, I've got a supervisor, and I've got three to four firefighters that are going to be on every piece of fire equipment. They work as a team, they go places together as a team, they operate as a team. So I tell my supervisors these two rules. One, you need to make decisions based on what you believe is in the best interest of the customer. As you think about that, as you evaluate that as a supervisor, you think about what is in the best interest, what meets their needs. I want you to do that. And the second thing I tell them is because we're in a life-threatening environment oftentimes, is that their responsibility is to bring home all of the players that they take to the game. They need to protect our folks. They need to take care of our folks. They need to have accountability for our folks. And whoever they took out there to that emergency scene, they need to put them on a rig and they need to bring them home at the end of the day so I can send them home to their families. Those are my two rules. That's what's incredibly important to me. I'll give you a good example, I think, that really sets the stage for how I want our team to work based on these very issues. A few years ago, I had a new officer, one of our supervisors that was assigned to a fire company, and they were dispatched to what we call an invalid assist. We get those on a regular basis where you've got someone who maybe they're not injured, maybe they don't need to go to the hospital, maybe their building is not on fire. They just need help. And we as emergency services, we as the fire department are really, really good at providing help. So, we get dispatched for an invalid assist. One of our engine companies, and one of our ambulances respond, and they get to this home in our community, and they go up to the front door and they look through the through the front picture window. And as they look in, they see an elderly couple, early 80s and both of them are laying on the living room floor, and they've got a couple dogs that are running around and barking at us as we're looking through the window. You can envision that in your mind, if you will, a group of firefighters looking through the picture window trying to visualize what's going on inside. And we quickly realized that these two individuals don't appear to be hurt, but they can't get up. They're on the floor, and they're just kind of stuck. So, my folks, we start to look for a way to get into the house with as little damage as possible so that we can assist them. If you promise not to share I'll tell you a trade secret. If you need to break in one of the easiest and fastest ways to do that as a sliding glass door. So our folks went around they cut the lock off of the back chain link fence went into the backyard, and they were able to Jimmy the lock on the sliding glass door slide it open slide inside. and his wife that were on the floor, pick them up, Dustin them off make sure they were in good shape. That's what they needed us to do. But all of a sudden, what we realized or what what our crew realized is that they were very, very upset about the fact that we had cut the padlock off of their back gate. And you think, why would they be so worried about the padlock being cut off their gate. Well, you got to get into their mindset as to what is actually going on what's going through their mind. And for this particular situation this elderly couple, their kids had had left the area they'd moved away they weren't they weren't close to them. And for this couple the only thing that they really had for family that was with them on a day in day out basis was those two dogs. There were now running around in the living room and a couple of my folks were over scratching them behind the ears. Really, really scared that somehow the gate would get open. And those dogs would get out of the gate. And they knew in their advanced age, they wouldn't be able to catch them, they wouldn't be able to get them back, and they could potentially have something harmful happen or they could lose those animals that they valued so much. So there's the we're trying to assess the situation and ultimately this this new supervisor. He got the picture. So he tells his ambulance crew. I want you to go to Menards. And I want you to buy a padlock. Put it on the fire department charge account. And I want you to bring it back. I want you to go right now and do this as quick as you can and while you're gone. I'm going to have the firefighters that came in on the engine we're going to see if we can't fix the sliding glass door lock, so that it'll be bent back in shape and we can secure the door. So the engine company went to work and the ambulance headed to Menards to get the padlock. They come back, the doors put back together they put it back on the fence they lock it back up they hand the key to the homeowners and all is happy. And he's got in his hand that that invoice from Menards, where his crew went out and they purchased the padlock and he comes in and he says hey chief I did something and I just want you to know that if I made a mistake here. I'll pay for what it is that I that I did I'll cover this I don't want the department to think that, you know, that they can't undo this but he explains the situation to me, and he tells me what's happened and he tells me how he sent the crew to make this by of these, these, this new padlock and to get it back on the gate. So the question would be question I had to ask myself is that, did he follow the rules that I had instructed him, did he follow the expectations that I had laid out for him. When I am the supervisor. Did he in his mind believe that he was doing what was necessary in the best interest of the customers that we serve. The answer is yes. He was doing exactly what it was that I asked him to do do I care about that 10 or $12 padlock I'm sure in the years that those residents have lived in our community their tax dollars have absolutely paid for that padlock. The question is, did the supervisor do what was right. And I would argue that he absolutely did. So we as supervisors do we are we as bosses do we tell our supervisors expectations. Is it clear to the understand what it is that you're supposed to do, and I would believe, if they know and they understand and they're doing those things that that will translate into that quality service will translate into sustained business revenue to continue to operate and manage our organizations. Two employee truths that I think, and the older I get in the longer I do this I think becomes more and more important. One, low bid employees, the cheap players that we can get our hands on those low bid employees do not equal relationship builders and high performers. If we want good employees, and we want employees that are truly going to look out after the best interests of our organizations and serve our customers appropriately. We're going to need to treat those employees right and low bids not necessarily going to get it done for us to, um, I would argue that hiring is the first step in the organizational succession succession planning process. I think we an emergency services are very much like your organizations. You may have come in the door as as maybe a mechanic and all of a sudden now you're in charge of the shop. So succession planning process and I truly believe that the best things that we can do is to grow and develop our staff and promote from inside whenever possible. The problem is that, do we actually train our folks to be able to take those roles as we talked about when we started in the fire service we were not very good at it. I think we should promote our fire chiefs to the top spot from inside our departments but we don't teach them how to be CEOs. And I suspect based on what I hear and what I learned about your businesses. We promote are really good players into positions where sometimes they don't know how to be successful because we didn't train them. I think the hiring process becomes that first step in organizational succession planning, we need to evaluate our hires, not just based on what skills that they're going to bring to the table and the job that we're hiring him for. But if we develop them correctly. What can they bring to the table in the future. So when we talk about blue shirts and white shirts and just to give you a little bit of a picture of that. Generally in the fire service are folks that are wearing white uniform shirts are the bosses, they're the supervisors, and the folks that are wearing those light blue or navy blue uniform shirts. Well, they're the firefighters. So when we hire candidates into our business. We hire them based on their blue shirt capabilities, but we assess what is their white shirt potential. I think that becomes pretty important, both in my organizations, as well as in what it is that you do so that that succession planning aspect is a big deal and I think the hiring process is the first step. So like our customers, our employees want to to know us, and they want to be known by us. They want to trust us as their bosses. They want to be more than a number on a spreadsheet. And they want us to develop them, and they want us to coach them. So the question then becomes how do we do that. And how do we make that happen, effectively based on the needs of each one of those employees. Now the truth of the matter is, we as employers all occasionally will make a hiring mistake. That's, that's just the reality anybody that tells you that they've, they've never made a hiring mistake I would suggest has probably never hired anybody, or they've never done the job very long. Because any of us that have been out there in the field for a period of time, we know that we make mistakes and hiring. So the question comes down to, can you coach them, can you can you fix the, can you fix the problem can you build them into what it is that you need them to be. You know coaching, it's like it's like managing a sports team and we just need to translate that over into our business mindset. We need to train we need to build we need to mentor we need to inspire we need to motivate our team members to be the best that they can possibly be to serve the people that we serve. And that coaching takes place every single day, it's not a scenario of. It's a once a year when you give them a performance and evaluation or it's as I happen to be blowing through wherever it is that I'm that I'm walking and I see them. I see them going about their business, it's, we need to spend time with them, we need to coach and we need to develop them. And we've got problem employees, we need to find out who they are. And then we either fix them, or, as, as the mayor that I work for says we need to performance manage them out of the organization. He talks about that it's very important for our problem employees, the ones that just don't fit into our culture that we need to help them find somewhere that they can be successful, because they can't be successful with us. We need to be not afraid to do that. And I think sometimes, sometimes that's a challenge for all of us to be in a position where we're disciplining employees and and having to manage some of those challenges that are out there. Now the other issue that we need to continually be monitoring for and asking ourselves. Is this situation of when we lose good employees. I think we lose good employees for two reasons. One, sometimes we hire some absolute rock star employees, and we're not able to promote them fast enough into the various positions that we've got to, to meet their energy demand for doing the job. And I see that in my business on a, on a pretty. I would say a pretty regular basis we hire really really great employees and they come in the job and they they want to get promoted and they have great skill sets and they have great abilities, and they want to move up the chain. But if I don't have a place for them to move fast enough, and they start looking at other fire departments to go to work for and I suspect that you guys deal with the same scenarios. It's very difficult for me personally to lose one of those rock star employees it's very difficult when I have somebody that leaves me to go to another organization. Those, those great players, what I've been able to wrap my mind around, and, and just help me work through that that struggle I find myself in is that if I bring them in and I develop and I coach them and I build them and I build our organizational values into them. When they leave my organization. They take that Hanover Park fire department brand, and they move it to their new organization, and now all of a sudden the work that we do in my organization we get to share that, and it makes our global business better. The other challenge, however, is if we're losing really really good employees. Are they leaving because we don't have a spot to put them in, or are they leaving because we've got bad bosses. And that's the scenario where we need to look ourselves in the mirror. Whenever we're losing an employee and say, what was my role in this. If it's the scenario if you got a great employee you got that rock star and you just can't promote them fast enough and they leave. Well, then you help them. And you gave them your blessing as they went out to continue forward. But if they're leaving us because we are not doing what we need to do to lead them effectively that we're the bad player in this mix. That's a challenge that I think we need to look at embrace be critical of ourselves and figure out what we can do to make ourselves better as the bosses that are going to lead and run our organizations, because we've got to have those quality employees. Let me share with you just two examples as I as I get ready to close my time with you today that I've experienced here in the last probably 10 years of my business as it relates to emergency services to companies that I deal with. You see at the top of my screen there it's foster coach sales and service, they sell our ambulances to us. And the one at the bottom is dingus fire equipment, they sell a lot of our fire tools. But I think most importantly, they sell our firefighter protective equipment. So let's talk about foster coach first. Foster coach is a company headquartered in Sterling, Illinois. They started their business. They're actually in their third generation of of ownership started with the father passed to Steve Foster their son and now his now his children are running the business. They started selling funeral vehicles, and then transitioned into ambulances. They had sold a particular product that Hanover Park Fire Department had bought for many, many years and we like the product we like the brand we liked how that particular product was was built and designed and it worked really really effectively for us. But the company that the company that that actually built the ambulances was sold to a big fire apparatus manufacturer and they shut that division down and no longer produce those ambulances. So foster coach had to go out and find another ambulance brand that they could sell. There are there are several different ambulance brands that exist. And I would argue that foster coach picked up is the dealer. So, as a government entity, we were in a tough spot. I love foster coach and we love what they do. And we've worked with them for a long time. And all of a sudden the cost of an ambulance went up dramatically for me to buy a similar unit, just manufactured by a different vendor. Now, quality was much better, but the price was huge and for government that's that's a big issue. But we went to our elected officials and we said here's what we've been paying for an ambulance, and here's what foster coach is able to sell us a competitive or comparable ambulance for today. It's more money. But I as the fire chief I'm asking you, Mr. Elected official to approve this increase in cost substantial increase in cost, because we want to buy it from foster coach has been very, very good to us and supported our business supported our organization how we operate helped us take care of the maintenance of our vehicles for a long time. And in that case, and I believe, very fortunately, our elected officials said absolutely you can continue to buy from them. You see it wasn't about product loyalty. In this particular case, it was about loyalty to the dealer. Likewise, dingus fire equipment, they make our protective suits. What you see when you see a firefighter out on the street they're protective firefighting clothing that they're wearing. And they're the dealer that we purchased our, our gear from. And there's a lot of different manufacturers out there that make protective clothing some of it fits very well some of it, not so good. And how well it works to protect our folks, oftentimes is based on fit and construction and things like that. And again, it's driven by price oftentimes. We recently went through a scenario in which protective equipment style that we have been using in my organization for many years we liked our people liked it it held up well it worked really well. Dinga switched. And we weren't exactly sure whether we wanted to go to their new product line. But we were sure that we wanted to stay with their company. And so we made the decision. And after many conversations with them they said just trust us, give us the opportunity, and we'll show you that this particular model of gear that you're going to buy will be comparable to what you currently have and we'll back it up and we'll support it. And they did. You see, again, it was a situation of the dealer and the relationship that we have with the dealer, and not as much about that product loyalty aspect of it. So those are two scenarios from my world that I think really fall squarely as great examples into the world that each one of you lives in on a day in day out basis. So in closing. I believe that whether you are delivering a product or you're answering a 911 call. The people you impact in the lives that you touch are really what matters. That's, that's the key. And how do we go about doing that. How do we build those relationships with our customers. How do we build the relationships with our team members, how do we select our team members to be able to effectively build and manage those relationships with the people that rely on us day in and day out. Something to think about. Back to you, Phil. Chief Hague, thank you so much for that presentation. There's a lot of great leadership lessons in the material that you just covered. We're now going to take a quick break. The link to the next session, as always, is in the chat box so check out that. Follow that to our next session on negotiating dealer agreements, which will begin at 1130 central. Thank you.

Brian McGuire

AED

Summit in Condex

Mirage Hotel

Las Vegas

March 29th

panel discussions

breakout sessions

virtual small dealer conference

organizational success