quickly turned to smiles and laughter soon filled the room when I removed the bed sheet and they saw what was underneath it. I sat in the back of the room with the other board members and just watched. What we witnessed was amazing. For the first time, everyone was working together as a team. It was one of my proudest moments watching them spoon feed different flavor and topping combinations to each other. The names they came up with for the desserts were pretty funny also. They all did an amazing job with their marketing plans and sales pitches. In the end, we voted to buy both desserts. Once we all cleaned up the room, I reminded everyone that their EMS jobs were safe, and they wouldn't have to get into a new career of sales and marketing. They all understood the concept of the exercise and why it was necessary to do this. A short time later, we would all go on to receive our first National Ambulance Accreditation. While we don't do chocolate therapy anymore, this was the beginning idea for hosting an annual leadership summit for my leadership team. If you are having trouble with your leadership team and you are stuck on what to do, study leadership when you can and where you can. Come up with new ideas or a new angle on a problem-solving exercise. It will truly make a difference in their performance.
Challenge 9 (Brainstorming)
This might be my favorite leadership exercise to do. I love brainstorming and I love to do it with groups and I love to do it alone. For me, I use a variety of tools when I brainstorm. I am a huge fan of an app called Evernote and another one called Trello. They allow me to easily organize projects, thoughts, and ideas. It is very beneficial to get ideas out of your mind and onto paper, or in this case, a computer or phone screen. Whatever medium you use, when you see it, you hold yourself accountable to that thought or idea. You won't forget it.
A piece of paper or computer screen with my brainstorming ideas might look something like this. I start with a general idea or thought, and I write it at the top of the page. Then I write the most bizarre and wishful thing I can think of on the right side of the page and then I follow that up with the easiest thing to accomplish on the left-hand side of the page. The fun comes from connecting the easiest to the most out-of-this-world idea with other thoughts and ideas. When that is done, I will stop and look at the page and find the ones that are the most realistic to achieve with the resources I have or the resources that I need and I start to make the connection to the main idea on the top of the page. One of the other brainstorming sessions I like to host is gathering team members around a table and just making a single statement and letting everyone just speak out whatever comes to mind, regardless of how silly or impossible it sounds. It makes for a fun session with a lot of laughs and wishful thinking. You would be surprised how some of those wishful thinking ideas turn into realities when you put your minds and resources together.
Fourteen years ago during a board meeting, we were having a brainstorming session and singing the blues about not having as much money as we would like to have. We had some big projects and goals we wanted to achieve and some upgrades to some of the ambulance base resources. I can remember we desperately were in need of a portable generator. I made the comment out loud and word-for-word, it went exactly like this, "If we were smart, we would take every penny we have in the bank and hire an agent in New York and pitch them the idea of doing an EMS reality show, because the things that go on here would be very entertaining to the public." Of course, everyone laughed and said, "Great idea."But it wasn't going to happen. A little while later, I started doing these video blogs because I was traveling all over the country and I wanted work colleagues, friends, and family to see where I was and what I was doing. I created a YouTube channel and posted the videos. It became very popular pretty quickly. One specific situation occurred during one of our Search and Rescue training weekends.
In the Laurel Highlands, just east of Pittsburgh, is where we conducted our weekend training sessions. At the time, we had a thirty-four foot slide out FEMA trailer that we used as our Mobile Command Center. For this particular winter training weekend, Murphy's law was about to strike and strike hard. We towed the trailer up to the training site. The truck we used to tow the trailer broke down in the process, but we managed to get the trailer to the site and conduct the training. One of the guys drove the trailer back to Pittsburgh and dropped it off at the dealer to get repaired and we were told it would take a few days. The plan was to lock up and leave the trailer there when we were done. On the last night of training, something mechanical happened to the mobile command vehicle and we lost all power. All of the team members decided to leave the training a day early because we had no power in the command vehicle. Myself and one of the other team members decided to stay with the sinking ship. Of course it was freezing that night, and in an effort to create some kind of entertainment for ourselves, we decided to video the whole thing. The next day, the truck that had initially broken down was repaired early and came back to pick up the command vehicle. We returned back to the ambulance base cold and anxious to upload this new video. One week later, a U-Haul truck backed into the ambulance base and the driver was knocking on my office door asking me to sign for the delivery. We didn't order anything, and I couldn't figure out what it was. I went down to the garage and read the note on the packing slip. Enjoy your new portable generator and thanks for making us laugh on YouTube. It was signed the "X" family, White Oak, Pa. The generosity of people is truly amazing.
Challenge 10 (Stop Procrastinating)
Stop reading this right now. Since you didn't listen, I will give you another chance after you hear me out. I recently interviewed one of my Emergency Management mentors for an episode of the Emergency Management podcast that I host. His name is Kelly McKinney from New York. During the interview, he made a very powerful statement to me. We were discussing the book that he authored and he said that "Everyone has a book to write inside of them; you just have to start." The same applies to starting a project, your day, or just doing something that you keep putting off. So whatever that is, stop reading and just go and start it.
There is that great Navy SEAL video online where the commander is giving a speech at a commencement and he mentions making your bed every morning and how you will feel better because you will have accomplished your first task of the day and it will make the rest of the tasks easier to accomplish. I love that video and the message behind that because it is true. We all get caught up in the routine of life. For most of us, that routine is all too familiar and can make it very difficult to start something new. I always say that I come to work every day with a list of things I want to accomplish and within minutes of walking through the door, I am onto a new list of things I am doing because of the unpredictable nature of the field I work in.
For me, I have my entire week sketched out. I know what days are my social media days for social media posts and strategies, and I also know what days are my admin days where I will work on policy and procedure. I make time for strategic planning days and employee counseling days. The trick is being able to accomplish those things and making sure all of your ducks are in a row so you can stick to your plan. When I used to be a professional scuba diving instructor I would always preach, "Plan your dive, and dive your plan." That fundamental is taught to every basic open water diver from day one and when I was teaching diving in places like Mexico and the Bahamas, I would often have to rescue divers who failed to adhere to that basic rule. When you don't have a plan or can't stick to your plan, depending on your type of business, it can cost your company money and loss of productivity. In the hiking world, mountain climbing world, and scuba world, it can cost you your life.
Teaching scuba all over the world was a dream come true for me – something I honestly never thought would become a reality. I would lead dive trips to some very exotic locations. One in particular was in the Bahamas. I had a boat full of twelve divers for this particular day at sea. It was set to be a two-tank dive and the divers were broken up into groups. Each group had to have an instructor with them because of the dangerous area we were diving in. In this particular location, the underwater currents were particularly bad just past the reef. Each group was briefed at least three times prior to getting in the water to incorporate this no dive zone into their dive plan. I took my group into the water and spent about thirty minutes exploring the reef and then got back on-board. No issues. I will never
