OK, so you are a new chief fire officer, and you want to impress your fire chief. What now? The first thing to do is figure out exactly what are the fire chief's responsibilities.

In the broadest sense, the chief is really only responsible for two things: providing resources and removing obstacles. Resources may come in the form of funding, equipment or personnel. Obstacles are what prevent the line firefighters from doing their job, and they can come in many forms. The informed fire chief can recognize these obstacles and work through them so that the line firefighters can do the fire department's real work.

By the way, the chief fire officer is responsible for informing the fire chief of obstacles that are in the way of accomplishing the mission. This may sound simple. Yet, it is a part of the job that is often overlooked. A critical component of keeping the chief informed about obstacles is handling staff work.

To get started, the new chief fire officer will need to develop experience and people skills. Experience does not come with time; it comes through, well, experience. But not all experiences have the same value. A very good friend once questioned whether a colleague actually had 30 years of fire experience, or only one year of experience repeated 30 times. It is important to experience something new, whether it is training, education or just studying the efforts of others. Chief fire officers must consider if they are well-rounded, if they have finished that degree, if they are active in the community, and if they can even find Emmitsburg on a map.

There is a book's worth of material to be said on the treatment of people and the effect that has on the leadership within an organization. It is also important that new chief fire officers surround themselves with good people and remember their roots. Consider finding a turtle on a fence post. The turtle is probably enjoying the view, but he didn't get up there by himself. A successful career is very much like that. Don't be afraid to get help to reach the top of that fence post, but never forget that help when progressing through the ranks.

This leads to staff work, a necessary evil in the fire service. Many chief officers competently handle complex emergency situations, but when it comes to staff work, a definite weakness emerges. The chief officer should ask how competent she is with basic office applications. Can he build a spreadsheet that highlights staffing shortages from the last five years? Can she turn that into a PowerPoint presentation to present to the city council or governing fire board? Is he prepared to work on an issue in such a manner that he can clearly state the problem and the proposed solutions to the chief?

Completed staff work is the study of a problem and the presentation of a solution by an officer in such a form that all that remains to be done on the part of the fire chief is to accept or reject the completed action. The word “completed” is important because the more difficult the problem is, the more the tendency is to present the problem to the chief in piecemeal fashion. The duty of an effective officer is to work out the details before presenting them up the chain. The officer should not consult the chief in the determination of those details, no matter how perplexing they may be. Instead, he should consult other staff members. The product, whether it involves the pronouncement of a new policy or affects an established one, should be in finished form when presented to the chief for review.

There is an impulse to ask the chief what to do and this often is accompanied by a feeling of frustration. Ineffective or new officers have this impulse because it is so easy to ask the chief what to do and it appears so easy to get an answer. Resist that impulse. It is the chief fire officer's job to advise the fire chief on what to do, not to ask what to do. The chief needs solutions and answers, not questions. The officer's job is to study, write, restudy and rewrite until she reaches a single proposed action — the best one of all the actions considered. The fire chief merely approves or disapproves the proposal.

Do not bother the chief with long explanations and memoranda. Writing a memorandum to the chief does not constitute completed staff work, but writing a memorandum for the chief to send to someone else does. The officer's views should be placed in front of the chief in finished form, needing only a signature. In most instances, completed staff work results in a single document prepared for the signature of the chief without comments. If comments or an explanation are needed, the chief will ask.

Completed staff work also means punctuation, grammar and content should all be correct, including the chief's signature block. Don't ask the chief to review the work for errors; the chief has other duties to perform. Incomplete or improperly prepared material will be returned to the officer to be reworked. It is best to get it right the first time. Professionally prepared correspondence is more likely to get attention (and funding) than an ill-prepared presentation.

This outline for completed staff work may result in more work for the supervisor, but it results in more freedom for the chief. This is as it should be; do not add administrative burdens to the fire chief's job description. Completed staff work accomplishes two things. First, the chief is protected from half-baked ideas, voluminous memoranda and undeveloped oral presentations. Second, the fire officer who has an important idea to offer is given the opportunity to more readily find a workable solution.

For the officer, there is one final test for completed staff work. The officer must ask that if he or she were the chief, would the officer be willing to sign the paper just prepared? Would the officer stake his or her professional reputation on its being correct and presentable? If the answer is no, there is still work to do.

Ernst R. Piercy has been the fire chief at the U.S. Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colo., since 2003. He holds several national certifications including Fire Officer IV, Fire Instructor II, Fire Inspector II, Fire Investigator II, Hazardous Materials Technician, and Hazardous Materials Incident Commander. He has completed the Executive Fire Officer program, and is a Chief Fire Officer Designate. He holds an associates degree in fire science, and is completing work in a baccalaureate program with Colorado State University.