Fighting Fire With Purpose and Precision

Jon Clifton:
[0:08] In 2019 and 2020, the entire world watched in horror as Australia fought some of the largest bushfires in world history. In fact, the fires were so serious that they were considered megafires. One of the heroes that helped fight those intense fires is here with me today on Leading with Strengths, who is the Deputy Commissioner of Fire and Rescue of New South Wales, Jeremy Fewtrell.

Jeremy, thanks for being here with me today.

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[0:33] Thank you, Jon. Welcome.

Jon Clifton:
[0:35] Jeremy, can you tell us a little bit about your own personal strengths journey when you first took CliftonStrengths and kind of what your reactions were when you first saw your top five strengths?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[0:45] Yeah, so it was 2017 and we started to work with Clifton or Gallup and to do the CliftonStrengths. The team I was with was the first group from our organization. We were doing it as part of our sort of senior leadership development work. And it was one of those moments where I remember reading the report, we did the strengths assessment and then got the report and I remember thinking, wow, where's that person from Clifton been that's followed me around all this time to know my strengths there? So it really resonated immediately and having those strengths sort of spelt out for me was something that I went, you know, yes that makes sense but then I could also intuitively, I'd already sort of knew some of that in the way that I'd approach things. I probably just didn't have the language or the categorization to identify it so clearly.

Jon Clifton:
[1:37] You've talked a lot about how you actually leverage the strengths, not just of your colleagues, but even people in the community in order to fight the bushfires of 19 and 20. Can you talk more about that, about how you leveraged their strengths and identified them?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[1:50] Yeah, so I mean, part of our job is to deal with the incidents and provide that response on behalf of government to keep the community safe. But particularly for things like bushfires, you're really relying on buy-in and action from the community as well. So some of that is having that connection and relationship with them in the lead up to a major event. I feel that you have to be a familiar enough face so that when it's all going bad at a time of emergency, they're not looking at someone on the TV screen for the first time and thinking, and who is this person and can I have the confidence in them? So there's a little bit of building a relationship there. The preparation of the community in the lead-up to bushfires is really paramount. We have, and together with the Rural Fire Service, who's the other agency in our jurisdiction, focus on people preparing their homes and then also discussing as a family how they will manage things when a bushfire is getting close. And we do the same thing for fires in their homes as well, talk about your evacuation plans, work out where you're gonna meet outside. What's going to be your trigger for a bushfire? You're leaving when the fire's coming over the hill a mile or two away, all those sorts of things. So it's all thought out in advance.

But one of the real highlights through the 2019 bushfire and 2020 bushfires was a group of firefighters who were on holidays and they were down at the beach in a little beachside village, probably about four hours south of Sydney. This community got cut off. It was surrounded by the fires and in the approaches to their village. All the other locations had been hit really hard and it got to the point where they couldn't get out. So everyone was stuck there. The local resources had been working their guts out. They were exhausted. And these three firefighters of ours really stepped up and led the community through that. They marshaled them together, inspired a great deal of confidence, gave them the reassurance, but also started setting out what they could do and gave them the pathway to be able to tap into their strengths. And they pulled out from the big community meeting. There was 200 or 300 people there. And of course, this is people who are all on holidays as well. So it's not as if you have all the sort of neighborhood connections and relationships that a normal community might have. But they tapped into people who had all sorts of areas of expertise. They had a doctor who could write prescriptions for people. They had someone else who had a boat who could get out and go a significant distance, about 15 or 20 miles by the ocean, to get to the next town, to get medication from the chemists there, bring that back for people. They had people who worked in logistics companies that were able to organize generators and big refrigerators and all those sort of things. So as soon as the roads were opened, they'd have all those supporting elements. But as the fire approached, they told them what they could do to best prepare the properties they were in. And then what steps they could do to keep themselves safe as the fire front came through and impacted them.

And so for me, that was strength in action. They just stepped up. They had no responsibility or obligation to do it from a technical or legal sort of perspective, but they knew it was the right thing to do. And that's where I think it's really important, having that moral sort of compass, if you like, and knowing that you've got a unique skill set that you can bring to the community at time of need, and they were more than happy to step up and do that. And then between the three of them, they actually complemented each other really well. And again, aware of where each one's strengths lay, they would do different functions of the whole gamut of tasks that they were trying to sort of coordinate and oversee. They allocated it out amongst the three of them to play to the areas where they were best able to have an impact.

Jon Clifton:
[5:45] In such a fast-paced, dynamic environment like firefighting, how do you use Learner?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[5:50] I think it's being able to rapidly appraise lots of information, get across the technical detail. One of the things that I really enjoy about working in the fire service is we go to all sorts of different places. We get to go and see all different specialized factories, high-tech IT manufacturing places, big chemical ware, processing facilities. Any day you could end up from a mechanics to a bakery to a butcher shop if someone's got their arm stuck in the mincer barrel and all these sorts of things and there's a real curiosity. I think it's one of the perks of the job is getting to go behind the doors of all these different places and actually have a look and get an appreciation of how all these different businesses that make up the economy and life work. And so, there's a bit of curiosity there, but when we're going for an incident, you become a micro-expert in very short order to work out how you're going to deal with the different problems that you're trying to rectify at the incident you're attending. For me, I think it's been a real advantage to be able to quickly appraise that information, develop an understanding of those systems, know the right sort of questions to ask, and actually be prone to asking questions. Previously, there was a tendency in the fire service to sort of say, hey, we're the experts here now, you can all go. And you might have just sent away the foreman for manufacturing business who knows the ins and outs of every single machine. And you're going to wish that he was still there with you to guide you through it. So bringing that approach of wanting to know more and the curiosity that comes with that led me to wanting to keep those people there and ask the questions and get as much possible information. So then we can quickly work out how we deal with the problem.

Jon Clifton:
[7:46] Now, you also have Responsibility in your top five. How do you use that as a firefighter?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[7:51] For me, that's a real sense of service and commitment and duty. I think one of the real joys of working in the fire service is it's working for a higher purpose and you're giving a real, very tangible contribution to the community. And for me, it's also somewhat of a vocation. You know, it's a great job, but for many of us, it's more of a calling than anything else and something that people are really passionate about and wanting to do. So I take it very seriously, our work. You know, it really is saving lives, but also what we can do to prevent people getting hurt and injured in the first place as well. So I bring a pretty sharp focus to it, I guess, and a really high level of dedication and commitment that I just sort of, the Responsibility really stands out for me because when you step up to do a job like this, there's a lot that goes with it. There's a significant obligation that you're taking on, particularly in the more senior roles that I've been working in for a number of years now. And so, again, that was something that the Responsibility strength really sort of made sense to me. It was like, oh, that's why I take these things on the way I do and have such a level of commitment and passion for it.

Jon Clifton:
[9:06] Which of your strengths inspired you to be on the front lines, to lead from the front?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[9:12] I think it would be Responsibility, yeah. I take that very personally, you know, it's a real commitment between me, the organization and then also our people in the organization and I think ... People that are giving their absolute all, we owe them that gratitude and respect as leaders to front up and be there with them. Now, leading in a strategic sense, particularly in a big campaign like that, there's a danger that you could get sucked in and distracted because I still had to have responsibilities for allocating resources across the state and working out what our plans were going to be and how we were going to manage things. But I guess that was grounded in a good sense of reality because I was spending the time where I could on the ground with the troops and you know being there and seeing it firsthand and also then being able to factor in in our decision-making what the actual practical realities that they were facing every day were. So then my decision-making was better informed from that you know you get some of that from reports and things that come up to you but it's always good to really sort of you know fact check it on the ground.

Jon Clifton:
[10:26] Let's say, for example, somebody completes CliftonStrengths, they find that they have Responsibility in their top five. What advice would you have for them?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[10:34] Well, first of all, be very, very comfortable with that and be very proud of it because I think it means that you will be the one that is doing a really good job of things and you'll make a big impact. And you're not going to be the one that's cutting corners or looking for an easy way out. So that you have the ability to really shape things and be the one that people turn to because they know that you'll be the person that carries it through or sees it all the way to the end of the job. And that gives you a great sense of ownership and achievement in there as well. But be aware of the potential pitfalls that you're not taking on too much or that you're not putting too much pressure on yourself to get things done. There are things that have to be done at certain times. Most of it though is things that can wait or be done in a more sort of peaceful or gentle tempo, so don't feel like you've got to keep going, going, going at 110% all the time.

Jon Clifton:
[11:36] But you also talked about listening, so while you were on the front lines you listen. What strength inspired that?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[11:41] Probably I've got Individualization's in my top 10 as well. I think that comes up just sort of understanding where people are at and then probably that with the Connectedness starts to become, quite useful for me of understanding you know who's there but who they are and what's the story behind them and how they fit with everything else. So, because people had a lot to tell you as well. You know some sometimes people had been in really extreme life-threatening circumstances. And I've got a good friend of mine. He's a very accomplished officer in the Australian Army. He's an infantry officer. He's led Australian soldiers into combat on numerous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's worked with the U.S. Marines and deployed with them as well. He was working with some of our people. He's a volunteer firefighter with the Rural Fire Service, but they'd ended up in this area. And he was working with our people. And he said to me the time in his life where he thought he was closest to being killed was nothing to do with any of the combat missions he's been in. It was in the fires just west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains through that period. So the intensity of what people had experienced was quite something and had very profound impact on people. So it was really important to give people the time and the space to actually share some of that with you. You know, as fireys, we go and do a lot of things. We see some pretty incredible things. And most of the time, it's appreciated and recognized, but it's also, oh, that's just part of the job. That's what we do. And most firefighters don't give it too much credence. This was a bit different. This had a more significant impact on people.

Jon Clifton:
[13:23] Now, you talked a lot about building trust with the community. Obviously being on the front lines is a way that you build trust with your colleagues. Which of your top five strengths or in your top 10 inspire that and help you build trust?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[13:38] Building the trust comes down to so much of the relationships and knowing each other and having that better connection. So I think the Connectedness comes in there. Arranger also of, you know, bringing things together and knowing how it's going to work because it's not an unknown. We've already thought it out and we've talked through it and all the rest. We were doing things that we hadn't ever done before and between the fire agencies within our organization, the circumstances were such that we had to innovate and change things on the fly. But to be able to do that required very sound relationships and good communication as well. So sharing that information with people by then also being ambitious enough to give it a go and say, look, we've got to do this stuff. And if the relationships were strong enough, people would take the leap of faith with you.

Jon Clifton:
[14:38] Talk more about Connectedness. In a speech you did recently, you said that we have customers but they're not actually customers, it's the community. Talk more about how you see the connectedness between your job, your colleagues, the community and what that thread looks like.

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[14:54] Yeah, so if in a fire and rescue agency, most people will disengage if you start talking about customers. We just don't see the world like that. But effectively, it's the same thing. The people in the community that are calling the emergency numbers for help and asking for assistance, in the strictest definitions of it, we would say they're our customers. But that's just not the vernacular that we'd use to talk about them. But it's really important that we keep them front of mind and in the center of everything we're doing.

And we have an amazing opportunity as firefighters to interact with people, but it's also important that we don't get too sort of sterile because everything we do, it might be a technical problem. You know, it might be someone trapped in a vehicle crash. It might be someone's house burning down and they've got kids stuck in a bedroom or whatever. We can do the technical side of it. You know, we'll come in and we'll put the fire out. We'll cut them out of the wreckage of the car. But there's people in amongst it all and it's really important that our all of our firefighters understand that. And so when I talk to them about my expectations, it's about showing that extra care and compassion. You know we could whiz into a an emergency incident, knock it over, pack up, and go, and there'd be people left just standing on the footpath literally thinking what just happened, you know, what just happened in terms of the fire but what just happened to the fire service? Where have they gone? Why aren't they here helping me?

The point where we really make a big difference is that genuine care and concern and compassion that we show for people. And remembering that these people have had their world turned upside down in the matter of a few minutes. You know, their life was going along as per normal and everything was fine. And then whatever the event was has flipped all that for them. And suddenly all the things that they thought were the sort of senses of stability in their family and their life you know their loved ones, their home, or their precious possessions and stuff are suddenly at threat or gone. And so people need a lot of help through that and you know we can be with them. It's a privilege to be with them at that time and be the first ones to provide that help for them. So getting our firefighters to understand that our work is you know so much more than just putting a fire out or cutting someone out of a car or dealing with a chemical spill, but it's the people bit that really makes the difference. And that's what people will talk about and remember us for too.

Jon Clifton:
[17:28] If someone just completed CliftonStrengths and they found out they had Connectedness in their top five, what advice would you have for them?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[17:35] It's one of the ones I like the most. It's just that where all the connections lie with people and how things come together. I think it gives you some really good insights of not just the people but the systems of work and, you know, whether it's different parts of an organization or how different organizations interact together as well. I think it helps you be inclined to sort of just step up and away from things and get a different perspective. It also lets you build a really nice network of people around you, and that's one of the things I've probably enjoyed the most is, for a while their networking was a bit of a, you know, people would be a bit cynical about it or see it was just sort of, you know, make connections but without any sincerity behind it. So I guess the strength of Connectedness is it's not just, you know, saying you know someone, but it's actually a deeper sort of level of connection that you know them well or you know a bit more about them.

And seeing those connections and understanding those connections can help guide you to where the opportunities are as well. So whether it leads you to a conversation with someone to then, you know, open up opportunities for your organization or the work that you're doing or whether it's as simple as talking to someone and an opportunity for a new career opportunity comes up in the way of a new job. It's an amazing one. And I always enjoy trying to piece things together and bringing people together and then realizing the connections between them all as well as a little mental exercise I do sometimes. So you'll never be bored. You'll always be able to entertain yourself.

Jon Clifton:
[19:17] Achiever is in your top five. How does a firefighter use Achiever?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[19:22] I think it's that sort of quest for excellence and improving all the time. We've had a lot of technological improvements and developments over the years. We've had a lot of new sort of operational techniques, whether that's firefighting or from rescue fields, which has enabled us to do a better job, and wanting to see that done well. So being able to see where we might be good, but we can be even better, wanting to get up to that level. It's probably made me quite determined as well in the context of my career but probably it would have been the same if I'd done something different. But I'm not afraid of putting the hard yards in and the hard work. So I'd always felt that I wasn't the smartest person but I would be very happy to work really hard to keep up with the smarter people, and that's sort of the approach that I've brought to my work life in particular to sort of go, well, you know, what I miss in one area or work jolly hard to catch up and make up for.

There's a great satisfaction that comes from doing a good job. I talk to our crews, particularly our new recruits, and, you know, when we go to a fire, we don't want to take any satisfaction or joy from the person's loss and misery or suffering that's had a fire in their property. But at the same time, we should take a lot of professional pride in a job well done. And if we've gone and put that fire out in the most fast and efficient way possible, reduced the damage to that person's property, we can walk away from that feeling really proud. And I still remember when I was a junior firefighter, we had a very significant fire in a boarding house. One of those fire scenes where you get there and there are literally people jumping out of windows from second story just to get away from the fire. And there was about 50 or 60 people in this boarding house and it was a major fire had been lit in the stairwell, timber stairway in the middle of the building, and so it was a very you know dangerous situation for all the residents there and total chaos when we got there. And our boss had trained us quite hard but we were really well-trained and able to operate really effectively.

And just that satisfaction at the end of that job, that special moment that myself and my colleagues that were on the truck together, that night shared of just going, you know what, we absolutely were up against it and we worked our guts out, but we can sit here and say we did the absolute best job that anyone could have done. And so that's what I want to try and sort of encourage people to experience and to drive that into the rest of the organization. And I think a lot of that's driven from an Achiever mindset.

Jon Clifton:
[22:32] Now, one of the biggest issues in a lot of professions is burnout. And people that have Achiever in their top five are uniquely susceptible to burnout because they can never really turn it off. What is it that you do to tackle burnout for yourself and for your colleagues?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[22:46] I think Achiever and Responsibility together as well is quite a sort of combination of risk there in that sense. And I came pretty close at one stage there when I was a, like a battalion chief, duty commander we call it. I was looking after the operational management of a big zone of fire stations in the west of New South Wales. And I learnt, and almost learnt the hard way, but just pulled myself up before it burnt me out, was that there was always more work to do than there was hours in the day, and certainly many more at work or hours of work to do than there were in hours of a work week. I guess I got to the precipice and I was like, hang on, and I just luckily was able to get up on the balcony, I guess, and just have a look and think, well, what's going on here? And I realized that if I do, I'll never finish. It'll never be satisfied. I'll never quite get to where I need to go. So then it made me just step back and think, I've got to really prioritize my effort here and do those things that I can get the best impact from and be comfortable enough with having things that are still on the list to do, but I'll get to them when I can and there's always going to be something else to do. And the way I manage that, I guess, is exercise. I enjoy bike riding. I'm a keen cyclist, and whenever I can, I'll get out on the bike. And at some point in the ride, you suddenly realize you're not thinking about all the frustrations of work or whatever. Particularly when you're riding with a group of other people, I really enjoyed the interactions of their perspectives, hearing about what they do in their professions and so forth, and it was just something away from that.

But a big one's family. I've got a lovely wife and four children, and so that is a pretty good leveler. Once you walk through the door, the kids don't care what you do at work or who you are. It's your dad and you've got things to do and they need attention and they want things. So it just sort of helps sort of leave things behind, so to speak. And the other thing my wife and I do, we often get out, we'll go bushwalking. So we'll get out in the bush and just sort of wander around out there and again, just being in such beautiful natural surroundings. There's a certain sort of calmness and comfort that comes from that as well. So it's a useful tool.

Jon Clifton:
[25:19] Now, people with Arranger have an unusual ability to pivot. They can pivot fast when something's not working. What's an example of when you used Arranger to pivot where you could see very clearly something wasn't working and your Arranger led you to do the right thing?

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[25:34] Managing emergency incidents, you know, you set off with your initial plan, you start building your team to deal with all that. And it's very easy to get to a point where you just want to keep plowing ahead, even when it's not working. So I'm probably very grateful that I've got that Arranger type quality because it does make it easier for me to things up or change it and pivot to make those changes. We had a major fire in a bulk carrier ship. It was alongside the port down in Port Kembla south of Sydney and it was being managed adequately, but it wasn't going as well as it could have gone in terms of the incident command and the complexity of the job. This was a you know almost 300 meter long vessel.

It was a very significant fire deep within the bottom of the ship, all the complexities of in a major, major working port. I think it was about 30 percent of the state's economy goes through that port, so very significant implications if things went wrong there. We were also dealing with a range of stakeholders that in effect started to mean that we needed a bigger space to operate in, and the person that was in command of there was sort of very fixed to, working in the sort of mobile command center we have, which is a big sort of truck with expandable back that, you know, you can have four or five people working in there comfortably. But we were now dealing with an incident that needed probably 20 or 30 people from multiple agencies to be all in the one room. And so making the call to get everyone out of there and over to the Emergency Operations Centre was really important for the running of the incident. But it's that sort of sunk cost type of thing as well. People get to a point where we've already put this much in, we'll just stay the way we are. I was happy to move it because I knew it was the right thing to do but without being too emotionally attached, and that's probably where I get a benefit from the Arranger strength there for me.

Jon Clifton:
[27:47] Jeremy, thank you again for leading with your strengths, helping others lead with theirs, and for all that you do for Australia.

Jeremy Fewtrell:
[27:53] Thanks very much. It's a great opportunity to have a chat with you. Thanks, Jon.

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