PODCAST

Combustible

CTP Group

A fire service leadership podcast.

education training

All Episodes

0:46:59

Episode 076 - A Better Version of Yourself?

Combustible ·

2020/11/06

We’ll wager there isn’t a firefighter in the fire service who isn’t an advocate of training. But when you call that training “higher education” you start to get somewhat mixed reactions. Make higher education a prerequisite for some promotions, and now you’ve probably got some real disagreement. What’s the correct balance between experience, training, and formal education? How do you measure experience against the other two? Which of them, if any, are indispensable? And if you’ve got formal

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0:54:13

Episode 075 - A Risky Episode: Building Your Team of...

Combustible ·

2020/08/30

How do you figure out if someone is good for your team? Good for the organization? Good for you as a leader? What does it mean to build a diverse team, and how can different skillsets, talents, and perspectives be beneficial? Can they fill in the gaps that the team has, or that you don’t fill yourself? And when does it become unhealthy? When do differing opinions, or goals, or approaches become an obstacle to success? In this episode, we attempt to answer all of those questions. Then Pabel proposes

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0:12:57

Episode 074 - Ten Rounds of Undermining and Custom...

Combustible ·

2020/08/08

When you don’t agree with a decision made above you, is it wrong to let people know you don’t agree? For this Ten Rounds we discuss whether telling those you are supervising that you don’t agree with something undermines authority or whether it actually helps you get that thing done. Then, as is the nature of these Ten Rounds episodes, Pabel takes us in a completely different direction to talk about why turnout gear should be better designed for the individual.

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01:05:46

Episode 073 - Screw-ups Are Your BFF

Combustible ·

2020/07/28

No matter how hard we try to avoid them, screw-ups are going to happen. When they happen, we shouldn’t avoid acknowledging them. Don’t wear them like a badge of honor, but own them nonetheless. You’ve already paid the price for the lesson; you might as well get the benefit of learning from it. In this episode, we go over some of our own personal biggest screw-ups (not counting the previous examples in Episodes 22, 25, 26, and 28) and how to really capitalize on the fact that you’re going to

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0:23:31

Episode 072 - Ten Rounds Of Managing Expectations

Combustible ·

2020/06/21

At the end of our last recording session we only had twenty minutes left to record, which isn’t enough for a full episode. So Hatch suggested we do Ten Rounds. It’s simple: any one of us can talk for two minutes uninterrupted on any topic we want. When the bell ends that round, someone else can either continue on the topic, or start on a different topic. They talk uninterrupted for two minutes, and then the next….well, you get the idea. Ten rounds of two minutes equals a 20 minute podcast. Shane

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0:40:58

Episode 071 - Sizing Up The Size-Up

Combustible ·

2020/04/25

We all should be doing a size-up as we approach any scene. And if you’ve got other units responding with you, someone is ultimately going to be required to give some of what you’re seeing and thinking over the radio. So how important is the size-up? How good are you at giving them? How important are the words you choose to describe what you’re seeing to everyone else that’s still enroute? And what’s the most important thing to say about a building on fire?

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1:07:00

Episode 070 - We Get A Lawyer with Lance LoRusso

Combustible ·

2020/04/10

In this episode, we sit down with Attorney Lance LoRusso to discuss the dangers of something almost all firefighters engage in: social media. And you can’t talk about social media without talking about the legal ramifications of firefighters taking pictures and video on scene. Even if you don’t post the pictures, you might be surprised where those pictures can get you. We also tackle the very prickly topic of the limits of free speech, and answer the question, “When are you speaking for yourself

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0:46:37

Episode 069 - The Boots on the Ground

Combustible ·

2020/03/27

There is a central concept that runs throughout Pete Blaber’s The Mission, The Men, and Me: That you should always listen to the boots on the ground. We really like that idea. Colin Powell said something similar when he described his “bias was toward the guys in the field.” But we also recognize some wiggle room within the concept, which prompted us to send out a survey to see where our listeners were on this idea. In this episode, we talk about those survey results, where we think that wiggle room

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0:43:08

Episode 068 - Flippin' Firefighters with Todd Edwards...

Combustible ·

2020/03/07

This episode is the second part to our conversation with Todd Edwards. We pick back up where we left off last time: with Todd’s view on how to approach the problem of underperforming firefighters in your station. Granted, if you’re good at rehabilitating firefighters, you usually get sent more “projects,” and as Todd explains, it can begin to seem like Groundhog Day. On top of that, you’re not going to succeed every time. We discuss the nature of success and how many times you might fail for every

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0:45:53

Episode 067 - Flippin' Firefighters with Todd Edwards...

Combustible ·

2020/02/29

The illusion of a perfect fire is a tempting one, but it’s also just that: an illusion. In the first part of our discussion with Todd Edwards, we talk about the “perfect fire,” the nature of evaluating our performance at every fire, and Todd’s approach that there are at least three things on every fire that we did well. And when we turn our attention to those things we didn’t do well, Todd explains that we should always start with “Why?” We also talk to Todd about his desire to pass along

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01:09:38

Episode 066 - The Bandwagon with Payton Owens

Combustible ·

2020/02/17

Payton Owens came to the fire service, left, grew an impressive beard, and then came back again. When he left the department, he had some pretty serious stuff going on in his personal life, but he freely admits: he had become pretty disgruntled with the job. Payton got gruntled and came back. His reasons for returning and his perspective are a large part of this episode, but we also discuss “easy decisions” and what part trust plays in decisions that don’t go your way. We pressure Payton to admit

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0:09:17

Episode 065 - Outtakes: We're All In on Plan A

Combustible ·

2019/12/29

A short side discussion from one of our recording sessions about what’s at the nature of success when operating on the fireground: adaptability.

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0:12:12

Episode 064 - Outtakes: Command NOT Control in Knots

Combustible ·

2019/12/14

This quick discussion was born out of an article called “Command NOT Control” by Eric Saylors. Not all of us had read the article, and Shane and Pabel (who did read it) aren’t sure if they agree with it or not. Just when the discussion might be getting going, our appointed time to interview Chris Wessels sneaks up on us, and he’s calling in. We might have to pick this topic up again in the future.

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01:04:29

Episode 063 - Talking Shop with Chief Chris Wessels

Combustible ·

2019/11/26

When we sat down to talk to Chief Chris Wessels, we had a specific topic in mind that we thought we would cover. But what happens so often with the best conversations happened here; the conversation itself led us to places we didn’t think we were going to go. In this episode, we speak with Chief Wessels about respect inside the firehouse, millennials, mental health, what to do when you don’t get promoted, and a whole lot more. We certainly enjoyed ourselves, and some of what Chris had to say really

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0:08:33

Audiobook: America Burning - Chapter Twenty: What...

Combustible ·

2019/10/21