Chief Kelleher on creating a culture in the workplace

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
that here, obedient to their law, we lie. — Simonides’s epigram at Thermopylae

From Sparta’s stand under King Leonidas against the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae to the courage displayed by firefighters and police officers, people have stood in awe at the inspired bravery of emergency responders and military units. Many times, while growing up and reading about outstanding organizations and the people who served in them, I often wondered what molded and fashioned such individuals. What spirit creates such dedication among men and women that they will lay down their very lives rather than dishonor the regiment, profession or cause that they hold dear? In my youth I attributed such bravery to morale.

It wasn’t until I had served in the military, the police department and the fire department that I began to understand that “morale” was the product of something and not a stand-alone, amorphous, incomprehensible factor similar to a virus that just inexplicably was bestowed on organizations or groups by accident. First I thought, as many educators and “management specialists” have concluded, that high morale could be directly attributed to good working conditions, good pay and, in large measure, to good management.

Therefore, it should follow if you pay people enough, give them pleasant surroundings and efficient management, morale will be high. After several years in management I found to my astonishment that this was not always the case. As a matter of fact it was seldom the case. There had to be some other factor that might encompass a few of the above elements but could not be quantified or charted by business schools or think tanks.

While walking through a large semiconductor facility with a process engineer who had come up through the ranks, I was receiving, as a new employee, a rundown of all of the in’s and out’s of his large production facility. The experienced hand mentioned in passing that I would quickly get the drift relative to the production equipment and the manufacturing process but “that he thought it would take some time for me to become acculturated to my new environment”. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, I experienced an epiphany; each organization that I had belonged to, and every company that I had ever worked in, had its own distinct culture.

The culture existed outside of the normal work rules, company policies, and benefits. It was seldom defined as such. The culture, in the end, quite often, especially in a crisis, influenced the relative success or failure of the group. It always had a profound impact on the way the people who worked with the group viewed the organization and, more importantly, the way they viewed themselves. The culture of the organization was the key to morale and the overall performance of the group. If that were the case, the next question became how does one instill or create a culture that will facilitate the happiness, pride, and success of the people who work in an organization and hence the success of the organization itself? If you can deliberately set out to consciously create this type of healthy work environment, would the folks who worked there realize it, or even value it?

I have found in life that most truths that deal with human behavior are relatively simple. Find a basic truth that everyone understands; articulate that self-evident truth, stick with it through trial and tribulation (in other words convince people that you really mean it), and the culture will form around that basic human value. The task at hand then became what basic value do we all share, no matter what background we come from; the answer again was not complex — the desire to be treated fairly. How does one articulate that to a group of people simply stated so that all will believe it and so that there can be no mistaking your intent? Here it got real easy. It was all said a long time ago by someone a lot smarter than I. Simply put, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Can you build an organization around that? You had better believe you can.

That is the prime management directive in the Fire Department of Maricopa. That statement drives our culture. Our mission is one of great importance. It is one of compassion and love. If we don’t have compassion and love for one another at work how can we share this with the public we serve? Like charity compassion begins at home. We have a few other simple rules, “Tell the truth,” be on time and never bring discredit to our mission or our department.

Perhaps after this long preamble these few lines might be a disappointment to the reader. But I assure you these simple rules drive our culture in F. D. Maricopa. I think they would suffice for any organization.

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