Hello. Gordon Graham here with a contribution to the ongoing BLOG here at the Fire Credit Union website. My hat is off to you for the fine job you do everyday as a fire service professional, and particularly with respect to your recent fantastic work during the wildland fires throughout Southern California.

I am a bit tardy on this contribution, as I was asked a month ago to prepare this but I waited to see what Chief Stein wrote (I always defer to Chief Stein) and how to properly format this writing. I read with great interest his thoughts on Ethics. So I will complement what he has to say and in future contributions I will go my own way with independent threads of thought.

I cannot think of a hotter topic in America today than Ethics. Violations of the rules of integrity and ethics can have major consequences including embarrassment and loss of employment. In fact in my profession (law enforcement) one of the leading causes of termination from employment is ethics related. And while I will probably address this in greater detail in a later piece, so many of these problems started with a violation of law or Department Policy. However, the importance of having good policies and following the good policies is not my focus today.

So with this in mind, how has public safety answered the call for increasing ethics in our respective professions? Why, we send people to ethics training! And that must be the answer. Training is always the answer. Whenever we have a problem, there must be a training solution to the problem. Well, this thinking is only partially right.

It is my belief that the fire service is not an “evil cauldron” that hires good people and turns them into bad people. No, the fire service occasionally hires bad people and puts them into a position of public trust where they continue to perpetrate their nefarious behaviors.

Assuring that someone will behave ethically in the future starts with hiring people who have that core ingredient of integrity. Absent integrity, you have nothing. In my profession we regularly have cops getting in trouble for major breaches of ethics, and each of them has been to ethics training. I do not know all the facts surrounding the recent indictment of a major Sheriff from a local county not to far from here but some of the allegations in the indictment are very troubling. My guess is that he (and his former Undersheriff who is already in jail) had attended “ethics” training.

Every police department gives their cops ethics training at point of hire. Some of the involved agencies even give a test and these cops (now mostly ex-cops) passed the test and some of them passed with 100% on the ethics test.

No, ethics is more than training. Having a piece of paper that says that someone went to a class on ethics is not the total answer. This is just as silly as thinking that sending someone to Harassment training will guarantee that they will treat people right at work. Assuring future ethical behavior starts with hiring people who have that core ingredient of integrity. And since you cannot test for integrity, you must default to the old rule that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Background investigations must be conducted for every applicant to your department. And if your response is that you cannot afford to do these backgrounds, I will respond with the simplistic statement that you cannot afford not to do them.

And you must look for past behaviors that are ethically wrong. And if you find them (and in some cases a single event is indicative), you can predict with a high level of confidence that similar behavior will again occur. In a longer writing I would also tell you that there are some limited exceptions to this line of thinking in terms of frequency, severity and elapsed time since the misconduct.

Assuring future ethics continues with solid initial training during the initial academy.
Many of our new hires have integrity, but we must fully inculcate them into the ethics of our respective professions. Some of the ideas that otherwise good people have regarding public safety are off the mark, and we need to assure that each of our new hires understand the ethics of the profession.

Next, we must decentralize ethics training. Rather than having ethics training as a standalone class one time in time some time ago, we must incorporate ethics into every class we teach our good people. Whatever the topic is, build in a discussion on ethics specific to the topic being addressed. Then, every time we train we are giving our people an ethics “booster shot” to further assure ethical behavior.

Finally, when personnel cross the bright line of ethics and integrity, that deviation from “proper conduct” must be addressed. For all of you who are supervisors and managers who may be reading this missive, you must act when you become aware of a deviation from solid ethical behavior. To ignore the wrongful behavior only ratifies future inappropriate behavior. Ultimately, you will have nasty consequences that cannot be ignored and everyone who hears of the consequences will tell you “I knew that was going to happen because it (or something similar) has happened before”. And now it is too late to do anything about it as the bell has been rung.

So to close this first attempt at stimulating some thought on this great website, please remember that “ethics” is part and parcel of everything you do. It is not only important to do things right, but it is important to make sure that the right thing is done right.

Until next time, please take the time to work safely.

Gordon Graham

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 9:01 am and is filed under FD Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.