The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How Incident Management Team Members and Project Managers Can Follow the Noble Viking Virtue | PPP #54

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Sharing how IMT members and PMs can apply Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, and Perseverance to fieldwork and in the board room.More on these at https://bavipower.com/blogs/bavipower-viking-blog/the-nine-noble-virtues

From around 800 AD to the 11th century, a vast number of Scandinavians left their homelands to seek their fortunes elsewhere. These seafaring warriors, known collectively as Vikings or Norsemen, i.e. Northmen, began by raiding coastal sites, and settlers on much of Britain and the European continent, as well as parts of modern-day Russia, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. Vikings, project management, incident management. What do these have to do with each other? Well, on today, on episode 54, the nine noble Viking Virtues for Incident and Project Managers. I'll go through from various scripts from LearnReligions.com and History.com these nine virtues that we can apply

as incident and project managers. Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress podcast. Remember to visit peopleprocessprogress.com. Hit me up on PPP underscore POD on Instagram. We have a Facebook page, all that stuff. But if you go to the website, the.com, you will have all the connections. So Vikings, been on a kick with my workouts and traveling, listening to Viking war drums as a playlist on Spotify, which is super cool. I highly recommend it. It's pretty motivational

when you're swinging a kettlebell or doing pull-ups or just trying to grind through something. And it's got that neat kind of medieval tribal feel. So Vikings, they were conquerors, tough folks, you know, big Scandinavian people and I thought, you know, thinking about watching the show Vikings, watching movies, I'm a big fan of the book by Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead, which was made into the movie The 13th Warrior. Very cool movie, neat story, really cool poem, the one that starts with Lo, there is my father, that kind of thing, when they were in their last battle. And then thought about what were the Vikings' principles?

What were their virtues? Beyond conquering, beyond settling areas and seafaring, what was kind of at their core as people, right? And so how can we apply those in our processes and incident management folks and project management folks? So a foot in each of those worlds again today on this episode, and then how can that help us make progress in each of those worlds? So my thought and my source for this is learningreligions.com, Noble Virtues of Asatru. So that's like the ancient kind of Viking mythology or religion. Remember they were pagans. So they believed in

nature and Odin and Thor and all that Norse mythology. So some of these came from the words of Odin or the Havamal. I probably said that wrong. I apologize for my Scandinavian listeners out there. Poetic and prose, Eddas are old Norse poems, and then a bunch of Icelandic sagas that have been gathered. And there's typically, when you look these up, kind of nine noble Viking virtues. And so that's what we're going to go through. So the first one we're going to start with is courage, both physical and moral courage, right? Because there's the physical courage to get into something, to go lift the car off the person or go into battle like the Vikings used to. For me, when I think of folks in kind of the primary, if you will, professions of public safety, there's police, fire, EMS or emergency medical systems and 911 dispatchers. Those are kind of the four big buckets, I'll say.

And you have to have courage to even get into that. So many members of incident management teams come from one of those four. Sure, there's public health, public works, all those, but primarily incident management teams come from public safety. This alone speaks to the courage of its members already, right? As an IMT member, you're also going to deploy to an area devastated by a tornado, or you're going to organize thousands of searchers that are trying to find someone that was kidnapped, or you're going to work with the Secret Service on a high-profile government event, right? All of those things take courage to want to get involved in as a new person, work your way up, and we'll get into some of that later.

But to me, that's a moral courage, right? That you're willing to have a bag ready, get the call and go. And now contrast that to a project manager. Think about the courage it takes to step into a profession where you know you'll have some sort of matrix reporting structure, maybe not direct, no one actually works for you. You're going to have to bring people that you've never met together, right? In some instances to work on a project some have never heard of, like it could be the first time you're explaining to them and then be asked to keep everybody moving in the right direction. And you have to have the courage to speak up when you need to, to help, you know, push back on folks that are maybe pushing it at the schedule or the resources or whatever.

And there's a courage in that, both physically going there every day and now getting on these Zoom calls every day back to back. So just think about it. So the first of these nine noble virtues from Vikings, courage for incident and project managers. So maybe think about those as we work those in. The second one is truth. And as they say in this resource, LearnReligions.com, spiritual and actual truth. And so it's in management teams, it behooves us to know what is the ground truth out there? Are we stopping the flow of water from the flood or are we not? And there's no getting around it,

right? Don't sugarcoat how well we're doing. Did we miss something in the planning meeting? Does something come up later? We go, oh man, I forgot about this. Okay, let's circle back. Or do we brush it under the rug, which we should never do. We should really be having those unfiltered, right? Non-political truths that help us keep going forward and make good decisions. keep our people in the field safe, that's a truth that we have to make safer and more efficient decisions. As a project manager, similarly to something in the planning meeting, did we miss a step in the planning process? Did we identify how we're going to hand this project off for support early enough? Did we wait too long? Why is our project in the yellow or in the red, as they say?

Be honest about it, right? Not they, them. No one told me. I asked for this, right? What could you have done as a project manager? What can your team do? Why are you here? Be honest with it.

Ask for the help you need and make sure there's a clear path of how you get back to that green, that good to go status, because that's the only way that's going to help us through your truth as a project manager and a project team to get forward. The third aspect, the third value here, Viking value, is honor. Deeds, words, and reputation outlive our bodies, they say in the Viking world from some of these quotes. Incident management-wise, this is similar to that truth. Be honorable to know that when we mess up, we own it, we accept it, and we make it right. The example I've given here in the past is I was a resource unit leader on a really big event and my folks did stuff on their own, which is great because they took initiative, worked hard,

and it wasn't the most efficient. I didn't do, I didn't trust, but verify, go check it out, see how it was set up. Started hearing from folks, hey, this is having some issues, checking is taking too long. And I said, okay, let me go look at it and realized I hadn't provided the guidance that I should have to make a good flow. And so my folks did what they did, worked their buns off. We had some healthy disagreement as we should have, because they were there for a day and a half or so working it and I show up and it's like, oh, now you're going to come tell us. So own it, understand it, have the honor to say, you know what? I screwed that up. Ask our staff.

Are we asking our staff to do things that we wouldn't do or haven't done ourselves? This particularly comes into the piece where folks want to come on the incident management team and jump right to be a section chief. Well, have you been a field observer and then worked your way up through the situation unit and then become a plans chief? Have you done a status check and recorder where you have a clipboard and a piece of paper and you sign people in and then you're a resource unit leader and then you're a plans chief? And I've talked about that. When we started my team, we were new to incident management. We started at the chief level and realized, holy smokes, we need to go back and work our way back up. So we did. And as we work people through, we did the same thing. There was huge value in that because it shows you came up from the ground up. It's just like, as I mentioned, a lot of public safety folks in incident management,

did you come up from a street cop to a sergeant to a lieutenant? Did you come up as a line firefighter or a dispatcher and then work your way up? So don't make, and as I talked to James Gearing on Behind the Shield when I was on his show, there are some folks that make it to leadership positions and incident command. It's an academic exercise. Well, don't make it that way. Make it that you're going to lead and know honorably because you have been there a bit and we're going to own our mistakes and own what we don't know and just admit it. As a project manager, this comes with, are we getting our status reports done? Are our timesheets done? Are we updating our schedule? Even when we're tired, burned out these days, Zoom after Zoom after Zoom, right? Administrative stuff is not as exciting as getting the other work done and then

we're ready to clock out for the day, but we realize, holy smokes, I didn't get this done. I need to do the honorable thing and get it done. Do we follow up too on our committed actions from a meeting? So if we our committed actions from a meeting? So if we get action items from a meeting and we make sure we've noted those and we follow up on them and we take action on them and we close the loops. So that honor in deeds, words, and reputation that's going to outlive us at whatever organization, whether it's on our incident management team or our project team, is we can all strive for that to be the most honorable we can for ourselves and our teammates.

Four of these nine Viking virtues for incident and project managers is fidelity. So in the Viking speak, it's remaining true to the gods, kinsmen, spouse, and family. And of course, the Vikings were pagans. They believed in nature and Thor and Odin and these different gods. So that was their belief. So one of those was being true to the word of Odin as they believed, which was their high father. Fidelity for an incident management team member, in my mind, is staying committed to the team on a regular basis, not just for the high profile events or career boosting opportunities. If you only show up when there's going to be high profile, when you can say, hey, I was part of this great thing, look at me, and you just want to be a chief,

that's not good fidelity and being true to your team and doing the best. What should happen is your teammates should see you regularly at trainings, planned events, no notice incident responses. And I'd be interested to hear from some of you that are on incident management teams of various levels if there's a core group that always seems to be the same faces that show up. I know I've seen that before at the trainings they're there, at the meetings they're there, at the events they're there, at the responses they're there, and maybe that core group is way less in number than the entire membership of your team. If you're an incident management team leader or organizer, I would take a look at that and make sure that you have fidelity among your members. And if you've got twice as many

people, but only half show up regularly, start pruning. And we don't need a lot of people, we need good people on incident management teams. And as a project manager, the fidelity of being true to your team, are your team members, your project team, are they top of mind? Do you consider their wellness, their efficiency, their continuing improvement as part of your charge as a project manager? If you notice something that your team's doing and you have opportunity or knowledge to help them, are you reaching out, right? Are you talking to them, not just about work, not at them, not just, you know, getting on the meeting, doing the agenda, going through that, and then getting off. Have that connection. That's a big part of your work family, if you will. And are you honest but supportive for your organization with both internal and external partners? So that fidelity towards your organization, when you're with partners,

vendors outside of your organization, there's a difference in how you can talk about things that have to do with your organization when you have outside folks that aren't employees of the same company than there are when it's just internal people. And either way, you don't want to be bashing your office, the organization, all that kind of stuff. So that fidelity, that loyalty, that being true to your organization is something as a project manager that you need to be conscious of. So when you have those partners on, don't air any dirty laundry of your organization. When you're internal only even, try and keep things moving positive, but stick with that truth we talked about. And there's a balance in being truthful, but still having that fidelity, if that makes sense. So number five is discipline.

And, of course, that is a huge thing, as Jocko Willink says in his Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, and always discipline is the root of all good qualities. It's a great quote. For the Vikings here, it's discipline, using one's personal will to uphold honor and other virtues, right? As an incident management team member, are you working the process fully when possible, right?

Because we've talked about sometimes you don't, you're not going to go all around that planning P and do every single step. You can kind of cut to different things or you pencil whipping something and changing names and changing dates because you don't feel like it. You don't know how to do it, which is not a good excuse. Ask questions, find someone else that does. And it's just unsafe, right? So even if it's a cursory run through the process, hey, are we good with these objectives

still from last year? Cool, nope. Okay, let's change them. Hey, what about these tactics? Let's just run through this real quick. So even if you don't change a ton of stuff, still walk through the process. Another question to ask is, are we really checking resources and tracking them for real and demobilizing them for real? Or are we just saying, hey, they showed up, they're here, they said they're good, and then they went home?

Which is, you know, if you have a multi-day event or incident response is not a great way to do it. You're not really tracking people so that if something happens, you can get people to their location. It's critical, right? And a big practical component of not planning well and maybe not doing good check-in is, are you as a team, are you as a team member, particularly if you're in planning or logistics, do we have all our radio channels pre-planned

and documented across the incident action plan, right? So we've talked about, I've given the example of walking out of a meeting the day before the actual event, which was a big like protest thing. And people are looking and turning channels. Well, I guess we can just use this channel, which is a horrible place to be in.

So do the process, be disciplined in it, discipline yourself to pick those radio channels, work with your communications unit folks, your dispatch folks, and get them documented across like they should be. So if someone pulls out their 1204 work assignment sheet and it's got their channels on the bottom, they're good to go. If it doesn't have it and they don't know how to get a hold of somebody or they can't get them on their cell or the channels are blocked or whatever, that's not a good day. So discipline to me on the project management side, and it could still be on a plan chief side,

but for project managers is, are you as a project manager able to keep meetings on track or redirect them if the discussion heads down a rabbit hole? So that happens, we can have an agenda all day long. Someone says, hey, I just want to talk about this one thing, and then boom, you're off in the other direction. To me, a good test of this is, can you, with a 30-minute meeting, accomplish what has typically taken 60 minutes, right? And that's an efficiency thing. I remember we were on a staff

ride in Gettysburg with some of my teammates, some of kind of the dream team plans, other folks, so experienced, we gelled together, and it was like, hey, man, we all had to go through this exercise of leading an operational period briefing, right? And so it was, hey, you get 12 minutes or less was the challenge and loser buys the beers. I think some of us did it. I think I may have missed it by a few seconds. So I bought a round.

But that's a great test, right? How can you deliver the information succinctly, allow some conversation around it, and then get everybody out of the meeting? Because again, if it's a weekly sync, 30 minutes is plenty because you should just be checking in for anything that's just happened. It shouldn't be the time you're working out all the problems. That should happen ad hoc and in between and just direct. So think about that. Can I do in 30 minutes what typically takes 60? Also, when it comes to charters, they're pretty high level, they're early, right? There's some, you know, kind of science and magic to those. There's some straight book stuff. But

what I think in the chartering pieces, are we chartering them at a high level with good objectives, right? So are we taking the time to really have good objectives, not just make a statement that sounds neat, but one that is smart, right? Again, it's specific. It's a measurable thing. It's achievable based on what we think at the time, because it's early in the project. It's realistic. And it's time based, right throughout the duration of the project or within the first six months or whatever. But really think about that. So that discipline is a huge factor in the success of us individually as incident management team members and project managers for our incident management teams, for our project teams, and the

discipline can help us be more efficient. The sixth is hospitality, right? Pretty straightforward, treating others with respect and being part of a community. And for incident managers, when you're tired, when that fatigue kicks in, when you arrive at the tornado-torn locality, show up with a smile and a handshake. And I know we're in COVID land these days, so folks don't want to shake hands. But at some point, that'll happen. Maybe we do an elbow bump for an hour, fist bump, or whatever. But the folks you're there to help are having a worse day than you, most likely. And even if they're not, let's say you had something horrible happen, but you chose to go, it's a tough time to show up and be in a tough spot. At that point,

that's when you need to self-assess and say, you know what, I don't need to go have that discipline to say, I can't go, I got to worry about things so that you can have hospitality when you get to the locality that has, you know, people that are hurt or infrastructure that's destroyed or that member of the community that went missing or whatever it is, and make them feel better with your smile and your handshake. And we're here to help and we'll help make it better and boom, right? Also on incident management teams and in public safety, but particularly since we're talking about the teams, do you welcome new members, partners and other incident management team members into the fold of your team with open arms, especially new members, right?

Most public safety folks that haven't done a lot of real incident management team work get super overwhelmed because they come in, they start seeing maybe some things, they finally get to that 0305 week-long class, which is pretty in your face. Here's a whole bunch of stuff. Now we're going to throw you in the mix. You're in charge of way more stuff than you are when you're just on the engine or just in the squad car or dispatching people or in the ambulance. And it's a big thing. So help them come in there. Remember, we were all new at some point. And so put yourself back in the shoes of you being new on the incident management team and help shore up gaps that you had and make it better and welcome them. Also partners, right? Maybe you have folks observing the team. You don't need to brag all

the time and be like, we're so awesome, but bring them in, let them work, put them in a position where you can shore them up and help other partner incident management teams. Just because they're a guest on your team doesn't mean your team is right. Have an open mind, open heart, show them that hospitality and welcome them, right? And help get them up to speed and make them feel welcome. Project managers, you know, you're the host of the weekly check-in meetings or whatever tempo you have. Do you ask folks how they are? Not just at work, but outside of work, right?

Sometimes in Zoom calls these days or other meetings, there's a silence and people are checking their phones and nobody wants to connect. Well, you know what? That's what hospitality is all about, right? Respectful, be part of that community, build that community within your project team, share something about yourself. When someone's like, hey, how are you?

Just be like, oh, living the dream or doing this. Be like, oh, you know, I'm a little tired today. Yeah, I had this. My kids are doing that. School, right? We can relate. I think one thing this lockdown has done, these crazy school schedules,

this world that we live in has helped us humanize each other outside of work because everybody's dealing with some crazy stuff. And we knew that before, but it was easier. We would commute, do our work, go home, or we weren't zooming all the time. We weren't isolated enough, but you know what? We're all dealing with very similar stuff. There's some folks dealing with a lot more than others, but share something about yourself as a project manager. And also, it's hospitable when you're using that discipline to be mindful of others' time and work to

consolidate meetings when necessary or cancel them. If you have a redundant meeting or someone says, hey, can we set up another meeting? And you have a weekly one set up already, just be like, no, we have this week of the meeting. Let's just repurpose it and then go from there. Or again, use that discipline, make it more efficient, be hospitable and get folks out of there. Our seventh value is industriousness. So industriousness, hard work, right? As a means to achieve a goal. So on instant management teams, there's no getting around that to be really helpful for the team and the folks you're going to help you got to put in hard work you got to put you know put in time at each level as i mentioned right you're going to be a staff member then a unit leader then a section

chief and so you've got to work hard you got to grind and again to get your task book signed off that makes you credentialed as an incident management team member at whatever level you have to put in the work through not just exercises, not just talking to somebody, but they have to see you in the field doing the work, which is fantastic. I think that's an outstanding aspect of the incident management team credentialing process. And also, if you are the section chief already that does have the experience, you have to be industrious to the point where you can imagine how your section is going to work in the middle of nowhere out of a tent with or without power. You can't imagine that everyone's computers and phones are charged. You've got all the power and

water that you need. You've got pre-printed lists of everyone that's going to show up. Imagine how you're going to do it from scratch with a pencil and a notepad. That's industrious. Anything above that is gravy. Project managers, how are we keeping our teams moving forward during COVID, right? Do we know our tools? Are you industrious to the point where you know Zoom and Teams and whatever other tools you're using, online collaboration tools? You should, because oftentimes we're going to help other people learn how to use them. Are we considering a professional credential? Are we being industrious if we are? And again, I've posted about this. I actually posted a LinkedIn thing sharing some of that. I think it's approaching 8,000 shares and views,

which is pretty awesome. But it's to the point of if you're going to talk about wanting to get a credential, you got to put some skin in the game. You have to learn what the process is. You have to study the materials. You have to take a gazillion practice questions, and then you have to sit for the test. No amount of asking on LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora is going to help. There's no shortcut. Bottom line is you have to put in the work, period. So industriousness, that's a huge factor in both incident management team members and project manager success. In addition to being industrious, you have to be self-reliant. And that's our eighth of these nine noble virtues for incident management project managers from the Vikings.

So from the Viking standpoint, self-reliance is care of oneself while still maintaining relationships with the deity. And of course, the deity for them was Odin and Thor and all them. I have parentheses around my notes here. Whatever god, deity you believe in or don't believe in. But self-reliance is, to me, really care for yourself. Are you, as an incident management team member, in decent shape? Does your health affect your ability to deploy? If so, what are you doing about it? Are you gassed after you carry a couple boxes from the truck to the tent? If you are, you need to meet with your doctor. You need to get in better shape, make yourself more deployable.

That's a huge factor of being effective as part of the incident management team. You don't have to get up early and exercise every day and train your jiu-jitsu and do all that stuff that I do and others do, but going for a walk regularly, stretching, just doing something, right? Because sometimes we can get in a sedentary lifestyle and it's just not healthy and we don't want folks that become casualties.

And as much as I love being a medical unit leader, the last thing I wanted to do was actually treat one of my people, particularly from a heart issue from maybe not being in the best physical shape that folks could be in. And again, I touched on this with the industrialist, but self-reliance wise, can you, if you are that section chief, go ahead and set up your own space. So while you want to ask logistics for stuff and space, you need to be able to set yourself up, set what your workspace, your resource needs, and your operational tempo in your mind, and then get that going with

your team instead of having to ask the incident commander or somebody else. Or that's part of getting to know your job and doing your job as an incident management team leader. For project managers, similar. Do you exercise before or after work? If not, why? Do you take time to get up, walk a lap around your house these days or down the street, then come back to that project plan? If you're sitting in your chair for hours and hours not getting up and sometimes they get

caught in this loop when you're being really efficient and you're like, oh, I just need to keep going. But you know, your back starts hurting, your legs, your hamstrings get tight, all that kind of stuff. Exercise is one of the best therapies, especially in these days. All you need is a floor. All you need are some shoes to go outside. You do not need a whole gym at your house. It's very easy to get a killer workout, even a moderate one. Amazon, YouTube, look up yoga, look up body weight exercises. It will 100% make your day better if you've done something physically tough in the morning before your day, which is my preference these days. Or you know what, after work, if you kind of get something done that way. Do you know your organization so that

you can anticipate perhaps resource needs, right? So self-reliance wise, do you take the time to figure out who's who in your organization? Who are these folks that you're going to ask for resources from? Do your homework, right? I get it if maybe you're new somewhere or you're not familiar. Of course, ask questions all day. Once you know where the tools are, once you know where the org charts are, once you know maybe where your resource lists are, go look them up, learn them, figure it out, and then ask other folks, hey, I looked for this. I couldn't find it. Is there somewhere else I can look? And that's it. Self-reliance is an incident management team member and a project manager. If we can take care of ourselves and then click into the greater good, we can then make our teams more efficient that are going to do more good for others.

The ninth of these noble Viking virtues for incident management team members and project managers is perseverance. To continue pushing onward despite potential obstacles. And as of October 2020, gosh, what a great virtue to end this list of nine Viking virtues than perseverance, right? We have persevered through months and months of a lockdown, which at this point I think is pretty crazy. And again, as I've talked about, really, it should be isolate the folks that are sick, quarantine the folks that are exposed, but you know what? It's happening. We're pushing through it. And there are folks out there that are persevering through much more, through cancer, through COVID, through losing their business, their jobs, the police working through everybody.

A lot of folks, not everybody because I certainly don't hate the police, but a lot of folks looking down on them. For minorities, having people look at them, not always favorably. And our country stepping back and looking at itself, at how we're doing things well, how we're not. Sometimes with crazy nonsense coming over the different media platforms or on social media or whatever. But from the Vikings, this perseverance is us continuing to push onward despite potential obstacles. If you're on an incident management team, do we push through that 2300 hours right 11pm work session to finalize the incident action plan? Do we get those copies made and prepare for the next day's 0500 operational period and briefing?

That's hard, but sometimes we have to push through those late nights. There's changes that happen. There's things that we have to do. Can we keep working with high quality when it's time to demobilize so we don't just cut corners and say, okay, everybody can go ahead? Are we self-reliant enough? Do we have the discipline enough?

Are we healthy enough to stay up late, to work that hard? Another very administrative thing but makes a huge difference, do we have the perseverance to push through, not cut corners, from the aspect of providing that comprehensive dock box to those who were there to deploy? That's literally what it means, a documentation box, a well-organized, here's the documentation that we use to help you with your incident that we came to try and make better

so that for your records, when you try and get grant funds in the future or people use it for insurance, we have actually helped give you this tool. That's a huge thing. Nobody wants to do it near the end. Nobody wants to track it, but it's critical. Project managers, are you practicing perseverance such that if your primary plan fails, are you ready with your alternate, your contingency, and your emergency plans? Remember that pace planning? Are you ready to help a tired, burned out, and potentially storming project team work towards the project milestones and eventually through closing. Your charge as a project manager is to show up at a team,

whether it's in the beginning and everybody's getting along great, or whether it's mid-stride through the project when maybe things are difficult, folks are butting heads, people are already tired of it, and to get them going again, rebuild relationships to close loops in communication and get them through the milestones or get to the point that says you know what the solution isn't going to work

go back to that honesty that truth and say we need something else to me I think these virtues are not just for conquering pagans such as the Vikings that believe in the god of thunder and Odin that have cool war drum music and axes me, I think these virtues are not just for conquering pagans such as the Vikings that believe in the God of Thunder and Odin to have cool war drum music and axes. The nine noble

virtues of Nordic lore, to me, apply to us personally, outside of work, but also very much to our professional lives as incident management team members and project managers. I don't think it's a stretch at all. So as you all go forward, and again, thank you for listening to the podcast, subscribing, sharing, please throw a rating up there on whatever platform you're listening on. I wish you all the best. I hope that you all can review these, think through this, think through these nine noble virtues of courage, truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, industriousness, self-reliance, and perseverance. We can all persevere in our personal and professional fights through this weird time of 2020, through the elections coming up. I wish you all the best.

I hope you stay safe out there. Please wash your hands and Godspeed.