How you show up for your team is what builds a career.
In the fire sprinkler industry, we talk a lot about systems: designs, installations, inspections, code compliance. But the most important system in any company isn’t on a set of drawings. It’s the people. How a team communicates, supports each other, shares knowledge, and holds itself accountable determines everything: quality of work, speed of execution, culture, and reputation.
The following ten practices aren’t complicated. They don’t require a certification or years of experience. They require intention. When a whole team commits to them, the results are extraordinary.
1. Listen First
In this trade, we spend a lot of time talking: coordinating crews, directing installs, troubleshooting in the field. The best teammates know that listening is the real skill. Before you solve, advise, or redirect, make sure you fully understand what’s being said. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” — Stephen Covey
2. Clear is Kind
Vague instructions, sugarcoated feedback, and avoided conversations might feel polite in the moment, but they create confusion, mistakes, and resentment down the line. In a field where precision matters, clarity isn’t harsh; it’s respectful. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and give people the information they need to keep moving forward.
There’s a cultural shift worth noting here. As a society, we’ve softened our communication, and while more empathy and awareness is genuinely good, we sometimes go too far. You see it in parenting: a mom asking her two-year-old, “Do you want to put your shoes on, okay?” when the shoes are going on regardless. The child doesn’t need a vote; they need direction. The same is true at work. When you hedge every instruction into a question or bury critical feedback in so many qualifiers it gets lost, you’re not being kind. You’re being unclear. And unclear is unkind.
“Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” — Brené Brown
3. Embrace Feedback
Feedback is a gift, even when it doesn’t feel like one. Great teammates don’t get defensive when someone points out a better way; they get curious. In the fire sprinkler industry, where the stakes are high and the margin for error is small, the ability to receive and act on feedback isn’t optional. It’s professional. The people who grow fastest aren’t the most talented; they’re the most coachable.
The next time someone offers you a critique, try replacing your first reaction with a simple: “Thank you, tell me more.”
A practical tip: If you find feedback hard to receive in the moment, write it down as it’s being given. Putting pen to paper shifts you from emotional reaction to active processing. It slows your thinking down in the best way. And don’t let jargon go unchecked. If a word or phrase could mean different things to different people, ask for clarity. Misunderstood feedback is worse than no feedback at all.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw
4. Accountability & Trustworthiness
Do what you say. Say what you do. It sounds simple, and it is. But it’s also one of the rarest qualities on any job site. When you commit to a timeline, show up. When you make a mistake, own it. When something changes, say so before someone must chase new info. Trust is built and lost in the small moments.
In this trade, your word is your reputation. A crew that trusts each other moves faster, communicates better, and delivers stronger results. You can’t buy that kind of culture. It must be earned, one kept promise at a time.
“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication.” — Stephen Covey
5. Share Wisdom
Every veteran in this industry has hard-won knowledge: lessons learned from inspections that didn’t go as planned, installs that required creative problem-solving, or code interpretations that took years to fully understand. That knowledge has value. But only if you share it.
Hoarding expertise might feel like job security, but it’s the opposite. Teams that share knowledge are more resilient, more consistent, and more competitive. When you teach someone else what you know, you don’t lose anything. You multiply it. The strongest companies in this industry aren’t centered around one person who knows everything; they’re built on teams where everyone is getting better because of each other.
If you know something, say something. Mentor up, mentor across, mentor down.
“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” — Phil Collins
6. Yes, And
In improvisational comedy, there’s a foundational rule: when your scene partner introduces an idea, you don’t shut it down. You build on it. You say “Yes, and…” and add to what they started. The result is something neither of you could have created alone.
Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton of The Second City, the legendary improv company that launched the careers of Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Bill Murray, wrote an entire book on this principle and how it applies to business. The core idea: collaborative thinking produces better outcomes than competitive thinking. When someone on your crew suggests a different way to approach a layout, a sequencing change, or a process improvement, your first instinct shouldn’t be to defend the old way. It should be to get curious. Add to it. Try it.
“Yes, and” isn’t about agreeing with everything. It’s about creating a team culture where ideas are welcomed, built upon, and elevated. That’s where innovation lives.
7. Empathy
There’s a saying that has proven true across industries, companies, and generations: people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers. At the heart of that truth is empathy, or the lack of it.
Empathy doesn’t mean you lower your standards or avoid hard conversations. It means you take a moment to consider what someone else is carrying before you react. The foreman who just missed a deadline might be managing a crew short three people. The apprentice who made the error might be two weeks in and terrified to ask questions. The project manager who seems distracted might be dealing with something you know nothing about.
In the fire sprinkler trade, pressure is constant: safety, deadlines, inspections, coordination. The teammates who make that pressure manageable are the ones who lead with understanding first. You don’t have to have all the answers. Sometimes just acknowledging someone’s reality is enough to keep the team moving forward together.
8. WIIF[Your Company]
Most of us are familiar with WIIFM: What’s In It For Me? It’s human nature. But great teammates have trained themselves to ask a different question: What’s in it for us? What’s best for the company?
Every day you make dozens of small decisions: how you spend your time, how you handle a difficult customer, whether you cut a corner or do it right, whether you speak up or stay quiet. Those decisions add up. When each person on a team filters their choices through the lens of the company’s best interest, the whole operation gets stronger. When they don’t, it erodes, slowly and quietly, until it isn’t quiet anymore.
This isn’t about blind loyalty or ignoring your own needs. It’s about recognizing that your company’s success and your success are the same thing.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.” — John F. Kennedy
9. Positive Mindset: Be a Balcony Person
There are two kinds of people on every team: basement people and balcony people. Basement people drain energy. They complain, they doubt, they pull others down without even realizing it. Balcony people do the opposite. They cheer from above. They see potential where others see problems. They make the people around them feel capable and motivated just by being in the room.
In a demanding industry like fire protection, where days are long, inspections are stressful, and projects rarely go exactly as planned, attitude is contagious. Be intentional about which kind you’re spreading. Choose the balcony.
“People may forget what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou
10. Communicate Proactively
Don’t wait to be chased down. If something changes, say so. If a deadline is at risk, flag it early. If you hit a problem in the field, make the call before it becomes someone else’s emergency. Proactive communication isn’t just a courtesy. In this industry, it’s the difference between a manageable issue and a costly one.
The instinct to stay quiet, hoping a problem resolves itself, or waiting until you have all the answers, is understandable, but it almost always makes things worse. Your team and your customers would rather hear bad news early than good news late. Over-communication is rarely a problem. Under-communication almost always is.
Be the person people can count on to keep them informed. That reputation is worth more than you think.
“If you don’t tell me, I probably don’t know, or I know another version of it.”
The best teams in this industry aren’t built by accident. They’re built by people who choose, every day, to show up with intention. These ten practices won’t make everything perfect. But they will make you someone your team is grateful to work beside. And in the long run, that matters more than almost anything else.
Lisa Salzman
CEO
Fire Tech Productions, Inc.
