ParkMan

Great examples - please keep them coming.

27 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

She called the course director I think last night.  Apparently the Patrol Guide allowed some members of the Patrol take over and plan the meeting in between the two weeks and left her out of the conversation.  Patrol Guide is supposed to have them revisit the meeting and he needs to be leading the effort.

Respectfully, I'd submit that it is the job of the patrol leader on day 3 to organize the timing of that meeting.  The troop guide should work with the patrol leader to verify that everyone can attend.  Sounds like the patrol leader didn't do their job correctly. 

It's not the job of the troop guide to lead anything - the troop guide is a guide.  In fact, by design our troop guide didn't even come to our meeting between the two weekends. 

33 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

One thing I have found from some Wood Badge people, certainly not all, but some.  Feedback is only a gift if its the feed back they want to hear.  If not, then you didn't give it a chance, you didnt try hard enough. you should leave the program, etc..  All of Wood Badge folks really need to sit down and have a refresher on the points of the Scout Law.

Good feedback - I think there is always room to work in more reminders about servant leadership and how to embrace feedback.  It wasn't until well after my course completed that I began to appreciate what it meant by "feedback is a gift."  Receiving feedback is essential to me accomplishing my goals.  Even negative feedback is critical to understanding how others perceive what I am trying to do.  I should want to know how others are perceiving what I am doing.

Hi @5thGenTexan,

Great question - regrettably, I don't have an immediate answer for you.  Can you remind us again of your position and longer term interest for what you want to do in Scouting?  I ask because I think a Cubmaster vs. Scoutmaster/Committee Chair realistically needs different technical skills.  

2 hours ago, 5thGenTexan said:

Person that I already knew that was in my group.... I was talking to her last night and on Saturday she went to car and cried because she wanted to leave.  Couldnt because the course was paid for her by someone else.  But she is not happy with the event at all.

 

AND!!!  On Friday night, they served us cheese enchilades...  the frozen kind that you throw in the oven and serve.  Very nasty.  🤮

Wow - that's awful.  I am under the impression that the quality of courses must vary widely based on the council you are in.  

In the most recent version of the course, National really has gone out of it's way to try & create a set of minimum standards.  I can only guess that it is for courses like yours.  I'm sorry to hear that it was done so poorly.  It has the potential to be so much more.  I'm really sorry to hear about it.

1 hour ago, 5thGenTexan said:

It probably did not help that our "guide" did not have ANY enthusiasm.  He was low volume and read the back of the flip chart to us and that was it.  I knew another person in my group already, but the rest didnt speak.  It was 10:00 am after being there since 7:30 am and I suggested to the guide that we introduce ourselves, what our positions were, etc

Yes - 100% I'm following that.  Troop Guide is one of the most important positions.  It's clearly important that troop guides be enthusiastic and well prepared.  Nerves are one thing, but they shouldn't simply be reading from the script.

I think that at about 7:35 am people should be introducing themselves. 

Great feedback!  Thank you

43 minutes ago, HICO_Eagle said:

In my opinion, demanding that someone with my background take Wood Badge was as silly as National demanding an Eagle Scout with 3 years working as an ASM to take IOLS.

I've found Wood Badge as it is today a pretty good experience for the vast majority of the participants.  Most people I talk to about it seemed to take something away and have had a good experience.  In my experience as a Scouter, I've never witnessed any discrimination because you didn't have your Wood Badge:

• No demands that anyone take Wood Badge
• No clubs that require earning Wood Badge to join
• No limits from volunteering for any district or council activity because you didn't earn your Wood Badge

Perhaps the thing we need to do is really clarify what Wood Badge is, is not, and cut through all the rumors about bad behavior around the courses and by former participants.

On 10/10/2020 at 10:34 AM, 5thGenTexan said:

1)  I have self confidence issues and depression and being in the environment of WB freaks the crap out of me.  It goes WAY beyond being out of my comfort zone.

2) I am a black and white thinker.  I can even start to think the way the material wants me to think.

On 10/10/2020 at 11:29 AM, 5thGenTexan said:

Aside from my anxieties.  I am the sort of person where I just want the material.  I am willing to sit there all day and watch it being presented.  Keep a supply of snacks during the day and Im good.  I have no tolerance for reflection and group discussions.  Just get it done.  I have 5 ticket ideas that I will probably go ahead and implement.  I dont need a new neckerchief or beads to know I am doing what needs to get done for my Unit.  I just wont be part of the club.

Thank you for the honesty about your experience.  This will help as people prepare for future courses - both from a participant and staff perspective. 

I think the course mixes different styles in order to bring value to the widest possible number of people.  For some, the value is in the lectures.  For some, comes from the hands on moments outside the lectures and prepared materials.  For some, they learn from hearing the perspectives of different people in the course.  Some simply enjoy the networking and camaraderie of the course.  Yet, I fully appreciate that some of these other styles are themselves off putting to participants like yourself.

I would love to hear your thoughts you may have on how the course can still leverage different techniques, yet still be something you would have been more comfortable in.  I very much appreciate that you gave this a try and ultimately decided it wasn't for you.  Your input is invaluable.

For what it's worth - don't sweat not getting your beads/neckerchief and not being part of "the club".   While friendships certainly develop out of the course, those friendships are really little more than people who know each other becoming friends.  After a course, they'll have spent 5 days together.  People tend to know each other more - but that's as far as it should go.  I have absolutely no idea who has their beads and who does not.  Most Scouters I know rarely wear their beads or neckerchief outside of training or other formal events.  Almost never is there a discussion about whether someone has their beads or not.  When it does happen, it's usually to simply note that someone would be a good person to take a the course.  We have a very strong Wood Badge tradition in our council and there most certainly is no "club".

Regardless of which mindset a leader is, I find that almost all of them follow the safety and youth protection rules.  For the most part the safety rules are reasonable.  For the most part the youth protection rules are reasonable as well.  I find that there are less than 5% of the rules that are the challenge.  These rules are frustrating because most unit leaders will follow them, but know well that their programs and not materially safer or stronger because of them.

I think @JoeBob's comment accurately captures the conversation that occurs in many troop committees:

23 hours ago, JoeBob said:

Use your common sense.   And remember that the bureaucrats/lawyers who wrote the fine print don't have any common sense.

Those 5% of the rules that are frustrating to them.  They look at those rules and say "ugh, I now cannot do this because some leaders with no common sense messed up."  Most leaders will follow these rules because they have to - it's the price of entry to being able to use the BSA programming.  But, it is not because they have some desire to comply with BSA rules.  It is simply something that they have to do.

The danger in all of these is that they tick off the BSA's primary customer - CO's and unit leaders.  Scouts are not the customer of the BSA, parents are not the customer of the BSA, councils are not the customer of the BSA - CO's and unit leaders are.  Unit leaders put on the program & unit leaders do the recruiting.   Unit leaders become the district and council volunteers that make the next layer go.  There is no Scouting without CO's & unit leaders.

So in short - rules are fine, scrutinize every new rule to make sure it is absolutely necessary, look for alternatives to simply adding another rule, & understand that unit leaders are the heart of what makes Scouting work.

Despite breaking up AT&T, the remnants of what was once have themselves evolved into a few very large companies.  It strikes me that we're better off today with having Verizon & AT&T both exist in the space that was one AT&T.  This forced competition with each other is a good thing. 

Competition is almost always good for business and it makes the companies involved stronger.  Products get better, their service gets better, and prices drop.  This is a good thing because is most areas there is always another choice - "do nothing".  Competition between the primary companies leads to the companies also doing a better job competing against that always present third choice of "do nothing."  I suspect that this is because companies that compete must relentlessly focus on knowing their market and their consumers.

If the bell system had not been broken up and these companies forced to compete, I suspect that we would not see the communications options we have today - lower cost long distance, cell phones, smart phones, data over mobile, etc...  When I was a kid you rarely called your family in a different city because each call was so expensive.  Today we call them without even thinking about it.  This competition has greatly expanded the impact of communications on our lives.  There are few people today who choose "do nothing" because of how impactful communication is.

Sorry to hear that it wasn't the experience for you. Thank you for trying and giving it the day.

I would be Interested to hear what in the program didn't resonate with your personality type.  As a staffer that kind of feedback is very helpful.

On 10/7/2020 at 3:35 PM, CynicalScouter said:

Mindset 1: You are an independent entity running YOUR youth program that happens to be using BSA's MATERIALS (including logos, images, names, and ranks).

Mindset 2: You are a unit leader/unit committee chair/chartered organization/registered adult leader that is running a BSA program.

Most units I know are following:

Mindset 3: You are a unit leader/unit committee chair/chartered organization/registered adult leader that is running a Scouting program based on the materials provided by the BSA.

Have a great time!  Your gear will fit right in.

Let us know how it goes.

6 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

One last point on this, and I want to keep it separated.

Many of the "frustrated" units will complaint among themselves or complain among other units, but they will not actually speak up to anyone else. It is easier to simply ignore the rule then to complain about it.

I will tell you that the SM of the most frustrated unit in my area (as In "Friends of Scouting will come to this unit over my dead body." frustrated) never complained to council and just makes snide comments when we see each other.

Leadership works both ways. You want things to change? Speak up, or sit down.

I understand very well what you are saying and am not dismissing it.  

The reason why you don't see more Scouters speaking up and doing something about problems is because it is a generally held notion that nothing will change.  People become disgruntled in their jobs because they feel they feel they are ignored, not valued, and that the lack influence.  This also happens when people feel marginalized.  When these things happens, people tend to retreat to the sphere that they have influence over.  This is what is happening in Scouting today.

Another way to look at authentic leadership is that it is trying to create a culture where the employees feel part of the team.  They know their leaders.  The understand the vision.  They understand the choices.  They trust the leadership.  You see this in companies where this is working well.  In fact, in these cases people often tend to refer to someone in their leadership chain by name.   Why?  Because they identify and trust that person.

We see very little of that in Scouting today.  We see example after example of stories from unit leaders who simply feel disconnected from the leadership, who feel marginalized.

I am in enough meetings where people say similar things to what you have - why don't the unit leaders step up?  Why don't they volunteer?  Why don't they support the district/council?  They don't because they feel disconnected and marginalized by the "institution."  It's easy to say that unit leaders need to stop whining and do more.  However, they don't do more because they don't feel a part of that institution.

You want to change that dynamic, it has to come from above.  The leadership needs to set the tone.

This topic is all about leadership styles and the BSA became the case study we all are discussing.  For the purposes of this topic, the leaders we are and have been discussing are the national leaders of the BSA.  Now, if we want to expand that to include council or even unit leaders - that is fine.  But, in doing so, let's not confuse that subject.  By leader here we are talking about someone who through their role is recognized as the leader of a group, team, or organization.

6 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Who cares who sets up the meeting, as long as the meeting happened? I will tell you the number of people who knew it was initiated district to council was small. The larger point was that when it came time to actually show up, few did.

The point is that the Council Key-3 showed up when asked and were ready to answer any/all questions and only 2 were asked.

Respectfully, that's not the point at all.  

Your district chair recognized a problem - people complaining.  He came up with a solution to that problem - get those people an audience with the council Key 3 so that could gripe to them.  That's trying to solve a problem - that's not authentic leadership.  It would be authentic leadership if the Council Key 3 said - hey, I recognize a problem in that we're not connecting with unit leaders and we need to - please District Chair, help us start an effort to better connect with the unit volunteers in your district.  But, I don't think that's what happened.

6 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

All of this "authentic leadership" is focused top down. How about bottom/up ("managing up" to borrow a phrase?)

[...]

Your (I'll say, cramped) definition of "authentic" leadership focuses entirely on the responsibility of the leaders and 0% on those led to provide the feedback when the opportunities arise.

Yes - as stated before.  We are talking leadership styles of leaders.  Not expectations on the volunteers in the program.  They are different.

8 hours ago, Sentinel947 said:

@Eagledad @ParkMan I requested it be locked because people were reading DavidCos vague posts and assuming he was taking his Troop to Rally for Life events. That is not the case. They were continuing to pile on, even after he finally clarified. Locking the thread lets people read all the posts and get things back on topic. 

Gotcha.  I thought all the piling on @David CO was unfair myself. 

Thanks for sharing the context.  Makes sense.  Much appreciated!

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

In what form?

The first step towards a leader being authentic is to exert effort to do so.  That manifests itself in some pretty consistent ways:

1. Demonstrate to the people you lead that you want to hear their input.  As the leader, make it clear that you initiated the town hall.  As the leader, make an effort to visit units.  
2. Be honest and open.  Being open doesn't mean you have to give people answers for everything, but it does mean that you don't "sell" them or talk down to them.  
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate.  If the leader senses that there is a significant concern out there, address it.  

Specifically, on some of the things you mentioned:

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

So far what I've seen in this forum is people indicating that if someone from National came to their unit they wouldn't even give them a cup of coffee.

I would image that any town hall type meetings or outreach would meet a similar fate (read Hate National!)

I would encourage the national leader to go to those units that are the most hostile.  Go to the unit, listen to the concerns, listen, and answer questions.  Hostile people are generally frustrated people.  Go learn why they are frustrated.

Imagine if every time a national leader went to a city, they made a point of visiting with a frustrated unit.  Don't make it a photo-op, don't bring 10 aides - just the national leader and the unit leaders.  And then just listen and learn.  I guarantee that after a few months of doing this national would get a very different perspective of Scouting at the unit level.  Imagine when word gets out about national proactively out, listening to units that are struggling.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

There is no reason why a unit leader or anyone cannot email Mosby, their Council, or ANYONE.

They opt not to because complaining in their sleeves is easier than actually doing something about it.

In an authentic leadership model, it is the role of the leader (national or council in this example) to build bridges to the people they lead (unit leaders).  The leader needs to build the buy in within their team.  As a leader saying - your input isn't valued because you were not motivated to come talk to me - isn't the right model.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

EDIT: I come back to the example I mentioned earlier at a local/my Council level. When the opportunity was offered (via Zoom) to directly ask questions of Council Key-3 leaders, none of the complainers bothered to do so (via email) or show up.

In this case, your district chair had the initiative to setup the town hall.  That is not an example of authentic leadership in action.  In the authentic leadership case, the Council Key-3 would have initiated the outreach effort.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

National in its rule making and authority needs to think and act broadly. It has to focus on the organization as a whole ("broad-angle camera") and do so sometimes without the detailed data such as happiness of unit leaders or real time data on the effectiveness.

Unit leaders, however, think in details. John or Jane Scout. This camping trip. That merit badge.

Thus both sets of leaders can be "authentic" and still come to completely different answers.

[...]

As for the claim "Well National shouldn't set policies" that is simply not possible FOR LEGAL REASONS. We can complain that it shouldn't be this way, but it is. In this legal environment with National and Councils facing potentially a billion dollars in liability, they are going to act to ensure/try to ensure the program stays alive in the future (broad lens/camera). That is going to be mean losing some of the details on how it will impact individual units/scouts/unit leaders, but there's no way to do both. Thus, mixed scanning; trying to be flexible and get what information they can from both levels.

[...]

That said, it is important for unit leaders to speak up and make things clear when they aren't working. Simply refusing to adhere to BSA's rules in secret doesn't change anything either.

I see your point here.  I believe the point behind concept is that those who lead need to build support and mindshare from those they are leading.

As national has the point position on providing leadership for the overall Scouting program, I believe that they have the onus to initiate this.

@Eagledad - I appreciate your frustration with this topic.  I found a decent amount of the posts useful to the discussion.

Pretty early on this topic made the jump to use the BSA as a case study of authentic leadership.  I found that useful as it's one thing to talk about authentic leadership in the abstract, another to have some case studies.  I believe looking at the BSA as an example of leadership and how it is, or is not, applying authentic leadership useful.  Concepts like this always find strong agreement in the abstract - it's not till you start looking at the practical applications of it that you find out the real challenges.

I really don't mind the negative posts about the BSA.  While I don't agree with them, I have heard similar things from other Scouting volunteers for years.  I saw it as a unit volunteer, I see it now as a district volunteer.  I've sat in meetings on both sides of this discussion - listening to unit volunteers complain about district volunteers, district volunteers complain about council volunteers, council volunteers frustrated with unit volunteers, everyone frustrated with national volunteers.  If I ever get involved at the national level (unlikely - but who knows), I suspect I'll hear about their frustrations too.

To me, authentic leadership is all about leaders actively working to build mindshare in confidence in their leadership vision and skills amongst those they lead.  To me, I like to believe that the negative tone in those posts is an example of a frustrated volunteer who does not buy into the leadership vision and skills of the various leadership efforts in the BSA.  They are harsher, but still representative of what I've heard countless times of the years.  Further, I've found that a number of the replies to him telling him that he's wrong, incorrect, dangerous, you name it, are also emblematic of what we see in the BSA.  

So, in short, I find so much of this conversation germaine and an example of why authentic leadership is harder to implement than the rosy article that started this topic. I'd much rather have 10 of these topics than the ones where we skirt around the core issues and keep throwing up our hands.

2 hours ago, David CO said:

The truthful answer is that neither candidate's presidency will unite and heal our country.  One side will win the election.  One side will lose.  The anger and division will continue.  The same is true of scouting.  We will have winners and losers.  We will never have unity.

 

I'm OK with that too.  People passionately advocating for their beliefs and positions is just good old fashioned democracy.  I suspect that the founders of the country had as equally contentious debates as we all do today.  

To me, the lesson I work to remember in my own life is that we're people first.  Our commonalities far outweigh our differences.  We may disagree on various issues - even to the point of frustration.  Yet underneath it all we are decent people just trying to provide for our families, raise our kids, and leave the world a little better place than when we got here.

2 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Here's the biggest, hardest part; how to inform about the rules without lecturing about the rules. The second hardest is the push back. The tradition of "don't kill the messenger" does not always happen.

I think this points to a shift in philosophy that someone practicing authentic leadership has to make.

If the BSA wanted to follow an authentic leadership approach, it would need to stop directing and instructing units.  The BSA (at the national and council level) would really need to embody more of a trusted advisor or consultant work model.  A commissioner (or other similar leader) should never come into a unit and start instructing leaders.  Instead, a commissioner would need to employ a rule of "don't offer advice, but respond to requests for help."  The commissioner should only step in unasked in cases where there is danger to youth from inaction.

Regardless of what the paperwork may say, in 2020, our culture appears to respond much better to consulting help than correction help.  This also fits better conceptually to a authentic or servant leadership model.

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

We're scouters.  Friendly service.  Servant leaders, etc, etc.  Absolutely fine to try to figure out root concern, open communication and maybe even get it addressed in advance.  Beyond that though, we are friendly toward our fellow scouters.  

I've found most every Scouter very friendly in a one-on-one conversation.

There is however a much larger negative tone in Scouting.  I've been around Scouting long enough to know it's not just a few posters here.  There is entirely an anti-council, anti-national, anti-Wood Badge, (and probably others) tone in Scouting.   Sadly, I believe that the strained council/national and unit relationships have fostered this for all the reasons we've already discussed.  

So, yes, I'm optimistic that unit leaders would be welcoming, but I also have come to accept that because these relationships have been so neglected that there is repair work to do.  Since the district/council/national organizations are here to support the success of the units, I think the relationship falls on those entities to take the initiative to repair those relationships.

1 minute ago, David CO said:

It happens all the time.  Not just at scouting events, but at sporting event as well.  People see the school's name on the bus, uniforms, etc., and they go out of their way to express their disapproval of our religious beliefs.  We live in a very politically polarized society.  It gets ugly.

Again - I'm sorry to hear that.  It's regrettable that we cannot simply let kids be kids.

Our society is becoming more aware of the impact of all kinds of forms of discrimination - hopefully people in your area will become increasingly aware of the impact of their behavior.

7 minutes ago, David CO said:

Mostly, but not entirely.

There is a lot of anti-Catholic bigotry in scouting.  Always has been.  We would rather camp at our church-owned facility rather than put up that nonsense.  After all, the kids join scouting to have fun.

We expect to be yelled at, cursed at, and physically threatened at highly politicized events like pro-life rallies.  The kids are ready for it.  They have been trained to handle it.  They will anticipate the crowds calling them all sorts of ugly names (like bigot and hater).  They understand that this is the price for adhering to their faith.

We Catholic leaders understand that we cannot insulate our children from all of the ugliness in the world.  They need to know about it, because they are certain to encounter it.  But we don't think they need to encounter it at scouting activities.

 

Thank you for helping me understand that.  I'm amazed that your Scouts have been on the receiving end of religious discrimination in Scouting.  That's terrible.

There are lots of reasons for a unit to want to be more insular.  I'd always gathered @David CO's comments were more focused at district/council/national Scouters who they wanted nothing to do with.  I see that in my neck of the woods too.  It's not that they are really hiding anything, they just find Scouters from the larger organization a hassle and bother.  i.e., you must be visiting with us to ask us for money, to do something, whatever...

From a leadership perspective, it seems like we have two choices here. 

• Tell them that they are wrong and have a bad attitude
• Try and figure out whatever the root concern is and open the lines of communication

Let's assume for a minute that the unit is doing good stuff and really doesn't want the headache and distraction of others coming in. Youth face this kind of thing all the time - particularly when they start getting invovled outside the unit in places like OA. 

Strikes me that in a servant leadership model, the onus is on the leader to reach out to the unit and work to build bridges.  No?

@David CO - is my assumption behind your statement at all correct?

On 10/5/2020 at 12:02 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

Do not know how effective that will be. We have areas of  the council with no internet service, or dial up service, as we a rural area. Some of my friends are only online at work because of connectivity. Others are using their phones as hot spots, which uses data. One of my friends is paying through the nose to get unlimted data so his 3 kids can do their online school work with their phones as hotspots.

The question I wonder about is just what is the right structure for councils in large, rural areas?  What do you do when there are not enough units to be able to have enough district volunteers for in-person meetings within a reasonable drive?  I don't love Zoom calls either, but I'm not sure what else you do.  I know that I'm not driving two hours for a district meeting.

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

Units can pretend to be independent, but their not. 

52 minutes ago, David CO said:

Councils can pretend to own us, but they don't.

Depending on how you come down on this discussion, the unit/council relationship is either one of:

• units are part of the larger Scouting team that includes national & council
• units are the customer of the Scouting team that includes national & council

In either case, it is important for leaders to cultivate the support of unit leaders.  Much of this discussion points out that there is a vocal constituency within the unit leader community that does support national and/or council leadership.  If I were a traditional business and a notable portion of my sales channel or my customers were disgruntled, I would be very concerned.

It just underscores to me the importance of leaders to getting out there and talking to unit leaders.  In those conversations, it's key to be open, honest, and to treat them with respect.