Second Class 49 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 What are some of the tools in the shed for helping prevent/delay/stop burnout? We've tried job swapping, (but no one wants mine); swapping seems to help a bit, for a year or two. For the SM, what tricks are there? (or am I grasping at straws?) Link to post Share on other sites
SeattlePioneer 144 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Develop a Troop Committee that performs the tasks it should. Recruit the Assistant Scoutmasters you need and give them the room to develop their skills and experience. Delegate more. If you have experienced and capable Assistant Scoutmasters, consider letting one of them be SM. The skills and experience of an experienced SM would be very valuable performing as a district committee member or unit Commissioner. Link to post Share on other sites
eagle90 125 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Good ASM's who have a job to do, and do it A working PLC with Junior Leaders who care A working Patrol Method Link to post Share on other sites
Basementdweller 608 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Take a couple of weeks off....No discussing scouting....have wife take the son to the troop meeting....have one of your ASM's oversee things... After summer camp is a great time for this. Look at the SM's job descriptions....are you doing more than that??? If so delegate the rest off.... Link to post Share on other sites
fred8033 1591 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I wonder if trading leadership jobs helps? In my 1st year as CC, it was a huge amount of work. In the 3rd year, it was easier. Now in year ten, it's pretty easy. I'd hate to switch to another role because I'd have to re-invest and figure out how to make that role work. Not that it's harder or easier. It's just different. To prevent burnout ... take breaks ... get to know the other adult volunteers. Become great friends with them, socialize and get to know them. Most importantly, have fun! No fun equals quick burnout. Link to post Share on other sites
Tampa Turtle 1011 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Do as I say not as I do. (Our Troop did this one year) When determining the Troop Calendar the CC sat the new SM down and the FIRST THING they did was have him schedule the time for his family vacation AND several campouts he was NOT to go on during the year so he could take his wife out. CC went to great lengths to make sure the SM defended those slots. Link to post Share on other sites
packsaddle 753 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Learn to work with the 'team' to get things done. This means learning to say 'no' - or delegating if the request can be handled more efficiently by someone else. Learn to trust the other team members to do their best, even if it isn't quite what you expected. Be honest. Do what you can and don't attempt more than that. If you start to feel stretched too thin, it was of your own making so you have to decide for yourself what to cut. Keep a sense of humor about yourself. This usually works well even in confrontations with parents (but you do have to be careful). Don't apply the humor to them. Don't take anything personally. If you start to take any of this personally, then you've invested too much in something that 1) will eventually let you down, and 2) will hurt when it does. Whenever you can, just watch the boys being boys. Enjoy this. File those good memories away and remember them whenever you're tempted to non-constructive thoughts. Always remember that there is life outside of scouting. Scouting is not life and scouting is not as important as some other things. (This message has been edited by packsaddle) Link to post Share on other sites
desertrat77 1144 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Set boundaries. Fence off family time, rest and relaxation. Honor those boundaries yourself, and don't let others cross them. Because folks will try to knock a hole in your fence, via guilt ("well, if I know you had a family trip that weekend but none of the other adults are available, so we'll have to cancel that troop campout if you don't go....) and any other means, to include ineptitude (real or feigned, "you're the only one who knows how to do this...."), clogging the calendar with events that could be consolidate or outright cancelled, etc. Have fun outside of scouting too. When I was an ASM, our SM would invite several fellow scouters out to his property in the middle of the desert for a weekend now and again. Not an official BSA event. Just a relaxing time of hiking, shooting, and enjoying good cooking, cigars, tall tales and cold beer around the campfire. Good decompression. Link to post Share on other sites
NJCubScouter 1389 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 In my experience, burnout among Scout leaders (especially SM's and CC's) occurs most often when the jobs of the other positions in the troop are not being done properly or at all -- which can occur either because nobody is doing those jobs, or the jobs are not being done properly, or the burnout-candidate has failed to delegate, meaning that the others cannot do their jobs properly even if they want to. This is basically what other people have already posted. However, I think that in some cases, there may be another contributing factor, which is that the person is not really the right person for that particular job in the first place, and has failed to "grow into it." So then you have the person getting frustrated that things are not happening as they are supposed to, other people are getting frustrated at them, which may increase the chances that other jobs go unfilled or are not done properly, which in turn increases the workload on the "leader." It all becomes a vicious cycle, and burnout is inevitable. I have seen it happen in several different volunteer organizations I have been involved in, not just Scouting. It could be a PTO, local charitable organization, library board, whatever; just substitute "president", "board chairman" or "executive director" (especially the unpaid kind) for SM or CC, and the same things happen. Link to post Share on other sites
Eagledad 2777 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 One of my adult leader mentors back when I was new to scouting was a type A personality and was most happy when she had her hands into everything. To save burnout, our pack had a policy that Den leaders did nothing else but den lead. And it was a good policy because a lot of parents had an enjoyable experience of organizing and running activities like Blue and Gold and Pinewood. But, my mentor did not follow that policy because she had the most fun being in the middle of everything. She was involved in Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts for 25 years. She never burned out. Burnout is a personal thing. In fact I really dont think most folks see it coming or knew they were burned out until they stopped doing what they were doing. Thats when they look back and realized they had absolutely no desire to get that involved anymore. So its personal and hard to gauge how to plan your volunteering to prevent burnout until you are right in the middle of it. Is there some general advice that would apply to most of us? I dont know. I can say delegating other folks to do some of your duties relieves burnout, but I know that some folks have the most fun when they are really busy. Delegating may actually add to burnout because its taking the fun out of the work. I was taught back at Oklahoma State that the average volunteer gives an aveage of 18 months max. Those who go longer are running on passion or drugs. LOL! A well designed program should only count on its volunteers for two years, but allow for passionate few. Looking back, I think I enjoyed scouting the least when I was doing something I didnt enjoy. Im not talking about getting real dirty cleaning camp for Wood Badge next week, Im talking about being on the Wood Badge staff when you had no desire in the first place. I may have volunteered my time because the UC, DE or SE or somebody somehow quilted me into doing it. Maybe I was busy at the time or just didnt like doing Friends of Scouting or whatever, but you it something that dread doing and cant wait for it to be over and go home. So my one little piece of advice to slow down your burnout is learn to say NO. Dont volunteer for things your gut telling you not to do. Barry Link to post Share on other sites
Tampa Turtle 1011 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Some times it helps to switch jobs. Some ASM's have moved on to Committee positions or once-a-year fund raisers. Link to post Share on other sites
Oak Tree 15 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Delegate, delegate, delegate. Build a team of adults. Don't micro-manage them, they need to know that they can take the ball and run with it. Give them an assignment, tell them to make all the decisions relative to that assignment, and report back to you on how it went. I like the idea of taking some time off. I may try that one. Make it as fun as you can for the adults. If the adults are having fun, the boys will have fun, and everyone will be less stressed. Link to post Share on other sites
qwazse 4342 Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Learn your gifts. Excersize those. Learn other folk's gifts, ask them to use those to do the jobs ypu're not good at. Link to post Share on other sites
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