Scoutmaster Podcast 286

I'm Pat Lays and I'm a Scoutmaster with troop number 1093 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like us And now the old Scoutmaster. In the autumn of the year where I live, the skies are full of Canada geese wending their way south on their annual migration and they fly in these beautiful V formations. Usually, one side of the V is almost always longer than the other and it may interest you to know why that is. The reason one side of the V is usually longer than the other is because there are more geese on that side. It's just that simple.

Hey, this is podcast number 286.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, it's been kind of a quiet week here.

Where have I heard that before A quiet week? I'll have to think about that. No, I had this email from Gerald Dosh who said: thanks for your outstanding, thought provoking work. I've become a backer a couple of different times and bought your PDF package and I read and love your books, et cetera. Keep up the inspiration. And Gerald is the Scoutmaster, troop 91 in St Paul, Minnesota.

Thanks so much for those kind words and that encouragement. I really appreciate it And it also gives me the opportunity to say this. Everything we do at scoutmastercgcom is here to help you be a scouter, And I hear from folks all over the world who are appreciative of the resources that we're able to create And to keep everything freely available. I depend on people like you to become backers. Backers are folks who make a one time voluntary subscription payment, and that money covers the expenses of producing and publishing what you find on scoutmastercgcom, including the podcast that you're listening to right now.

So do me a favor If you would take a little time this week. Go to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link you'll find at the top of the page and consider becoming a backer, And if you do, I'll make sure to thank you personally in our next podcast.

This week, I want to talk to you about positions of responsibility, how they relate to the main aim of scouting, And that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast. So let's get started, shall we?

Here's what got me thinking about positions of responsibility. This week I had an email from somebody who wanted my comment on an addition that the committee made to their troop bylaws.

First off, you really don't need a whole bunch of bylaws, So I would look at them really carefully and see whether or not they were functioning for you or they were just causing more problems than they're worth. But anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about today.

Here's what the committee suggested have happened. They're going to create position of responsibility contracts for the scouts and they want the scouts to sign and date those contracts, to start a clock on their positions of responsibility and sign and date it again at the end of their service in that position to indicate that their responsibilities were completed towards rank advancement. And I was asked what I thought of that.

Well, asking my advice on how you assure yourself that scouts are performing their positions of responsibility duties, that's a perfectly reasonable procedural question. But just sharing procedural tips is not enough. Our procedural things, the things that we do, have to be based on something more than what's in a set of bylaws. They have to have a basis in principles, in what makes scouting what it is. If you understand the basic principles, all the other stuff pretty much takes care of itself. It figures itself out because you've got the right starting point.

And I do have to say here the committee has created something that belies they don't really understand the principles, at least not as I do. So there are several questions that come to mind when we talk about: hey, we're going to have scouts initial a contract First of all.

Do the Scoutmaster, assistant Scoutmasters, committee members also initial a contract with their job descriptions on them, And then somebody judges their performance based on what's written on that piece of paper? Probably not.

Are most of the things that happen in the troop at the adult level done according to a job description and adhering to a chain of command, Or do the adults just mostly work together cooperatively and to do what needs to be done? I'm going to guess that for the most part you work together cooperatively to do what needs to be done. Having position descriptions is nice, but there's a lot of gray area.

There isn't there Who makes sure the adults perform their duties? How does that happen?

How are the adults evaluated in what they do for their positions of responsibility? See where I'm going.

Is the troop assigning scouts to positions of responsibility because there's actual responsibility associated with those positions, I mean, or is it kind of a make work position, just filling out every possible one on the organization chart so that scouts can advance? Are the adults and youth leaders continuously communicating a set of expectations in a lively program of engaging activities that require scouts to fulfill the expectations of their positions of responsibility.

I mean, is it integral to the program or is it something you've just added on so that the guys can advance? Is the Patrol Leaders Council meeting frequently to discuss what needs to happen next and thereby confirming the expectations of the various positions of responsibility?

What's the first point of the scout law? Does it actually mean anything or is it something we just repeat ceremoniously?

Wouldn't a scout observing the first point of the scout law be able to offer a very accurate evaluation of how they did or did not fulfill the clearly and continuously expressed expectations about their position of responsibility? You see what I'm saying.

We want to judge scouts with one attitude. We're going to judge the way adults work with another attitude, And I think it probably would be a better idea if we, if we changed our perspective on this a little bit, Because our scouts, individual human beings with various talents and challenges, or a bunch of widgets on an assembly line- are scouts, employees of the troop that need to sign papers?

And are the adults their supervisors? Or are scouts and adults all volunteer players in an exciting fun game?

So these questions kind of point out that well, if you're reducing what should be some lively interactions and some fun and playing a lively game to pieces of paper, there's probably something that you may not get thoroughly about the way scouting works. So let's take some time to talk about positions of responsibility, because they are there so that we can help individual scouts succeed in developing a sense of responsibility and some leadership skills, And we do that through mentoring and coaching. We do it for by advocating for the scout and establishing and defining reasonable expectations, And these are all aspects of Scoutmastership. These are the things that Scoutmasters and other adult volunteers should be actively participating in.

So there are three things to consider. If a scout takes on a position of responsibility, there needs to be clear expectations And then there needs to be a shared understanding of those expectations And then there needs to be an open, continuous dialogue aimed at that individual scout developing a sense of responsibility and some leadership skills during the time that they serve in that position. If you are doing those three things actively- the evaluation process to qualify the service in that position of responsibility towards the rank- it's a piece of cake. You don't have to worry about it, Because what this committee is doing is they're trying to nail this down on a piece of paper.

Okay, they're trying to nail down this evaluation process on a piece of paper And it's not going to work, because each scout is an individual who needs to have his individual challenges, talents and things like that considered, And this is a frequently debated area. Advancement: evaluating the requirement for positions of responsibility. The guide to advancement has some really good directions for us on this And it goes to some length to make it clear exactly how this is to be accomplished and the principles behind it.

So if you look at section 4.2 and following in the guide to advancement, we're going to learn a few basic things. First of all, let's get this out of the way: Meeting the time test, fulfilling the tenure towards position of responsibility for any rank can be a combination of a number of positions. It doesn't have to all be one position held in a continuous tenure.

It can be a number of different ones And there can be breaks in between those positions. So you know, a scout may serve as in one position of responsibility for a couple of months, may not serve in any position for a month and then return to to serve in another. See what I'm saying.

So that that should be a simple, that should be a simple concept. And then the next concept is expectations, and expectations is really the key here, right? The guide to advancement said that says this: if a unit has established expectations for positions of responsibility and if, within reason, based on his personal skill set, the scout meets them, then he fulfills the requirement. Clear expectations are important.

Now those mine end up on a piece of paper. Okay, I understand that there may be a brief job description for patrol leaders and things like that. I got to tell you, personally, I've never seen any real use for them, because that piece of paper just disappears.

The only thing that piece of paper is usually going to do is going to be used to kind of browbeat the scout and say, well, we gave you a piece of paper and you don't understand it. You know you're not doing what's on the piece of paper. That doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the game to me.

So, in in lieu of that piece of paper, how do you establish the expectations for that position of responsibility? Okay, you talk to the scout.

Yeah, you talk to him, you have a dialogue And you say: so, tell me what do you think it means to be a patrol leader? Well, you know you do some talking along those lines and you fill in a couple of blanks and say now, do you understand what the expectation of a patrol leader is?

And the scout will say, yes, I do, even if he doesn't- And you know it's very likely that he doesn't because he's never done it before. So he's going to slip up, He's going to miss something along the way.

And that's why we need not only the establishment of a shared set of expectations, but a continuous open dialogue. Hey, how did your patrol meeting go tonight?

How did things work out for you? Were you able to get in touch with your patrol members and share your plans with them?

How did that go? A continuous open dialogue. And that is such fun to do as a Scoutmaster: to be able to talk to youth in positions of responsibility that way.

Tell me what you understand about leadership now that you've been through this particular experience. Okay, tell me what I can do to help you out.

Is there anything that you don't understand? Is the way I suggested doing this working for you?

A continuous open dialogue? So what if a scout isn't meeting the expectations, The expectations that we thought we very clearly expressed and we made sure that we had a shared understanding, is just not happening. The open kind of continuous development of responsibility and leadership skill through dialogue, through observation, should be keeping us away from creating a situation where, at the end of a period of service, the evaluation of the scout is that he didn't fulfill the position of responsibility.

That should hardly ever happen And I would say I would go so far as to say that should never happen in a troop that is effectively working towards developing their scouts individual sense of responsibility and leadership skills. It should be equally rare. When there's ever a reason to have to remove a scout from a position of responsibility, It's. I can see where it could happen, but usually, with some talking and the right kind of encouragement and a little bit of help along the way, they can succeed.

Let's go back and just go over this one more time. My thinking about this started with the idea of having scouts initial a piece of paper that we're calling a contract about a position of responsibility when they enter it and then having them initial it again to say that they have fulfilled that position of responsibility.

My contention is: is that be, lies the idea that that whoever's suggesting that this is a good idea doesn't understand the principles behind the reason that we have positions of responsibility in the first place. The troop is not an employer, The scout, the adult volunteers, are not supervisors, The scouts are not employees. We're all playing a really cool game And, if you want to stretch that analogy a little bit, the scouts are playing different positions in the game and we're on the sidelines coaching them along.

What is our aim? Why?

Why? Why have youth engagement in leadership and decision making anyway?

Well, to get to our overall aim, which is the development of character, correct, And the development of character can't happen on an assembly line- treating every scout exactly the same as every other scout and evaluating every scout exactly the same as every other scout. It's not going to work that way, especially when we're talking about something like fulfilling a position of responsibility.

That's a huge judgment call, isn't it? So if we first establish some expectations, then we assure ourselves through talking with the scout- not putting it on a piece of paper and having them sign it, but talking with the scout about those expectations, having an open discussion with them about them- that initially we have a shared understanding And then, through observation and through discussion and continuing that open dialogue, we help him develop a sense of responsibility, a sense of service and some leadership skill. Along the way, We will have been doing our jobs well. And remember, when you sit down with a brand new patrol leader and you explain and you have this discussion about what it means to be a patrol leader and what your expectations are, the brand new patrol leader is going to have very few, if any, points of reference about what this really means practically.

So you're going to have to have an ongoing dialogue right And then, at the end of the tenure requirement- the X number of months that the scout's serving in the position to fulfill the tenure towards a rank requirement- the evaluation is going to take about 30 seconds because we've had an open dialogue. We've discussed any problems or shortcomings or difficulties they've had along the way.

We have worked to understand this individual scout's skills, talents, challenges and abilities and mentored them through the process of developing a sense of responsibility and developing some leadership skills and developing, therefore, the main aim right, Which is a good, resilient character that that's going to have an active contribution to every community he's a part of, to his family, to his school, to his church, to the broader community, to his scout troop, to his patrol and all of his fellow scouts. That's the aim.

That's what we're after, right? So if we keep our eye on that ball and we understand those principles, managing positions of responsibility and evaluating them is really a piece of cake.

Oh, there's challenges along the way and there's difficult moments here and there. There's going to be plenty of mistakes and missteps as a young man gains experience in these things, But what a wonderful thing to be able to do. What a wonderful way to be able to spend your time as an adult in helping young people make these things a reality in their lives. That's why we're scouters: Not for paperwork, but for helping them develop those realities in their life.