Scoutmaster Podcast 315

I'm Ray Britton and I'm the Scoutmaster with Group 42 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This edition of Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Keep up the good work part.

And now for you, Scoutmaster, I'd love to get out camping. I'd love to get outside, go commune with nature, As long as nature doesn't try to commune back with mosquitoes or bears or things like that. Hey, everybody, make sure to tip your waiters and try the ramen noodles. The ramen noodles are great.

This is Podcast number 315.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in this week's mailbag.

A couple of podcasts ago, my pal Walter under would join me And we did a discussion about our impressions of the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new, the new. And we did a discussion about our impressions of the new Troup Leader guidebook, the first volume. And I heard from the author this past week, Mark Ray, who said: Hey, Clark, thanks for the kind words about volume one of the Troup Leader guidebook.

Volume two has been released to the printer, So I'm guessing it will hit the scout shops this summer. I'd love to chat with you when you're ready to do a podcast about it, about it. I'm proud of volume one, but I'm really proud of volume two, which includes a lot of stuff we've never offered adult volunteers before.

So I'm working with Mark on that and in advance of volume two going out into the Scout shops this summer. You're gonna hear Mark on the podcast at some point And thanks for getting a touch, mark, and for helping me set that up. That's gonna be great fun.

Heard from Jamie Compton, who's the assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 2379, and Jamie said: do you have any suggestions on reading material for first time senior patrol leaders? We have a relatively young troop, Jamie. The best thing to do is to get the senior patrol leader handbook.

How about that? It's pretty simple. You can get it over at scoutstufforg. It's a great resource. I'll make sure to have a direct link to it in the podcast notes for you. Oh, this past week, oh, I had a post about 10 ways to frustrate a youth leader, The 10 things that you, as an adult volunteer, can do to kind of make being a youth leader difficult in your troop or your venture crew or whatever unit you happen to be working with, And a lot of you got back to me about that.

Ralph Ashbaugh is the assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 457 in Centennial Colorado And he said the article was so good I'll have to share it with our adult volunteers and parents in our parents newsletter. Can I get your permission to do that? Yes, of course, Ralph. Go right ahead. Any non-commercial use of anything that I've created that you wanna share with people to advance the cause of scouting, go right ahead. That's a blanket permission to anybody.

If you're using it on a commercial website, we're gonna need to talk first, But anything like that, absolutely go right ahead. That's why I created it. Heard from Lizzie Kwok, who's a crew advisor. Thank you for keeping us honest and on track, and especially me, Lizzie.

The reason I could come up with the 10 things that we can do to frustrate youth leaders is I have like a 30-year history of frustrating youth leaders. So Paul Clay chimed in and said good thoughts and worthwhile things to remember. George Cloud said I just experienced the anger issue myself last week. I forgot to count to 10 before I opened my mouth. Oh man, if I had a nickel for every time I did that, George, we'd both be rich. The scout and I apologized to each other for our behavior and discussed how to avoid it doing it in the future.

I just need to remember to count to 10 or more when I feel the frustration setting in. I also need to get another adult to mediate when it appears that counting isn't working, And that's always a good idea, George, And you know, the thing is is recognizing that hey, oh, I made a mistake or I'm not quite there yet, and all of us are not quite there yet.

We're all working on this, so keep on keeping on, my friend. A lot of people very quickly spotted, as soon as I published the article, that number three of 10 was missing and I fixed it. I fixed it pretty quick. But thank you. Everybody gets their red pencil merit badge for being good proof readers. Barry Carney checked in to say words to live by in and out of scouting.

Thanks, Barry, Patrick Provert. I always remind my junior leaders that health and safety are where my responsibility and comfort is theirs. My two promises were to stop an activity before somebody got sick or an injured, or to be the go-between for other adults should there be complaints or issues. That's it in a nutshell, Patrick.

Very well put. James Montigny said I call it blood, bone and lawsuit. But I agree completely: Let them learn from their decisions. Don't let them do something unnecessarily dangerous and keep other adults out of the way. And finally, Dana Lenzo checked in and said: thanks. We all need this reminder sometimes.

Yep, you're right, Dana, especially me. So I'm glad everybody enjoyed that article. It's over at scoutmastercgcom where every week we try and get together a couple of mornings to have a live chat session. These are usually Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. If you keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed, you'll see an announcement that we're available at scoutmastercgcom for a live chat. A lot of people check in every week.

Dan Stroh, who's a new Scoutmaster from troop 316 in Scottsdale, Arizona, checked in for the first time this week, as did many of our frequent flyers, And we talk about important stuff and not so important stuff. So come on over and join us for one of our live chats. Let's see I got a couple other things here.

Oh, one is: have you seen the t-shirts? I don't know, I think I mentioned them once before, but a lot of people have been getting them. There's one that I did through a Kickstarter campaign about three or four years ago called Stuff Scouter Saying: It's like 200 things that you find yourself saying over and over and over again to your scouts.

Check that one out, And there's a couple of others too, And they've been pretty popular. Kinda surprised me. Check out the t-shirts And again I'll have a link where you can see them in the podcast notes for podcast number 315..

Oh, and I should say about those t-shirts, It may be me, it's probably me, But a couple of you know, really honestly, a couple of people have noted their size. Just a little small Order, maybe a size up, unless you like a really close fitting t-shirt. I don't know, it might be a style thing, I really don't know. The ones that I got fit me pretty good, but I did note that they are a little smaller than average.

So word to the wise there. Hey, if you're a regular reader and listener and what we're doing is helping you, you can return the favor in one of two ways. You can become a backer And to do that go to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link at the top of the page. You'll find a number of different opportunities where you can help financially support my work and become a backer. And this week I wanna take a moment to personally thank Laura Hoos, Sean Sherwin, Tripp Weikoff, Kevin Dulce, Robert Lusty and Dan and Rose- all folks who became backers since last week's podcast. The other way you can do it is right next to that, right at the top of the page at scoutmastercgcom, is a link to Patreon.

Patreon is a way that you can make a subscription payment of $5 or more per month to keep the podcast and the blog alive. So check that out too. And I wanna make sure to thank Eric Road, who became a patron this past month.

Well, in this week's podcast we're gonna go a ways back. This podcast is back in the 60s, not the 1960s. It was podcast 68 or 69.. And I'll be talking to the author of the Adirondack Mountain Clubs Guide to Outdoor Leadership, Alex Kosif. I thought this would be a really great time of year to replay this particular interview and remind you about Alex's book, because if you're planning a high adventure trip or an extended camping trip this spring or summer, or really even weekend camping trips, the information in this book really helps out, because it deals with a number of concepts that we don't always get in the training that scouting offers.

So I'll be talking to Alex about things like triad of skills that are required for leading people in the outdoors- the technical, interpersonal and judgment skills that are needed. And we'll also be talking about something called expedition behavior and group development and about risk management, which is everybody's favorite subject, right Wee-hoo. Risk management- everybody- Oh not everybody- likes that, But all really important things to think about as you're putting a trip together and you're gonna go with a group of young people on an extended trip And, like I said, even weekend camping trips. There's a lot of information in this book that is gonna help you out.

There's both technical information and there's interpersonal information and there's judgment information. So there'll be a link to how to get the book in the podcast notes, along with Alex's site and the other links that he mentions during the interview, And that's gonna do it for this week's podcast.

So let's get started, shall we? ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]?

Today I'm speaking with Alex Kasev, the founder and director of the Outdoor Safety Institute in Bozeman, Montana. We're speaking to Alex from Bozeman, and he's also the author of the American Mountain Club's Guide to Outdoor Leadership, which, if you haven't seen it yet, folks, it's a great resource. The real foundation of the book is in your definition of good outdoor leadership.

What can you tell me about that? Well, the way I define it is that outdoor leadership has three kind of foundational components, And in the book I kind of use the metaphor of a three-legged stool and each leg is important for supporting your overall outdoor leadership ability. But those legs or foundations are technical skills, interpersonal skills and judgment skills. And technical skills are what that's: your ability to know how to set up tents and cook food and navigate and all those kind of things. Interpersonal skills are the ability to work with other leaders and with members of your group in a harmonious way.

And then judgment skills: the ability to see what's going on around you, both in the environment and in your group and even with yourself, and be able to assess what's going on and make good decisions. And I certainly focus on safety in the book, but it's also that judgment also relates to producing a good outcome, a good educational experience or a good overall experience for the participants in your group as well.

The judgment piece: you can learn some things about it through reading- and that it's mostly an experience-based skill, wouldn't you say Absolutely? And that's what I say in the book- is that this book it's a framework, it's a starting point, but the best leaders are the ones who are getting that hands-on experience and developing those judgment skills based on experience. That said, I do think there's room in there for developing those judgment skills through really good training programs And some of the Wilderness First Aid type courses and leadership courses out there that try and put you in simulations or scenarios can really help develop some of those judgment skills. But at the end of the day, nothing beats experience working with and leading groups in the outdoors for building up those judgment skills.

Let's talk about this Wilderness First Responder course. I was able to take that and I thought it was great. It was fairly easy. I did it over a course of two Saturdays a year or so.

How would you encourage somebody to go and take that course? I think that the two-day Wilderness First Aid course is just absolutely critical for anyone who's venturing outside of the reach of the quick response from the 911 and EMS network.

I've dealt with quite a few backcountry emergencies, some of them life-threatening, and it's so important to be able to fall back to that basic framework about what to think about first. What are your steps in your process of dealing with that situation? I encourage people to take that course. Whenever I can You go on in the new edition of the book and elaborate on some techniques that can be used with teenagers. The thing that is really important to me is that the outdoor experience be something that's different from teenagers' normal life.

If you go out there and it's kind of a situation that they experience much like they're at home, or teachers or parents are always telling them what to do, it's not gonna be nearly as valuable as if you give the teenagers some progressive responsibility to take on ownership of the activity, And I think that's something that's really missing for a lot of youth today, And so what I'm suggesting is that progressively turn over responsibility for the trip so that teens are really both responsible for things which they aren't always. So they have to pack their own canoe, cook their own food, and if they don't do a good job, their consequences.

They take over more responsibility And eventually, by the end of a week-long trip, they may be doing all the navigation and you as a leader may be sort of watching from a distance to make sure that nothing goes catastrophically wrong, but giving them a little bit of a leeway to make some mistakes that aren't gonna be have any real harm or safety repercussions And I think that that experience is something that is really valuable in terms of building interest in the outdoors, but also building overall life skills, decision-making skills for the teenagers And, ultimately, the activities we're doing in the outdoors. There's some safety issues, there's some skill involved, but they aren't that complicated. They're a fairly discreet set of skills and you can train people on those pretty quickly, especially if they're not- we're not talking about climbing glaciated mountains, but the kind of basic activities we do in the outdoors.

The other thing I think is important is kind of finding the right balance of challenge and reward, And I've been with groups and I've seen other groups out there on the trail where they just kind of on these huge marches and that can be rewarding if everyone's bought into the idea of accomplishing a lot of miles and getting something done. But sometimes giving the group a chance to climb a peak with an amazing view and having a real feeling of success that way may be more important than pushing them really, really hard. Or having the opportunity to have a campfire at night after a solid day of paddling is more important than getting in your 30 mile paddle that day.

So there's this fine balance of figuring out what's the appropriate amount of challenge for a group and how can the activities that you're doing be rewarding, either through a sense of accomplishment or also some kind of other view or a fun night around the campfire or something like that? So it's not all about covering miles, No, I mean I think that some of the groups that have gotten the most that I've led, that have gotten the most out of it, have had their challenging days and they've had to push a bit, but they've also had easier days where there were a lot of fun things: swimming the lake, fun things to do out there too, and a chance to bond with teenagers in a way, other teens in a way that they don't always get to do at home. There's a bit of advice that you give that you may be unaware of that. It's pretty unique, but I haven't seen it anywhere else other than in your book and that, especially when working with teenagers, is feeding them And frequent snacks and things like that. I mean that actually never really occurred to me.

What can you tell me about that? I think it's brilliant.

Well, it's something that I mean- I've heard this from other people, but I've also had this experience- The group morale and motivation and energy just sort of precipitously dropping and all of a sudden kids who are really excited to be there, they're not anymore. It took me a while to put it together, but often some food will really really help to solve that situation and the science behind that is teenagers have really really high metabolism levels and they need to eat a lot more frequently than most adults do to keep up their blood sugar levels. And when those blood sugar levels drop, attitudes really go south. It has a huge impact on the ability of the group to work together and get things done. The key there is that if you're at all hungry, your group is almost certainly hungrier than you are and maybe not even be that tuned into that. But making sure people have the opportunity to say, hey, I need a snack, and even encouraging that before people bring it up, is a great way to keep the group moving.

Just feed and hydrate your group. It's not just the food. The water helps a lot too. It's one of the most basic but helpful tips I've ever come across And I gotta tell you I know this.

I think I knew this at some level, but it was never like a part of the plan. Right, And that is worth the price of admission on the book alone.

Well, it's just hugely important. And you're right, All of us who've done any work with scouts have encountered this in one way or another. All of a sudden, everybody just kind of hits the wall and they start dropping like flies and you're wondering what the heck is going on. And it's just a granola bar away, really, Exactly. Another piece of that, too, is that teenagers, especially males, have incredibly high appetites. They can really really eat a lot of food, and most American boys are used to getting all the food that they want.

And, of course, if you're backpacking, you have to carry that food. But my advice in general is, especially when you're packing for teenage boys, is: pack on the heavier side.

You're better off having to carry a little bit more than to have kids who are complaining about being hungry and potentially really are hungry and don't have the food to keep themselves well fueled. And they don't normally associate hunger with a drop in morale or a drop in behavior. They just get cranky, Exactly.

They're not even aware, well, I'm hungry. That makes me cranky, makes me less effective at what I'm doing. They just go there, Yep.

So being able to notice that is pretty golden. One of the things that I really found useful is your discussion on expedition behavior.

Why is expedition behavior different from evening meetings that we have and things like that? What makes it unique?

The idea behind expedition behavior is that you're really interdependent upon each other and the group isn't going to function well if people aren't working together in someone of a harmonious way. It really comes out of kind of expeditionary climbing, like climbing big heat peaks in the Himalayas or in Alaska, but the concepts are very applicable to any outdoor kind of experience, especially multi-day ones.

We go on it, But it sort of begins with the idea of self-awareness, so being aware of what your own needs are, And then it flows into the idea of being able taking responsibility for taking care of your own needs. A classic example is somebody goes off to dinner and leaves their sleeping bag out and it starts to rain and then their sleeping bag is wet And that has an impact on the entire group because they didn't take on their own kind of self-leadership and taking care of their own things.

And then it moves on from there to the idea of being kind of supportive of group goals, So committed to group goals, tolerant of each other. You know people on- I mean, I'm sure you've had this experience. People come into these things with different comfort levels for being in the outdoors and different physical ability levels And it's often easy for those who are more comfortable or physically able to be let's see like critical or not supportive of those who are less comfortable. But if people are supportive within the group and committed to the group goals, that support can really really help those people who are struggling through, can make them feel more a part of the group and it can help them to really overcome some of those challenges and make the experience a success. And another piece of that whole expedition behavior is good communication and being able to express yourself in a supportive, non-critical way with other members of the group.

So this is the expedition behavior concept, is something that leaders really need to have in themselves, but it's something that the whole group can really commit to. And one of the things that I like to do with groups of teenagers particularly is introduce this kind of concept of expedition behavior- or you can call it something else if you want.

So you're going to have a group early on and have the group help to define what the expectations of each other are And you might have to prompt them a little. Do you say, do you want people to be supportive when you're having a hard time or do you want them to be critical? And they're inevitably, especially within the scouting community, they're going to understand the value of being supportive And that early commitment from the group to those concepts can be really helpful later on, kind of say: hey remember, early in the trip we talked about expedition behavior and being supportive of one another when we're having a hard time, And for a lot of teens that'll really click and they say: oh yeah, Joe's having a hard time, Now's not the time to complain about him slowing us down, Now's the time to maybe take a little weight from him and joke with him a little and try and cheer him up.

You hit on something else that I think in their limited awareness, teenagers don't always realize: if they're uncomfortable or if they're physically incapable of doing something, they get kind of afraid and they get very reluctant and they get really recalcitrant- I think that's the word I'm looking for- about moving ahead or trying to do anything. And I don't think that they associate- just like they don't associate- being cranky or difficult with not having enough to eat or drink. They don't associate the fact that they're kind of afraid or uncomfortable with something with the way that they behave. Understanding that and kind of inculcating in the group these expedition behaviors that you're talking about, you're gonna avoid an awful lot of that, Absolutely.

I mean, that's so critically important is I really believe in outdoor experiences and a kind of concept of challenge by choice, So that you shouldn't be out there forcing people to do something that they don't wanna do, Although there might be situations where you have to get through a bunch of miles because you have to finish the trip. But for the most part, if that group can be supportive of one another, you really avoid those situations where you call that recalcitrant, where teens get really reluctant to do stuff And often you're right, they cannot verbalize I'm scared, I'm tired, I'm hungry.

But if the group's really supporting each other and the teens- the boys are having an easier time, are really supportive and encouraging and helpful to those who are having a harder time, the net accomplishments the group can achieve are so, so, so much higher than if you let the people who are having a hard time drag at the back of the pack and feel miserable for themselves. It's really, really crucial to understand these dynamics and then to put them to work.

So let's spend a little time just going over some of the techniques that you have in the book as far as leaders and group development goes. In encouraging group development, it's helpful to understand that there's kind of a natural group development process that most groups go through when they're on an outdoor experience, And there's some variation, but the basic stages are forming, storming, norming, performing, and then there's kind of one called adjourning.

So basically what happens is when people first come together for an experience, they're kind of excited to be there. They're trying to get a sense of what it's all about, who the other people are. But then, as challenges set in and as they have to cook together and sleep in tents together and hike long miles together, they get into a storming stage where there's some conflict amongst group members potentially. And that's actually not bad.

It's okay to have some of that conflict because it helps to establish how the group's gonna work together. But if you can help facilitate that by setting some of those expedition behavior expectations early, that's helpful. Then you move into kind of a norming phase, which is figuring out how we work together.

Well, Leaving the fighting, the storming, the argument behind but working better together. And then from that norming you get into a performing stage where the group can really really work well together. And not every group gets there. It depends on the leadership, the activity you're doing, the length of the program, the participants.

And then the adjourning phase is kind of the hey, we're leaving and people starting to realize that this isn't gonna go on forever and that people are gonna go and sort of separate at the end of the trip And at each stage of this. There's no science to this, It's really more of an art. But it's being able to kind of to step back as a leader and not impose your own perspective, as much as try and look at the group and how people are interacting and even how they physically look.

Are they kind of lazily, literally dipping their paddle in the canoe? Are they did they have their head down and they're looking miserable backpacking?

Are they kind of determined looking? And those little observations about individuals and groups can really help you understand who needs support, how you might be able to encourage certain people, how you who in the group's doing really well and you might be able to you task them with helping other group members who are struggling a little more.

So that assessment thing- there's no rule book for it, but it's being able to kind of leave behind your own perspective, your own perhaps tired state, struggling, hiking or your own viewpoint and really look objectively at what's going on in the group and try and help the group move through some of their challenges and work together to achieve a greater good. Scouters will be pretty familiar- well, at least ones who have been through some of the more advanced training like wood badge and things would be- are gonna be real familiar with the storming, norming and forming and the forming, norming, storming or the inks and those dynamics. But just being cognizant of these processes is such an incredibly important thing. When you're working in that kind of group development phase and you're getting through that, you're also minimizing a lot of the, a lot of possible difficulties you're gonna run into. I wanna I wanna spend some time talking about a very important part of the book which is risk management.

Here's what I think, Alex. I think a lot of us run into it in our professional lives and there's somebody who is like the risk manager and nobody really wants to see that guy come through their office door. But I'm a big advocate of understanding, especially in these kind of outdoor adventures, the role of risk management, and I know that you spend a lot of time assessing this stuff.

So give me a starter course in a couple of minutes here. What if?

If I'm headed off to take a group canoeing for a week or backpacking for a week, what is it that I need to be thinking about? That I might not know? Here's summary: there is that a lot of people or don't really wanna deal with. The risk manager is very accurate, and this is primarily what I do for a living actually is help.

Outdoor programs deal with safety and, to some degree, liability issues, And one of the things that's really important to me, before like delving into the course idea, is that as a culture we're very risk averse, We don't like danger, and I think it's really important- and I think that the scouts actually really help to encourage this in our society a little- to understand that life and also rewarding growth experiences have risks and we can't eliminate all of those risks. But at the other side of it is my advocacy for risk doesn't mean that it's an excuse for not conducting the activities in the outdoors that we do in a responsible way.

So there's a lot we can do to make the activities we're doing a little bit safer. But at the end of the day, there is always gonna be risk and every trip that goes out should have some level of a risk management plan.

What are the likely hazards that are gonna be encountered in? Really, three areas. One, the particular environment we're in.

Is there gonna be a big river crossing we're gonna have to do and potentially could the water be high on that river crossing? And then the activity we're doing is, if it's backpacking, is one of the hazards maybe lightning up on a peak or a ridge, or is it swimming in a remote cold pond lake?

And then hazards within the group- and that's a really important one- is looking at your who's going and thinking about the physical, emotional, health needs of the participants in that group and are there special steps you need to take for those Everything you identify as a risk? There's a little process of kind of figuring out: can we, is there a way we can reduce the risk?

Can we eliminate it potentially if it's not important to the activity, or can we just say that that's an inherent risk that we need to accept as part of this. So looking at those things and thinking about how can you modify them without taking all the fun out of it. There's the looking at things in advance and how are you gonna deal with them, knowing how to respond if something does go wrong. This just isn't because there is a fear of being sued or some kind of liability problem or something like that.

This is for real and this is how you know you can kill people if you don't do this. Is it kind of? And that's a tricky balancing act. People often view this safety stuff as being driven by the liability thing, but I work with some of the best lawyers who specialize, actually, in defending organizations from lawsuits and they all, front and center, tell you that don't bother with any of this stuff- the safety stuff in risk management- if all you're concerned about is being sued. You do it because you care about the people you're taking into the outdoors and that you wanna provide these experiences, but you also wanna do it in a conscientious manner.

It takes a bit of an ego to be a scout leader and there's a lot of bravado involved and things like that, and I think it's particularly valuable having someone like yourself who has a little perspective on this and who actually studies these things, to back up the idea that this is really important. There are some hazards out there. It's not disproportionate. I mean, if you look at some statistical information, other activities these teens could be doing are much more hazardous, including a lot of common high school sports are much more hazardous than the type of outdoor activities we're talking about.

But at the end of the day, what do you think the most dangerous part of backpacking or canoeing trip did? Oh well, I know the answer. That's getting in the car and driving there. Absolutely, make sure people are doing basic stuff like wearing seat belts, driving the speed limit, not driving when you're exhausted.

After at the end of a long day, perhaps hiking out to the trailhead, so that's where you can really have an impact too. These are things that you have to keep in the forefront of your mind when you're leading this kind of thing. And it's just incredibly important. Here we are, we're captain and Mr Buzzkill.

Now we're just Yeah, I know, and it's really tempting. I know how tempting it is to get out there and you're having a good time. You don't want to deal with this stuff, but at the end of the day, if it becomes kind of a systematic approach and it's just how you, as a leader, do things and it's how your scouts, as a leader, do things, or is how your scouts in the group are used to doing things. It's less of a buzzkill.

I think it's really actually liberating because if you're sure, or at least reasonably sure, of your skills and you're reasonably sure of you've taken the time and sat down and sketched out a risk management plan and you've done your best to assess all of the different things that you're going to do and what considerations you're going to need to have and where you can bug out if you need to get out, it's pretty liberating because you don't have to make that up on the spot. Well, I really appreciate you having taken the time to talk with us and I've got to say the book. It's an excellent resource. It will definitely give you a big leg up in learning how to be a really effective, intelligent outdoor leader.

So, Alex, thanks again for taking the time to talk to us. Thanks, Clark, I really appreciate. It's fun to talk to you, fun conversation, and people can also feel free to contact me. They can head over to our website at OutdoorSafetyInstitutecom and you can contact me off of that website or look at what we've got available on the website there.

Well, thanks very much, bye-bye, Bye.