Scoutmaster Podcast 362

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. It's the very first day of summer camp and one of my patrol leaders sees a scout walking down the trail limping a little bit, and he asked him if he was hurt. And the scout said: no, it's all these socks I'm wearing.

And the patrol leader said: well, how many pairs of socks are you wearing? And the scout said: I'm wearing seven.

Well, why in the world are you wearing seven pairs of socks? Well, the scout says it's to save time every morning.

Well, how are you saving time every morning by wearing seven pairs of socks? And the scout looks at him and says: well, we're supposed to change socks every day, right, Yeah, you're supposed to change socks every day.

Well, instead of going through all the trouble of changing socks every day, all I have to do is take one pair off every morning, and I'm good. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it?

You know, scouts are efficiency experts. You've got to hand it to them.

Hey, this is podcast number 362.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green, and this is the second of a series of podcasts, whose number is yet to be determined, dealing with foundational stuff. Last week, in podcast 361, we talked about the allegory of scouting as a game. We're going to build on that today by talking about the role of the scouters in the game, And I had a number of great responses to last week's podcast and I really appreciate them. Thank you for your comments on Facebook.

Thank you for the emails I received. I picked one out to share with you from Frank Maynard, who is the author of a blog at bobwhiteblathercom. It's exactly what you think it is: Bob White Blather. Frank is a long-tenured, very skilled scouter, Has a great blog that you ought to make sure to check out, and I'll have a link to Frank's blog in the podcast notes. But he wrote this email to me. He said I listened to podcast 331, where you said the organization is not the game.

I think too many people missed this point and think that the BSA defines scouting and not the other way around. Scouting defines itself by the oath and law and the BSA gives us the framework to do scouting. I found the basketball analogy was rather a good one.

Well, thank you. The foregoing opens up another analogy.

So you ready for another analogy, folks, Because I think this is a good one too. A scouting organization can provide the framework for scouting, but it can't contain everything that scouting is, because it simply can't fully reduce a concept, a movement, down to a set of rules, regulations and procedures. This is much the same way as a system defining a color space cannot contain all possible colors. I deal with this in engineering color television systems, where we try to reproduce a world in color using just red, green and blue vectors. We employ what's called the CIE color space. It looks like every imaginable color, but if you look closely you'll see that some colors are just missing.

Some tones are particularly difficult to reproduce with those limitations. In the same way that scouting is not reproducible from an organizational standpoint, While we need to follow the BSA's rules when we implement scouting under its framework, we need to remember that aspects of scouting are more vivid than what we can get from an organization.

Well, Frank, those are excellent thoughts and they do a good job of giving everybody another perspective on the issues I was working with last week. I really appreciate it. As advertised, we're just going to soldier right into our next foundational series, in which we'll be talking about the role of the coaches in the game. And that's us, That's the Scouters.

So let's get started, shall we? Music. In the last podcast we talked about scouting as a game with a goal, and that's the development of character within the individual. We define character as those ideals expressed in the Scout Oath and Law.

So we have players- the Scouts- and coaches. That's us, the Scouters.

We have a set of rules defining the game and at the intersection of the rules, the players and coaches, is something we're going to call strategy. Remember, our game isn't competitive. Our game does not end in a zero-sum win or loss. Our game is kind of like assembling puzzles. There's another analogy: Our game is helping individual human beings to shape and define their lives.

So today I want to talk about the role of Scouters as coaches in the game. Now, remember, you know we're using analogies, allegories. Remember, you're not really a coach and scouting is not really a game. Analogies are useful for taking something we understand and applying them to know something that we don't understand. They're not exact copies of each other, They just resemble each other. Coaches and Scouters may do many of the same things, but their roles are different in some ways too.

We talked a bit about how our game works in the last podcast. Everything important to achieving our goal happens at the small group level and everything important happens to individual Scouts.

To make this happen, we have some basic tools and methods we apply to our roles, and the tools I want to talk about are perspective, observation, dialogue, discovery and responsive application. So that's not too bad right? Not too many $9 college words floating around there.

Let's begin by talking about perspective, because it is the first and most important aspect of understanding your role as a Scouter. Being a Scouter, as we've been saying, is like a lot of things, but it's not actually those things, because Scouters hold a unique role in a young person's life. They're part parent, coach, counselor, mentor and friend. Baden Powell put it this way. He said the Scoutmaster has to be neither schoolmaster nor commanding officer, nor pastor nor instructor, And he went on to say: all that is needed is the capacity to enjoy the outdoors, to enter into the Scouts' ambitions, to put himself on the level of the Scouts, That is, to see things from the Scouts' point of view and to lead and guide and give enthusiasm in the right direction.

So we know that a Scouter is kind of like a coach and we know that a Scouter is not a commanding officer and Scouts are not soldiers. A Scouter is not the boss of a company and Scouts are not their employees. A Scouter is not a teacher and Scouts are not students. A Scouter is not a pastor and Scouts are not members of the pastor's congregation. We're going to talk about our role in the terms of the game analogy, as coaches, but remember- I just want to stress this- we're not really coaches. Hopefully it's a helpful analogy, but analogies all break down at some point.

Let's see if we can push this one to the breaking point today. Okay, So the tools we employ to carry out this role are deceptively simple to explain but take a lifetime to master. It's easy to explain a game of golf.

You take a ball and a stick and there's a hole out there in the distance and you keep hitting the ball until you get it in the hole. Easy to explain, but to actually get good at that game, well, you know what it's going to take, right, It really is that simple to describe. But don't let that simplicity lull you into the idea that you become an immediate master of those simple things once you understand what they are. It takes a lot of practice and that's half the fun of playing the game.

So now that we have our perspective down. We know kind of what we are and what we aren't.

Let's talk about observation, dialogue, discovery and responsive application. Since our goal is individual, we have to understand our scouts on an individual level.

We can't process individuals like we process widgets on an assembly line. To know who they are as an individual, we have to use our powers of observation And to understand the dynamics of small and large groups.

We have to observe them working together, And observing is kind of an underrated tool a lot of times. Now I'm going to make a slight digression, but an important point. If you accept the premise that I built here- our scouts advance towards the goal on an individual and a small group level- You immediately recognize that scouting has a scale.

Now Baden Powell talked about patrols of eight or so scouts because he understood that too far below or too far above that number things don't work as they ought to. Baden Powell also warned against scouts getting lost in herds. He recommended that troops shouldn't be much larger than 40 or 50 scouts because beyond that number a scouter is challenged to understand and work with scouts on an individual basis. End of slight digression. Go back to talking about observation. Observation is a real important aspect of our work because it involves watching and listening without responding or interfering.

To introduce another allegory, take a look at this as a first aid problem. If you're going to render effective first aid, you first have to observe and diagnose.

And if there are several different injuries going on, we have to triage the situation and treat the most dire injuries first. No matter how well we bandage someone's ankle, we're not doing them much good if they aren't breathing right.

So the importance of observation is lost on many of us because we're really anxious to apply our skills and knowledge. We're anxious to play the game, We're anxious to start talking about strategies and start training players and things like that.

But we have to observe, because applying any of the skills that we might have to a situation without first observing it thoroughly is an exercise in frustration and futility. So here's an observation exercise for you. Put a chair in your troop meeting room, sit in the chair and don't say anything for an entire troop meeting. Give that a shot. It's next to impossible if you're like me. But see what you observe, Take notes, Pretend you're a biologist.

That's the kind of observation I'm talking about, One where we're not offering advice, where we don't interfere but we're just watching to try and understand what's going on. The next tool that we're going to use after we've observed is dialogue. Observing will draw the broader lines of understanding about the situation. We fill in the details with dialogue.

So back to our first date analogy for a moment. We see someone lying on the ground, maybe their arm or leg- Is it an unusual angle?

So once the scene is secure, we talk to them and ask them what happened and what discomfort they're experiencing, and we listen to their answers, And that's before we apply any kind of first aid. Dialogue in our context is a conversation where we ask questions and listen to answers. It's really that simple. As a scouter, dialogue is one of your most powerful tools.

We can break dialogue down into two basic streams: Inquiry and direction. Inquiry employs open-ended questions, Ones that require more than a yes or a no answer, And that leads our scouts to explain what they understand about a given idea or situation. And when they explain what they understand, we then know what they don't understand, or we understand their perspective of things. And direction is just what it sounds like: Giving directions or making statements rather than asking questions.

Now, if we're honest with ourselves, our first response in most situations is directive And there's good reason for that. Direction creates immediate results. We hope, It's efficient And it's an expression of our authority, and all of those things make us feel good. On the other side of the equation, direction does not do a whole lot to advance us towards the goal unless it leads to a shared understanding of why the direction was given.

Now I hope you're following me, because this is both really important and it's kind of tiresome to talk about and to listen to. After all, who has the time to go through all this? Tell our scouts what to do and get it done. I mean, my dad used to put it this way. When I say jump you jump. I bet you there are plenty of you who are familiar with that particular saying.

Now, that's an effective way to produce immediate results and to foster discipline. But immediate results and discipline are very thin slices of our overall goal.

So keep track of how many times you respond to a situation by giving directions. Then consider how you can use those situations to apply inquiry and build character in your scouts by advancing the scout oath and law. You'll do that more through inquiry and dialogue than through giving directions. And remember this dialogue, this inquiry that we're doing is intended to get scouts to direct themselves by asking them questions. I'm not saying giving directions is always wrong or misplaced, Just that it's not as important as it seems to be to get ourselves between point A and B to invoke the process of scouting.

Here's another analogy: you ready? So imagine a bus tour of you know.

Let's say it's some important city and we're all welcomed into and seated in the air-conditioned comfort of a motor coach and a guide stands up front with a microphone and we listen to the guide explain each landmark in detail so we won't miss anything. The guide sticks to the script.

We sit behind the tinted windows of our bus, dutifully turning our heads to the left and then to the right. There's so much explaining going on that there's not much time left for questions, and soon the tour is over.

Now contrast that bus tour with a hike that's led by a knowledgeable guide. He takes up the rear of the group, lets the group find the trail. When the path branches, they'll tell us what to do.

If we can't figure it out on our own, They don't mind if we stop now and then we're taking the tour or taking the view, and they'll happily tell us all about what we're looking at. If we ask Now, that type of guide is not necessarily going to volunteer much information.

They might drop a hint here or there and they'll answer any questions we have, and we may actually miss some sites along the way or pass by interesting things, but our group will probably get more out of what we discovered along the hike and asked about than what the guide in the bus tour told us about. So working with Scouts is more like the hike than the bus tour: A gentle push in the right direction rather than dragging them along. A suggestion rather than a command, A question asked rather than an answer given. Our role is more responsive than directed.

Each group of Scouts is different, so how we play out our role is in response to their development. So we have a perspective, we observe. From that perspective, we enter into dialogue which balances inquiry and direction, and this results in discovery for our Scouts. They discover what to do next, They discover the next steps forward because, think about it, it works this way: We observe our observations and form our dialogue. We inquire of the Scouts what they understand and they discover what they understand and what they don't understand. If we aren't asking questions and we simply give directions.

It will kind of work if we go back and then make inquiries about why we gave the particular directions that we did so that Scouts will understand the basis of those directions. But I favor the first way because Scouts will end up directing themselves and they will discover things and that process will encourage them to keep on discovering. I'm a big advocate of inquiry, of asking questions rather than giving directions.

So all of these things- the perspective, the observation, the dialogue, the discovery- now put us in the place where we can wisely respond to what our Scouts need and we can apply some of the rules of the game, some of the methods, some of the strategies. Each group of Scouts is different, so how we play our roll out is a response to their development, their groups, dynamics and their abilities. We learn about who they are, what they're able to do, the pace of their development. We talk about it, we ask them questions about it. They discover things, we discover things, and this sets the pace of our work. Individuals and groups understand and apply concepts at differing paces.

Each has their own starting point. Our job is focused on advancing them forward from where they started.

Now I know it sounds too simple, and it probably is, but observation, dialogue, discovery and responsive application are the tools we apply in this endlessly recursive process that never ends. It is who Scouts are and what we do. I'm putting it in simple terms, but it's endlessly complex when you begin to practice it.

So the last thing I want to talk about today is attitude. All of what we're doing comes under the umbrella of the attitude with which we approach what we're doing. Employing our skills from the right perspective is important, but they won't achieve that goal with out this final piece of the puzzle, and that's having the right attitude. Attitude is a choice, and this choice is what makes the roll of a Scouter open to just about anybody. We don't have to really go into a complex definition of what the right attitude is, because it's defined by the Scout Oath and Law. That may sound simplistic, but it's exactly right and it's one of the only things I know is exactly right, because when I examine my own attitude about things and I examine that against the ideals of the Scout Oath and Law, things become very clear indeed.

I haven't always been, am not now and certainly will never become a perfect expression of the Scout Oath and Law, but I'm going to keep trying and encourage my Scouts to do the same. So, in short, I'm going to be compassionate. I'm going to strive to understand and relieve the flaws, sufferings and misfortunes of others, and I can't do that in others without first accepting and relieving them in myself.

So that's an important aspect of the right attitude. Right is not just being kind and considerate and compassionate to others, but finding considerate and compassionate to yourself. In the last podcast I talked about games being theoretically perfectable but practically imperfectable, and our attitudes are kind of the same way as our people. We are the same way as people. We are theoretically perfectable, but practically nobody's going to be a perfect person. We may understand the ideals in the Scout Oath and Law, but we're not going to be a perfect representative 100% of the time.

These two ideas present us with an aggravating conflict because they create what we called in the last podcast cognitive dissonance. Scouters need to learn to accept that this dissonance is as part and parcel of our work as anything else. This is a difficult thing to truly apply to your coaching style, to your Scouters style. On one hand, you have to be truly motivated and satisfied with incremental improvements, dissatisfied enough to sharpen the challenge to inspire and motivate the players towards reaching beyond themselves, and your effectiveness as a Scouter hinges on what you decide to do with the frustration this dissonance creates.

We can turn this frustration into critical, cynical anger or into positive motivation. Let's first do away with the idea that we're going to turn our frustration back on our Scouts in a negative way. This is a stereotypical coach's locker room speech that shames, berates and degrades the players. Attitudes like that are iminical to our overall goal as Scouters. All of the tools in our toolbox are positive, just as the Scout Oath and Law is positive. We don't have to paint a negative picture of things.

Our Scouts are pretty good at doing that themselves. We always look for positive progress. We diffuse anger and disappointment and encouragement. Angry, resentful, difficult coaches are sometimes pretty good coaches, but they've made the goal of the team, pleasing them of achieving their personal standard of achievement. They place themselves on a pedestal of importance. If you don't do as the coach says, the coach gets angry and is mean to you.

But we know that really effective leaders, really effective coaches and Scouters imbue their followers with a sense of purpose and this motivates them to stretch themselves towards ever greater achievement. A good coach might be celebrated. A great coach is kind of invisible because they're motivating and inspiring their team.

So, to review what we've talked about today, our role as Scouters begins with perspective, in other words, understanding our role in the game. Perspective defines our attitude. How we express ourselves is definitely a choice. It's not all determined by personality and we're not powerless to overcome the negative in ourselves to express a positive attitude. It could be hard work sometimes, and I know it, boy do I know it.

But you know we're not powerless in that department. The next step is understanding the tools we have to play our role. We employ observation, dialogue, discovery and responsive application in this endlessly recursive process. Every tool in our toolbox is positive, just like the scout oath and law is positive. Our attitude defines our effectiveness in achieving the goals of scouting, of developing character in young people, is dependent on our understanding of these particular tools.

So that's it for this time around. I'm very interested in hearing from you, very interested in getting your opinions, your questions, your reflections on what we talked about today. Getting in touch is pretty simple and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.