Who Learned the Most About Leadership?

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Return From Camp

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently escorted 19 Boy Scouts to summer camp at Raven Knob Scout Reservation near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Being as there is generally not a lot for adults to do there, I was able to spend a lot of time observing, reflecting, and planning. This is our second straight year at this camp and we plan to return next year as well, primarily because this particular camp is so well run. The amazing part of it is that the program is almost entirely run by Boy Scouts, not adults. And by almost entirely, I mean that the adults involved are in supporting roles and primarily managerial roles. The Program Director on down are Scouts running the show!

Now, summer camps by necessity are pretty well-structured and offer lots of programs. A Boy Scout camp is no different, offering opportunities for the boys to work towards rank advancement or earning merit badges. All that structure requires a lot of staff members to make it go, providing administration, program, food service, and other elements. When you have a program that is well-organized and runs smoothly with that many factors and personnel involved, and it is run by boys; well, that deserves a little looking at to find out why. So, I did.

The Raven Knob Difference

The Camp Director is Keith Bobbitt and my understanding is that his philosophy and approach is what drives the success of this camp. Keith is what we call a Professional Scouter, an adult who gets paid to do this. In talking with Keith both last year and this year, I am struck by the awesome leadership he exhibits with the summer camp program. Keith has developed a vision and core values that are the cornerstone of the program. Applicants to work summer camp are carefully reviewed and selected. All staff members are required to attend ongoing training in how the camp runs, their roles, and their leadership. As camp goes on, Keith and his team identify staff members who exhibit extraordinary competence and leadership. Those candidates are then provided with additional training and guidance, moved to more challenging roles, and return the next year to serve in higher capacity.

As I mentioned, even the Program Director is a Scout. He is responsible to lead all the section directors (also mostly all Scouts) and lead daily meetings with adult leaders from all the troops that attend to keep them informed. If you have an issue during camp, you will speak to Scout to get it resolved. When I asked Keith Bobbitt about the Program Director role and how he can confidently fill it with a Scout, he told me that the person for the that position has actually been trained over a few years to fill it. He even confidently boasted to me that when the current Program Director ages out of Scouting or moves on, he has 3-4 others already prepared to take that role on and maintain the consistency in the effectiveness of the camp.

Vision, Empowerment, and a Commitment to Excellence

A few take-aways for me stood out from observing the week, not all of it new but certainly reinforced:

Vision helps everyone perform better. What’s amazing about Camp Raven Knob is not just that it is run by boys — other Boy Scout camps do that as well — but rather that it is run so smoothly and efficiently by boys. They were always courteous and helpful. And while those two words are part of the Scout Law and you would expect them to be that way at every camp; the reality is that not all of them go the extra mile with it like they do at Raven Knob. I believe it is because the vision of what they want the camp to be is consistently communicated to the staff. Once they understand the vision, it sets an expectation, which then makes it easier for the staff to behave in a manner consistent with that vision.
Empowerment lets each person contribute and spreads the load. When you provide the vision, tell them to go make it happen, and get out of their way then most everyone will rise to the occasion and perform based on the vision. By empowering the Program Director to run things, make decisions, and make changes as necessary, Keith not only allows that Scout to truly contribute to the success of the camp, he is making his own load lighter as well. When the Program Director allows his section directors to do their jobs and make decisions, he also is developing people and lightening his own load. I daresay that if the Program Director kept all the decision making to himself, he would go crazy around week 2 or 3.
Boys teach me more than I ever teach them. They had challenges of bad weather at points, being in a totally unfamiliar environment, hustling around from session to session all day, and yet took the time to thoroughly enjoy themselves and get to know each other better. I believe our troop firmed up their relationships that week through the shared experiences and the resulting “inside jokes” from that. Litigious spiders, “are we there yet? Yes, get out!”, playing SetBack, and “Hey, Hi!” will all become cultural components of our troop. And it reminded me of things I often forget in “the real world”.

The Entrepreneurial Dilemma

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A Summer of Fears

It’s a time of apprehensive moments for the entrepreneur. Some many things happen during the summer that can cause the small businessman a lot of stress. As people vacation, they may be buying less of what you have to offer; unless of course your business revolves around tourism. You yourself may be contemplating time off. Holidays like July 4th in the U.S. almost force you to take time off. The stress from all of this for the entrepreneur is that so much of ourselves is wrapped up in our business that we hate to leave it for even one minute. Taking a whole day off is almost unheard of. And taking off a week? Forget it!

On a side note, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am an entrepreneur. I didn’t see it that way for a while, I think mostly because I don’t sell products as much as I do services. The more I looked at it, however, the more I realized that I am still very much so in the entrepreneurial spirit. So, like others, I stress during this time of year.

Off to Camp

As I am preparing for the July 4th holiday, I am also preparing to leave this Saturday to take 19 Boy Scouts to Summer Camp at Camp Raven Knob in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Great camp! So extremely well run that after visiting last year we immediately voted to go again this year. As a leader within the troop, I must go to make sure there is appropriate adult supervision. Who’s going to supervise me, I don’t know. : )

This decision to go did not come easy. I worry that I should be working, generating income, developing new programs; all kinds of things that keep my business going. Lost productivity time. The expense of making the trip, especially critical in the face of unforeseen expenses in other areas this year. I toyed briefly with bowing out.

In the end, I decided to go. I don’t know if my reasoning will help you in your decisions or not, but here’s what I came up with. The value of what can come out of this camp for the boys and the influence I can have adding to that value in my opinion far outweigh potential losses. These opportunities are rare, particularly with my own children growing older. I also had my integrity to think of, both my integrity with others and with myself. I had made a commitment that others were counting on. It’s important, again both for myself and for what I teach the Scouts, to fulfill my commitment no matter the cost. If you don’t have trust, you have nothing. Even more so, I needed to trust myself. As an entrepreneur I decided that I simply needed to trust in my ability to produce, trust in what I have to offer, and in my resolve to survive and even thrive no matter what. It won’t be easy and it will mean a lot of hard work when I return, but I was planning to work hard and smart anyway.

So, breathe! Take a few moments and re-charge! Trust yourself and your abilities! Enjoy the moment!

P.S. I will confess that there is a Scoutmaster’s Hut there with wi-fi so I won’t be completely disconnected and I am going to take some time doing some necessary planning and working on my book; so the week won’t be a complete loss.

What about you? What fears are you facing this summer?

Zombie Nation Rises!

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Beware Your Workplace Zombies!

Are you worried? Even if you don’t believe in Zombies (and I don’t) you should be worried. A Forbes Magazine article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/06/26/most-american-workers-are-zombies-but-theres-hope/) released this week summarizes a Gallup survey recently conducted that found that 70% of US workers are “disengaged” from their employment. In other words, they have become mindless zombies at work, going through the motions of their jobs. Now the poll defines engagement as being actively involved with the company goals and vision, feeling passionate about what they do, and working to innovate and improve the company. I would add working to improve the company bottom line as well. So by contrast disengaged means that they are simply doing the minimum; showing up, doing what is required and nothing more, not applying any creative thought. And the extreme is worse; they are UNHAPPY in their job and more than likely exhibiting that in a variety of ways, including a reduction in productivity. They estimate that this is costing us collectively HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS through lost revenue and lost productivity. The real concern is that the trend seems to be growing instead of shrinking. And it is not relegated to simply large corporations.

Cure for Zombie Nation

The good news is that there is HOPE! There is a CURE FOR ZOMBIFICATION! And it begins with the LEADERSHIP of the organization; whether the executive level of a large corporation or the owner of a small business. You can re-engage your employees and turn this around. The secret lies in FIRE. No, not firing them all and hiring someone else; you are simply getting rid of a known in favor of an unknown; not to mention the expense involved in recruiting and hiring a new employee. It also doesn’t lie in lighting a fire under them. Threats and intimidation has proven time and again to be highly ineffective in both the short and long-term in today’s workplace. In fact, I don’t think it was ever truly an effective tool. The real solution lies in LIGHTING A FIRE IN THEM! The employee who finds their own motivation and passion will awake from their zombie slumber, re-engage, seek performance excellence, improve their productivity, and as a result positively impact YOUR BOTTOM LINE. In fact, the Gallup poll strongly suggests that the highly engaged employee leads to the kind of growth you desire for your organization. But you cannot provide this motivation, it has to come from within the person. All you can do is provide the environment in which an employee can find that motivation. Employees find motivation and passion when the feel hope; hope for their future, hope for the future of the organization. If you can provide that, you will begin curing the zombification process.

Administering the Cure

So how do we get there? Here’s a some things to consider that have been proven over time in many situations to provide the right environment for employee engagement.

Communication

For too many managers and business owners, the extent of their communication with their staff consists of mumbled good mornings and “how are sales today?” Employees respond to open communication; this is especially true if you employ GenX and GenY people. You need to do more than just acknowledge their presence, you need to acknowledge their impact….to them directly and also indirectly by going public with it. You need to communicate your vision to them. How can they have hope in their future and the organization’s future if they don’t know where it is you want to go with it?

They also need to know that the door is open for two-way communication. They need to have confidence in the knowledge that their opinion and input is valued. They need to know they have room to make mistakes and to take responsibility for those mistakes and learn from them.

Mostly, they need to hear that they matter to you and the organization. If your attitude is that employees are a dime a dozen, be prepared to set aside those dimes because it will be all you will be able to pay because it is all you will have left.

Connecting

Confidence in open communication occurs when you have made a connection to your employees. When you take the time to talk with them, learn about them and their situations and their hopes and dreams, then you are able to connect with them and build that confidence in a relationship. Building that relationship does not necessarily mean going out for beers together, but it does mean recognizing that there is, beyond all the titles and roles, a person there who feels things just as personally as you do. You are invested personally in what you do which is why YOU are productive; how is that any less for your employees?

Focus on Strengths

This was mentioned in the article but has been a mantra of mine for some time. In job interviews and performance evaluations, the topic of strengths and weaknesses is brought up and then never addressed again. In the evaluation, we identify what we think their weakness is and then tell them to work on it. STOP! If you make an employee focus on their weaknesses you are creating two negative situations; one is that you have placed focus on their deficiencies instead of on where they make a positive impact and the other is they will ignore bolstering their strengths to focus on improving their weaknesses. Where are they the most productive for you, in their strengths or in their weaknesses? And let’s say they do work on their weakness, by how much? At best, they move from poor to mediocre. Meanwhile, their strengths are not improving and their productivity is lower and they are unhappy because they are not in their sweet spot. Find ways to increase their strengths and team them with others (inside or outside) to overcome their weaknesses.

Reward the Behaviors You Desire

Too often, we only focus on employees when something is wrong. So we emphasize the wrong behaviors because that is the only time anyone pays attention. It’s the same with your kids; if the only way a child gets attention is when they do something wrong (and they CRAVE attention) what do you think they are going to choose to do? You can’t ignore bad behaviors, but you can minimize the attention spent on them and spend more time focusing on the positive impacts. Spend time EVERY DAY catching them doing right.

Immediate Action

This is especially a challenge for small business owners but I have found it is often a challenge for corporate management as well. The time to act is now. Go to your calendar and open up some time to casually sit and talk with your employees one-on-one. Not in your office, but in a breakroom or on a bench somewhere or take them to a coffee house. Talk about where they feel they are most effective and ask them how you can help them be more effective. Assure them that they have value. Do it today, because the longer you wait the less likely you are to do it. What you don’t want to do is look back and say, “I shoulda…”

Make YOUR day more productive by applying the zombie cure.

Remember to KISS

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I like the title here; not only because it is somewhat catchy, but also because this week Sherry and I celebrated 18 years of marriage. She has been a tremendous blessing in my life and has believed in me even when I have not always believed in myself (yes, it happens to everyone). So, certainly a kiss has been on my mind.

It’s also an acronym, of course, for Keep It Simple, Silly, the admonition originating with either the Navy or Lockheed’s Skunkworks depending on who you believe. It’s a reminder for me at least that in the midst of complexity I need to fall back on simplicity. Especially when I communicate, I need to keep it simple. As a speaker, there is a tendency to want to create complex, intricate phrases and flowery statements because it is important that we sound like we know what we are talking about. But my objective isn’t to boost my reputation, it’s to communicate something I believe is important enough to share. Therefore, I need to keep my message simple.

I have been participating in a discussion on LinkedIn with other professional speakers about whether you should memorize your speech and just get the main points down in a outline and speak off the cuff. Naturally, it is a polarizing topic for those who care about those kinds of details. The pro-memorize people believe it helps you sound more professional and polished. The pro-outline people believe it makes you sound less rehearsed and you speak more from the heart.

For me, I have a hard time writing it down unless it comes from my heart. And I can’t possibly do an outline, it’s just not the way I think. And I think it misses the point. The point is to communicate with your audience; not just spew information, but communicate. To communicate, you have to first connect with the person or audience to whom you are speaking. Without that connection, your words fall basically on deaf ears. You may get nods of acknowledgement, but you won’t get action and you certainly won’t get any commitment. And this is true whether it is a speech before a large audience, addressing a board of directors, one-on-one with an employee or boss, or speaking to your best friend or your spouse or child.

Here’s the thing: no one connects precisely the same way as someone else. And this is where the discussion on LinkedIn goes awry. For some, the only way they can have the opportunity to effectively connect with someone is if they feel secure in the words and expression and may only get that from memorization and rehearsal. Others may feel uncomfortable delivering by rote and if you are uncomfortable then there is no way you can make anyone else comfortable; therefore you won’t make a connection. So those people work best by speaking from the heart, letting the words flow as they may. So the point is don’t worry about choosing this way or that way; let your mind and heart get together and create the flow. And don’t forget the most critical way you communicate: LISTEN!