Our troop needed discipline, standards to follow, and goals to reach to help the scouts go from being an undisciplined troop to a great troop. The scouts were frustrated, they weren't getting advancements, and the troop meetings were chaotic. When I became Scoutmaster, there were some things I discovered helping the boys achieve excellence:
Don't give empty praise.
While learning things like tying knots, care of uniforms, keeping tents tidy and orderly, I wasn't quick to praise and allowed other boys in the troop to give feedback on performance. When it came to the general responsibilities required of every scout, there was not an overabundance of praise, but a reminder of how they were getting closer to the goals. Constructive feedback was important, even though it was sometimes difficult for a young man to receive. But if you want a high performance culture, expertise can only result from constructive feedback.
Set clear goals with high expectations.
As a leader, you need to set a high standard. In our troop, safety was drilled, practicing setting up tents and packing them properly was drilled. We sometimes made a game of it and had the patrols compete against each other. We even did some creative drills in complete darkness to learn how to set up a tent on a dark night. We would keep doing this until the technique was perfected.
Even assembling at the beginning of a troop meeting needed some discipline with getting patrols to line up in an orderly fashion with each patrol leader learning to inspect his patrol for uniform code and how well they lined up for assembly. It eventually became a matter of pride to have a patrol that knew the drills and had their uniforms worn properly. The standards that were set in our troop were uncompromising and built upon previous skills learned.
If your employees are not doing quality work, you need to be honest while giving feedback. When setting goals, be as clear as you can. If a sale or a meeting goes poorly, you need to ask your employees what went wrong, how they will prepare for next time, and how they will improve. You need to "articulate intermediate goals" and encourage employees to stretch their abilities.
We can learn from failure.
Failure doesn't mean defeat. One of the most difficult things parents in the troop had to learn was letting the boys fail. One time the boys didn't prepare adequately for a weekend campout. They didn't have very much food. Even though they didn't starve, they were wishing they had more food as they smelled the bacon and eggs cooking in the Scoutmaster's and the other adult's cook pots. One of the dads wanted to go to the store and get some more food to bail out the boys. However, I stopped him and told him they wouldn't starve, but they needed to learn from their mistake. The boys never forgot that, and they did a better job preparing for campouts in the future. In fact, they got so good at cooking, that they did an annual Dutch Oven cook off contest to compete to see which patrol had the best recipes. I ate well at those contests!
It's never wise to punish employees for failure, but rather teach them how to get up and motivate themselves to try again. The scouts, and their parents, learned that failure was part of the process to becoming a great troop—not an end point. It was an opportunity to learn how to improve the next time. I also gave the boys responsibility to find correct solutions and implement self-discipline. My job was simply to guide them.
Say thank you.
The last piece of creating a great troop was showing gratitude. In our busy lives, being thankful can be the first thing we forget to do. Being tough is not enough, thanking boys and their leaders for being great examples was very important. Make sure to say "thank you" when your employees do great work, push themselves, and help make your job easier.
The results.
At a campout with other troops, I overheard a scout from another troop ask a scout from our troop who his Scoutmaster was. When he told him, the other scout exclaimed, "I hear he's a tough scoutmaster, and not a lot of fun!"
The scout from our troop responded, "You're mistaking toughness for not being fun. Mr. Crawford is tough, but we have a great troop, and I love being here. Besides, he is a lot of fun in the way he teaches us."
That warmed my heart.
Our troop grew from nine scouts to over fifty in a four-year period and became known as the top troop in our region. Additionally, District Superintendents brought other Scoutmasters to our troop meetings to show them how a troop should be run. They came expecting to see a Scoutmaster barking orders and cracking the whip. What they saw instead was a 14 year old boy leading a troop of 50 boys in a meeting, assigning responsibilities, patrols planning campouts and scouts confronting each other when a boy didn't adhere to the troop's high standards. They were an award-winning troop not because of empty praise, but because of tough love. My job was easy, I just needed to guide them to the troop they desired. To be in Troop 311 meant you were at the top of scouting.
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