BSA National and Change Management

[gblotter]

On 7/9/2018 at 3:12 AM, qwazse said:

I am in favor of coed scouting. I am not financially desperate. Nor does the presence or absence of LDS give me any sense of urgency.

I obviously wasn't referring to your individual motivations.

[CalicoPenn]

Change management is one of those MBA buzzwords that MBAs use to justify their basketry degrees.

[NJCubScouter]

3 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

 In addition, I don’t see National’s recognizing the lack of quality volunteers as a major issue and designing this change with that in mind.

If you are talking about the quality of unit leaders, as I believe you are, I would say that National does not see that as a major issue for National.  They leave it up to local leadership and CO's to find quality leaders.  They would start caring at the point where incompetent leadership becomes so serious and so widespread that it results in the disappearance of multiple units and members (and the registration fees that come with them.)

[Eagledad]

59 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

If you are talking about the quality of unit leaders, as I believe you are, I would say that National does not see that as a major issue for National.  They leave it up to local leadership and CO's to find quality leaders.  They would start caring at the point where incompetent leadership becomes so serious and so widespread that it results in the disappearance of multiple units and members (and the registration fees that come with them.)

I'm not so sure. I think they are too far from the trenches to feel enough humility to change. I had an opportunity to talk with a National professional once about program and the problems we were seeing at the district level. I commented about the burnout problem of the Cub program. He looked at me very seriously and said, in a condescending tone, "OK, what do you think we should do about it?" I said consider the idea of stepping back with Tigers. He said, "impossible!", and walked off. The walking off said more than his impossible response because we were having a somewhat arranged discussion. OK, I know I was way out there with the Tiger suggestion, but he didn't even show any desire to pursue a discussion. They know they have a problem, or problems. But, from the changes I've seen over my career of scouting, National tries to fix problems with changes the would benefit future ideas or plans. Not fix a present bad idea. I have never seen them step back from a previous change, they only seem to go forward by adding fixes to past changes. The Tiger  program is a good example.  

I'm guessing that Nationals professionals are limited in the resources and talent to approach identifying the causes of problems and fixing those problems. As an engineer, I know working new ideas is easier than making bad ideas successful. 

Barry

Edited July 10, 2018 by Eagledad

[NJCubScouter]

16 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

I have never seen them step back from a previous change, they only seem to go forward by adding fixes to past changes. The Tiger  program is a good example.  

And now they have made the burnout problem even worse by adding Lions.

[Eagledad]

2 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

And now they have made the burnout problem even worse by adding Lions.

Exactly! 

[CalicoPenn]

Barry's story about an unsatisfying interaction he had with a National staff member has me thinking.  Perhaps the conflicts we're seeing is a matter of perception due to size differences.  To use Barry's example of the problems with the Tiger program, there are folks at the local level who are not having good experiences with the Tiger program.  When they mention it "up the chain", the response they get it unsatisfactory - it feels as if their concerns are not being taken seriously and that the people at National/Council just don't care and are out of touch.

I wonder though if they don't seem to care because they're looking beyond the local towards a more national scope.  At the local level, we may see 2 or 3 units struggling with Tiger in a district with 10 Cub Scout units and see it as a problem.  At the national level, National may have heard of 100 or so units struggling with Tiger out of a few thousand units.  At that level, the issue seems to be a problem with those units, not with the program.  Now I'm not suggesting that there are no problems with the Tiger Program.  I'm only suggesting that our worldview affects our perception on just how bad those problems are and who is responsible for the problem and the solution. 

We've had a lot of folks saying how much they don't trust National because of various reasons - yet I think we sometimes forget that National hasn't come out and said they don't trust us.  Sure, it may feel like that with their Guide to Safe Scouting and their list of prohibited activities but when it comes right down to it - they aren't actively enforcing any of those things.  Think the ban on Scouts under 14 using a 4-wheel cart (aka Radio Flyer Wagon) is silly and you're not going to enforce it at a service project?  No one from National is going to jump out of the bushes and fine you for refusing to follow that rule.  None of their rules and prohibitions are pro-actively enforced (except perhaps at District/Council events/properties, summer camp, National properties) - they are enforced retro-actively - after the event has occurred.  No one form National/Council is actively monitoring our units to make sure we are following the program to the letter.  National trusts us to run the programs that they have created.  Is it any wonder that they might think the issue we might have with a program is something for us to solve if other units aren't having that problem?

 

[NJCubScouter]

15 minutes ago, CalicoPenn said:

Think the ban on Scouts under 14 using a 4-wheel cart (aka Radio Flyer Wagon) is silly and you're not going to enforce it at a service project?  No one from National is going to jump out of the bushes and fine you for refusing to follow that rule.  None of their rules and prohibitions are pro-actively enforced (except perhaps at District/Council events/properties, summer camp, National properties) - they are enforced retro-actively - after the event has occurred.  No one form National/Council is actively monitoring our units to make sure we are following the program to the letter.  National trusts us to run the programs that they have created.

Well, I'm not sure that the absence of anyone from National jumping out of the bushes necessarily means that they "trust us."  The fact is that they don't have nearly enough staff (and in practical terms, never could) to be hiding in the bushes in the first place.

[Jameson76]

22 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

Well, I'm not sure that the absence of anyone from National jumping out of the bushes necessarily means that they "trust us."  The fact is that they don't have nearly enough staff (and in practical terms, never could) to be hiding in the bushes in the first place.

They could redirect some of the many minions from the marketing groups and the foundation writers for that task.

[carebear3895]

2 hours ago, NJCubScouter said:

And now they have made the burnout problem even worse by adding Lions.

Been saying this since the very beginning. I cringe every time I see national say what a resounding success it's been. 

[walk in the woods]

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

Well, I'm not sure that the absence of anyone from National jumping out of the bushes necessarily means that they "trust us."  The fact is that they don't have nearly enough staff (and in practical terms, never could) to be hiding in the bushes in the first place.

Or they could set up a toll free number for concerned citizens, parents, and members to anonymously report egregious violations of the G2SS and related literature.

[carebear3895]

2 hours ago, Eagledad said:

I'm guessing that Nationals professionals are limited in the resources and talent to approach identifying the causes of problems and fixing those problems. As an engineer, I know working new ideas is easier than making bad ideas successful. 

 

The problem with National professionals reflects a bigger problem with BSA professional in general. I would wager 95%-100% of the pros working at National were SE's in like 2000-2015 and are pretty out of touch. They were DE's in the 80's and 90's and have no idea the problems facing DE's today. The talent is limited because they purposely limit the talent by not trusting the young professionals...the guys and girls in the districts right now. 

 

I mean I met the guy in charge of BSA IT. Never worked in IT in his life, but he was a professional scouter and former SE. The guys who are BSA HR....never spent a day in HR but were again professional scouters and former SE's. It's a bad pattern

[Eagledad]

I have a couple of questions that I'm not sure anyone on the forum can answer, when did women start taking positions at policy making level of National and how many are there now?

Barry

[Hawkwin]

My daughter is at day camp this week (I chaperoned yesterday) and I have been struck by two things:

1. The number of people that were not aware that Scouts was going coed in any capacity (a failure of management - it seems Nationals relied on Boys Life and packs/troops to tell this story and Nationals should never let someone else tell your story or you lose the narrative).

2. The number of parents that expressed excitement at the idea (I know, completely anecdotal).

I get that some parents will remain clueless up and through any changes but I think it fair to assume that any parent that is involved enough to not only send their scout to summer camp but also attend, might have a higher level of involvement that would facilitate them being informed of the membership changes. Nationals could have certainly exercised change management better as it pertains to communication of the change.

For everyone else, might I suggest a book published while I was in college and used by one of my profs: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Mazing-ebook/dp/B004CR6AM4

[Jameson76]

58 minutes ago, carebear3895 said:

 The talent is limited because they purposely limit the talent by not trusting the young professionals...the guys and girls in the districts right now. 

The selection of the talent is interesting.

Not to bash the current DE selections, understand our new DE (we get a new one each and every year) has no familiarity with the program, was not a member in any way, and is just out of college.  All well and good, not 100% sure what value will be brought to an existing district by this hire.  Degree seems to be in some liberal arts field, not sales / management / marketing which those skills could used.  They were at the council camp to get oriented (I guess??) to BSA, spent a lot of time getting patches because everyone seemed to have patches so they needed some.

Maybe we will meet them at some point, suspect not.  Wish them well