NYLT Changes in 2009

[Eagledad]

>> I think many SM struggle with leadership development because they DON'T understand or know how to guide the scout in actual practice.

[Beavah]

These people need a 'canned' program that they can deliver to their scouts.

 

Yah, da assumption here is that canned program and "delivering" instruction are actually effective, eh?

 

I've watched lots of "canned" programs and "delivered" instruction over the years, in Scoutin' and out. I can't say that I've ever seen it be very effective. Sure, when you're talkin' skilled adults who are interested in a topic, they'll take a few things away from a canned program just by virtue of their own ethic and attitude as lifelong learners. But for most adults and kids? Nah. Lots of good feelings, "wasn't this great?!" stuff. Not much real sustained learning.

 

The best learnin' is personalized, and situation-specific. The farther we get away from that, the less effective we are, and the less we're really doin' Scouting well.

 

At best, NYLT is a small supplement to what goes on in the unit, but only if there's the sort of tight integration EagleDad talks about, so that things actually get "delivered" that apply well to a unit and the follow-up within the unit is top notch. And that's fairly rare, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[Kudu]

In some Councils the "old boys network" (that once kept alive the living memory of Traditional Patrol Method standards) moved to NYLT after the One Minute Mangers kicked them out of Wood Badge.

 

They keep the Patrol Method alive (outside of the course content) by scattering the NYLT Patrols around the camp (always at least 300 feet apart), and forcing the participants to figure things out for themselves as in the "old" Wood Badge.

 

Does anyone know the actual mechanics of the 2009 NYLT policy that will allow NYLT ASM's to receive a third Wood Badge Bead, and NYLT Course Directors to receive a forth Bead?

 

Specifically I wonder if the One Minute Managers' goal is to drive out the "old boys network" with their unofficial use of the Traditional Patrol Method in some Councils, and with the offer of Beads tempt Den Mommies to Staff NYLT so they can dumb it down to the Wood Badge level.

 

Kudu

 

[SR540Beaver]

Kudu,

 

I'm truly sorry that you hate the BSA as it exists today and am dumbfounded as to why you continue to involve yourself. That is assuming that you are actually involved and not just recounting how it once was back when you were. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you sir are a broken record. Must you keep repeating the same old insults over and over again? What exactly do you hope to accomplish?

[Kudu]

I staff my share of training courses including IOLS (past course director), and Scoutmaster Specific (now for the first time in ten years).

 

What exactly do I hope to accomplish? To kick you One Minute Managers out of the Boy Scout division and bring back the Patrol Method.

 

Kudu

 

[SR540Beaver]

I hate to diosappoint you, but the patrol method is alive and well in my neck of the woods just as WB is. But keep tilting at those windmills to your hearts content.

[emb021]

"I hate to diosappoint you, but the patrol method is alive and well in my neck of the woods just as WB is. But keep tilting at those windmills to your hearts content."

 

Likewise.

 

Most scout leaders would have no idea what you mean by "One Minute Managers", either. Sounds like you are confusing Situational Leadership, which is a well known and well used concept in leadership development for several decades, with the idea of the 'One Minute Manager'.

 

 

 

[Kudu]

SR540Beaver writes:

 

I hate to disappoint you, but the patrol method is alive and well in my neck of the woods just as WB is.

 

emb021 writes:

 

Likewise.

 

Simply put, Wood Badge is the Uniform Police of Leadership Development.

 

The purpose of Leadership Development is not to teach practical leadership skills so that a Patrol Leader can better take his Patrol out on an adult-free Patrol Hike or a Patrol Campout (even 300 feet away at a Boy Scout camp) as was the purpose of "Patrol Leader Training" before "Leadership Development" was invented in 1972.

 

The purpose of Leadership Development is to reduce Scouting down to the Least Common Denominator so that "Patrols" are nothing more than little manager theory classrooms.

 

I never hear of Wood Badge Staffers bragging about a real-world test of manager theory that involves Patrols camping 300 feet from each other as Baden-Powell suggested (and is now common in NYLT courses in Councils where the "old boy" circle thrown out of Wood Badge has moved to NYLT).

 

The new Wood Badge is all about insisting that any such classic definition of the Patrol Method is "old fashioned" in the "21st century" where Scoutmasters are mixed in with Den Leaders.

 

The sounds "pa-'trol" "'me-thod" may come out of your mouths, but Wood Badge uses the Patrol Method in the same way that termites use the Wood Frame Construction Method.

 

emb021 writes:

 

Most scout leaders would have no idea what you mean by "One Minute Managers", either. Sounds like you are confusing Situational Leadership, which is a well known and well used concept in leadership development for several decades, with the idea of the 'One Minute Manager'.

 

Converting Boy Scouts into a theory-savvy manager school might be the goal of Wood Badge, but in common usage One Minute Manager is used to hype Situational Leadership, as in:

 

Wood Badge is the highest and most advanced training course offered by the Boy Scouts of America. While it is rich in scouting history and tradition, participants will spend 6 full days and nights learning modern leadership theories from contemporary scholars such as Ken Blanchard (author of the One Minute Manager series of books)

 

Or:

 

Situational Leadership will supersede the leadership skills of Controlling Group Performance and Sharing Leadership in the Twenty-First Century Wood Badge course. Situational Leadership was first introduced in 1985 as a management concept in the popular One Minute Manager series of books by Kenneth Blanchard.

 

Therefore when I use "One Minute Manager" as shorthand for Wood Badge as manager school, anyone who has heard of the new "Situational Leadership as now utilized by over half of the Fortune 500 Companies" Wood Badge understands exactly what I mean.

 

Getting back to the topic, I wonder if the "Situational Leadership" purists have taken a page from China and plan to dilute the "old boy" Patrol Method culture that works around the edges of the NYLT course in some Councils by using the lure of Wood Badge Beads to flood the course with Den Leaders, just as China has destroyed Tibetan culture by offering incentives that flood Tibet with ethnic Chinese?

 

Kudu

 

[emb021]

"Situational Leadership was first introduced in 1985 as a management concept in the popular One Minute Manager series of books by Kenneth Blanchard. "

 

Not sure the source of this quote, but its incorrect.

 

Situational Leadership was first introduced in "Management of Organizational Behavior" by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard back in the 1960s.

 

Blanchard included it in one of the OMM books as a way to introduce the concept to general readers.

 

SL is about one-on-one leadership. There is also the Team Development Model and Team Leadership Model, which is about teams, which a patrol is. Using well known leadership development models is not some aberation or nullifys patrols and patrol leadership.

 

SL has been around for a long time, and is well used and respected, both by corporate group and non-profit groups. I have yet to understand your attitude toward it.

 

 

 

[Kudu]

emb021 writes:

 

There is also the Team Development Model and Team Leadership Model, which is about teams, which a patrol is.

 

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

 

Using well known leadership development models is not some aberation or nullifys patrols and patrol leadership.

 

Leadership Development does indeed nullify Patrols and Patrol Leadership because its purpose is to teach generic skills. The Patrol exists only to teach "Leadership Development," rather than Leadership Development serving only to get the Patrol out hiking and camping on its own (if only in the context of monthly Troop campouts at Boy Scout camps).

 

SL has been around for a long time, and is well used and respected, both by corporate group and non-profit groups. I have yet to understand your attitude toward it.

 

Perhaps you are perplexed because you are not as interested in the history of Patrol Leader Training as you are in the history of corporate and non-profit team building.

 

"Leadership Development" was not introduced as a "Method of Scouting" until 1972. Before then the BSA defined "A Real Patrol" as one that hiked (and eventually camped) on its own, under the sole supervision of a Patrol Leader:

 

"As soon as you are able you will want to take your boys on Patrol Hikes. You want your Patrol to be a real one, and only a hiking Patrol is a real Patrol" (BSA Handbook for Patrol Leaders, Chapter 7).

 

"Patrols are ready to go hiking and camping on their own just as soon as the Patrol Leader has been trained, and the Scouts have learned to take care of themselves....It should be your goal to get your Patrol Leaders qualified for hike and camp leadership at an early stage" BSA Handbook for Scoutmasters (fourth edition), page 118-119).

 

For 30 years "Patrol Leader Training" was designed to achieve that end, see:

 

http://inquiry.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm

 

Kudu

[emb021]

"Perhaps you are perplexed because you are not as interested in the history of Patrol Leader Training as you are in the history of corporate and non-profit team building. "

 

If so, why do I have a large collection of various editions of Patrol Leader Handbooks, Scoutmaster Handbooks, and old BSA training materials...

 

[Kudu]

You wrote "I have yet to understand your attitude toward it."

 

If you actually read and tried "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol," how can you possibly wonder?

 

Kudu

 

[MichaelOA]

I don't know about other councils, since my council has only had 1 NYLT course in it's lifetime which was last year actually, But our NYLT course was 90% youth staffers, only like 4-5 adults.

SM - ASM - T. QM - SPL

 

The rest of the staff were youths:

Troop Guide x8

 

Scouts:

PL x8 - APLx8 - and so on.

 

So I don't think ours gives away beads. But then, I'm not sure, I'm not one of the adults

 

[MichaelOA]

I don't know about other councils, since my council has only had 1 NYLT course in it's lifetime which was last year actually, But our NYLT course was 90% youth staffers, only like 4-5 adults.

SM - ASM - T. QM - SPL

 

The rest of the staff were youths:

Troop Guide x8

 

Scouts:

PL x8 - APLx8 - and so on.

 

So I don't think ours gives away beads. But then, I'm not sure, I'm not one of the adults

 

[fotoscout]

Let's hand out beads for New Leader Essentials too!!

 

I've done both, staffed WB, and staffed NYLT, and I don't believe that there is any comparison. Although I'd agree that NYLT is a lot of work, it requires nowhere near the same level of commitment and effort than that required for WB. When you earn your beads as a WB staffer, you have really done something above and beyond that truly warrants the recognition.

 

To me this sounds like a really big mistake.