Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Creating a leadership team is like making a cake


One of the biggest challenges camp professionals face is hiring, orienting, and training staff. It seems like an impossible task given the limitations of time, starting dates, school requirements, and logistics. Complicating this process is the daunting task of communicating--in a matter of days--the vast amount of information needed to ensure a quality camp experience for both staff and campers. While the philosophy of each camp is different, all orientations should include written goals that reflect a desire to assemble a staff whose collective ability will ensure a safe, happy, and rewarding summer for all campers.
Creating a Culture
In addition to these duties, directors also have the responsibility to create a culture that is conducive to maintaining a committed, motivated, and dedicated staff. After all, these special people are ultimately the ones who are going to make your mission a practical reality for campers. This is a difficult problem given the complexity of today's camp programs. With all the duties required to run a successful program, the time leading up to and including orientation is often overlooked for staff development. It is this concept that begins to separate the camps with a high rate of returning staff from those who struggle for a high percent of staff retention.
In speaking to directors from all over the Mid-Atlantic region about orientation and its purpose, it is clear that some camps are using it just to transfer basic information. Interestingly, some of these same programs expressed concern that they had too much staff turnover from one year to the next. While its hard to point to one reason for this trend, it is critical for directors to begin to think of orientation as a step in the staff maturation process and not just a necessary part of getting the summer started.
When I reviewed my own staff retention statistics, I found a consistent retention percentage somewhere in the high 60s. Given the time and effort that goes into staff hiring, this rate needed to be improved. After a careful examination of procedure followed by changing how staff are hired and trained, our retention over the past couple of years has been in the high 80s and low 90s. While each camp has its own system of hiring, one thing is clear--camps who have big staff turnovers need to redefine how their leadership teams are created.
Make Your Favorite Cake
So what does this have to do with cakes? To make your favorite cake, you first must start with a recipe that outlines the process and lists the ingredients that will ultimately lead to a tangible, final product you know to be good. If someone else has never tried this cake, then the degree of their eagerness to sample it is generally based on somebody's recommendation. This outcome-based objective is very similar to the process of recruiting and training camp staff. Because camp professionals are the ones with the best conceptual model depicting the type of experience being created, they must decipher what techniques are relevant to get that message across. Each camp, and their respective culture, is as different as types of cakes and everyone has their favorite kind.
Since each owner/director has a very specific type of experience in mind for his or her campers, it is important that staff are considered or retained on the basis of character and purpose as well as suitability and certifications. While you can often arrange for staff to attend various trainings, which are critical necessities to the camp program, you can't as easily generate predictable results from staff who have not had time to become a part of camp culture.
Read the Recipe
Getting prospective staff to understand how the mission is to be carried out is difficult because each applicant does not yet understand the vision. While it is not always possible to spend time with each staff member prior to orientation, it is possible to give them avenues to understand the part of your program not described in your brochure. On the top of the ingredient list should be finding a way to help staff establish contact with each other prior to orientation. Pay careful attention and group those with similar personality characteristics, same types of jobs, or who are about the same age. Holding conference calls, inviting groups to get together, or having pre-orientation days will help them to build a base of confidence.
Remember, as camp approaches and the "things-to-do list" seems never ending, so does the list for many of your staff. Most staff are really working hard to meet the demands of getting to camp and often feel unprepared for what they are about to do. Taking time to help them through this transition helps establish a working relationship that will consistently pay personal dividends all summer.
Allowing for this pre-orientation communication to transpire shows them they are the camp's number one resource. What a tremendous impression it leaves on a newly hired staff when camp leaders take time out to personally speak to them about their camp questions. By doing this, directors are demonstrating that their thoughts and feelings are important and their input is valued.

Gather all Ingredients
To begin the process of acquiring or retaining quality staff which will most effectively possess the specific ingredients necessary to create your camp culture, you must first recognize that effective staff development is a year-round process. If camp professionals are truly in the business of leadership development, it is critical to universally treat each staff member (returning, new, or prospective) as a potential ingredient to our mission recipe. The goal is ultimately to acquire the finest collection of staff possible who, through a careful process of measuring and sifting, will interpret your camp's ideals to campers.
Mix the Ingredients
The fundamental problem is that quality staff orientations are, by themselves, not sufficient enough to accomplish the long-term goal. Giving staff the necessary information needed to properly do their immediate job on the first day of camp may neglect the critical transfer of ownership in the staff development process. Remember, the cake batter is only as good as the ingredients. So how do you get more out of orientation if your time is already maximized?
The preparation--or mixing--of ingredients needs to begin long before orientation. Do not wait until the start of orientation to begin the process of incorporating staff into program development. To train staff so their actions will lead toward a predictable outcome, or type of cake, you must first hire people who, by fundamental character, will possess the ability to be leaders.
So what are you seeking, and how are you going to know when you find it?
* First, decide exactly what qualities are desired and develop a set of questions and scenarios that will help determine the resourcefulness and character of each applicant.
* Then, design your interviews and tours to evaluate the potential leadership of each applicant given the camp's specific criteria.
* Here is where the magic begins. Hire a cross-section of people who represent each stage of development in terms of maturity, ability, and potential. Have a full understanding of age and gender differences prior to developing the final criteria.
* Make sure interview questions have been carefully designed to illicit the specific responses necessary to complement your returning staff's existing skills.
Avoid hiring all self-proclaimed superstars. These ingredients, which often do not blend together, will alter the outcome of your cake. To be effective in leadership development, hire people who have, or show the potential for, working together for a common goal. Staff will be more cohesive if they are hired for a predetermined set of character traits that best reflect the recipe. Help the cause by looking for staff who show distinct leadership characteristics. For example, does the applicant:
* appear to cope with daily complexities or do they enact change?
* do what is told or are they involved in what they do?
* perform expectations or create expectations?
* seem to be hard working and analytical or visualize a purpose?


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