Module 3 – Building an Effective Commissioner Service

Building an Effective Commissioner Service – Challenges

How Do You Recruit People?

For additional recruiting ideas see the pamphlet, Selecting District People, No. 34514, and the video tape, Recruiting District Volunteers, AV-06V002.

How Can You Get New Commissioners Ready to Succeed?

The keywords are “FOLLOW UP”

How Do You Guide or Manage Them?

Because you are working with a diverse group of volunteers supervising Commissioners demands more skills than that of merely guiding others or supervising people in a workplace environment. Many old hands may resent what they feel is interference and new hands may not understand why you have reacted or know what to think about it. For most experienced Commissioners the common wisdom is that the supervising commissioner needs to be more of a mentor and counselor than a boss.

Similarly, your Unit Commissioner will have to be a mentor/counselor to the unit leaders and cannot see his/her role as that of a unit supervisor. This requires a “friend and counselor” approach.

In either setting there are some common things that can be done to improve the working relationship:

What Are Some Early Warning Signs of Trouble?

Okay ADCs, let’s assume that you have successfully recruited and have started to manage people using some of the techniques above. How do you know when there are problems and when trouble is just around the corner? What are some signs that a Unit Commissioner is having problems? Or that you may be about to run into trouble with a Unit Commissioner?

Here are some of early warning signs of potential trouble:

How Do You Respond to Challenges?

Before you get to excited because there is a single or even a couple of warning signals, take a minute to size up the big picture. How is the overall performance of the Unit Commissioner? What is the overall health of his/her units? What is the risk that the “warning signal” will expand to worse or develop into real problems? You will have to use a lot of judgment based on your experience, knowledge and wisdom. You may also want to use your personnel resources; e.g. your District Commissioner, your professional staff and other Commissioners to give you ideas before plunging ahead. But once you determine that you have a problem situation, you will need to act. Here are some considerations for plotting your course:

How Do You Recognize Burnout?

You as a Scouter are an invaluable asset to your Council, District, and/or Unit, depending on where and how you serve youth. Without people like you many Scouts would never have the enriching experiences that they get in Scouting. But you are only human and have limits. If you exceed your limits, there is the danger that you may become unable or limited in your ability to helps these Scouts. As a result it is important every once in awhile to take a little time just for yourself and assess how you are doing and whether you should be making changes to retain all the wonderful qualities that you have, which make you such an asset to these young people. This posting is intended to help you avoid “Scouter Burnout” and to recognize when it may be a problem for your UCs.

“Scouter Burnout” is not a precise term, but a reference point for continued discussion. What follows is a questionnaire just for you, one that you won’t share with anyone else. Take a look at the instructions and give it a try. Although it has points for you to fill in, there are no magic formulas, no wrong answers. Its purpose is to help you see areas where you might want to make adjustments.

Scouter Burnout Questionnaire

Instructions: Please read the following questions and in the space provided at the left, rate your truthful, personal experiences of how you feel the majority of the time when you are performing your duties as a Scouter. Rate yourself with a score of 1, 5, or 10 with 10 being the most frequent. See the example below:

1 Seldom or never a difficulty to me. (green)
5 Sometimes a difficulty to me. (yellow)
10 Frequently a difficulty to me. (red)

My time is controlled by factors beyond my control.
Interruptions.
Chronic Overload – more to do than time is available.
Occasional Overload
Chronic Underload – too little to do in time available.
Occasional Underload
Alternating periods of overload and underload.
Disorganization of my time.
Procrastination on Scout Projects
Separating home, work, and Scouts.
Transition from home, to work, to Scouts.
Finding time for regular exercise.
Finding time for regular periods of relaxation.
Finding time for Friendships.
Finding time for family.
Finding time for vacations.
Easily bored with Scouts.
Saying “yes” when I later wish I had said “no.”
Feeling overwhelmed by large tasks over an extended period of time.
Avoiding important tasks by frittering away time on less important ones.
Feel compelled to assume responsibilities in groups.
Unable to delegate because of distrust of quality of other’s performance.
Unable to delegate because there is no one to delegate to.
My perfectionism creates delays.
I tend to leave tasks unfinished.
I have difficulty living with unfinished tasks.
Too many projects going on at one time.
Get into time binds by trying to please others too often.
I tend to hurry even when its not necessary.
Lose concentration while thinking about other things I have to do.
Not enough alone time.
Feeling compelled to be punctual.
Pressure related to deadlines.
TOTAL

Now that you have completed this and started looking at the number of fives and tens you wrote, don’t panic. Everyone of us is going to have a few here and there. I found a few areas here that surprised me too. Guess I’m not all in the green (ones) yet.

I don’t have any magic answers as to what constitutes a safe score. What I can tell you is that the more of these that you rated 10 the more likely you are under stress and a candidate for burnout. The tens should be regarded as alarms (red). And if you have a large number of fives you should be looking at them as caution signals (yellow). Take a look at the ones you rated as a 10 and ask yourself what can be changed to make it a five or a one. Try to reduce as many as you can. In six months or a year do this evaluation again. If your score is the same or increasing, then you should be concerned. Its time to talk with your District Commissioner and your Unit Commissioners. It is also time to share some of the load, reduce the number of things you do, seek quality in what you do, and reorient. And if it is apparent that a large number are high and the number growing, you may want to consider talking with your physician about attending a stress management course to pick up information you can use to change for the better.