A critical examination of routine staff behavior
Staff turnover in youth-serving organizations is so rapid that games, schedules, time-off activities, and leadership methods get labeled “traditions” almost instantly. Owners and directors must therefore be doubly vigilant: Beware of any spontaneous creativity your staff anoints as tradition when it is simply a fresh idea—a tryout—not even worthy of being called a trend, let alone a tradition. Beware also of longstanding, true traditions that have gone unexamined for years. They may have a wholesome core but are now in desperate need of updated methods; perhaps they need to be retired and replaced altogether. Because much has been written about examining and updating existing traditions, I will focus here on the first cautionary statement above—the hasty classification of new practices as tradition.
When a behavior attains the status of a tradition, staff members tend to follow it consistently, often without thinking. In some cases, this conformity can be beneficial. For example, at the summer camp where I grew up and then worked for more than three decades, cabin leaders asked their campers to line up single file before entering the dining hall. Staff accepted and followed this established practice without much reflection on its purpose. That was fine because it was an efficient way to quiet and calm the children while simultaneously conducting a head count.
Of course, when a habitual practice is not a best practice, mindless conformity is detrimental, and revision is necessary. Even more insidious is when the staff anoints a trend with the “tradition” label because it invites thoughtless compliance. For example, a parks and rec program where I facilitated a day of staff-training workshops had been initially excited by the mid-summer revival of its outdoor-education program, only to discover that a single, charismatic staff member had increased attendance tenfold by taking large groups of kids on nature walks far from the center of campus. The director called to ask what I thought of this “new tradition,” despite its violating two principles I had emphasized in my workshops: two-deep leadership and appropriate staff-to-participant ratios. My brief silence was all this director needed to answer her question. That afternoon, she began crafting some revised practices that preserved the attractive qualities of adventuresome nature walks while insisting on staffing best practices.
