1994 - Great Customer Service and My First Child

Bob Telleen at Camp Manito-Wish YMCA

 

(40 Summers 40 Lessons Series)

“You will be a better father because you are a camp director and you will be a better camp director because you are a father.” Bob Telleen

Building rapport with others is a basic tenant of the sales pipeline. It happens in a matter of moments in any service relationship.

Bob Telleen was the YMCA of the USA’s Camp Specialist (the title has changed over the years) for the first 10 years of my career as a Camping and Youth Development professional. His role was at a national level and he worked to support the nearly 300 plus YMCA camps around the country. When I was back as the Camp Executive with Bluff Lake in 1993-98, he would often call and share resources with all the camp folks in similar roles. I had met Bob at an American Camp Association (ACA) and YMCA camp gathering of professionals.

While Bob had a sage like quality, he came across as more of a mentor and somewhat folksy. There was an instant liking to his charm and he had a very deliberate speaking style (often attributed to those in the mid-west).

My camp at that time was less than $1 million dollars a year budget. It was a three season camp; meaning we did not operate year round. It had only been around for 45 years. It was on 120 acres of land surrounded by National Forest Service. It served about 1500 to 2400 different campers each year. In contrast with the larger camps in the YMCA world, it was considered small. It is not my intention to downplay the significance; it is just a contrast in how it was perceived from many colleagues in the camping world.

Often times, at conferences, I would join in on conversations with fellow executive directors who would gather and talk about their financial accomplishments or building projects. In joining a group of directors, one would often hear, “I raised over $2.7 million for my new dining hall.” “I had over 3000 new participants for our outdoor education program.” “I am working on our Board development with Tim Allen.” “My camp is accessing another 2700 acres of property.”

It was always a measurement of added assets, greater dollar value and self accomplishment. I spoke to Bob about this and he would assure me that our value was just as much as those of those larger camp programs. I recall a few years later at a camping conference at a large camp facility where the building I was staying in was almost as large as my entire camp facility.

I had another great coach at the time, EJ Lugo; who told me I was trying to play in a pond that I did not fit in. She coached me toward changing the rules of that measurement game. The next year, at that same conference, I walked up and played a new game.

It sounded like this.

The YMCA camps have a self improvement program at called the “Ragger” program. Essentially, participants choose to challenge themselves in a year-long (or longer) time span to improve a quality of aspect about them. They receive a Rag (7 different colors representing different levels) and the first one is Blue in color. The Rag is an outward symbol of an inward goal and is just a rag, a piece of cloth. There is a ceremony where it is tied around the participant’s neck and they talk to a “counselor” about their individual challenge (s). I have seen life changing goals that youth as young as 12 have taken on.

So, I shifted the conversation at those conferences and meet ups. I would introduce myself and follow up with, “last summer our camp had 463 new Blue Raggers challenge themselves.” I may have been mocked and made fun of by some of those executive types and I knew that I was leaving a significant impact on those young people’s lives as well. And 100 years from now, I know that those buildings and fund raisers and the fact that Tim Allen served on a board will have little significance.

I share this because Bob had such an impact on my life and how he approached his work serving camps around the country. It has only been 30 years since I worked with him and I am still impacted by his generous spirit. Others; well, when measuring the top 30 camps (of over 300 in the system) they always seemed to have well over 65% of enrollments, finances, and assets. Bob still gave my camp and me a great deal of attention and mentoring. He saw that what I did was as valuable as any other and he helped me to find that in myself.

In 1994, I had just met Bob a few years prior and just in passing. He had promised that while swinging through the West Coast, he would stop by my camp sometime in 1995. (He did)

And it was on October 21, 1994, the day after my son Alec was born, that I got a call from Bob at home. He had tracked me down. I have no idea how he got my home number and this was before the full force of the internet and smart phones were still over a decade away.

He called, because he wanted to congratulate my wife and I on the birth of our first child. “You will be a better father because you are a camp director and you will be a better camp director because you are a father.”

Those words and that care from someone I had met in passing and who really believed that his role was to serve his “customers” that made a forever impact on how I approached my work and service. I had believed that I was really small and insignificant and Bob saw me as a vital part of the mission that we all performed in service of youth. He established a rapport and genuine connection that I took a hold and made it part of my own leadership style.

On his work at his former camp he said, “Manito-wish, most of all, is giving — to friends through support given, problems listened to, ideas exchanged — to a group, a goal, a shared experience.”

My experience with Bob and the leadership lesson he shared was that he taught me about giving, listening and sharing. He was one to follow and respect and his “leadership quotient” (As John Maxwell surmises) had people naturally wanting to follow him.

Simple Great Customer Service and a great way to lead.

50+ Years & Leadership Lessons In These United States

As we approach Election Day, I am inclined to consider the last 52 years that my family and I have spent living and dreaming the American experience. There have been difficult years, challenging years and in all, I have always learned a great deal about the world and about myself.

At the time, I wrote a leadership lesson from 50 individuals who made an impression on my life and I gained from their influence. I have had a few notes from folks who read those initial posts on social media from 2018 in celebration of the first 50 years asking if I would publish the collection. A very flattering thought and I am grateful for that encouragement.

Every Monday for the next year, I will post one of those years (chronologically, unlike the initial posts). I am re-visiting each year and making a few edits to add to the leadership lesson garnered from that influential individual of that year. And I will end with three new lessons for 2019, 2020 and in great anticipation, 2021.

I am not forgoing my 40 Summers and 40 Lessons from my service to youth; I am just adding in for my readers this additional series. Look for those posts to continue and the every Monday post about my grateful life in these United States.

Below is the excerpt I wrote back in winter 2018.

"On July 24 (2018) this year (also my birthday) I as well as my sister, Jackie, and my parents will have been in the United States 50 years. Yes, we came to the US on my 4^th birthday from Brasil. That’s just 18,262 days that my family and I have been a part of this American experience.

I feel like I want to say so much about this. Our family came here as part of the South American migration in the late sixties for the promise of opportunity. My parents rarely talk about the process they went through. My mother said that the entire decision making conversation was my father came home and said that there were jobs in America. She told him, I’ll go where you are.

438,288 hours in the US. Okay, I have been to other countries for short vacations. But most of that to me was spent living, leading, in school, in work, in camp and in so many more ways, living."

This year (in regard to the election) I hope you consider the times and the desperate need for servant leadership. I ask that you educate yourself on these matters and VOTE for a candidate that inspires you in a way that John F. Kennedy once articulated, 'Ask not what your county can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." And know that what Ronald Reagan said in 1984 that we have the opportunity to say it is in fact, "morning again in America."

A wise man once said, "Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks..."

I know I will vote this year. 

 

1993 - The Power of F Sharp

F Sharp Minor
(40 Summers 40 Lessons Series)

1993 - The Power of F Sharp

It is a familiar hum to most who ever stepped foot on the property. I always thought of it and referred to it as the “F sharp.”

There is an episode of the I Love Lucy show where Lucy and Ricky give their son, little Ricky, a drum and he keeps playing the same, “thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.” At one point after several days, he pauses and Lucy and Ricky lunge forward and to the side because the beating drum has stopped.

And there is the Bugs Bunny episode (1946, Rhapsody Rabbit) where he plays on stage Franz Liszt’ Hungarian Rhapsody in F Sharp Minor. It is however, the Arthur Fiedler and Boston Pops album that I had growing up that gave me the basis of my reference to the F Sharp. (Here is a YouTube link and all you have to do is keep the syncopated rhythm thrum, thrum, thrum as you listen to it) 

Hungarian Rhapsody in F Sharp Minor

As I returned to the property for the first time in over 19 months away, it was the sound I anticipated and knew that as soon as I heard it, would mean I was back. As soon as I turned off my car, I knew that Tom was checking the power. The familiar sewing machine sound of the diesel was nowhere to be heard. There was just the waterfall like sound of wind in the trees. It was a spectacular none sound and if you had spent any time on the property, you would know what you were not hearing. Everything lunged forward and to the side like Lucy and Ricky.

Every day, the 50Kw Caterpillar diesel generator was shut down and checked for levels and simple maintenance. I always felt a slow down or lurch forward at those times. It was infrequent that it would stop all together, but several times in the 11 years I was there, the generator stopped in the middle of the night and I would wake up out of a sound sleep when it happened.

The camp was powered by the generator and it kept the walk in refrigerator and freezers working to hold food. It kept  the water pumps pumping from the wells to the storage tanks that operated on a gravity feed to flush toilets, allow for showers and most f all drinking water for the inhabitants. Even the radio telephone required power. That camp was completely self contained and was its own microcosm of the world. There were simple lights in each of the cabins that were powered by that “F Sharp” and so much more.

Caterpillar 50Kw - just for reference, it's the one at camp

The power allowed for the capacity of influencing all things to happen in camp. This was the influence for all behaviors that occurred around the day to day operations. The “F Sharp” allowed the food, shelter, water, communication and basic energy to sustain camp. Power and energy are two different things. Though closely related, energy is the ability to cause change; power is the rate with which the energy is used.

My mentor, John Maxwell says that “leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less.” I have always believed that that power yielded by a leader can be highly influential. Good or bad.

That engine at camp was a great leadership model that I drew on. It was always in the background. It was needed but not noticed; unless it broke down or stopped. If it was not fed and maintained, those stops became more frequent and sometimes unannounced. When the energy it put out was in that “thump, thump, thump,” rhythmic and positive form, it provided what was needed.

I know it may be a stretch to juxtapose that generator with the power of leadership. I do think of it often as a metaphor for how powerful leadership is and when misused, it becomes problematic. I worked under several different leaders in my time at that camp and the lessons I may have learned the most, where the lessons of how not to behave as a leader.

An old Y guy gave ne some advice on year about my staff training. Let’s call him Dan. He said, “Make sure you hire someone that you know that you are going to fire during that training week. That way you make a point with the rest of the staff and they will do what you want.” Dan, who I greatly admired, was sharing what I thought was a secret bit of knowledge that he thought would make me a better director. (Notice, I didn’t say leader). Like that generator, when it wasn’t performing well; this just did not sound right at all.

And so, I did it anyway because Dan had tremendous power. And during that week, I knew that Gus was that person. He was having a tough time with direction and he was likable. I knew he was going to go in a matter of days. And when the time came, I made it very public and I thought that I orchestrated this so well. We were in the middle of a session and he was getting riled up and I kept prodding him along until he blew up. At that point I told him,” Gus, you’re done. Thank you very much. I’d like you to go and pack up. Your services here are no longer needed.” I won’t describe what happened from there and it was not pretty, nor am I proud of any of it.

I felt like a real boss that day. I felt like my staff would now listen to everything I would ask of them and for a short time (very short) they did. I can also tell you that later, I threw up.

I can’t tell you that I changed that practice. I thought this is what one does, and you must stomach through it all. Dan would not have told me to do that if it wasn’t something that should happen. And folks, for several years, I did just that.

And to Gus, and Debbie and Mike and Pete and Simon and Shirley, let me apologize here and now. It took me some time to realize that directing from a place of fear and intimidation was not at all where I wanted to be as a leader. I can’t say that I have had to fire others. But I can say that for the last 33 years, I have never hired someone to be limited in my expectations.

Richard Bach said, “Argue for your limitations and they’re yours.”

“I learned that if you limit your team, they will live down to those exact limitations.” John Maxwell talks about this in the Law of the Lid in his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. No team rises hirer than that of the leaders lid and once I started to raise my lid, I saw the power of how others would rise to the occasion.

There is a rhythm in everyone’s life and how they lead. I believe that mine is in the key of F Sharp.

 

 

 

 

2020 Summer's End – “You’re crying, so I know you are doing it correctly”

Night Hike from Castle Rock, Big Bear Lake, CA

 

(40 Summers 40 Lessons Series)

During a recent meeting of the American Camp Association Upstate New York Community, we were all reminded by our membership director that, “if you are too comfortable, you are probably doing it wrong.” This was part of his description of the camps that had in fact run this summer and how they were adhering to the safety protocols and pushing themselves, their campers, and staff teams through the season.

At the beginning of summer 2020, I wrote on this blog that I would be sharing 40 summers and 40 lessons. I mentioned what I have learned about life and leadership in what has been handed down to me as a manner in which I have shared with hundreds and thousands over the last 40 summers. “Camp is all about beginnings and endings.”

It is a leadership lesson that as I think about this year, is still relevant and truer than ever before.

Labor Day weekend always represents finality to the camp season. As I mentioned about Memorial Day weekend, many of my summers spent at Bluff Lake often ended on Labor Day Monday evening with a hike to Castle Rock. I spent a few of those with friends and co-workers on top of Castle Rock overlooking Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California.

There was one particular Labor Day that my lifetime friend, Chris and one of our staff team, Katie (daughter to George, whom I have written multiple times) spent together. We had hiked out to Castle Rock and were heading back in the darkness wandering the 1.3 mile long trail back to camp.

At some point in the darkness we had heard loud animal noises and had dispatched several rocks into the woods and brush to hopefully scare off anything that may have been watching us. (I’ll share a tale of a mountain lion encounter at a later date). We were all a bit apprehensive about those kinds of encounters.

We had stopped cold in our tracks and pitched those rocks and sticks and when we heard nothing else, we just stood still for a while. Chris suggested each of us find a rock to carry for the rest of the trail. And so, we did. Chris took the point and Katie marched behind as a brought up the rear.

Our conversations were always intriguing and in low toned voices. It often evolved about summer memories and what we would take away from those lessons. Endings always seemed to bring that out in each of us and as mentioned, camp was in fact, all about that (at least 50%).

I think about this summer and juxtaposed to that night and I long for that connection that occurred for us as we strolled along the trail. I have recently returned from a trip out of state and besides having to self isolate for 14 days, decided for peace of mind that I would go take a Covid test.

As I pulled up to the drive thru Covid test, I immediately had that sense of anxiousness that seems to creep up in daily life over the past six months.

The LPN was dressed head to toe in protective gear and I could tell he was smiling underneath it all. He greeted me warmly and pronounced my name correctly as he told me to keep my window rolled up. He described the process and that I would need to insert the probe to the back of my nostril until I felt resistance. And then, hold it there for 15 seconds as he held the stop watch. Oh, and then do that again for the other nostril.

I must have made a face as he assured me, “you’ll do great Mr. Ferreira,” as he smiled again under the mask and screen. I followed the directions and my eyes began to water under the pressure point that I assume was how close I was to an ocular nerve.

Upon completion of the second nostril, I placed the item in the tube, snapped of the end of the probe and sealed it all into the plastic hazard bag to return to the LPN.

As I rolled down the window to hand it all to him, he stated, “You’re crying, so I know you did it correctly.”

The irony of it all made me laugh and I thanked him for the levity and comfort that he offered.

Laughing and crying, it is all related. It has all been quite a bit uncomfortable. The distance from fear to funny is quite close when you consider it.

End of Summer's trail, "what was that?" moment.

Back to that night on the trail. As we approached the outskirts of camp Chris and Katie suddenly jumped as a loud thud occurred in the woods near the trail. It was an abrupt stop. I lurched towards them attempting to stop and bent over in a sudden realization of laughter. They both stared at the woods and then at me.

The last few hundred yards we had quieted our conversation. The only sounds at that point were our steps and our breathing. We were emerging from the tree line and I saw the lights near the camp generator shed across the meadow; I decided we no longer had to fear the sounds in the darkness.

Still bringing up the rear of our hike, I threw away the rock that I had been carrying.

Their fear, and my laughter, that set the memory and the emotion of the end of that summer. I have to believe that this summer’s end will be likewise. It is the human experience after all that this year has brought us so far. The human reaction is what it is. We laugh, we cry, we react to the circumstances of our lives.

“So if you’re crying (or laughing), I know you did it correctly.”

 

 

2014 PC vs Mac - A Servant Leadership Story

(40 Summers 40 Lessons Series)

Despite the title of this story, I’m not here to extol the virtues of any particular computer. In fact, I’m here to share about two vastly different leadership styles.

 
With that, I’d like to share a bit about Mac. He came to camp to help lead our leaders in training program (LITs). He had an excellent interview and he talked a great deal about service. Mac’s references talked about his great work with teens. Mac said he was looking for a new opportunity to learn and grow as part of a team.
 
PC had been there a while and was our operations leader and essentially, our second in command if that is a style you would be familiar. PC had taken it upon himself to specialize in multiple certifications in different areas of camp. I had one staff person refer to PC as an overachiever.
 
Mac wanted to be creative and try different things with the program. PC was always putting schedules together and creating order in what many camp folks know as chaos.
 
This is their story from one late evening at camp:
 
It was about the middle of the fifth week of camp. Folks had begun to settle well into their roles and the initial round of storming was nearly two or three weeks in the past. I had gone home (across the street) for the evening and most of this is what I collected as to what actually happened and those involved.
 
PC was working at a station in the office (where internet was available) to download and create the next sessions rosters, activity list, check in forms for parents, the nurse and swim test. His work never seemed to be complete, yet he was always working a week ahead to make sure that operationally things ran well. PC also ran all the risk management issues for camp and he would often meet and review drills with key staff like the Aquatics Leadership staff. He helped prep their weekly swim tests and lifeguard drills as well as often substituting himself to give guards a break throughout the day. It was just a way to be of service.
 
Mac was in the office late that evening working on plans for the end of the next session of the LIT program. In spending well over a month at camp, Mac was indeed making great headway with his LITs and they were enthralled with his personality. They loved him and each day, they wanted to be more like him, adopting his style of language, and wanting to spend more time with him. They wanted to hear more of what he had to say; and in turn he wanted them to hear more of what he would say. He spent most of his days weighing in with other staff as to how his LITs needed to be managed. Often, Mac was now telling activity leaders what his expectations were for each individual LIT assigned and how he wanted to check in with them each day.
 
In walked one of the unit leaders, James, who was looking for advice from our assistant program director (Jeff) on an issue in the unit. Mac, overhearing decided that he would intervene. The conversation went nowhere fast as Mac decided to offer his opinion on how James needed to crack down on his people to make sure they were following the rules. He told James to “man up” or he would get run over. The Jeff’s jaw dropped and asked Mac to excuse himself from the conversation. Mac decided that his opinion was the only one that mattered and it was about time that James learned a thing or two about managing people. He quickly pointed out how his LITs followed all his rules and didn’t do anything without checking with him first.
 
By the time that Mac had denigrated James several more times, PC walked into the room overhearing the escalating voice. At that point, PC excused everyone (with the exception of Mac) from the room in what was later described to me as the most commanding tone that any of them had ever heard. Jeff called me on my cell and as I answered and heard the shakiness of his voice as he asked for me to come back over because “PC and Mac were having it out in the office.”
 
Within minutes I had come back across for my home and met James and Jeff in the driveway in front of the office. I could hear Mac inside but was unable to make out what he was saying. Jeff told me that Mac had been inappropriate with James and when PC intervened, Mac got boiling hot. I walked into the office.
 
PC was sitting in a chair, hands clasped in what appeared to be a listening stance that I had grown to expect from him. Mac was pacing and talking about how people at that camp needed to manage their staff of he would do it himself. I sat on the desk with my back up against the wall and asked “I’d like to know what has been going on, Mac, let’s start with you.”
 
Within 15 minutes, we had reached a state of truce and agreements as to how we would proceed and behave. I can’t claim credit for that since PC had already initiated most of what needed to occur. He wanted there to be growth as a result of the experience and I concurred. The rest of that summer became about the leadership cult of Mac versus the value of service from as exemplified by PC. Lessons learned.

MAC vs PC - lessons in servant leadership

 
I am sure by now, it is clear what the styles of leadership are demonstrated here. I heard the term "Servant Leader" as far back as early as the late fall of 1985 when I was asked by Wally Wirick (one of my first mentors at Bluff Lake and beyond) to consider working at camp that next summer. He and Sam Brown (who ran the downtown YMCA in Pasadena) had just spent a retreat in San Diego learning with Rich Collato (also a Y mentor) about how to support your staff to success so we are all successful.

 
That journey of servant leadership and the subsequent displays of the traditional hierarchical leadership have equipped me to know that the better model is PC over Mac. 
 

2013 - George – George – George (Lessons in Planning)

 

George - George - George - 3 types of leaders and planners.

2013 - George – George – George (Lessons in Planning)

(40 Summers 40 Lessons Series)

Top-Down Planning

“George” was the nickname of a major non-profit organizations attempt at creating a universal membership and program management system. At the turn of this century, this agency spent millions of dollars and thousands of man hours working on what was thought to be the best system that would provide for the needs of everyone of the agencies in the country. It turns out that as they planned and spent, no one ever thought to ask the front line staff who dealt with the agencies customers as to what they thought or perhaps needed.

The best intentions are often misguided and I believe that top down planning to determine the needs of those on the ground require a great deal of ego at that the top.

Many of you may know and have been a part of the long term or strategic planning process. It is (in the past) about taking a group of stakeholders to a retreat and having a consultant lead mission planning and "wordsmithing" and then that plan becomes a dust catcher on a shelf. (Oversimplified version, I know) 

There is a great article by Henry Mintzberg (Harvard Business Review) called, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning” that may interest you. Feel free to do an online search of that publication and make sure to note the year, 1994.

As the leader of an organization like a camp, solid leadership is necessary. Often times to be able to look out on the landscape and position what and who is needed to help define the plan. Get those folks in place, help equip them, and then get out of their way.

Middle-Out Planning

I have participated in several planning sessions with middle management in my career. The pattern that I have discovered can be summed up from a controller that I worked with. His name, George, had spent 11 years in that organization and he spoke about how change was needed at every level of the organization.  

He spent his work week providing the much need financial analysis and controls in regard to cash flow and planning. Working in a multi-million dollar non-profit, his work is vital when it comes to having accurate information for annual reports provided not only to donors and volunteers, but also for the needed 990 reports for tax purposes. And, when it came to seeking funding from foundations in the form of grants, the information had to show not only accuracy, but how a need would be met and how many individuals would be impacted by the funding.

Back at our planning session, there was discussion of how things needed to flow with-in the organization. I suggested a stream lined system for budget planning. This particular organization was using Lotus as a planning tool. Those of you unfamiliar with Lotus, I am not talking about the classic 1957 car manufacturer. I am talking about the software designed in 1982 and discontinued by IBM in 2012. Let me restate that - 1982.

This particular planning was taking place in the last decade. George said, “Lotus is the single best software ever designed to manage budget planning.”

What I learned that day, is that most of the time when middle management is involved in making plans and decisions about the needs and influence to better serve customers, they often make decisions that reinforce what their needs are and not that of the customer.

Relying on the defenders of the status quo is a misguided approach to planning and leadership. Doing the same things to support those who are adapting to change on the front lines often leads to more of the same.

Bottom-Up Doing

George Finnerty was a volunteer I worked with for nearly a dozen years and I learned so many lessons and this is perhaps the best one. He would just say something like ask yourself, “how does this help camp? If it is a good decision, which will help the kids, then that’s the right thing to do.”

I began to use that filter on so many levels. Over the years, working with young staff and helping they realize that because they want to try and do something “new and innovative” it had to pass the test. “How does this benefit the camper experience and fit in our mission and values?” I never asked the question in that manner. I asked questions that helped me understand what they had in mind and in my head; I was seeking to answer that question on behalf of the participants.

As I have served at different camps and organizations, I have hit the
“That’s the way we have always done it” wall on numerous occasions. It is sometimes mislabeled as “tradition.” One of my favorite leaders, Catherine Meyer, recently shared that one of her take a way lessons of working at camp was, "Adhering to tradition for the sake of tradition is, 99 times out of 100, more harmful than adapting and apologizing for harm done to make a space safe for everyone.

Those of you who have used a fax machine to send a copy of a flier or letter, you know that upon receiving that fax and making copies of it to share with others; there is often degradation in the ink and image.

In camps (and many organizations), I have often times believed that some “traditions” are just that. Someone had a great image of a program, activity, game, or event. It was replicated for several seasons. That original provider or leader left and the program was replicated for several more seasons. At some point one of the campers who saw the activity happen, became part of the staff. That person made modifications and the activity continued.

Hard to read, imagine this after copying it, faxing, copying and faxing again.
(I did not attend this event)
(It may have been found in a lodge at camp after cleaning up from summer staff 1981)

At some point, the program becomes a memory of what happened when someone who was not even there, provides their version of what was once a “great game.” Just like a copy of a fax, that had been copied and faxed and sent again several times and faxed again. I am not sure that is what Alexander Bain intended when he invented the FAX machine in 1843 (not a typo).

I take one of my planning lessons from George Lucas. He storyboards all his stories that lead to his film making. As a visual learner, I love my color coded note cards and using them to plan training sessions, pair staff leaders based on their personality types, and even take notes on calls and training sessions.

Here’s what I know. When planning for the future and the near future, always make sure that you included those who are using your product, service, or program. Leadership at the top should be listening (carefully) to what is being said at that level. Avoid the approach of using or listening to information from those in the middle. They are often just looking to perpetuate their role and function for fear of losing a misguided notion of control.

I have never been in control of anything. I ask my staff who is in charge of camp. And I wait as they reach the same conclusion that it is and always will be the campers (customers/members). They know it and they deserve the best from us in planning and leading in a manner that serves.

1983 - Here’s What I Know (Invite to Podcast)

ALF Circa 1985ish at Camp

 

Here’s what I know:

As a leadership development professional I have worked with over 53,000 young people. Those experiences have been in outdoor programs helping influence their skills through amazing camp and leadership opportunities.  

My family and I moved to the United States when I was 4 years old. And in celebration of our 50^th anniversary two years ago, I spent that year reflecting on individuals and lessons that have made me who I am. I’d like to share a lesson about two of those great mentors and one of those years.

Here’s what I believe.

Small moments often teach you life’s greatest lessons. It was Benjamin Disraeli, who served as the British Prime Minister twice during Queen Victoria’s reign, and was quoted as saying, “The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”

In 1983 as an 18 year old, I was working for a local camp in Southern California and I was one of the cabin leaders.

It was during that week that I discovered who I was to become. One evening, my junior leader, Mike, and myself were taking a break.  It was raining and a bit cold so we went down to the KYBO to stay warm and dry.

Now a KYBO is a restroom and shower facility. There were some benches in the shower area and we sat there to stay warm and talk.

At one point the camp director, Ron Perry came in to say hello. Now Ron is this big gregarious guy who was one of those people that everyone just wanted to be around. He was tall with lots of curly hair and he spoke in this sing song mesmerizing way. I am sure each of you has known someone like this.

So we are in the KYBO, oh did I mention that KYBO, besides being a radio station outside of Barstow California - at camp KYBO or K Y B O stands for “keep your bowels open.”

When you’re at camp it’s really an important place to know where to go.

So we’re in the KYBO and in walks Ron and he starts asking us questions and just checking in. After a few minutes he asked, “So, how long is your break?” I told him we had to get back up to our cabin now. This is where it got interesting. Out of no-where, he pulls two soda bottles out of his back pockets and says, take 20 more minutes, I’ll go and watch your cabin for you.

He handed us the sarsaparilla and walked out. I turned to Mike and said, “Someday I want his job.”

I learned 4 things that day and later I found out from my mentor, John Maxwell, that those were simply Laws of leadership.

You see, Ron had this great moment of leadership with me. His influence sent me down this road and that impact was that simple.

By the time I was 25 years old I was the director at that camp. His moment of serving others, in that case Mike and I, he truly was adding value to what we were doing.

And since then, I have had the opportunity to influence the lives of so many at four different YMCA camps, a 4H camp, a Boys and Girls Club Camp and several Scout camps.

You see that day back in that KYBO, it wasn’t really what Ron said. It was really how he made me feel that had a lasting impact on everything I have done over the last 40 summers. He connected with me on an emotional level. I totally bought into him as a leader and then took on that mission and vision that he set. He gave me a reason to follow him.

As a youth and leadership development professional I have lived to demonstrate those lessons every day.

You see, campers find riches in themselves through the activities that build and nurture self esteem, personal growth and what I call positive risk taking.

My vision now is to carry those lessons forward in a camping program that I have been developing that serve teens and share those leadership lessons and so much more.

My promise is to help develop the best leaders that lead and guide campers and to discover within themselves their own riches.

I am eternally grateful to Ron and John and so many others. I want to thank all of you for checking in today and helping me keep my promise.

I am AL Ferreira and I have the greatest job in the world…serving others.

 

Part of this story is from our latest podcast so, please consider listening and following the Youth Development Professional guidebook (I’m the co-host) podcast at:

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