Death Spiral
National Operations, Opinions 5 Comments 
councils, gsusa, leader issues, service unit, volunteers
You might remember a storm from this past winter named Grayson that caused quite a bit of concern. I live in South Carolina, so we weren’t really affected by it like they were up north. To be honest, I doubt I would have even paid much mind to all of the attention it was getting on the news. Except this wasn’t just any ole winter storm – it was a BOMB CYCLONE! I guess naming winter storms a la hurricanes wasn’t sensational enough, so we’ve got to come up with attention-grabbing terms like BOMB CYCLONES! Next thing you know, we’ll have SHARKNADOS!
A friend of mine and I were chatting during that time about the upcoming bomb cyclone. We both agreed that it would be an awesome name for a band. And a thrash metal one at that! So what does all of this have to do with the title of this blog post? Nothing really except I think Death Spiral would also be great thrash metal band name.
You’re probably shaking your head right now wondering where I am going with this. What exactly is a “death spiral?” It’s a term that’s used to describe certain scenarios in insurance and finance. It’s also a figure skating move. And according to the Idioms category on The Free Dictionary, it’s “any situation in which a series of events or actions, especially as a consequence of one another, ultimately lead to a point of ruin, failure, or destruction.”
There’s something I’ve read in various groups over the past few years. This just my opinion and conjecture, but I personally feel like it’s a sign of a death spiral that’s about to start or one that’s already in progress, and the ones who are in the midst of it might not even realize that it’s happening. If you hear this in some form or fashion in your council, then you might want to take notice:
- “I’m just going to concentrate on my troop.”
- “And that’s why I stay focused on the girls.”
- “I’ve decided I’m just going to do what I can on my level because that’s where I know I can make a difference.”
- “I’m tired of dealing with it so I’m not going to worry about it and instead just take care of our troop.”
- “I’m going to put my time and energy where it’s needed and that’s our troop.”
Before I go into what these statements are really saying, I wanted to talk about the service unit structure. I’ve discussed this in the past, but I believe a good bit of the volunteer support struggle that our organization faces on the whole is due to the lack of service unit support that seems to be happening in some councils. The key component to service units is the formation of relationships. Being a part of one and having other volunteers that you can interact with makes it REAL. They can speak to experience. It’s comforting to know there are others out there that are doing the same thing you’re doing and are in the same boat. You share ideas and resources. You might even make some very good friends out of it (and keep the old)!
In the past, some volunteers who made it to the end of their troop experience but wanted to stay active in GS would have probably been an integral part of supporting a service unit. However, they are either run off for whatever reason, or they are so burned out that they don’t return. And then, the task of running a service unit falls on current leaders who have their hands already full trying to juggle their own troops. And if volunteers are being ignored and aren’t supported, then their job as a troop leader becomes that much harder, and they start to become frustrated and angry. They might try to reach out for help, but if they get slapped down, ignored, chided, or are left holding the bag, the natural thing for them to do is to start looking inward to what they can control and what they know they can count on – themselves. In turn, troops become cocoons. Understandably, these volunteers don’t want to open themselves up anymore. Or if they do, they feel it won’t do any good, and they feel powerless. They’re also tired and stretched thin. So nobody steps forward to be on a service unit team. Then that service unit’s support system fails, which in turn begins what I think will be the death spiral of the council. New volunteers feel overwhelmed because there’s little council support and no service unit safety net, and they don’t make it very far. If you don’t retain volunteers, you don’t have troops – and no girls.
Back to the statements I previously highlighted. They aren’t said by new leaders. They are usually stated by volunteers who have a couple of years under their belts. They are the ones who have the resources and knowledge to help other leaders, especially new ones. They are the ones who should be on the service unit team. But instead, they’ve been burned in some form or fashion on the council level and/or they see that nobody else is stepping up, so they’ve withdrawn. In real life, Charlie Brown will only try to kick Lucy’s football so many times before he gives up.
On the surface, hearing those sentiments in and of themselves might not raise any red flags because they sound very noble and really – isn’t that what IS important? The troop and the girls? But if you start to hear it on a regular basis, there’s an underlying issue, and it’s not a good one.
So what to do? Again, I still feel like this all stems from the divides between the factions of our organization and the distrust held between all of them. If volunteers are cut off from councils due to lack of support or distrust, then that’s got to be the first thing that’s fixed. On the national level, I do think there’s been some recognition about this on the part of GSUSA because I’ve seen some emphasis being put on building back the service unit structure in councils. Hopefully wherever this volunteer isolation is happening, it’s not too late to fix it and the council hasn’t already started falling too far down into the death spiral. Because it’s a slow and miserable ride for everybody.
Related post: Death Spiral: Governance Edition
But – there is danger here too. With putting structure back in the Service Units with out factoring in some Council level support then its putting yet more stress on the volunteers and Kaboom.
Hence the death spiral description. Between retired leaders not returning and councils not supporting volunteers, it’s a cascading chain of events that’s hard to break out of, especially since some of this involves trust (or the lack thereof).
Yes… BUT…. Council level staffers are there to SERVE the volunteer (A K A the Customer). Period. Not to tell the volunteers what to do or sneak around the volunteer’s back to do other things or not share information, and so on. Sure, have the model set of best practices and rules that all SU leadership teams need to follow as a road map but support and serve, not dictate and direct with untested and poorly laid out protocols (we’ve all seen staff running around bezerk at poorly planned events… if they had only asked volunteers – we are here to help after all – real square knots and all.) If Councils would get that through their thick heads, that staff serve the volunteer to keep the rhythm flowing through a model set of SU leadership best practices and demonstrate that there is mutual respect – the staff then are viewed as helpful and providing value and the volunteers don’t get stressed and quit or push it to the limits and get “fired”… yes, Councils fire volunteers. Let’s hope they keep firing the poor performing staff and hire scouters that get it and can get service to the CUSTOMER that is meaningful.
Spot on. And when there is a team of volunteers that are managing troops as veteran or new leaders and also see and experience the value of quality face-to-face adult time, they begin to form bonds with adult girl scouters – Green Bloods – as a means to having better, more variety, and more experiences FOR THE GIRLS… then the Service Unit thrives.
12 months in a year means a SU could host 12 events with 1 or 2 or even 3 troops (depending on the number of troops in the SU) working together to each host one event A YEAR for the service unit – giving even more leadership opportunity to the girls of each troop that ONE TIME a year… The saying “MANY HANDS MAKES LIGHT WORK FOR ALL” (or whatever it is) comes to life. Scenario – I’m a leader focused on my troop. My troop hosts one event a year. My troop ATTENDS ELEVEN OTHERS close to home within the SU that we “JUST ATTEND”. How easy is that as an adult scouter? GIRLS are doing the work (as it should be, leading) with advisement from their team of troop leaders and support from the SU… The troops thrive the SU Lives and ultimately, grows.
It really is as simple as that.
The key words in this blog post are “lack of support or distrust”… when the staff doesn’t trust the volunteers to run the show and support the program/needs, the volunteers step away and focus on what they feel they can impact, their home troop and those girls. Thus the ‘off-the-reservation’ scenarios begin and the reinventing of the wheel and different adults doing the same things to support the girls because they don’t have a team or network that is open and welcoming to reach into for support. When SU leaders do find problems in Council processes and with staffing and are risk takers to point them out through proper channels but are ignored, told to do it council staff’s way (by a 25 YO new-to-scouting-staffer versus a 40 YO with business, scouting and a sundry of other experiences to bring into the fold), the volunteer will step away (or be removed) from SU leadreship. Then the SU starts that clockwise vortex (in the USA continental)…. I bet there are more SUs within councils waving as they wind clockwise down the drain of their labors of love than there are functional blue ribbon SUs…
Great blog post – keep them coming!
Great blog post and something that within the GS framework we need to desperately fix – perhaps more so than the problems with badges, journeys and the national board/blue book issues. Those of us who have volunteered at the SU level and formed lasting adult relationships with adult Girl Scouts can attest to the strength in our programming when we have a “band of (adult) sisters” collaborating and sharing the load to advise teams of girls to deliver meaningful programming to the girls (their sisters in scouting). All of us find we actually spend less time though more meaningful, when we collaborate and share in a SU structure and our girls/troops do more. It means MAKING THE TIME to just do it. That structure is fractured in so many places right now because of the GS reactionary and negative stance on the BS decision and the GS lock-down on volunteers growing and implementing their ideas… let’s hope enough volunteers come out of the spiral and hang on together to rebuild and keep SUs alive.