Salmon of Doubt

I need to learn to let go, it would certainly help me sleep; something I should be doing now. However, that is not something I am so good at.

I have been involved in leadership positions for a long time and each one has its challenges, none of them easy. The most challenging of all is leading change. As a young person of my generation change is something that I've grown up expecting, yet the organization I work for is one of the most tradition driven groups in the country outside of religion. My natural response to fixing things that aren't achieving the goal is to change them. Obvious, right? Apparently not so much.

I should know by now that expecting people to give up traditions because they are ineffective is harder than building something new. Usually this stems from losing sight of the goal which is something forgotten in Scouting more often than it should be. As an organization and as a member, I want to see more youth participate and stay involved in the best youth serving organization in America. To do this takes volunteers who don't always take time to look beyond tradition to understand that their cherished traditions may not be serving that goal. It's like herding cats to a litter box.

I spend a lot of time thinking things through before making drastic changes and then worry about whether I'm doing the right thing. I do honestly try to see all perspectives, but return to the "people are entitled to their wrong opinion view" an awful lot after those thought processes. The worst part is the question of whether the desire to make the change is driven by an honest, definable need to increase effectiveness or sheer personal ego driving a substantial change just to prove I'm right. Rarely is this something that anyone can help with, every time I try asking, I get a lot of opinions. It boils down in the end to making the call and going with it--"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.".

This is where I think they get the "It's lonely at the top" theory from. In a job where the volunteers in theory run the show, the professionals have to carry an awful lot of the load. When you think about it, an era for a district or council is referred to more often as the professional's administration not the volunteer chair's. To wit, every volunteer compares the professionals to each other and harps on what the past ones did or didn't do well. While I enjoy having the ability and position to effect change, it still gets tiring after a time to be expected to make the right decision every time.

I suppose that all I can do is do my best and hope it does the trick, a concept that doesn't sit well with a closet perfectionist.

Thanks for reading my 100th post.