How BSA’s national office handles feedback demonstrates cultural rot and absent leadership. Below is the experience of those who are outside the national office.
Deny
BSA national’s feedback process has two steps:
- Deny the feedback, mainly through a prerogative that feedback is worthless.
- Undermine feedback-givers.
Undermine
I am aware of four undermining techniques.
Retaliate
A volunteer recently sent a friendly email to BSA national, sharing how a minor document issue foments a widespread misunderstanding.
After denying the feedback, a BSA national bureaucrat retaliated, sic-ing the feedback-provider’s Scout Executive on the volunteer. (The Scout Executive was bewildered by why he had to call the volunteer.)
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By creating hardship for volunteers.
Intimidate
A firestorm recently erupted over a vague policy. For over a decade, the vast majority of Scout units understood it differently than how some national bureaucrats intended.
After denying a large volume of feedback, a BSA national bureaucrat intimidated, saying that the feedback was the same as a willful violation of the Scouter Code of Conduct. When a bureaucrat mentions this, the bureaucrat is squelching feedback with a threat of membership cancellation.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By intimidating volunteers.
Dismiss
There is considerable public angst on BSA’s specious coed ban. It is impossible for BSA national to be unaware of this.
This angst is valuable feedback. BSA’s consistent strategy is to deny and then dismiss the feedback: be unresponsive to it, then keep acting as if the feedback never happened.
As an example, the last third of a recent webinar promoting the specious coed ban was a Q&A session. Nearly every last question was contrary to the specious ban. That is valuable feedback, and it made the presenters exasperated. Their consistent response: dismiss the feedback, then mindlessly parrot the specious ban and its phony premises.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By ignoring their feedback.
Lie
The first point of the Scout law is Trustworthy. It’s the first point because of its importance.
The recent webinar promoting the specious coed ban was a gaslighting session. After ham-fistedly denying overwhelmingly negative feedback, national representatives revealed that all along, the plan was to maximize gendered segregation. This is gaslighting, trying to trick us into believing that national’s original messaging on inclusion, equity, and serving the whole family were actually pro-segregation messages.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By lying to feedback givers.
Slander
The national office once attacked the camping activities of its largest program. It received intense, hostile feedback.
Responding to that feedback, a national-organization bureaucrat, who has shared accountability for this screwup, slandered the class of volunteers who provide feedback as “trolls … [who] are looking to cause controversy”.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By slandering feedback-givers.
Cultural rot
BSA national’s feedback pattern is among several indicators of cultural rot at the national office. Other indicators include bureaucratic inertia, basing sweeping policies on folklore and misinformation, poor transparency, shadowy forces that cause BSA to lag far behind society, bloated bureaucracy, clinging to an 1800s-style hierarchy, and more.
I know great current and former employees at BSA national. They are mission-oriented. They are driven to do the right thing. They are not part of the problem. But the cultural rot impedes these good folks. That makes me sad.
How do we excise the rot at BSA’s national office? How do we uplift those who are doing the right thing? How do we reinvent BSA’s national office to be a relevant, transparent, responsive organization that values inclusion, adventure, leadership, and the mission of Scouting?
(Image credit: Source, by Paul, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)
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