Gossip Ruining Camp Culture? You're not alone

Sept 12th, 2024

We’re back, baby! With more staff 💩ing 🛏️s

Handy tools for when you’re at your wit’s end. (PART 2 OF 2)

↓

Last week I covered some tips for dealing with clueless staff and unmotivated staff.

This email is about the difficult staff final boss: staff who make everyone’s lives at camp worse.

And then a pep talk for you, you awesome camp person!

Staff who make everyone’s lives worse harder

Back to the tricky staff...

You’ve now heard from five people that your counselor gossiped with their campers about staff relationships. Not only is that inappropriate, but now your staff dynamic feels irreparably weird. AH!

These staff might gossip, or stir up drama, or be domineering, or basically anything else that can disrupt your staff harmony.

This is a tricky socially-tied skills deficit.

Being a teen (young 20s) is hard and figuring out community is hard, and being the manager (you) of all that is hard too.

This is probably the toughest type of staff difficulty because it can throw everyone off, and the solutions are honestly more personally-dependent.

Here are some ideas:

1. FRONT LOAD DURING STAFF TRAINING!

It’s way harder to shake a strong community. I am a broken record here. Almost, every session in staff training can have community building baked in.

Play and share as much as you do skill-building and scenarios. Counselor skills are important but when shit hits the fan, trust and relationships will often go way further.

Destigmatize conflict. Owning up to our mistakes or working through others’ in a responsible way takes the power away from conflict. Talk about it, model it, practice it.

2. Get good at awkward conversations

It’ll help everyone, even when it feels like the end of the world.

Get your community in the habit of having check-in conversations. If you’re only having them when something is wrong, they are so much worse and your staff will have negative associations.

Have a training session on feedback. Your staff telling each other, “Hey, you’re so good at bringing staff together around the campfire. How can you do that in the village too?” is way better than, “Hey, you’re divisive in the village.”

Examine where the discord is coming from.

Just because someone’s disrupting a dynamic, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in the wrong.

If your staff conflict is coming from a staff person acting differently than your other staff, it might be that the majority of other staff are the ones being shitty. Social titanics, core beliefs, Inside Out 2 am I right!?

Ask questions. When you hear negativity about a staff member, ask people to be super specific. If you hear they’re acting “weird,” ask, “What do you mean by ‘weird’?”

Have a larger staff circle. Make sure one person isn’t singled out. Use this as a reset button for everyone, or to make community agreements. Be ready to provide some serious aftercare depending on how it goes.

Dude, my difficult staff still are difficult

You might’ve done all of these steps perfectly, and then some, but you’re not seeing the change you need to see.

This always sucks and I know you are having this convo sometimes no matter how much prep work and community support you have given

“Hey. I want you to be here, and here’s what I need from you to be here. Can you agree to deliver on this? What do you need from me?”

Quick tip: If you’re having this conversation, write down the agreements and make them measurable for clarity.

Sometimes people aren’t able to deliver and you have to fire them. Even this can be done gently, but it still sucks.

So here’s your

PEP TALK!

HEY YOU! You’ve been working so hard and your job is near-impossible, but you’re making it happen.

You’re going to make mistakes, and that’s great because it means you’re human! You’re also going to have so many untold successes.

You’re positively impacting

campers

staff

community members

and their respective families, friends, and communities.

As long as you show up with positive intent and grace, you’re doing fucking amazing and there are so many good things that have come from you, whether you’re aware of them or not.

I mean it when I say thank you. I am rooting for you!