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-by Luigi Sanlorenzo*
The crisis
in the world around us greatly influences our motivation to serve, our ability
to plan, and our desire to hope.
While
elsewhere and in other contexts this may be understood and perhaps justified,
we cannot be allowed to do so, primarily because of our Scout identity. Some
slogans may seem rhetorical to others, but for us they are the essence of our
association's identity: kicking the impossible, the hope/certainty in the
change born of education, the unshakeable faith that, through individual and
collective action, we will succeed, as we have so often succeeded in changing
this world.
We share
insights that others lack and that are our heritage: the international,
interfaith, and intercultural nature of our formation, which we also share with
other organizations that, for example, do not share our faith; our faith,
according to which a Christian cannot be a man or woman resigned to pessimism,
because "we are all part of the resurrection."
Against
all the pessimism of reason, within us lies the optimism of the will. We are
optimists by definition; we smile and sing.
Organizations
are strange worlds that live and try to survive in different ways.
But
there's one thing that distinguishes organizations that manage to overcome
difficult times and, above all, are able to attract both young people and
adults.
Organisation
Organization
means “tool to achieve a goal” from the Greek “organon”.
Let us not
make the mistake of thinking that we are the end: we are an instrument, and it
is no coincidence that we have a method for this instrument to achieve its
purpose.
And the
goal is to create a better world through education, understood above all as
political intervention.
Our
educational choice has a political character, that is, it has a transformative
character of reality.
We don't
train anyone—beware of training! We use the term "training" for
convenience, by convention, but in reality, if our educational efforts don't
result in any self-directed transformation on the part of the individual, we
won't have achieved our goal.
That is,
the young people who approach us, but also the adults who have been educated by
us or who come to us within a certain age limit, have the need to encounter a
world through which their lives can be transformed.
Transformation
The first
reflection I propose to you is precisely this: are the things we do, the way we
plan them, capable of determining a transformation in those who experience
them?
I must
tell you that in my experience, Scouting is one of the few educational
realities in which this miracle occurs, so much so that you know well that it
only takes a few years spent within any branch of the association for our
neighbor on the train to spot us one fine day and ask, "Excuse me, were
you a Scout?"
Precisely
because it is an experiential, non-theoretical, non-superficial education that
is embodied in learning by doing, scouting is able to "transform" in
the best sense of the word, that is, to allow the potential that people have
within them since childhood to emerge.
This is an
opportunity we have, and one that over time has allowed us to achieve
educational leadership among Italian youth.
But under
what conditions did this happen?
Having
lived through all the seasons of Agesci, and the latest of ASCI, I have on many
occasions sought the reasons for its success.
We've won
every time we've been what we declare in our definition, every time we've been,
on a global level, scouts, that is, explorers and guides to the society we
found ourselves living in. Then we were interesting, people followed us,
parents sent their kids to us.
Let me
give you some examples: since the 1970s, environmentalism has been a value
shared by everyone, but until 30-40 years ago it was the preserve of boy
scouts.
The boy
scout was by definition passionate and a guardian of nature, in whose school he
had grown up.
In the
1970s, we championed coeducation. It was a time when middle schools were still
segregated by gender; not without "secular" and ecclesiastical
criticism, the country saw us as the vanguard of a new sensibility that was
already evident within society.
Again in
the 1970s, associative democracy saw us leading an organizational shift that,
while not yet complete, marked a turning point compared to the past. In the
1980s, we understood well in advance, even compared to very attentive sectors
of Italian society, how much the phenomenon of immigration would alter the
sociological structure of this country.
I remember
that I participated in the Mondo in Tenda in Bologna and in 1982 the first R/S
construction site took place in Palermo with the very first people who came
from non-European countries, especially from Africa, in search of a future.
We win, in
the sense that we are attractive, every time we propose an educational vision
to society and to young people in particular, every time we "move the
goals forward".
In all
those phases in which we chase society or adapt to its trends , we are not
perceived as interesting.
An
organization is attractive and an instrument towards the achievement of a goal
whenever it knows how to do three things: pro-voke , e-voke and con-voke.
Provoke
and summon
Pro-vocare
means learning to put oneself and to put oneself in crisis (from the Greek
crasis = separation, discontinuity), that is, cultivating dissatisfaction in
those who are mentally and physically lazy or feel they have arrived.
Education
is a constant provocation to change and to break away from what is already
known, what is already known. To replace
know-how with know-why, know-where, know-what, etc.
E-vocare
means giving others a vision of a different and possible world.
If you
think about it, that's what Moses does and what's described in the book of
Exodus.
How does
he manage to convince those Jews, now comfortably "seated" in
slavery, to set out and brave the desert? He evokes a possible world,
alternative to the one they lived in.
Leadership
Consider
that this conception, this intuition of Moses is at the origin of the most
important studies on leadership.
Dilts
says: leadership consists in "evoking a better world to which one wishes
to belong." It is the same action that all the leaders who have changed
the world will perform, from Christ to Marx, to Mandela, to Martin Luther King.
The
proposal of a dream and a way to make it real.
Therefore,
evoking is one of the elements that make an association a point of reference
and, above all, that generates the desire to belong to it.
Do you
know why I became a scout?
Because
the magazine L'Esploratore (in the 1960s) was full of drawings of raised tents,
ropes, knots, and on this chubby, somewhat solitary and dreamy bourgeois child,
this thing exerted a mad fascination!
10-
year-old boy , and it is valid for all those organizations that know how to
evoke a world towards which we can move, while not concealing the difficulty of
the journey between the present reality and the future reality.
If Jesus,
along with declaring himself the Truth and the Life, did not also declare
himself the Way, obviously someone would say, “But how can we get there?”
And here
comes the third moment: the moment of convocation. That is, the call to the
world that I have evoked—how we will then translate it into the various tools
of the Method—through the things I do, the testimonies I share, the signs of
constant presence in the territory.
There is a
very beautiful text that I invite you to read entitled “Power of Convocation”
written by Piero Trupia (one of the most famous Italian management consultants
and, coincidentally, a scout in the 1950s), which describes this ability to
call people to himself .
This
applies to both the individual and the association, because the world I have
evoked is a beautiful world worth exploring. The convocation process, unlike
power as traditionally understood, implies that the moment of convocation also
marks the beginning of my gradual disappearance.
You
summon, but little by little, when the summons begins to have the desired
effect, you have to back off.
What does
Moses do? After convincing the people to overcome the difficulty of the Exodus,
he comes within sight of the Promised Land, but he does not enter, preferring
instead to hand over the leadership of the people to those born and raised
during the journey.
Moses is
worried that something from the old world might enter the new world through him
; he is afraid of contaminating the new, and so he yields leadership to someone
who grew up in the desert.
We like to
imagine that Moses goes somewhere else to begin a new adventure of liberation
with others.
So be
careful, when I speak of convocation, I am referring to a convocation that
gradually allows us to develop others, so that they too can become conveners in
their turn.
Scouting
is a school of leadership, Scouting is a school of leaders.
Think of
the extraordinary figure - who can never be mentioned enough - of the squadron
leader.
A great
figure in scouting; this 15-year-old boy who manages to take care of 6-7
younger children.
The
experience of being a squad leader lasts forever, let as many kids as possible
have it.
Well, I
wanted to make this premise on the three concepts of "provocation and
awareness of discomfort," "evoking a better world," and
"summoning capable of helping others grow in that direction," to tell
you that the world we live in is a world characterized—and now well described
as a true era—by liminality (which comes from limen, meaning border).
Liminality
is the moment when a historical cycle reaches its completion, a civilizing
mission, worn out, gives way to new forces, forces that come from afar and,
avoiding entrenching themselves in defense of the past, contribute to the
renewal that often comes from outside.
In our
case, it is the great journey of peoples who, driven by different motivations,
will sooner or later revitalize our country.
All this
shouldn't be perceived as threatening; it's part of a process that history
knows and which, like the evolution of nature, has always revitalized humanity.
Therefore, the future of Italian society lies in our colorful children; we're
not just welcoming them.
We are
only those who are helping them play their role in history.
From this
profound change, described by Beck, Gallino, Bauman, as risk society,
liquid
society, it is clear that organizations are at a crossroads, because
organizations often have a great desire to survive without major changes.
This is
why a dear friend who returned to the Father's House, a dear friend but also a
scout leader, Daniele Settineri, loved to say "Scouting is alive whenever
it maintains its movement dimension and is at great risk whenever it closes
itself off within the organizational dimension."
He said it
as a scout; as an organizational scholar, I can translate it this way:
organizations, by definition, tend to structure themselves, to take root, and
to remain static.
Remember
when Jesus ascended the Mount of Transfiguration with the apostles. In the
extraordinary weather, incredible visions, the apostles said: "Lord, how
wonderful it is to be here! Let's make three tents and stay here forever."
Jesus gets
really angry and says, “This is a time to recharge, but now we go back down to
the valley and start working.” Organizations are like that.
In the
end, it's actually quite comfortable inside, I'm talking about a shell.
How many
adults—including the leaders we know and ourselves—find a sufficiently
protected environment in our CoCas and neighborhoods, a place where the level
of challenges isn't as dramatic as it could be or is in other aspects of their
lives?
So be
careful of the association as a protective shell, as a womb inside which
everything is beautiful, "we're only scouts after all."
Organizations
tend to structure themselves, take root, and remain steadfast by anchoring
themselves to reality through so-called rule systems.
This is
certainly not news from me, but it was Max Weber, the first great analyst of
organizations, who observed them and noted: "be careful, because the rules
within an organization can be a huge opportunity, but also a huge
constraint."
So let's
start by distinguishing between good rules and bad rules: only those rules that
protect values are good. The others only serve to protect power.
After
having constructed a paradigm of good rules, I ask myself the question of who
will have to make them loved and respected.
And here's
the birth certificate of the Executive. The Executive in politics, unlike the
militant, has the task of enforcing the rules.
The same
thing happens here. A largely growing generation of leaders—sometimes excellent
leaders, but not trained enough to be good managers—finds itself in control of
the rules.
So it's
worth making a clarification here: today, organizations have processes in place
to transform the nature of managers at all levels so that, rather than being
the guardian of the rules, managers themselves are required to anticipate and
drive change.
This can
cause tremendous organizational trauma, because especially if you are a manager
of a certain age, you find yourself hearing: "Look, what you did before
doesn't work anymore, it's no longer good, you shouldn't be monitoring
compliance with the rules but rather finding within the rules what allows you
to change them."
This is a
challenge that many people don't know how to answer.
And then
they are either started on managerial paths of remotivation and improvement
performance
or they are asked to leave it alone and maybe they are kicked out.
This
happens because the organization, in addition to what I have already told you,
in the time of liminality needs to evolve towards the concept of a “vital”
organism.
Only when
an organization is able to fulfill its purpose can it be called a “viable
system,” even if not a living system.
What is
the difference between a viable system and a living system? A living system is
self-regulating.
If the
temperature here were to rise by 15 degrees right now, everyone, albeit with
very small differences in gender or skin tone, would start sweating;
conversely, if the temperature were to drop, we would have other physiological
reactions.
Living
things have the ability to self-regulate.
This is
something that an organization cannot do, since, being a creation of the human
mind, it cannot self-regulate.
And what
must it do to be in harmony with the world around it and in which lies the
purpose for which it was created?
In the
middle there is something whose name is as dear and sacred to us as many others
with which we identify as scouts and leaders.
The choice
In the
middle lies "choice." If an organization fails to grasp the signals
its environment sends—and the earlier the better—it runs the risk of falling
behind.
The
choice... the choice to change, the choice to shape yourself differently, the
choice to reach where no one has reached before.
So we
don't expect that, like living beings, change will automatically transform us.
If we do
not, in the meantime, introduce decision-making processes, first at the local
level and then at the national level, our organization will gradually remain
anchored in the present/past.
I told you
before that the historical analysis of the success of post-war Italian Scouting
lies in its ability to have been ahead of its time, ahead of its time, ahead of
its time, ahead of its time, ahead of its time's issues, ahead of its time's
sensitivities, ahead of its educational solutions, and ahead of its political
vision of education.
Obviously,
this reasoning is connected to the topic of organizational models: a
bureaucratic organization is one that adopts models aimed at preserving what
already exists; it is an organization that adopts systems and subsystems, based
on certain organizational fundamentals, such as the chain of command,
coordination mechanisms, etc.
In AGESCI,
the organizational model, although initially built from the bottom up, runs the
risk of no longer listening to the bottom and becoming stuck in reasoning that
those who elected you no longer follow.
This
emerged in yesterday's working groups, someone said: "Even if we felt like
pushing a proposal from below, we avoid it because we say to ourselves: but
imagine if the General Council would even consider something like this."
Here we
have a bottom-up democracy, from the CoCa up, but the operating model is not
the one that Argyris introduced as the basis of organizational development, it
does not have the double-loup, that is, it does not have the return.
It only
has the outgoing flow, it has the representation but often this representation
is not able to return to consult with the base, starting from the most
important fact which is to say to the base "look
that we
won't move unless you give us encouragement."
It is
often a blank check and therefore the resulting disconnect is strong.
Rethinking
organizational models, which must always be consistent with rethinking the
ultimate goal, is the lifeline for every organization.
We have
this great goal: the goal of education, the goal of changing the world through
education. This is certainly a beautiful phrase, but it must be articulated in
objectives. This is what an organization calls "vision." Vision is
always a slogan, but what allows a vision to become reality?
Only a
system of goals measured over time tells me whether I am getting closer to my
organization's vision or moving away from it.
If we were
to apply this criterion to the numbers, we would certainly have to say that the
decline in the number of children is something to reflect on; but the
maintenance of the number of adults is an indicator that something is
struggling to achieve the final goal.
Failure to
review organizational models with respect to the final goal can create pockets
of varying degrees, ranging from passivity to dissatisfaction or even conflict,
or it can generate a mentality in the boss that says, "Well, I'll just
hang out with my guys and do my thing; let others do everything else."
Obviously,
if we have the activist idea of working towards an organization that is
increasingly able to perceive changes as they arise, we must choose between
being "notaries or prophets".
It's nice
to see that in almost all the groups there are boys and leaders who are
absolutely "in order": buckles, plaques, badges, uniforms...
perfect... but can I tell you that a slightly less tidy and clean Scouting gave
me the impression of a more creative movement?
Let's be
careful that behind this formal perfection, this blue spot that every parade
likes to have, lies a true desire for dialogue, which we'll recognize if they
come looking for us even after the parade has concluded. We need to develop a
system for defining and redefining the rules.
Thoughtful
lightness
The
organizations that are successful today are those that are "light" in
their regulatory framework. In these organizations, the number of rules and
regulations is significantly reduced, leaving much more room for choice,
because all that's needed is for the system of values to remain unchanged.
So the
organizations that are flying today are those with a very strong value system,
capable of not needing a complex and articulated regulatory apparatus to guide
people, because the very moment they guide them they limit them.
Rules, as
Max Weber reminds us, are invented to prevent people from making mistakes, so I
make a sort of track out of them and say, "Look, if you follow
you will
reach your destination on this platform."
So I build
a track, made of dense rules, that leads to a pre -determined place .
I said a
track, but I could have said a corridor, a forced lane.
Today,
however, the final destination no longer necessarily has to be there and in
that precise place.
It could
also be found on the sides of the path.
A system
of rules that is too rigid to help me can ultimately prevent me from looking to
the edges or sides of the path.
In the
Unit, at twelve or thirteen years old, we were taught to trace animal tracks
with chalk or to observe the firmament on starry nights, when the campfire had
reduced to a few embers.
What
purpose would it have served us in life? Would we have been a cattleman in the
Midwest or a fur trapper in Ontario? Would we have pursued a career as an
astronomer or a navigator in the age of GPS?
Certainly
not! There's an educational aspect to tracking tracks that tells you:
"Look at the edges of the trail, be able to distinguish one footprint from
another where others see only loose earth, know how to orient yourself like a
hunter or a navigator with the stars, by reading the terrain you're walking on
and the routes you're following!"
So a
strong system of values (and we have one, thank goodness) strengthened by our
faith, but even just the scout faith would be enough.
I also say
this to accelerate relations with other Scout organizations, so that our faith
will never be an obstacle to the international dimension of world Scouting.
Constant
attention to what is changing in the world enables us to intercept this change
as it arises.
Those who
can discern signals that others know nothing about are able to define a trend,
so that when that phenomenon becomes apparent, they will be ready, having
recognized and addressed it when it first appeared, to give a thoughtful
response, not an emergency response that has never yielded results.
We need to
shift the focus increasingly onto the system of values, making it a
discriminating factor for leaders, certainly.
That
system of values is our Association Agreement, and there are no distinctions:
you're either in or you're not. With kids, it's different, as they're growing
up.
Values and
method
You
propose values to them through the Method and its various articulations. The
content must be clear because what you call a track, then a path, and then a
road all refer to the same meaning.
In an
itinerant dimension of existence, with that light itinerancy that allows you to
be a reliable man and woman in the world.
And this
brings us back to the memorandum of understanding signed between WOSM and SDA
Bocconi, which was not born only because WOSM secretary Eduardo Missoni was
also a professor at that prestigious Business School.
It was
born because SDA Bocconi realized that when leadership shifts from
authoritarian and formal to values-based, Scouting models become absolutely
appropriate and capable of training tomorrow's decision-makers at every level.
Today SDA
Bocconi also sends its interns to the World Scout Bureau.
These 100
years have not passed in vain; they have also served to affirm leadership
models that are now being adopted even by organizations that have nothing to do
with education, because leadership is the ability to evoke and summon people
around you.
It is a
cross-cutting element that is useful in every circumstance.
In this we
have had, have and will continue to have a role if we are up to it.
We must be
careful that the system of rules is precisely balanced so that the rules
necessary for its functioning are never such that they prevent us, focused as
we are on the corridor of rules, from noticing what is happening at the edges
of the path.
Because it
could happen that, following a single track, we arrive at a point where there
is nothing left, because what was supposed to be there has happened at the
edges.
of the
path and we didn't notice it, because a rigid system of rules prevented us from
doing so.
I
translate it into scout language: the educational vocation that drives us to
join an organization is already a first step.
But the
educator must have the opportunity, the time, the ability and no fear to
experiment.
We
wouldn't be who we are if there hadn't been some heretic among us who, perhaps
alone at first and then together with someone else, hadn't said... "Guys,
the world is made up of men and women and we can't keep this world
separate!"
He who
goes ahead, he who explores, is called a witness (in Greek martyr).
You will
always have a price to pay if you want to be a witness, you will get nowhere if
you think doing so is free.
If you are
not a witness, you are not a convener. Christianity triumphs and overthrows the
Roman Empire because it evokes a better world in which we are all brothers and
sisters, and because this is witnessed by the blood of martyrs, not by the
words of intellectuals. Paul, who was a great and astute intellectual, would
not be who he is today if he had not ultimately crowned his life with
martyrdom. There is no doubt that the more we are perceived as living
witnesses, ready to "put our face on the line," the more our proposal
becomes convener-driven, enlivened by our hard work, by our testimony, by the
effectiveness of our educational efforts, which do not exhaust their effect
within the association. Because if you want to be a convener, you cannot be one
only with those already convened.
So, let's
go where we're not! In some places, especially in the South, in entire
neighborhoods the only bastions of legality are the school and the scout group.
We will
find ourselves, in the difficult times to come, having to take over
the
actions of two entities that have been profoundly affected by this epochal
crisis that we continue to experience: the family, swept by extraordinary
storms, and the school.
Nor can we
count on a future, which I imagine many of us hope for, with a school system
managed differently, because schools need their own time, and too much damage
has been done in the past. You can start tomorrow with the best minister and a
lot of money, and you'll see the effects in 15 years.
So,
before, a boy who had a family that more or less resisted, helped in some way
by school, if he had also been a scout would have also had a good chance of
coming out as a good person.
Now
families often come to us because they want help with parenting, because
they're in trouble, in panic.
So today
you can count on your family much less. You can't count on your school at all,
not because of bad intentions on the part of teachers, but because the system
is dealing with rules that no longer exist.
The
Paintings
Scouting
is already taking over this work, so what does it need?
He needs
to have adults who are helped by other adults to do this.
Therefore,
the role of managers is no longer, or must no longer, or must no longer be,
just—you decide—guardian of rules, but must be an investigator of the knots and
bottlenecks that prevent the organization from being vital, organic, open, and
creative, capable of taking on new educational emergencies.
The true
analyzer of this potential organizational thrombosis is the Zone, which, like
the municipalities, is the most subsidiary organizational level compared to the
ultimate reality of the groups or citizens. If a new scenario emerges, who is
to know?
National
or regional level?
It's clear
that the Local Committee keeps a close eye not only on compliance with the
rules, but also on the level of creativity and innovation; it doesn't hold
back, it pushes, it provokes, it doesn't just sit there worrying, it doesn't
act like a mother hen, it acts as a motivator, upholding the system of
non-negotiable values.
So this is
very important because organizations have undergone this transition.
Federico
Butera describes it in an extraordinary way, defining the transition of
organizations as "from the castle to the network".
The
Italian scouting organization is still a pyramid, “castle” organization.
We would
like it to be an inverted pyramid and the formal mechanisms are those, but if
you go to the leader of the pack in the village or in the suburbs he still has
the sensation that things come from above, he doesn't have the perception that
he is called to contribute to creating them.
Another
important scientist, Mintzberg, says: "Organizations carry with them for a
very long time the imprint of the time and period in which they were
founded." There's still something pyramidal, something hierarchical, and
therefore organizations must transition from the castle (pyramid) to the
network, meaning more access, easier access, more connectivity. We later saw
the network realized with the internet, but this was the original intuition. In
a later paper of mine, I went further and said "from the castle, to the
network... to the tent," obviously I couldn't help but be challenged by my
background. Because even the network runs the risk of becoming a stagnant
place, devoid of true emotion.
Instead,
the tent gives us even more of a sense of how organizations must be, to give
themselves a sense of existence with respect to their purpose: they must be
tents, flexible, dismantled, ready to be repositioned as new needs arise.
The “tent”
organization is capable of moving, that is, of recognizing itself in that
nomadism that at some point brought us closer to the GUM movement.
We have a
lot in common with the GUM, our rovers and our scouts at least should, I hope
the CoCa too....
They are a
small, little-known movement, but this itinerant dimension of existence is what
characterizes them.
Another
point the president made yesterday: we seek solutions to organizational
problems through method. I'm invited to regional and local assemblies, as a
scout, but not only to propose scenarios for local planning.
In some
cases I find myself remembering tools of the method that seem to have been
forgotten.
I'm coming
to a conclusion.
First
point: at this historical moment, we are not an organization that convenes,
because we are not an association that provokes and evokes enough.
Second
aspect: our generation and that of the younger leaders will find themselves
having to compensate for the profound crisis and absence of the other two
educational institutions.
So we have
to, like Simon of Cyrene, shoulder an extra burden to do our part. I've always
said: the best effect of Scouting education is when the child runs away from
home and the parent is at peace because they know he's gone to sleep with his
scout leader.
How many
of us have been woken up in the middle of the night? Has it happened to you?
No…
And so
this is the crux of the problem, that is, if you don't have scout boys who, in
the midst of adolescence, run away and come looking for you... basically they
don't see you as an alternative.
How many
of our kids perceive their boss as an ally to their parents, rather than an
alternative? But they're looking for an alternative.
And I
assure you, they'll find it anyway, but it might not be the right one.
Children
are looking for teachers who are alternatives to the traditional figures of
parents and teachers.
They need
transgression to grow and scouting was for a time a transgression.
So if we
have this company, these kids, and these challenges, we need to equip ourselves
to maintain these items.
Not only
in their profession as educators, but also when, by suspending direct
educational service with the children for a period, the Framework is created.
You've
been trained as a leader; the problem is that you're not trained as a manager.
You're trained as a youth educator, so you're a scout educator, but no one
trained you to educate adults.
And it is
done by extrapolating from a method designed for children some aspects that are
suitable for adults.
This is
being told to you by someone who trains adults and he gets results because he
draws many things from scouting.
So one of
the issues is that too many rules make us lose sight of the value system, but
above all they prevent
the
exercise of lateral thinking. On the other hand, the need for a structured path
with a skills system for training managers.
But be
careful! We don't have to become the Quadri caste!
A path in
this direction must be accompanied by regulatory changes that state that you
can serve as a manager for no more than a certain number of years and then
return to the young people; otherwise, we created the Managers' Association and
the Managers' Association.
But you
can't paint the picture if you haven't, for example, completed at least two
educational projects, otherwise, there's no doubt, we'll create a caste of
bureaucrats.
So a
process similar to that of management training is needed: there is management
training that must begin to develop management training.
Certainly,
we can no longer allow managers, especially in the most troubled areas, to be
merely well-intentioned people who perhaps already have other roles, or those
who have more time but then, when it comes down to it, perhaps don't have the
skills to manage adults, which is a different matter than managing children.
Adults are structured; as soon as you touch them in their experiences, adults
defend tooth and nail what they've built, etc.
Let us
therefore identify the skills on which to build the profile of a Manager
capable of helping and supporting the leaders, called upon to carry out those
tasks that I hope to have highlighted in the first part of my reasoning, that
is, the ability to be provocative , e-vocative and con-vocative.
the
transversal skills that an adult who has a managerial role must have to be of
support to others into 4 families.
Emotional
skills:
Self
-confidence : if you're nothing in life and only find fulfillment through
Scouting, you're wrong; it's not the place for you! Scouting isn't the place
you can take refuge in.
Here the
Zone must do some work and develop a strong awareness activity to fully
understand the motivations of its leaders.
- the
ability to have a long-term vision that a Quadro cannot fail to have, because
in theory, left a little freer from the urgency of the boys, he has the duty to
look far ahead.
How can we
look ahead? By being constantly connected to reality (internet and beyond) and
knowing what's coming (incoming).
Interpersonal
skills: ability
to build interpersonal relationships.
A painting
can't say: Guys, you know I have a bad temper... then don't paint the painting!
It's not mandatory!
- Verbal
communication, must be able to speak;
-
persuasion and conviction, which is not manipulation, i.e. the ability to
provide supporting arguments and knowing your interlocutor;
- public
speaking ability;
- group
and meeting management. It's true that many of us learned what a meeting is in
Scouts, but a meeting between kids is one thing, and a meeting between adults
is another.
In a
meeting I already know what outcome I want to emerge with and I already know
what margin of negotiation I am willing to accept.
A meeting
isn't about getting a group of people together and "let's see what comes
out"... that's something else, it's a brainstorming session.
But if
it's an operational meeting, I have to have in mind what needs to come out of
it and the level below which I'm not willing to give in.
- Setting
up and leading teamwork: there are some extraordinary area managers (I did it
for eight years) who ultimately say, “Well, if I do it alone, I’ll do better,”
because the complexity is such that you’d rather overload yourself, because it
gets done faster, rather than involve the committee members.
You should
know, because before being a manager you're a leader, that those you don't
involve are not only resources you don't use, but sooner or later you'll even
find them against you. These skills aren't innate; they're learned just like we
learned to tie knots, build structures, read patterns, and be polite.
- The
ability to seize initiatives and opportunities; the ability to see where there
are opportunities for development in my area, not because I need to develop my
organization like a good activist and increase the number of members, but where
Scouting actually offers the answer.
I'm
privileged to have lived an experience in a large community of leaders who
loved each other deeply, and still do, and who split out of love. If there are
so many of us, we must give Scouting to other young people.
You have
to have the managerial ability to clearly tell hypertrophic Co.Cas ,
"Look, you have to take Scouting there," because BP doesn't go to
Eaton to recruit scouts, but to the most peripheral streets of Dickens' London.
You have to take Scouting where it's most needed and most urgently.
Intellectual
skills:
- They
must be able to identify problems and solve them. They must know
problem-solving techniques, but above all, they must be able to bypass them
(problem shifting ), that is, they must understand what are false problems. And
they must also have management and initiative skills.
The Quadro
is still a leader, collegial as you like, but a leader.
Tenacious
and executable, adaptable and flexible, he must be able to work with light
programming.
I always
remember when I was the clan leader: I drew up a plan but then I willingly
betrayed it, I didn't allow the plan I had drawn up at home to stop me from
taking advantage of the opportunities that the street offered to me and my
boys.
Organizational
skills:
- must be
at least a little expert in using scarce resources such as time, money, the
availability of people (which is always voluntary), etc.
- must be
able to plan complex interventions
- to bring different worlds into dialogue and
integrate knowledge and relationships
- capable
of connecting with the levels of association responsibility
- capable
of intervening in times of emergency
- can
protect the image of the Association
What does
the indicator, the idea, or rather the confirmation that we have moved from a
rule-oriented organization to a development-oriented organization give you?
From the
level of empowerment, that is, the ability to have power (potere in Italian is
a verb and a noun, we are more accustomed to knowing the noun but in reality
there is the verb “potere”).
So which
organization wins? It's the one that releases increasing amounts of power, that
is, it fosters individual and organizational empowerment, leaves scope for the
exercise of power (verb), and thus allows for the development of creativity and
the free observation of those signals that aren't always clear, even if they're
present along the way.
So an
indicator of a vital organization is its level of empowerment, from the
personal level to the organizational level. So from the amount of proposals and
experiments that reach me from the province of Reggio Calabria, rather than
from the province of
Pordenone,
I understand if my system of rules works: if it doesn't get to me, I question
my system of rules and begin to wonder if perhaps my system of rules that makes
us all perfect, also leaves us without the ability to soar above.
I'm
finishing, but I assure you that I would like to continue for a long time.
What is
the effect of proper management of rules? It's the development of a concept
that isn't yet fully developed in our country: the concept of
"organizational citizenship." We're accustomed to the concept of
active citizenship, which is practiced in a social context, borrowing some
aspects of citizenship.
Organizational
citizenship
The
concept of organizational citizenship is embodied in ensuring that everyone
experiences their presence within their organization, whether by working there
or volunteering there, feeling it as their own and therefore exercising all
those actions appropriate to the contexts they feel as their own, starting with
the type of contribution in terms of time, ideas, creativity, resources, etc.
Exactly
what you wouldn't do in a highly regulated organization, where you jealously
keep your ideas to yourself and limit yourself to obeying by offering the bare
minimum.
If you
want to get the creativity of people in an organization, you have to create a
climate where people are happy to contribute their creativity, remembering
that being
creative cannot be fixed in a contract.
If you
want people to contribute that extra that each of us has and to contribute it
to that organization and not outside of it, you must create the conditions for
this to happen, otherwise the person will use that extra elsewhere.
Adult
individuals, like our leaders and our adults, complete their training in the
organizations in which they live: if they live in a vital organization that
confronts and faces challenges, that seeks results, that celebrates merit
achieved through sacrifice, that holds it up as an example, they will bring
this contribution into every aspect of their own lives and will pass it on to
their offspring.
We have
some kids who are good at school…
There is
an extraordinary film, “Finding Forrester,” where the young protagonist is
ashamed of being a budding writer because his friends will make fun of him, and
so he keeps this wealth hidden to himself.
By chance
he will then find a mentor who will help him not to waste his talent.
Well, we
live in a reality in which our children live in a system that flattens and
discourages the best and most deserving, and they try not to appear that way so
as not to be excluded.
We educate
people to be good and competent and to demonstrate it.
Scouting
changes your life, and if it doesn't translate into testimony, then something's
clearly wrong!
If you're
unable to distinguish a questionnaire filled out by scouts from other kids on a
friendship or legality survey, something's wrong.
We're not
creating the summer tattoo that can be washed off at the first opportunity.
Do you
know what a real tattoo is? It's made by making an incision in the skin and
then pouring ink over it until it's absorbed.
We shape
the lives of our children with our experiences, and within that shape we
inscribe the values of the Law and the Promise.
True
education is a tattoo; to change it, you have to overlay another with the same
process. And this is crisis, because crisis comes from the Greek
"crasis," meaning separation, detachment from a world/way that no
longer exists and a path toward the new and unknown.
So crisis,
crasis, separation, crisis, then growth.
There is no growth without crisis, that is, without separation from what you were and then again crisis, crasis, growth, to cry, to cry, there is no crisis without painful passage, there is no crisis without paying a price, without the embrace of a Cross, without the abandonment of the old man that prevents the new man from rising again.
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* Luigi
Maria Sanlorenzo (Loris) (1971-2026) from Palermo, a scout since the age of
12, was Clan Leader in the Palermo 15th for over fifteen years and then
Community Leader Animator ,
Area
Manager
,
General Councillor, expert in Leader Training, and in educational leadership. He
organized large events for teenagers and young people,
Head of
the Management Training Group at Banco di Sicilia, he held institutional roles
in local government during the "Palermo Spring" movement. For over
ten years, he taught Post-Industrial Organizational Systems at the Faculty of
Engineering - Management Engineering and at several Italian universities; and
Strategic Behavior at the School of Public Administration in Rome. He taught
Educational Psychology in the Master's Degree Program in Work and
Organizational Psychology at the University of Palermo and, since 2004, has
directed the one-year Master's program in Strategies and Techniques for
Personnel Management, sponsored by Confindustria, Confcommercio, AIDP, and
other public and private entities.
Scout
training has been a constant feature of his training program and in the
academic and professional projects for which he was responsible.
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