I have become a fan of Mark Miller’s blog Great Leaders Serve. Mark teamed up with Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager to write Great Leaders Grow: Become a Leader for Life. A great book that I recommend to everyone. You will know the name Ken Blanchard as author of the Wood Badge for the 21st Century Syllabus.
In his post How To Be Successful… Mark shared a talk that Dr. Henry Cloud gave on the principal of EASY HARD vs. HARD EASY. An example he gave of this principle was If a student takes the EASY path in their youth and neglects their studies, it will be HARD to get into the college of their choice. However, if the same student does the HARD work of studying, their career path is often EASY.
This principle is easy to explain in scouting. It may be EASY to put on a Cub Scout program without training but it may be HARD to keep the youth interested and moving forward and advancing in the program. However, it may be HARD to take the time to attend a weekend training session or online course but you will find it EASY to put on an interesting program that helps your scouts grow and keeps them engaged.
For a Wood Badge course you could say: It may be HARD to invest the time and money in a Wood Badge course but it will be EASY to see the value it gives to you and your unit. By contrast if you take EASY way out and just lead from your gut, it may be HARD to get people to follow your lead.
The choice is yours. Do you choose to follow HARD EASY or EASY HARD?
As you are deciding to attend Wood Badge ask yourself this. By making the HARD decision to attend Wood Badge how EASY will it make your job as a Scout leader?
