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What staff already knows about you
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Every time I walk into a camp staff training, I know what the staff is looking at first. My socks. I wear no-shows socks. You know the kind that disappear inside the shoe and the ones that frame me as the elder millennial I am. The staff is wearing crew socks. Stoop socks or quarter length, the full-leg ones. So they notice the second I walk in. I could go buy new socks, but honestly, I don’t want to and they wouldn’t look right on me. So I just acknowledge it out loud at the start of the training. The room laughs, the staff loosens, and we get to work. That bit takes about 30 seconds, and it probably does more for trust than anything I say in the next four hours. Generations and stereotypesHere is why I think it works. Every generation has stereotypes. Millennials are driven but maybe a bit entitled. I know that. So when I’m in front of a room full of Gen Z staff, I’ll just tell them. I know I can come off entitled. I know I can come off strong. I know I get a bit grim when I’m talking about finances. I get out in front of all of it before they have to sit there and think it. It’s a trust move and avoiding it would be the wrong way to go. Now flip this over to camp directors. Every camp director is going to be older than their camp staff. That is just the math. You can’t stay in your 20s forever (though I would love to go back!). The gap is happening whether you want it to or not. Hiding from the gap means losing trust. Different is 100% fine, but being out of touch is the problem you create when you pretend the difference isn’t there. The way you avoid being out of touch is to acknowledge that you are different. Once you do that, staff stop trying to figure out where you stand. They know, and they trust the version of you that named it before they had to. So figure out what stereotype your staff already has of you. Maybe it’s the socks. Maybe it’s that you grew up in a different camp era. Maybe it’s that you can’t keep up with whatever video they are quoting at lunch. Whatever it is, beat them to saying it. That’s where the trust starts. Sincerely, Senior Consultant at Immersive1st Learn more about Immersive1st's Approach |
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