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The First, and Greatest Step Toward WCO

To may, World Class Outpost status seem more like a land of make believe that an actual destination.  Personally, I don’t know if any Outpost has accomplished this goal and I am not sure where you find out.  There are WCO seminars happening all over the country.  These seminars are a wealth of information.  World Class Outpost Seminar is designed to expose the outpost leadership team to a successful set of practices, methods, strategies, and tools that will enable them to develop into a World Class Outpost.  The criteria that must be met to attain WCO is made up of eleven categories each with a ranking from one to five.  Before I ever started combing over the list I sat down and began writing five things that I thought commanders would need to be doing to hit World Class Outpost.  In todays show we are going to talk about the first and most important.

Raise Your Expectations

The topic of WCO has come up many times over the years and has elicited all types of reactions.  Some have even said that it is unattainable.  I have never been a fan of the can’t, couldn’t, doesn’t, haven’t philosophy.

For hundreds of years the 4-minute mile was not only thought to be unattainable, but if a man attempted to push himself to that level it would result in heart failure. Well, in 1954 Roger Bannister proved everyone wrong by raising expectations and running a mile in under 4 minutes.  In the years that followed dozens of runners broke through the 4-minute barrier and today it is the standard for all collegiate middle-distance runners.  Think about that.  It’s no longer the most unlikely expectation, it’s the standard.

Wednesday night we had an expectation raising moment.  As will every Outpost there are transitions.  Transitions in your church, with your team, and even team members will go through personal transitions.  All of these will affect the smooth flow of activities in your Wednesday night meetings.  This is why it is so essential for your entire team to have a standard, be well trained, and be ready.  All conversations for another podcast.

Our DR’s have been running 30 plus and with such a large group our leaders divide them by patrols and separate them for each element of the nights curriculum.  Wayne and I just happed to be in the activity room when one of these patrols began their game.  Let’s just say that too the untrained eye it was chaos.  The commanders in the room, one brand new and the other not use to the large numbers, were working very hard, but had lost control.  The unstated expectation was, let’s just get through the night alive.  Commander Wayne asked me if we had supplies for an organized competition and upon affirming that I ran to get what we needed.  Commander Wayne politely interrupt to group and asked if we could help.

Step one, he raise the expectation.  Commander Wayne started by having the Patrol Guides organize the group, setup the game, and select the competitors.  Within minutes the boys rose to the occasion and thrived in the new competition rich environment.  There was 100% involvement, and it became boy led.  As temping as lowing the bar is, there comes a point where you just wind up tripping over it.

Look for those key areas that you can easily raise expectations.

• Uniforms
• Patrol Systems
• Participation
• Leadership
• Spiritual Growth

These are all areas that are simple, out of the box, program features where expectations can be raised.

More studies than can be listed state that kids with high expectation are high achievers.  Remember, expect some mistakes, expect some challenges, but never lower expectations.