“Can you hear me now?”

We’ve all heard the popular cell phone commercial where there is the urgent asking of that question. It seems that there has never been a point in our history with more ways to connect to one another. With the increasing advent of technology, and the many places one can send and receive information, you would think that all communication problems would have been resolved. Interestingly, though, whenever surveys are conducted in the workplace, school or organization, the top complaint that most people have is that there needs to be better communication. In my job, I am surprised how many places there are now just to check for information. Cell phone, work e mail, voice mail, home answering machine, personal e mail, etc., all exist to allow theoretically improved communication. However, whenever I ask for critiques of the Greater Pittsburgh Council from employees, district Scouting leaders, Scoutmasters, Cubmasters, Venture advisors, Exploring leaders--you name it, the key gripe is: you guessed it--Communication.

One of the things I emphasize with our staff is the importance of timely responses. It is expected that with all the tech gear at our disposal, a Scouter should receive a response from our staff within 24 hours.

Sometimes, though, these devices seem to work against us in our continuing quest for improved communication. As an example: recently, while out of town for a couple of days I called in late one evening to the office voice mail on my cell phone. A Scouter had left me a message indicating he was upset about some things in his unit, and his district, and there were a few other concerns he needed to talk to me about. Uh oh, better give him a call back as soon as possible. I then proceeded to push the button on my cell phone that saves a message. Oops, that particular number DELETES the message on my OFFICE machine. What was the name? What district? I am sure that there is one person out there angry at me as he “called the Scout Executive and nothing ever happened, not even the courtesy of a return call.” Another tech annoyance is that my e mail doesn’t get to me if my full name is used- msurbaug@bsamail.org will get to me. If it goes out as msurbaugh, it never gets here. From time to time, people will ask me “how come you never responded to my e mail?”--sorry, if the “h” is added, never saw it.

Perhaps in the effort to increase communication ability, we are causing increasing disconnection. Isn’t it great that there are still things like Scouting that bring us together face to face, and in a positive way, force interaction. When you are setting up a tent, you have to communicate. When you are planning an outing, you have to proactively communicate. The leadership skills that are gained through the Boy Scouts of America come largely from the learned ability to effectively communicate. We should all fear a world where children become increasingly “wired” and yet feel more disconnected from each other. In fact, studies are now showing that with the advent of “MySpace,” “Facebook” and other social networking sites, that even with the goal of facilitating communication, frequent use actually leads to an increased feeling of being alone. 

Maybe, communication problems are only ever truly resolved when we are working directly with each other to accomplish a task. We’ll continue to work to improve our communication skills so that as a Scouting leader you can continue to do the work that is really important--teaching youth communication skills in the great outdoors.

See you on the trail…..