Hershey, PA, September 2020 – Penn State Extension’s Leadership Network will be teaching a workshop titled “Cultivating Leadership: Sowing Seeds of Success in Your Specialty Crop Enterprise” as a pre-conference workshop for the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention. The workshop will be held Monday, January 27, 2020 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This workshop is for specialty crop growers, managers and supervisors looking for strategies for quality management and leadership.
Participants will have the opportunity to network with other horticultural professionals. At the workshop, participants will learn how to alleviate farm stress and cultivate productive mindset, strategies to provide better mentoring practices with your agricultural workers; tips for maintaining a motivated workforce on the farm; information and strategies to enhance your agricultural operation’s cultural competence; and practical skills to promote powerful team performance.
The fee for the workshop is $40 per person, which includes lunch.
To register, please visit the conference website, http://www.mafvc.org/, and click on Pre- Convention Workshops, or register with your state trade association. Please contact Dr. Suzanna Windon at sxk75@psu.edu or 814-863-3825 if you have questions regarding the workshop.
Hosting a Continuing Education Event to Retain Volunteers
The 4-H Volunteer Continuing Education Academy was created to help motivate and retain current volunteers by providing them with new skills. Participants in this program reported wanting to continue and make improvements to the program. The following process, which was used by Culp and Bullock (2017), can be mirrored in your organization or program to develop and implement a continuing education academy in your organization to help retain volunteers.
Develop a survey to determine the format and content of the program. Distribute the survey to volunteers at the end of a training event.
Include current research and topics in the training. Be creative when planning training activities.
At the event, determine ways that volunteers can improve their work with clients. Provide volunteers with opportunities to brainstorm together.
Networking is important so invite many volunteers. If your program is statewide, invite people from different counties.
Re-energize and motivate volunteers. Just ask volunteers reflect on why they volunteer, impacts they’ve seen with clients, and where they’d like to see the program go.
Providing an appreciation gift for volunteers if funds are available.
Continuing education benefits volunteers, and effective and educated volunteers benefit your organization. Always remember to verbally express gratitude for volunteers’ time and ideas.
Sources: Culp, K. & Bullock, L. (2017). 4-H volunteer continuing education academy. Journal of Extension, 55(4). Retrieved from: https://joe.org/joe/2017august/iw4.php
Strategies for Short-Term Community Volunteer Recruitment
Yesterday’s volunteer management system was designed for a different world. New development and trends for the last few decades have brought many changes and transformations. The many obligations and limited flexibility of busy community members may prevent new volunteers from wanting to serve community programs. However, Extension and other non-profit organizations are beginning to implement episodic or short-term volunteer opportunities, which may be more attractive to the modern volunteer. These opportunities allow volunteers to only commit to one or a few events, rather than commit to a project for a whole year.
We adapted the following tips from Hart (2005) to help you recruit volunteers for short-term projects.
Identify your program volunteer needs.
Prepare a volunteer job description.
Conduct a brainstorming session or survey with current and past volunteers. Ask them how they were recruited and ask them to share the best way to reach them now.
Use as many communication mediums as possible, including social media. Follow community Facebook pages that your target audience may follow, and ask administrators of these pagers to share your information.
Attend community activities of your target audience as physical presence and recognition in the community is crucial. Introduce yourself to community members, and ask them about their talents. Share information about volunteer opportunities in your organization or program.
Provide volunteers with promotional materials and talking points to share with others.
by John Wodehouse, Penn State Extension Business & Leadership Development Educator
Photo credit: John Wodehouse
I
have bid on and sold thousands and thousands of dollars of private and
commercial landscape jobs in my career as a Landscape Designer sales person in
Pennsylvania.
Sod jobs, lawns, maintenance, snow plowing, hardscape, softscape, and even vegetable gardens and outdoor kitchens. One important thing I learned early on is that the most innovative design solutions need accuracy of the numbers on the business side and charisma & character from me, the face of the company on the service side. Most potential clients saw me first. They did not know my owner nor did they experience my wonderful crews until after the design process turned to a job on the board. I was the skipper of the ship. After all, the landscape industry is a service industry. My mantra quickly began “Servant to Them.” Without faithful customers, I would not have had the career in the first place. Without customers, there would be no entity or business. Providing the most accurate bidding starts and ends with a C; the customer. Throughout my thirteen glorious years sailing through the seas of the landscape industry, at first I had rough waters, then as I learned more about customer service and its importance to business vitality, I began serving customers healthy doses of what I call the 4 C’s of Landscape Services.
Communication; Knowing how to talk about the ideas your clients have in their minds is a learnable talent. Your crews need one type of communication, your clients need another. To articulate an idea about a project takes practice and industry specific vocabulary. I found that too much made me sound arrogant. How to get the ideas the clients shared with me into tangible reality all the while adhering to hardiness zones, product availability budget, and install crew talent is a recipe I pledged to perfect my entire career.
Curiosity; Ask questions. Do not assume or make people feel you know more than them on how to solve their problem. While you may know more about the skill and install mechanics, only they know what they want the final product to look like, let alone how it will make them feel. I encourage you to ask as many questions as it takes about their site, the environment, budget, favorite colors, and more to create the ultimate outdoor experience for them.
Complete focus; by making your customer feel like they are the only person you are servicing at the moment. Site visits to their home may include tours of their favorite rooms, car collections, and even garden walks. Use these as dots to connect for inspiration into their design. Complete also refers to accuracy of the design and the bid take off so as not to create surprise adds. Give 100% of your focus to blend the customers’ needs to what will work on their site.
Creativity; Early in my career I strived to be different. I wanted my landscape designs to stand out in a crowd. While this may work for a while, I learned that creativity can manifest in many ways. I also learned the unique plants are hard to warranty. Creative design is only one way to be one-of-a kind. I used creativity in bid presentations and it worked. I used creativity in my down payments, and it worked. Instead of selling the customer a single landscape job, I wanted to serve them an entire yearly service, budgeted for them monthly. The scope was to perform most of the seasonal landscape maintenance as needed, when it was needed, not when the customer noticed it. This reframing was a creative way to increase customer retention and help with business & cash flow at the same time.
When my ship left the landscape private industry port, I headed to work as a Facility Manager at a college near my home. I left on good terms and I brought along the cultural aspect of sailing the 4 C’s of landscape business into my new position in the Facilities Grounds Department. Customer service excellence and accuracy of numbers were equally important there. The 4C’s are important transferable skills. They sail along with you from job to job, place to place. A few differences for me were: while at the college, my verbal and non-verbal communication skills changed to communicating in writing to administration and orally to co-workers instead of speaking to clients at kitchen tables about their ideas and outdoor projects. My new customers became students, co-workers, faculty, staff, community members, guests visiting the college, and everyone around me on campus that I could get to sail on the 4 C’s with me.
On Thursday, July 25th , 2019, the Centre County 4-H Program Development Committee met to prioritize the results of an assets-based needs assessment. The goal of the needs assessment, conducted in February, was to reflect on existing needs and resources in Centre County, related to positive youth development. Leadership Network team members Dr. Suzanna Windon and Mariah Stollar facilitated this assessment. A report was created and shared with committee members at the July meeting. At the July prioritization session, 4-H office staff and committee members identified the following top issues.
Adult volunteer leadership skills – not enough leaders and mentors for youth, lack of volunteer management education, and lack of civic engagement.
Barriers Facing 4-H Club Infrastructure – issues with transportation for youth, lack of club facilities and livestock space, and lack of club diversity.
Program Development – need for after-school programming related to outdoor education, physical activity, agriculture, and science and need for 4- H rural and urban exchange programs.
Youth Leadership Skills – lack of soft skills (i.e. empathy, cooperation, conflict management, teamwork, interpersonal communication, resilience, stress management, mindfulness), youth disconnection from real world due to increased screen-time, and youth issues with low self-esteem and depression.
Coalition Skills – disconnection between FFA and 4-H, lack of volunteer education on Penn State policy, lack of racial diversity in 4-H, and lack of 4-H promotion in the local community. This was the newly formed committee’s third meeting. After ranking and identifying the top 5 issues, the group also brainstormed new ideas to help address the priorities identified. In the coming months, the Centre county 4-H program staff and Committee will work to devise a plan of action to address identified issues. If you are interested in learning more about the needs assessment or prioritization session, or would like to host one of these sessions with your organization, please contact Dr. Suzanna Windon at sxk75@psu.edu or graduate research assistant Mariah Stollar at mks370@psu.edu.
Be Gracious and Say “No” Time is the most valuable resource! Time doesn’t give refunds. Many people demand our time and attention within Extension work, whether it be clients, volunteers, coworkers, community members, founders, or other stakeholders. Is there a way to maintain balance within our personal lives and meet family and friend expectations? We can start by understanding that being able to say “No” is a leadership practice. We would like to share strategies that we adapted from the William Ury’s book The Power of a Positive No that will keep you from overcommitting.
Be confident. Reflect on your personal needs and your reasons for saying “No”. Express the reasons of your decision to the other party.
Know your “No” may not be accepted. Be prepared to explain your reasons in alternative way (or plan B), which may not require the agreement of the other party.
Improve your plan B. Accepting an alternative can help you to reflect more on how you will approach the conversation and adopt a realistic mindset. This eliminates the “worry” barrier of your “No” answer.
Remember the benefits of saying “No”. Saying “No” for the right reasons means saying “Yes” to yourself and your values. Do not feel guilty and remind yourself of the reasons you decided to say “No”.
Source: Ury, W. (2007). The power of a positive no: How to say no and still get to yes. Bantam.
Within your Extension work, consider applying the following tips to approach difficult conversations that we adapted from Stone, Patton, and Heen’s (2010) book.
Determine whether the conflict is internal or external. Reflect on any assumptions that may be clouding your judgement before approaching a difficult conversation with a coworker, client, or volunteer.
Decide whether you need to have a difficult conversation or adjust your own behavior. Reflect on the situation. This will help you to better recognize whether you need to address the issue through conversation or make a personal change.
Do you need to have a difficult conversation? If yes, head in with a productive purpose: cover the main points and share your expectations for results of the conversation (i.e. decision or action).
Do not get discouraged if other people do not agree with you. Be realistic. Remember that people cannot be controlled.
Give yourself a break. Assume the best in people and the situation. Remember that your best attempt at the conversation will be enough. Remind yourself that the other person is not intentionally trying to frustrate you.
Collaborate instead of competing. Be an empathetic listener. Consider the other’s perspective. Try to come up with a solution together. Engage all in problem solving and decision-making.
Source: Stone, D., Heen, S., & Patton, B. (2010). Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most. London: Penguin.
Can you think of a volunteer who has been with your program for years, but is not open to new and different ideas? In Extension, we call this phenomenon Founder’s Syndrome. This often presents as a volunteer trying to get an organization to align with their interests, rather than moving forward with evolving needs. Sound familiar? If so, we adopted strategies from Huff & Pleskac (2012) that will help educators address Founder’s Syndrome within their volunteer work:
Educate yourself on Founder’s Syndrome. Familiarize yourself with the concept of Founder’s Syndrome. Please see resources below.
Invite new people to join your program board. Discuss the benefits of new perspectives with board members and involve them in the recruitment process.
Build rapport with Founders. Cultivate trusting relationships with members who exhibit Founder’s Syndrome. Share your thoughts about the program’s new direction and benefits for community members. Show your appreciation to their contribution and dedication.
Create youth leadership board positions. Involve youth and encourage youth idea generation Founders may be more receptive to new ideas that come from youth
Examine formal structures in place. Reexamine the following: policy, terminology, position descriptions, committee involvement limitations, and youth and adult membership in board bylaws. Ensure these policies are not encouraging Founder’s Syndrome.
Manage volunteer education. Educate. This will help them better understand the benefits of new programmatic direction.
If needed, disengage the volunteer. In extreme cases, remove a volunteer, after utilizing strategies discussed in the article above and consulting your organization’s policy.
Sources: Block, S. R., & Rosenberg, S. (2002). Toward an understanding of founder’s syndrome: An assessment of power and privilege among founders of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 12(4), 353-368. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/nml.12403
English, L., & Peters, N. (2011). Founders’ syndrome in women’s nonprofit organizations: Implications for practice and organizational life. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 22(2), 159-171. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/nml.20047
We are often concerned about how to recruit and sustain volunteers. However, it can be difficult to deal with a situation when firing a volunteer becomes necessary. This occasionally happens, especially to Extension and outreach educators working with youth and master volunteers due to the vast number of volunteers in the programs. We believe that before terminating a volunteer, alternatives should be explored. How can you re-direct your volunteers or determine an alternative way to handle the situation? The following strategies were adopted from the work of Kulp (2011) and McCurley’s (2006).
Discuss expectations and be a coach. Set up a meeting with the volunteer to discuss organizational policy. Ask the volunteer to review signed standards of behavior documents. During the session determine their needs and provide additional training and support.
Offer a new role. Discuss with the volunteer interests and talents. Discover what motivates a volunteer to do the work. Align volunteer interests and talents with their specific volunteer role.
Give them a break. The volunteer may be facing a personal life challenge. Let your volunteer know you appreciate their service and lessen their workload or allow them to take a break.
Suggest a new direction. Another agency might be a better fit for a volunteer’s talents but be sure to show appreciation to a volunteer for their service.
Offer the option to retire. Some volunteers are very committed and dedicated for many years. Often, they may fight retirement. Offer the opportunity for them to be a mentor for a new volunteer.
If none of the discussed options help, communicate with the State Office or your supervisor about the issue. If the decision is to terminate a volunteer’s service, we can suggest the following strategies. Kulp (2011) shares suggestions from McCurley (2006) for the meeting:
Meet with the volunteer to discuss only facts about performance.
Explain why the volunteer is no longer needed to serve the organization.
Make it clear that this is a final decision. Do not argue.
Send a thank you note to the volunteer as a follow up action. Show your appreciation for their service, and make sure it is also clear in the letter than their term of service is over.
Sources: Culp III, K., & Doyle, J. (2011). Disengaging a volunteer: What to do when supervision fails. Journal of Extension, 49(5), 27.
Dr. Windon introducing the learning objectives of the workshop.
On Friday, July 26, 2019, Dr. Suzanna Windon and Dr. Melissa Kreye taught a program for professionals in environmental outreach. The session focused on building and developing trust with stakeholders and program evaluation. In Dr. Windon’s session, participants learned about trust-building, tips to develop and apply trust-related principles, and how to strategically improve trust-based collaboration. Participants were provided with a workbook with information and resources to help them assess how they are applying trust in their work with communities. Dr. Kreye discussed short-term program impact, types of programmatic audiences, outcomes, question design, and data management, analysis, and reporting. Participants were provided with survey examples to aid them in creating future evaluations as well.
Dr. Kreye discussing evaluation concepts.
This workshop was the first of three scheduled offerings. The same workshop will also be held Friday, August 16 and Friday, August 30 from 8 am to 12 noon at the Penn State Visitor Center. Interested outreach and education professionals in natural resources and the environment can register here. Space is limited to 20 participants. If you have any questions about the program, or would like to discuss the possibility of conducting a similar workshop for your group, please contact Dr. Suzanna Windon at sxk75@psu.edu.
Penn State Extension Leadership Network 