Tips for Building Booster Culture that Turns Potential into Performance

Booster clubs are just messy.

Whether you're coming from a small town, a big town, an urban suburban area, or a rural area, it's all pretty much the same. Booster clubs everywhere are just messy.  And there's a reason why. It's a big puzzle. There's a lot of moving parts. Whose idea was it anyway to build a small business with volunteers?

So, what can we do to build a culture of excellence where we can turn our potential into performance?
 

When I became a director of bands for the first time, I remember that sensation feeling “I can do this job”. But suddenly when I had the title, it was like, my gosh, I've got to do this job. I started researching lots of different programs across the country. I explored programs that were Bands of America Grand National finalists. People that played at Midwest, or maybe won the Sudler Flag of Honor, or they'd played at the Macy's or Tournament of Roses parade. And other benchmarks we as music teacher professionals, would say, are model programs within our profession.

I found 3 core elements that were kind of in indicative of all those programs:

• The teachers were very passionate.
• They had methods and systems in place to support their program.
• They were strategic.

 Well, I was certainly passionate at that point, but I didn't really have any systems, and my only strategy was really to just survive. Do you feel that way as a booster club sometimes? You are just trying to hang on…to keep on… and survive.
 

Walking those very emotions is how we ended up creating the strategic booster system. My boosters and I determined we needed a system of how we were going to try to turn our potential into performance. We discovered 3 fundamentals of core culture building in Daniel Pink's book, Drive: Purpose, Mastery, and Autonomy.

We agreed that purpose empowers our parents. We began to define our core values, our mission statement, and how we were going to impact our community. Simon Sinek says, always start with “Why”. That aligned with Pink’s model of starting with purpose. We realized that if we share our purpose, share why we're here, what our core values are in our mission statement, and why we are beneficial; then, can communicate effectively how to impact our community as a booster club.

Next in the culture transformation came mastery. We explored what we needed to master as an organization that would be our business blueprints and making sure that we stay compliant as an organization with all our governmental (local, state, and federal) agencies and the 501c3 status obligations.

Our last stage was to examine how we collaborate to give parents a voice, our collaborative action, and how we communicate to our community to provide greater autonomy to build a thriving culture.

For the booster club, purpose and mastery are fueled by the first stage of the strategic plan including elements like purpose statement, core values, mission statement. The 2nd stage explores organizational goals and strategies, and here's where people miss out… action plans to implement the strategies. Once that strategic plan is implemented, the 3^rd step is developing protocols to monitor and evaluate how the strategies are working and then strategize on how to improve. It is important to keep in mind, meaningful collaboration action planning can take 3 to 5 years to fully implement a strategic plan throughout all facets of a comprehensive program.

The autonomy part is critical in a volunteer organization. People need to feel like their voices are heard and that they have an opportunity to impact the direction of the organization.

Here are some reflective steps for collaborative action to guide volunteers in their work.

Who are we?

The first element for reflection is to allow for a discussion where volunteers explore the question, “Who are we?” as an organization. It is important to imagine what's possible. Think Disney big!

What’s Doable?

Now diagnose it down a little bit further in the funnel of what's doable after the group explores what might be possible. Decide upon what's doable?

What’s Best Next?

This is critical. The team needs to describe the plan once they’ve diagnosed what's doable and decide strategically in what's best next.

Lots of people can get to the what's doable stage, but the “what’s best, next” is critical because people can launch out with an idea, and it might be a really good idea but success in thriving comes from really being strategic in making sure time is taken to discern what's best next. The sequence of efforts can have a profound impact on overall success.
 

Strategize an Action Plan

Finally, strategize what action is required to fulfill the stated goals before engaging the booster leadership, project committee chairs, and different volunteers that support and serve in this process. In the action plan, identify who will own the action and establish timelines for when the action will be complete.  This will help build that “we/us” ownership and autonomy.

In closing, three quick wins to focus building and defining booster club culture:
Purpose. How can you empower your parent volunteers to join you on the journey by developing and embracing the core values and mission statement.
Mastery. Developed business blueprints embowered by action plans to strategically turn our potential into performance.
Autonomy. Invest in collaborative action providing crucial opportunities for volunteers to exercise their voice in the creation and implementation of the strategic action. Start now, start small. It can begin with a 30-minute zoom or a 1-hour meeting. Consider how you can use digital methods (Google forms, Google Docs, Padlet, white board apps, etc to engage active parents who have much to offer but perhaps not at the exact moment of the meeting. Be creative and flexible in offering ways people can share their voice and ideas because autonomy leads to a sense of ownership and commitment to be a part of your mission as a booster club ambassador.