CEO of the Scouts UK, Matt Hyde, talks candidly about painful decisions taken on restructuring, redundancies and disposing of assets in the face of COVID-19. Invaluable insight on weathering the storm

 

Scouting prepress young people with skills for life. It has been around for 113 years and is active in 190 countries. There are 53 million scouts worldwide and 460,000 in the UK. Moreover, there are 160,000 adult volunteers in the UK and 60,000 young people who are waiting to join the Scouts.

 

In the UK, the Scouts are a federation of 8,000 Scout charities. The organisation has numerous income streams and areas of operations.

 

Matt sheds light on the dynamics of how the Scouts operates in the UK and we discuss how different parts of the organisation have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.  He describes in detail the painful realisation over the late summer, 2020, that this pandemic wasn’t going to be going away quickly and, therefore, they needed a decisive plan.

 

Consequently, the team has been reduced from approximately 390 staff to around 260, and many property assets, including Baden-Powell House in central London, are being disposed.

 

This has been painful for the entire organisation and staff morale has clearly been affected. And, yet, there is a realisation of the importance of focusing on the Scouts’ mission and ensuring everything works towards achieving that.

 

Matt’s key takeaway for other leaders trying to weather the storm: The first thing is to go back to your mission. Ask yourself, is everything you’re doing furthering your mission?  And, are you taking those difficult but courageous decisions that you need to take?  Because, sometimes, to build the new you have to give up some of the past, and that’s difficult — and it’s emotionally difficult. We often don’t talk enough about the emotional drain on leaders. It’s about a mindset shift that says, OK, we’re going to build something new and therefore we’re going to take these difficult decisions. And then, ask how are you adapting your strategy in order to deliver that — in order to return to a time when you can be more optimistic about the future. You have to go to the depths of those difficult moments to come out on the other side.

 

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