How to Recover When You Mess up - Camp Code #171

Find full show notes and links at: https://www.gocamp.pro/campcode/recoverwhenmessingup

Repair, Reflect, Reenter: Teaching Staff How to Recover From Mistakes

On this Camp Code episode, our host Gabz and Beth dig into one of the most important staff training topics at camp: what happens after someone makes a mistake. They talk about how many staff members are not struggling because they fail, but because they do not know how to recover well. Young staff often become defensive, avoid hard conversations, shut down after feedback, or spiral with embarrassment. Beth and Gabz explain that camp leaders can shift this culture by teaching staff that mistakes are normal, repair is expected, and growth matters more than perfection.

Best Practice for Leadership Training

From Beth,

Beth closes the episode with a reminder that strong staff teams are not built on perfection. They are built on honesty, accountability, and growth. Staff need to hear clearly that mistakes will happen and that what matters most is how they respond afterward. Can they be honest, repair relationships, stay teachable, and keep going? When leaders normalize mistakes and focus on growth instead of shame, they create a camp culture where staff feel supported enough to learn, improve, and build trust all summer long.

Your Hosts:

• Beth Allison, Camp Consultant - Go Camp Pro
• Gabrielle Raill, Camp Director - Camp Ouareau

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most staff are not actually failing because they make mistakes. They struggle because they get defensive, shut down, spiral, hide errors, avoid feedback, or don't know how to repair after a hard moment. This behavior impacts relationship with coworkers, how they respond to campers after mistakes, how they handle parent concerns, and how they receive correction from supervisors, and whether your camp culture becomes fearful or growth-oriented. Join us as we discuss how this supports everything else you've been teaching. Running camp should be about people, not paperwork. Ultracamp helps you manage staff, registration, and communication in one place. So you spend less time on tasks and more on camp. Find out more at ultracampmanagement.com slash campcode. Welcome to Camp Code, a podcast brought to you by GoCamp Pro. We have been podcasting for almost 12 seasons, just two more episodes to go. And we knew that we needed to continue because staff training is the most important part of summer camp. If you get that part right, everything goes just a little bit smoother. So welcome everybody to another episode. Gabs and I are here today to discuss lots of ideas with staff training with you, and particularly how to recover after having made a mistake. So before we start and jump in, we'll just introduce ourselves. Gab.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Hey everyone. My name is Gabs. My pronouns are she, her, and I work at Camp Woro. On Camp Woro is an all-girls camp. We practice creating a possible environment for gender minorities, and we do that in French and English.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Thanks, Gab. And I'm Beth Allison, co-owner of Camp Hacker and Go Camp Pro. My pronouns are she, her, and I am a camp consultant and trainer who's getting really excited at this time of the year because we're starting to do staff training. Yeah, yeah. But today we want to talk about something that we think is one of the most important and most underrated, undertaught staff skills at camp. And it's how to recover when you mess up. Because every single staff member, you included, me included, is going to make mistakes this summer. Every single one. They're going to say the wrong things or miss something or forget something or mishandle a moment or get overwhelmed or misread a child or disappoint a coworker, make a bad call, or need to be corrected. That's not the problem. The problem is that many staff have never actually been taught, so what do I do next? How do I respond when I mess up with a camper, when I get called out by a coworker, when a parent was frustrated with me, when my supervisor gave me hard feedback, or when I realize I handled something badly, I feel embarrassed and defensive, and I want to disappear. And honestly, if we don't train staff how to recover, then we accidentally create a culture where mistakes get hidden, feedback feels threatening, defensiveness grows, trust erodes, and learning gets replaced by shame. So today we want to talk about how to train staff to recover well with each other, with campers, with parents, with supervisors, so that mistakes become moments of growth instead of breakdown. So let's get into it. Gabrielle, do you want me to start things off?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, I'd love that. All right, here I go. Tip, everybody, Beth always starts things off.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

All right. So one of the biggest mistakes camp leaders make is unintentionally building a culture where staff feel like they have to look good instead of grow. And when that happens, staff become more focused on not getting into trouble, not looking incompetent, not being embarrassed, not being corrected, then they are focused on actually learning. But camp is way too relational and way too human for that. So one of the most important things we can teach in staff training is this. At camp, the goal is not perfection. The goal is repair, learning, and growth. That means that we want staff to understand you will make mistakes. You are not expected to be flawless, but you are expected to respond with honesty, responsibility, and the willingness to repair. And that is completely different training message than don't mess up. And it creates a completely different culture because if staff think mistakes mean humiliation or shame, being seen as a bad staff member or losing trust permanently, they will hide. But if they understand that mistakes are normal, workable, and repairable, they're much more likely to tell you the truth, to ask you for help and to grow. And that's what you want all summer long. A lot of young staff are not bad at camp because they make mistakes. They struggle because they don't know how to handle that emotional experience of having made a mistake. And that can look, and we've all seen it, but it can look like getting defensive, blaming somebody else, crying and shutting down, minimizing, pretending it didn't happen, becoming avoidant, spiraling into I am just terrible at this, or overexplaining instead of taking responsibility. And I think it helps to remember that most of those reactions are not actually about the camp moment itself. They're about fear, embarrassment, identity, perfectionism with this particular age group seems to have a real thing about. They're not about ego or panic. So if we want staff to recover better, we have to train them not just in what to do, but in how to stay steady enough to do it. And that part's huge because often the actual repair is not the hardest part. The hardest part is getting through the internal discomfort long enough to be honest, humble, and responsive. And that's teachable. So we've got some ideas about how to do that, but first we're gonna hear from Gabrielle.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Thanks, Beth. So you're right. The the the the path forward is not perfection. The path forward is teaching your first leaders how to fail in front of other people. And you were re you were just talking about you know today's to be today's kiddos or young staff members. Cringe is a really big thing, especially online, doing something cringy. You want to avoid it at all costs. And we know, everybody that's listening to this, Beth and I know that that actually we want staff members to try. They're gonna make mistakes, but that's how they learn. So the first leaders at camp typically are our leadership team members. And we that has to be part of their training is how do how do you fail in front of staff members during staff training? And for me, it's really three steps. Keep going. You got three options. Three, keep going, saying, give me a moment. I got this, you know, just like own it, or can somebody help me please? Easy peasy. But the number one thing is it is okay. How do you just fail in front of other people? It could be the PowerPoint's not working, it could be you started the wrong session, it could be you gave the wrong information, you might have missed a word. It doesn't matter what it is. But the goal is that we're in it together. It's and it and as my staff like to say, it's not that deep. It really isn't. It's just not that deep. And we move forward and we talk to our leadership team members about why this is important. And and that because a lot of our staff members have a hard time trying because they don't want to be cringe, they don't want to make mistakes in front of other people. Just role model role modeling how to make mistakes is is going to be really helpful. Not I won't say more helpful than a session, but it will be helpful in just witnessing it. It also will take pressure off of your leadership team members that are trying to be perfect, especially the first-year leadership team members, when we say, Oh, you're going to make mistakes. At the same time, give everybody an understanding of what is real and what is uh understandable in a new role. So almost any organization, when you're coming into a job, it's approximately three months before they let you do anything on your own, like independently. Well, at Camp, that's about a month after you are done. So so this is really, really important to say this is job learning, this is job training. We are going to be doing on-the-job training and feedback while you are learning. You will not be able to do this perfectly. We are do not want you to do this perfectly. And then we want to link this to our mission. We don't want perfect staff members for our campers. Our campers need to see mistakes. Our campers need to see you, our staff members, our leadership team members trying so that they will do so as well. So when we link it all back to the mission, that sort of helps encourage it. But I would start with your leadership team and share that this is an expectation. And here are some of the ways that we can fail in front of people because we are going to.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Love it, love it, love it. This is going to be a good episode. So stay tuned because we've got lots more to tell you. But first, we're going to hear from our sponsors. For camp code listeners, unlock UltraCamp's operations checklist for new directors, a free download to help you prepare for a smooth season. Find it at ultracampmanagement.com slash campcode. Running Camp comes with countless moving parts. Ultracamp helps you stay on top of them. Organize activities and daily schedules, manage wait lists and cabin assignments, automate billing and payments, centralize all camper and staff info in one place. With UltraCamp, camp operations run smoother so directors can lead with confidence. Book your free customized demo at ultracampmanagement.com slash campcode. Okay, if I were teaching this in leadership training, I would give staff a very simple recovery framework, something that sounds like this, like the five steps of good recovery after you've made a mistake. So number one is notice it. Number two is own it. Number three is repair it. Number four, learn from it. And number five, re-enter without spiraling. So let's walk through that. So step one is to notice it. So this is actually realizing something did not go well here. And it sounds obvious, but it's not. A lot of staff miss or dismiss their own impact because they're focused on their intention or their stress or just trying to get through the day. So we need to train them to notice things like a child's face changed after I said that, or my coworker got really quiet after that interaction, or that parent seemed a lot less reassured after talking to me, or my supervisor had to step in because I missed something. I got reactive instead of helpful. That noticing piece is the beginning of professionalism and growth. Because if you can't notice your impact, you cannot repair it. Step two is own it. And this is the step a lot of people avoid because owning a mistake feels vulnerable. But this is where trust gets built or lost. And staff need to learn that owning a mistake does not mean shaming yourself, making yourself the villain, or turning turning it into a dramatic self-attack. It means saying, yes, that happened. I see my part in it. So that can sound like, oh, shoot, I realize I handled that poorly. Or I should have told someone sooner. Oh, I miss that. Or how I can see how that might have landed. That was my mistake. That's it. That's all it we need to do in that part of it. Not things like, well, I only did that because, or I guess I'm just the worst. Or, but everybody else was, or I didn't mean it like that. Owning mistake cleanly is a leadership skill. And it's one of the best things that you can teach camp staff. Number three is repair it. Now, once staff can own something, the next question becomes what would repair look like in this situation? And it might mean apologizing to a coworker or circling back to a camper or clarifying something with a parent, maybe telling a supervisor what happened, making sure the missed task gets completed, or changing what happens the next time. And this is where I think camp leaders can be really helpful because many staff know how to feel badly. They got that down. They do not always know how to repair it. So we have to teach it. So an example would be with a camper, one of the most important places staff need recovery skills with is with a camper. So because staff will absolutely have moments where they speak too sharply or they miss a need or they respond too fast or they get impatient or they handle a child's emotions poorly. And one of the best things we can teach is adults do not lose credibility with kids when they repair it. They gain credibility, and that's huge because many staff think if I apologize to a camper, I will lose authority. Or actually, the opposite is often true. When an adult can say, you know what, I think I got that wrong, or I should have listened better, or let me try that again. Kids often feel safer, more respected, and more that trust between you. And honestly, that's modeling because we want campers to learn how to recover too. So staff need to know repair with kids, it's not a weakness, it's leadership. With a coworker, now this one is really huge for staff culture because so many staff relationships break down not because there was one hard moment, but because nobody knew how to recover after it. So that might look like attention after a stressful cabin moment, resentment after somebody dropped the ball, or hurt feelings after a snappy interaction, or awkwardness after correction, maybe from a supervisor, or frustration after somebody didn't help you. And the thing to teach is you don't you do not need zero friction to have a strong team. What you need is repair skills. That's the difference. So a healthy staff team is not one where nothing ever goes wrong. It's one where people know how to say, hey, can we reset? Or I think that landed weird. Or I was frustrated, but I don't want that to sit between us. Or I needed more help there. Or I think we got off track. Can we try again? That's goal. That's staff culture. And if you want your staff to work well together all summer, you have to teach that on purpose. I got two more little ones with a supervisor. And this may be where recovery matters most because a huge part of whether staff grow at camp comes down to can they receive correction without collapsing or fighting? That is a life skill. And I think one that we can teach really well at camp. Feedback is not the same thing as rejection. They need to understand that. That one line can change so much because many staff unconsciously hear feedback as you're bad at this, you're failing, you're disappointing us, you don't belong here. And if that's the internal story, they will either defend, shut down, or avoid. So we have to train them to hear feedback as somebody is helping me get better at a job that matters. That's a powerful reframe. And then we can teach them what a strong response sounds like. Thank you. That that's really helpful. Or I can see that. I hadn't realized that impact. I want to do that better next time. Can you help me think through what that would look like? That's professionalism, that's leadership, that's maturity. And finally, with a parent, I think this one matters because staff will have moments where they answer something poorly or they forget to pass along information or they sound flustered or they're part of a situation a parent is concerned about. And again, the important thing is not never make a mistake. The important thing is do they know how to respond with calm, honesty, and appropriate repair? So that will mean things like not getting defensive, not minimizing the parent's concern, not over-explaining or trying to cover it up. But instead, it sounds like, thank you so much for bringing that up. I can see why that matters. I want to make sure that we handle that properly. Let me involve the right person so we can support this well. Professional repair with parents is often less about solving it yourself and more about responding well, staying grounded, and then looping in the right support. And that's an important thing to teach as well. Repair isn't about being eloquent, it's about restoring trust. All right, I'll give you the last two of those after we hear from Gabrielle.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

I was wondering, I was like, okay, what are the other one or the other two? I want to go back to the repair piece. I think a lot of the times when we're chatting with staff members, if if there's maybe a conflict with another staff member, or maybe they kind of messed up. I will say when I was a young staff member, I once came extremely late to a group evening that I was supposed to be planning with another teammate. I got strongly distracted, and my supervisor talked to me and I apologized, and then that was that. But what about my teammate? I never actually talked to them. So sometimes when we're in a leadership role and we are dealing with the staff members, they see they're wrong, they take accountability. And a lot of the times I do see that they feel a lot better, but they do have to go and chat with the people that they have had that impact with. And I think as leaders, sometimes we forget to help guide them. A lot of the times it's not that they forget to do so, though sometimes they just feel better and they're like, Great, I talked to the boss and I'm fine. Sometimes they don't see that they're what they did had an impact on others. But a lot of the times it's they're avoiding it. They're just saying, okay, I talked to the boss, everything's fine, and now we can stick our hand in the sand. And that's going to cause issues down the road that again, you're going to have to clean up and that they're not learning this lesson. And there's avoidance that's happening. So help your staff members talk about what would that look like when you go and talk to your teammate? What are some things that are blocking you? When when's a good time in the day? Just acting it out and chit-chatting about it is going to help. And you might hit roadblocks with your staff member where they say, I think that they're going to get really upset. I think it's going to make things worse, which is one of the things that I encounter quite often. And we just say, Well, then name that. I'm nervous to talk to you about this because I don't want to make things worse. And I really, really respect you as a colleague or I really like you as a friend. But I know I was in the wrong. And that was, that was, I wasn't thinking about you when I showed up later, et cetera, et cetera. So helping your staff members actually tie the tie the knot, that loose end, is going to help with their internal stress level go down. It's going to give them the life skills that they need to do this well later, but it's also going to help with teammates at camp. So that's my little tidbit on this piece.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Great. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. All right. So step four, learn from the mistake. So this is where the growth actually happens because a repaired mistake that teaches you nothing will likely just repeat itself. So staff need to be taught to ask, what happened there? What did I miss or what was going on in me? What would I do differently next time? What support or skill do I need? And that is a really powerful leadership habit. And it's where supervision can become developmental instead of just corrective. So instead of saying something like, okay, just don't do that again, we can ask, what do you think got in the way? What might help you handle that better next time? What did that moment teach you? That's how camp becomes leadership development instead of just compliance. And then finally, step five is to re-enter without spiraling. I'm sure no one else has ever seen spiraling in a staff member. It's probably just me. But anyway, this step is so important because one of the hardest things for a staff member after a mistake is not the correction itself, it's returning to work, the work afterward. So a lot of staff either say, stay stuck in shame or become weird and avoidant, or they act incredibly fragile for the next six to 12 hours, or they completely lose their confidence. So we need to teach this. You are allowed to feel embarrassed. You are not allowed to disappear. And because after a mistake, the goal is not pretend that you feel great. The goal is stay in the work, stay teachable, stay connected, and keep going. That's emotional maturity. And it's one of the most useful things that Camp can teach. So how would you teach this experientially in staff training? So some of the best ways for me, like the first step to normalize mistakes from the start. So you say explicitly, as Gab has said, you will make mistakes here. That does not make you a bad staff member. What matters is how you respond. That will immediately lower shame and increase honesty. Number two, teach actual repair language. Don't just say, all right, take responsibility gab, give them words that they can say. Like, I can see my part in that. I should have handled that differently. I would like to reset. I want to make that right. That matters. You can use role plays like practice apologizing, repairing with a camper, receiving hard feedback, telling a supervisor about a mistake you made, responding to a parent concern. This is one of those things that sounds really simple until somebody actually has to say it out loud. Debrief mistakes is learning opportunities. So after hard moments in training or throughout the summer, what happened? What impact did that have? What would repair look like? What do we want to learn from it? And then of course, we always say model it as leaders. And this one's huge. If leaders never admit mistakes, staff won't either. If leaders get defensive, staff will too. If leaders can say, I think I missed that, I should have communicated that better. Let's reset. You create a culture where growth feels possible, and that changes everything. Gabrielle.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

That's beautiful. Thanks, Beth. I'm going to chat on the end of the leadership role. So when leadership team members are trying to support their staff members, the a previous podcast that we just did was on professionalism. We're trying to keep them on track. Young leadership team members also feel the responsibility of staff members doing well. Sometimes they will make mistakes, and how leadership team members react to those mistakes is going to impact all of those wonderful things that Beth were saying. So at War, what we try to do is assess and then deploy. So the deploy is the ask, the what are we going to do? How do we repair? All of those pieces. The assess is getting curious about what was going on. So when a staff member maybe is a is a little bit short with a camper, or perhaps they did not respond to a parent the way we want them to respond, or they're not dressed the way we want them to dress, how we interact, that first initial interaction is what is going to have either the gates down or the gates up. And so assessing the situation is what's what is extremely important. So going in with curiosity and going in with positive intent, you know, hmm, I wonder why this person is late. Even if it's their 17th time being late, that's the way we need to approach. Now it doesn't mean that we allow them to come back an 18th time to be late. That's the piece of taking accountability and coming up with a plan. But being explicit with your leadership team members that we want staff members, that staff members will make mistakes. We want them to take accountability, but the path to get to there is to be on their team, find out what is going on, and then help them go through those steps, assess and deploy.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Perfect. Thank you so much. And it's time for your recap, please.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Recap, recap, recap. Okay. The path forward is not perfection. We're trying to just make sure that staff members, when they do make mistakes, they don't feel poopy about themselves because that is what really usually happens. They know they messed up, they don't like messing up, and then they kind of stick their heads in the sand. And then it perpetuates discomfort, it perpetuates more mistakes, breaks in teen, lack of quality and performance, et cetera, et cetera, defensiveness. It is awful. So from the very beginning, again, during staff training, we're acknowledging that they're going to make mistakes. And we're telling them, hey, guess what? Here, here for two and a half months in all industries by two weeks after camp, a month after camp, you should know your job because that is the standard. So let's get them all on board that we are going to mistakes. And this is how we're going to handle our mistakes. We're going to go with best top five. First one, it's notice. Self-awareness is something that we expect from our staff members and expect them to develop. So noticing when they make make a mistake is extremely important. Getting used to knowing what their job is is part of our staff training. When we do make a mistake, let's tell them what is an appropriate level of owning it. We don't want overapologizing either, but we also don't want to just completely ignore it. Sometimes just a my bee is good enough, but when it's a little bit deeper, my be and let's have a conversation is important, which leads me back to number three, repair. Repair looks differently in many different lights, and they might need some guidance if it's with a family member, it's if it's with a colleague, if it's just with their performance. That kind of repair, you might need to help guide them through that. And then, yes, learning from the mistakes. What will we be doing differently? And then the no-spiraling piece. And that's a hard one to help young people and even people our age to deal with. Sometimes we get into our own minds, but helping them have a little bit of perspective on the situation is important. And that's why we go back to we're all learning on this job.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And you can let us know any topics you'd like us to discuss or guests you recommend that we have on the show, or any great leadership training tips that you have to share. We would love to hear from you. And if you found our podcast to be useful, it'd be great if you could leave us a rating and a review in your podcasting app so that others can find us too. Gab, how can they find you personally?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Well, they can check out where I work at warro.com. And they can also y'all can message me at info at Warro, O-U-A-R-E-A-U.com.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Thank you. Our email is sorry, our website is gocamp.pro. My email is Beth at GoCamp.pro, but I'm also on threads as topaz underscore Fay. And for our next and final podcast of the season, train for the in-between moments, the small interactions that shape camp culture. And the best practice this week is from me. So if I were teaching all of this in staff week, I would end by saying something like this you are going to make mistakes here. Every good staff member does. That is not the thing that will define you. What will define you is what you do next. Can you be honest? Can you be teachable? Can you repair? Can you stay in relationship? Can you learn and keep going? That is what strong staff do. That is what good teammates do. That is what trustworthy adults do. Camp is not asking you to be perfect, it is asking you to grow. And honestly, that's what we want all summer long. Not perfect staff, but staff who can notice, own, repair, learn, and re-enter. That is a team you can build a great summer with. If this is a conversation your staff need to have before the summer begins, we hope that this gives you some practical language and a really important training lens. And if you know another camp leader who's trying to build a staff culture that is more honest, more teachable, and more growth-oriented, send them this episode. Camp Code is part of the GoCamp Pro Podcast Network, and you can check out all the other podcasts at gocamp.pro slash podcasts. Thanks for joining us today, and until next time, here's to building camps where staff feel confident, supported, and ready for the moments that matter most. Thanks for the listening, friends.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Please remember, no other industry shares their best practices the way summer camps do. If you use an idea you heard on a GoCamp Pro podcast, please be professional and remember to give credit where credit is due. The Camp Code is brought to you by GoCamp Pro. Thanks for listening, friends.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Camp Hacker.