September 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

LE A D E RS H I P E XC HA N G E

Are you a Viking or a Farmer?
Legendary Norsemen didn't conquer the known world
by doing things the way they had always been done.
Nor should parks and recreation administrators.
By Paul Gilbert

22 Parks & Recreation

SEPTEMBER 2010

" how we always do things. " There is nothing wrong with being a competent manager or farmer, so long as external forces do
not change too rapidly. But, when the way
things have been done no longer addresses the changing circumstances, it is time to
take to the " long boats " again.
While the farmer is focused on the management of a certain set of fields, the Viking
is looking to the horizon for new opportunities. Successful Vikings were willing to
take strategic risks and stretch themselves
and their group to find the new opportunities. While they were seeking these new
opportunities, they were not alone. Leif Ericson did not row to Newfoundland by himself; rather, he had a team of Vikings willing
to try new things and take risks together for
a shared reward.
" Going Viking, " therefore, is not a
matter of individualism, but a process
of adopting an organizational culture of
growth and exploration. The stronger
your team of Vikings, the more successful
you will be at thriving in an era of change.
Thinking beyond your field is more
than a catchy magazine article theme. We
need to think beyond the traditional park
and recreation field to find new opportunities and achieve excellence. If you want to
take the best of business principles and apply them to your world, you need to study
the best in the business world. I would
strongly suggest reading Harvard Business Review to get a handle on what the
leaders in management, marketing and
strategy are thinking about. For practical
knowledge that will help the bottom line of
your park agency, send your agency's best
and brightest to NRPA's Revenue Development and Management School at Oglebay.

www . N R P A . O R G

This business school for park and recreation has been instilling entrepreneurism
in park officials for over 45 years, with constantly updated course material.
Think about what Richard Louv and
his book Last Child in the Woods did
for outdoor/nature experiences. He
changed the prevailing thinking on time
spent in nature from a nice thing to do for
some to a social imperative. As a result,
nature programming and acquisition of
open space have bloomed.
Think about new ways of positioning
your park agency. If you are just considered
the " fun " agency, you will be the first to be
cut in economic hard times. But, if your facilities and programs are a big reason tourists
spend money in your community or why
businesses locate there, you are no longer
discretionary but have become essential.
These are examples of thinking beyond
your field, looking for new markets and
new worlds to explore. You can think like a
Viking in looking for new revenue sources,
new programming opportunities, new financing options and new marketing methods. And, to thrive in an unsettled world,
you need a strong team of Vikings to row
that long boat to new opportunities. 
PAUL GILBERT is Executive
Director of the Northern Virginia
Regional Park Authority in
Fairfax, Virginia.

To contribute to this forum on
leadership and innovation
in the field of parks and
recreation, please submit articles of no more
than 500 words to:
Editor@nrpa.org.

shutterstock

he Park and Recreation
field is undergoing great
change. With state and local government budgets in
great distress, a business as
usual attitude is not a strategy for success.
With many economists predicting that an
end to the current recession will not come
until sometime in 2013, what will parks and
recreation look like at that point? Almost
certainly, the agencies that survive and
thrive will be those that chart new areas.
These will be agencies with lean overhead
and an entrepreneurial spirit. Agencies that
show their value to the community in new
and exciting ways and are less dependent
on traditional sources of tax revenues will
succeed. They will be Viking agencies.
From the late 8th into the 12th century,
Vikings from Scandinavia were a dominant force in the world in and around
Europe. They conquered vast areas
and promoted trade. In the east, they set
up the nation of Russia, and in the west
they were the first Europeans to explore
North America. Then, over time, they
stopped exploring to become farmers,
and the age of Vikings came to an end.
Most larger park agencies went
through a Viking era, a period of time
when leaders with foresight and a cando attitude created opportunities which
resulted in rapidly expanding lands and
operations. Over time, any organization
can become so focused on managing
what they have that they forget to grow.
Management is much like farming. You
have a set of operations, and you tend to
those like a farmer tending his fields. There
is a great tendency to do the same thing every year. It seems to work and it becomes

September 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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