Summer Field Notes Closing: Crossing into the Grey

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.”— Charles Darwin

There is something different about the end of camp season. For months, the work has been about moving forward: preparing staff, finalizing programs, solving problems, watching the weather, adjusting schedules, filling gaps, and responding to the unexpected. Then, almost quietly, the season begins to close. The camps empty. Equipment gets cleaned and put away. Staff head home. The pace slows, at least for a moment. What remains is the opportunity to look back and ask a simple question: What did the season teach us?

For me, one answer keeps coming back: adaptability. Not adaptability as an abstract leadership competency or something that belongs on a professional development checklist, but as a very real capability that gets tested when the plan meets reality. Camp is full of plans. We plan schedules, activities, staffing, meals, transportation, emergency procedures, weather contingencies, and countless other details. We plan because preparation matters. Good planning creates structure and allows people to operate with confidence. But anyone who has spent enough time in camp knows that the plan is only the beginning. Weather changes. Staff get sick. Equipment breaks. A participant needs something we did not anticipate. An activity takes longer than expected. A group is more tired than we thought. Something that seemed straightforward on paper becomes complicated when actual people, with actual needs and emotions, enter the equation.

The plan meets reality. And reality gets a vote.

That is where we enter what I have come to call the grey.

The grey is the space between what we know and what we do not. It is where information is incomplete, conditions are changing, and the right answer is not immediately obvious. It is where we have to make a decision before we have all the information we would prefer to have. I have spent much of my career in environments where that space is unavoidable—military service, higher education, nonprofit leadership, outdoor programming, and youth development. The contexts are different, but the lesson has remained remarkably consistent: the future rarely rewards certainty. It rewards adaptability.

This idea has also shaped the way I think about experiential education. John Dewey's work and the broader tradition of experiential learning remind us that experience alone is not necessarily learning. We have to reflect on what happened, make meaning from it, and carry that learning into what comes next. That distinction feels particularly important at the end of a camp season. A young person navigates a trail, makes a new friend, struggles with a climbing wall, takes responsibility for a group task, gets frustrated, tries again, or discovers they are capable of something they did not think they could do. Those moments matter because they are real. But the deeper learning happens when they begin to understand what those experiences mean: I was nervous, but I did it. I didn't know what to do, so I asked for help. Our first plan didn't work, so we tried something else. Someone trusted me with responsibility, and I was capable of carrying it.

Those are not simply camp memories. They are building blocks for judgment, confidence, resilience, and self-efficacy.

That same process applies to adults and leaders. One of the things I have appreciated more and more this summer is how often good leadership looks less like having the answer and more like being able to read the situation. That idea connects with Angus Fletcher's Primal Intelligence, which explores the human capacities that allow us to navigate situations where logic, data, and established procedures cannot provide a complete answer. Intuition, imagination, emotion, pattern recognition, and what Fletcher describes as forms of primal intelligence become particularly important when we are operating with incomplete information.

Anyone who has worked at camp knows this instinctively. You notice that a group is getting restless before anyone says anything. You recognize that a participant who has been unusually quiet needs someone to check in. You look at the sky and realize the afternoon activity may need to change. You sense that a staff member is struggling before the problem becomes obvious. You make a decision because something about the situation tells you that the original plan no longer fits.

That is not abandoning preparation or expertise. It is another form of expertise. It is the ability to pay attention. And perhaps that is where adaptability actually begins—not with action, but with awareness. We cannot adapt to what we are unwilling to notice.

The other leadership idea I continue to carry with me is ownership. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's Extreme Ownership frames leadership around taking responsibility for what happens within our sphere of influence rather than searching for someone else to blame. I think that idea becomes particularly powerful when operating in the grey because ownership changes the question. Instead of asking, “Whose fault is this?” we ask, “What can I do about it?” Instead of asking, “Why didn't they do what they were supposed to do?” we ask, “What did I fail to communicate, clarify, anticipate, or support?” And when reality invalidates the plan, we stop defending the plan and start responding to reality.

That requires humility.

Experience should give us patterns, not prescriptions. The more experience we gain, the easier it becomes to believe that we have seen a situation before. Sometimes we have. But sometimes we have only seen something that looks similar. The conditions are different. The people are different. The stakes are different. Good judgment means knowing the difference.

This may be one of the most valuable things experiential environments teach us. They continually remind us that conditions change and that our response has to change with them. A thunderstorm does not care about the schedule. A tired group does not care about the lesson plan. A frightened participant does not care that the activity was designed perfectly. A team conflict does not resolve itself because everyone completed the required training. Reality interrupts the plan, and leadership begins with how we respond to that interruption.

That is why I believe so deeply in camps, Scouting, outdoor education, and other experiential learning environments. We should not create unnecessary hardship for young people, nor should we romanticize struggle. But we also should not remove every opportunity for uncertainty, discomfort, responsibility, or failure. Young people need opportunities to discover that they can handle things they have never handled before. They need opportunities to make decisions, experience appropriate consequences, receive support, reflect, and try again. They need opportunities to discover that the first attempt does not have to be the final attempt.

That is where experience becomes growth.

As this camp season comes to a close, I find myself thinking less about whether everything went according to plan and more about what happened when it didn't. Those moments often tell us more. They show us how teams actually function under pressure. They reveal where our systems are strong and where they need work. They expose assumptions we did not realize we were making. They create opportunities for people to step forward, take responsibility, solve problems, and learn.

They also remind us that leadership is not about eliminating uncertainty. It is about developing the capacity to function within it.

That may be the larger lesson I am taking from this summer. Leadership is less about predicting outcomes and more about responding when outcomes change. Less about certainty and more about awareness. Less about control and more about adaptability. Less about having the right answer in advance and more about having the judgment to determine what the situation requires now.

The season ends, but the learning does not. The tents come down. The equipment gets stored. The schedules disappear from the whiteboards. Staff move on to whatever comes next. But the experiences remain: the young person who discovered they could lead, the staff member who learned to trust their judgment, the team that figured out how to solve a problem together, the leader who realized that the original plan needed to change, and the moment when someone stepped into uncertainty and discovered they were capable of navigating it.

Those are the things worth carrying forward. Because the goal of experiential education was never simply to get people through an experience. It is to help them become different because they experienced it.

And perhaps that is what this season has reminded me of most. We cannot prepare people for an uncertain world by making everything certain for them. We prepare them by helping them become capable within uncertainty. We give them experiences. We create space for reflection. We allow responsibility to be real. We support them when things become difficult. And then we trust them enough to try again.

That applies to young people. It applies to teams. And it applies to us.

The grey is not where leadership disappears. It is where leadership becomes visible. It is where awareness becomes judgment, where experience becomes learning, where uncertainty becomes possibility, and where responsibility becomes action.

As another camp season comes to a close, I am grateful for the reminders that came with it: to pay attention, to remain curious, to take ownership, to trust experience without becoming trapped by it, to adapt when the conditions change, and to keep moving even when the path ahead is not completely clear. Not because we know exactly what comes next. But because we have learned that we can meet it when it arrives. That is what it means to operate in the grey.

This is also the final entry in this season's Field Notes series—a closing reflection on camp season and on what it has continued to teach me about operating in the grey. These entries have given me a reason to pause throughout the summer and make sense of what was happening around me while I was still in the middle of it. Now, as the season winds down, I think it is time to step out of the noise for a while.

My next season of reflection will look a little different. I will be traveling through Scandinavia, giving myself some intentional space for reflection, relaxation, and recovery after a demanding camp season. I hope to let some of the structure and urgency of the work fall away for a bit—to walk, explore, pay attention, and simply experience a different environment without immediately needing to turn every experience into an outcome Perhaps that is another form of operating in the grey: being comfortable enough with uncertainty to leave some questions unanswered.

I expect to return with more questions than answers, which may be exactly what I need. Travel has a way of disrupting our assumptions and giving us new perspectives on familiar ideas. I am looking forward to seeing what I notice, what challenges my thinking, and what new ideas emerge when I give myself permission to slow down and pay attention.

For now, though, the season is ending. And I am grateful for what it has taught me—to pay attention, to remain curious, to take ownership, to trust experience without becoming trapped by it, to adapt when the conditions change, and to keep moving even when the path ahead is not completely clear. Not because we know exactly what comes next. But because we have learned that we can meet it when it arrives. That is what it means to operate in the grey.