Your Team Knows What You Actually Care About

You can write mission statements. You can give speeches about your values. You can hang inspirational posters on the walls. None of it matters as much as one simple thing: what you actually pay attention to.

Your team is watching. They notice what makes you stop and look closer. They see what questions you ask and which ones you skip. They know, with remarkable accuracy, what you truly care about.

People respect what you inspect.

The Coach Who Taught Socks

John Wooden won ten NCAA basketball championships at UCLA. He's widely considered the greatest college basketball coach of all time. And at the first practice of every season, he taught his players how to put on socks.

Not plays. Not defensive schemes. Socks.

"Check the heel area," he'd tell them. "We don't want to see any wrinkles in those socks."

His reasoning was simple. If the socks weren't on correctly, a player might develop a blister. If they got a blister, they'd have to come out of the game. If they came out, it would hurt the team. Little things had big consequences.

By inspecting something as mundane as sock technique, Wooden sent a message to every player: details matter here. The small stuff isn't small. And if the coach cares this much about socks, imagine how much he cares about everything else.

What Are You Actually Inspecting?

Think about your camp, your team, your organization. What do you consistently pay attention to?

Maybe you check the dining hall before every meal, making sure tables are set correctly. Your staff learns that presentation matters.

Maybe you read every parent email before it goes out. Your team learns that communication is a priority.

Maybe you walk the grounds each morning looking for litter. Your counselors learn that the physical environment reflects your values.

Or maybe you don't do any of those things. Maybe you only show up when there's a crisis. Your team learns that the status quo is fine until something breaks.

The lesson works both ways.

The Sunscreen Test

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine you're leading a group of campers, and you decide to be vigilant about sunscreen. You ask every camper whether they've applied it. You check in every hour or two. You actually critique their application technique.

By the end of the summer, those campers would be sunscreen experts. They'd probably apply sunscreen automatically for the rest of their lives.

Now imagine you applied that same vigilance to friendship skills. Or sportsmanship. Or keeping the cabin clean. The same logic holds. What you inspect improves. What you ignore stays the same or gets worse.

The hard part isn't inspection. The hard part is choosing what to inspect.

You Can't Inspect Everything

This is where leadership gets difficult. You have limited time, limited energy, limited attention. If you try to inspect everything, two things happen. First, you exhaust yourself. Second, you exhaust everyone around you.

The solution isn't to inspect less. It's to inspect strategically.

Think about what matters most to your organization. Not what sounds good in a brochure, but what actually drives success. What behaviors, if everyone exhibited them consistently, would transform your camp?

Those are the things worth inspecting.

The Gap Between Words and Attention

I've seen directors give passionate speeches about camper safety, then walk past a maintenance issue without stopping. I've watched managers talk about work-life balance while sending emails at midnight. I've heard leaders preach teamwork while only recognizing individual achievements.

The words didn't match the inspection. And in every case, the team followed the inspection, not the words.

Your people aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between what you say matters and what you actually pay attention to. When those two things don't match, they trust your attention every time.

What Will You Choose?

Somewhere in your organization, right now, there's something that could be better. A process that's sloppy. A standard that's slipping. A value that's becoming a slogan instead of a practice.

You probably already know what it is.

The question isn't whether you care about it. The question is whether you're inspecting it. Because if you're not paying attention, neither is anyone else.

John Wooden didn't just care about winning basketball games. He cared about socks. And that's why he won ten championships.

What will you choose to inspect?

About the Author

Matt Kaufman has spent 40 years in summer camp as a camper, counselor, and director, studying what makes people belong, grow, and thrive. He writes about intentional community, leadership, and the intersection of technology and human connection.

Connect with Matt:

• Instagram: @mattlovescamp

• LinkedIn: Matt Kaufman

• Website: ilove.camp

Books by Matt Kaufman:

• The Campfire Effect: How to Engineer Belonging in a Disconnected World (February 2026)

• The Summer Camp MBA: 50 Leadership Lessons from Camp to Career