Fresh from a week at the lake with 11 people in residence and up to 35 people on our beach for a party at one point, it’s nice to reflect back on the fun, memories and of course to tie-in some lighter management and leadership lessons. Here are a few lessons that jump to mind after our most recent experience.

Seven Management Lessons Learned on Vacation:

1. Never let down on risk management, especially when there’s a small septic system and a large group involved. Soak, turn the water off, soap up, rinse, turn the water off. After all, who needs more than 60 seconds for a quality shower?!

2. Communicate, communicate, communicate. You don’t want anyone mixing in food scraps with the carefully cultivated bag of paper goods to burn at the campfire, or there’s likely to be an investigation, fast trial and extra dish duties handed out during sentencing.

3. Inventory control is a fine art and a key to cultivating happy campers (literally). Translation: don’t run out of dessert items on the last night or the event may take on a bit of an edgy feel as people grumble on their way to their cars in search of the local soft-serve ice cream stand.

4. In the words of Harrison Ford from the movie, Mosquito Coast (appropriate location name for our event!), Ice is Civilization.” It’s good to make ice around the clock…especially when you are roughing it and have to make it the old fashioned way.

5. Balance is good, but be careful how you show off when entering a canoe. Just when you are feeling like you are master of these finicky vessels, they remind you who is really in charge and eject you into the water. Do canoes laugh?

6. Revenge in sporting events is best tasted cold. The picture here of two ringers reflects my cousin’s actual last two tosses in our annual sand horseshoe tournament. This precision pitching served to dethrone me after 18 years of home court dominance. The cheering throngs, group pictures and mini group press conference on the beach made me feel like I was not the crowd favorite in this event. I’ve been told I will see this picture a great deal during the next year.

7. Great marketing builds fierce loyalty and sells stuff. Love them or not (I do), the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame at famed Lambeau Field is really impressive and typically leads to a large volume of post tour merchandise purchases. Cheeseheads are particularly popular with the younger visitors.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

While no one is thinking management lessons during this dawn to way after dark annual event at the lake, there’s no harm in connecting the dots. May your summer breaks be as warm, dry and memory (and lesson) filled as mine!