One of the weakest points of student organizations is the transition process of converting to new leadership. Moving from one group of officers who’ve just finally started to operate effectively as a team to another group (who may or may not have prior experience in the organization) can kill the momentum an organization might have gained.
For some reason, this highly critical transition that should be a major contributing factor to the organization’s continuity is pushed aside to the back burner. Many student groups approach transition periods without a plan in place, with past officers sloppily and hastily passing on information at the last minute.
With a bit of planning and good execution, you can set up the next set of officers with the knowledge and tools they need to hit the ground running. Let’s look at a few ways.
Create a Manual for Each Position
It’s not terribly fun to make, but having a how-to guide, especially for high-impact positions like the Treasurer can be pretty helpful. Believe it or not, not everyone knows how to write a check anymore. Even more than that, have you ever filled out an Account Owner Change form? I know I hadn’t until I became Treasurer of the organization I’d joined. I’d recommend you put something together for each position. You can put a lot of great information into something like that such as:
- Monthly/Weekly duties expected
- Write a “How to” some of the crazy things they need to do every semester (with examples!)
- Tips from past officers
Putting together a guide like this needn’t be a burden either. You could easily put together a brief skeleton document and request your other officers to fill in the gaps. An exhaustive guide could take a couple of semesters to put together, but the benefits could be magnificent if fully utilized!
Transition Periods
Depending on when you’ve set up your election cycles, there might be some overlap where the old officers are still running the organization, but the officer-elects have already been decided. If you’re lucky enough to have that setup, immediately have your officer-elects begin attending every officer meeting, regardless of its importance. This will allow the new officers to see how to effectively run meetings and get a general idea of how the organization works on the back end.
If you have semesterly planning meetings, make sure the old and the new officers attend this planning meeting. It gives a chance for the more seasoned leaders to coach the new officers into planning the upcoming semester. This can reduce a lot of mistakes that might’ve come up due to an inexperienced group.
Host an Annual/Semi-Annual Planning Meeting
This is something that can make a big difference in successful transitions. During meetings where the organization is planning the upcoming semester, come up with a rough draft of activities and plans for the following semester too! Once the new officers are elected, they’ll have a good framework to build off of for the coming semester, rather than starting from scratch.
Create an Alumni support network
This is a tip we can steal from Greek life. Most Fraternity and Sorority organizations have their own alumni organization where once a month/quarter a group of elected alumni get together to discuss alumni networking events, how to assist the chapter, and diagnose the current health of the organization. Alumni that have seen multiple cycles of officers can help provide long-term stability through years of experience and general maturity. What might seem like a hot-button issue to the organization currently could be something that was resolved a few years ago, and the alumni could help.
Do you have any other suggestions? How does your organization plan for success? Let me know in the comments section!
Planning a successful weekend retreat