Succession Planning

Change is everywhere today and student organizations need to be able to carefully manage it to survive over time. Every organization needs to take into account the effects of frequent, annual turnover of its leadership and its leaders’ inexperience
when transitioning organizations from one year to the next.

To deal with these issues requires patience and an understanding of how a succession planning process works. It also requires a commitment from the entire organization to ensure that the long-term success of the organization is paramount at all times.

PLANS FOR CONTINUITY

Succession planning consists of the preparation of detailed plans and arrangements to ensure continuity for the organization. Continuity plans should be made for each critical activity that the organization undertakes.

One of the most important ways of ensuring effective continuity for an organization is through the maintenance of good financial records. Clear financial records and procedures help to ensure that the funds are used in accordance with the goals of the organization and ensure that executives of your organization prioritize activities for the year.The documents can also act as historical records, providing information on which past events were successful, which vendors had the best prices and when activities took place.

 Some of the steps you will want to take when creating financial continuity plans are:

• File all financial records for the past year (receipts, monthly statements, etc.).
• Complete the financial report.
• Review the financial report with the new executive responsible for coordinating finances.
• Discrepancies and resulting actions should be documented in writing.
• Change co-signers on the organization’s bank accounts at your respective financial institution.
• Deliver all bank statements, checkbooks and other financial information to the new executive responsible for coordinating finances for the organization.

CREATE A RECRUITMENT STRATERGY

One of the difficulties in running a student organization is finding committed and passionate individuals that are willing to dedicate their time (and occasionally their resources) to helping you manage it. Many of the individuals who want to get involved with your organization will also be enrolled in full-time studies, have a part-time job, possibly a girlfriend or boyfriend and a pretty active social life.Your difficulties are compounded by the fact that you cannot pay your executives a salary. It’s thus important
for you to start thinking about sucession planning almost immediately after your leadership term begins.

Most well-functioning organizations will begin thinking about recruiting next year’s executives in September. In these cases, recruitment strategies are often coupled with membership drives. The intention of doing this is to empower new members to even-
tually be leaders of the organization in some capacity.

Recognize that when you obtain members, you have already piqued their interest to some degree. Your challenge going forward is to cultivate that interest by continuously making a case for how your organization benefits their personal, social and professional development.

• Start with an orientation or awareness event to attract students to your cause.
• Talk to participants about what your organization has planned for the year and ask them what you could do to make your events more fun and rewarding.
• Then ask for their email address so that you can invite them to future events. By doing so, you are saying that their opinion and participation matters and will make what you have planned better.
• Follow-up your initial event with a smaller, more intimate reception.
• Invite individuals from the initial event that you feel fit the mold of a candidate who could lead the organization in the future.
• Coax their ego by reinforcing their value to your organization’s success.
• Offer to pay for their meal, invite them to attend future events as your guest, or to become a student advisor to your organization. Perhaps an invitation to a social outing off campus would also work.
• Aim to create any opportunity you can to engage and get to know these individuals better.  Through these opportunities, you are connecting future leaders to your organization and allowing them to take personal ownership of it.

CREATING A TRANSITIONAL MENTORING PROGRAM

After recruiting future leaders to your organization, you must provide ongoing mentorship to prepare them for the eventuality of managing the group. One way to do this is by pairing current leaders with less experienced leaders to provide training on what it takes to effectively manage the various components of the organization.

Current leader-to-future leader mentorship improves productivity, expands problem-solving skills and allows prospective leaders to build better relationships with future colleagues and stakeholders by eliminating entirely the transitional period that often plagues the start of their terms.

Create learning outcomes:

When designing a mentoring program, create goals, objectives and learning outcomes. This step is important because a haphazardly initiated mentoring program can waste time and frustrate participants. By indicating your desired outcome you can create clear goals for participants, which allows you to measure success and determine where additional training is required.

Play matchmaker:

Pairing the right mentor to the mentee is critical to the success of your program. Both personality and tenure should be considered
when determining mentor relationships. Positive interaction is crucial and diverse pairings typically create the most beneficial partnerships, as long as both participants are open to communication and an alternative points of view. People from different cultures, backgrounds and generations can learn more from each other than those with similar experiences.

Encourage mentoring up:

The successful pairing of an experienced leader with a rookie allows both individuals to learn. Don’t forget that younger or less experienced members also offer knowledge to their seasoned counterparts, especially concerning current trends. Younger
members can also provide valuable, fresh insight on the values and goals of the organization. This knowledge can impact how your organization recruits new members and provide insight into the future direction of your organization.

CREATE DETAILED JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Recruitment and mentorship are critical in ensuring to a smooth transition for your organization. However, knowing how to be an
effective leader and what the actual responsibilities are for holding a particular position are very different.

Think of the time that a future leader spends learning a position prior to being elected or appointed as an opportunity to refine who they are. During this time, they will be given opportunities to acquire or hone their skills to better prepare them for the challenges ahead.

After being elected or appointed as a leader of the organzation, new leaders are responsible for implementing what they have
learned in a manner consistent with the goals and objectives of the organization. To assist with this process, it is important for you, as a current leader, to provide a clear blueprint of what their role will be. This is accomplished through the creation of detailed job descriptions. A well thought-out job description is often used to explain what constitutes success in the job.You can measure how
an executive is doing against expectations and help them get back on track, if necessary, simply by referring back to the job description.

Keeping the description up to date as the position changes will also help you coach your executives on expectations and give you standards by which to measure performance fairly and accurately. Most importantly, you can help new executives hit the ground running on their very first day of work by outlining exactly what they will be doing.

Detailed job descriptions should include terms of reference that outline the organization’s responsibilities and commitments to each executive, a duties section that breaks down what each executive’s responsibilities will be and a job posting that summarizes each executives’ responsibilities as well as the minimum qualifications for holding a position.

TRANSITION BINDER

When undertaking succession plan-ning, detailed job descriptions should be coupled with transition binders
whenever possible. A transition binder includes important organizational information and insights from outgoing officers that will be passed on to future officers, including:

• Contact information for old and new officers, advisors, and, if possible, members.
• A copy of the organization’s constitution, bylaws and/or charter.
• A brief history of the organization, its purpose and major past projects and events including timelines. This section should include news paper articles and press releases.
• A financial information section with a copy of the organization’s current budget and samples of the most commonly used financial forms.
• Meeting agendas and minutes.
• A “marketing check list” with basic information on how to publicize organization events or services.
• A list of useful web sites and contacts.
• If your organization is a part of a national or statewide organization, include that organization’s relevant information. This applies to some public service organizations and some religious groups, among others.

To further improve the succession process, consider:

• Requiring new executives to meet with your organization’s advisor (if you have one).
• Timing elections to allow for adequate transition time (at least one month).
• Holding a new executive training workshop for the old executives to train incoming leaders on duties and responsibilities of the position. There could also be a leadership component including time management, teambuilding, etc.