Written by Saul Carliner and reprinted with permission from TIELINE, the
newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, Arlington, VA, U.S.A.

Volunteer Management Tip
Six Steps to an Effective Board Transition

In a couple of months, most of you will be passing your responsibilities onto other people. The success of this transition¾ and the future of your chapter¾ depends on how effectively you plan for it. To help you do so, consider these six suggestions.

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Step One: Make Sure That All Nominees Are Winners

The nominees for office are supposed to be among the most talented, motivated members of the organization. But what happens to those talented, motivated members who are not elected to office?

They make ideal committee managers.

But don't wait until the disappointment of a loss to ask one of these people to become a committee manager. The best time to ask is when the person is most motivated: when you're asking them to run for office. When speaking to the potential candidate, you might ask, "If, for some reason, you're not elected? would you be interested in managing a committee? If so, which committee?"

Nominees know, then, that they won't lose, because if they are not elected to a position, they'll be appointed as a committee manager.

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Step Two: Give Officers and Committee Managers a Second Chance

Although the term of office in most community organizations is one year, many leaders have learned they are most effective in their second term. So often, the first is spent learning the job and determining what needs to be done.

Use this to your advantage. If a first-term officer or committee manager is performing well, invite them to continue for a second year.

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Step Three: Plan for Transition, Not a Trash Dump

Although committee managers might be inclined to turn over the reigns of responsibility as soon as their replacements are named, planning a "buffer" ensures that the smoothest possible transition. For example:

• Newsletter editors should plan to produce at one issue after their term of office officially ends and should plan the editorial content for a second. This gives a cushion to new editors as they are learning their job.
• Program managers should plan the meetings for at least two months after their term officially ends. Meetings require at least a two-month lead time: speakers usually need 60 days advance notice and public relations managers need at least six weeks to publicize a meeting. If the chapter has no meetings planned beyond the elections, the new program manager does not have adequate time to find a speaker, much less publicize the meeting.
• Chapter budgets should be in effect for one quarter (three months) beyond the elections. This gives new officers adequate time to learn their jobs and understand the costs involved before they are asked to develop an annual budget. If needed, adjust your fiscal year to your election cycle.  

Set the Baseline and Benchmark for the Incoming Board: Compile a list of measures of the chapter's performance, so that the incoming Board understands how the chapter measures its success and how the chapter is actually performing against those measures. Although each chapter will compile its own list of measures, some items you might measure include:

Your actual performance is the baseline. Your target¾ desired¾ performance is your benchmark. For example, for membership renewals, the rate of renewals among your chapter might be 73 percent (baseline) when the Society's rate is closer to 77 percent. 77 percent might be target (benchmark).

If your chapter already has a set of benchmarks, you merely need to update them.

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Step Four: Begin the Transition with a Hand-Off Meeting

Just as tag-teams hand off a baton, so outgoing officers and committee managers need to officially hand-off responsibilities to their successors. The last meeting of the outgoing Executive Board, then, should actually be a joint meeting with the incoming board.

A suggested agenda for the meeting is:

1. Introductions.
2. Review mission of the chapter so new officers and committee managers are familiar with it.
3. Review the goals and accomplishments of the past year so new officers are aware of the things you wanted to accomplish.
4. Handle pressing business (try to keep this to a minimum).
5. Break into one-on-one meetings for each position (for example, the incoming and outgoing president meet, the incoming and outgoing newsletter editor meet, and so on). The bulk of the meeting, at least one hour, should be spent in these one-on-one meetings
6. Conclude.

The One-on-One meetings should cover this material:

• A list of all tasks the officer must do.
• The procedures for performing the tasks (even if just in note form).
• Tips and techniques for making the job easier ("If I knew then what I know now").
• Commitments that the outgoing officer made and that the incoming officer is expected to keep .
• Documentation, etc. (procedures, keys, old files, etc.).

One useful document is written procedures for each task that the officer is responsible for. For example, a program manager might receive procedures for scheduling a speaker, writing a meeting announcement, and reserving a meeting location.

Try, however, to pass on as little documentation as possible. If you give more than one foot of paper (one inch per month), you're probably providing more documentation than is useful.

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Step Five: Start the New Year with a Team Building Meeting

When the new Executive Board first meets, most members are not yet ready for business. Board members often do not know one another well enough to work as a team. The Board members have not yet set goals for the year and determined how those goals fit into the chapter's long range plan (whether the plan has been formally drafted or not). Most Board members still need to learn the terminology and procedures of the organization.

To build a sense of community, many new Executive Boards devote their first meeting to a half-day "get acquainted" session. The session is usually held on a weekend, when people are more relaxed and can spare time for a longer meeting. Some Executive Boards ask an outsider to facilitate the meeting so that everyone, including the president, can concentrate on team building.

A suggested format for this meeting is:

1. The ice breaker is intended for each new Board member to get to know one another (as opposed to merely meeting one another). One thing that might be helpful to learn is what each person would like to gain from participating in NPSI.
2. Review the mission for the chapter. Because the mission of the organization is supposed to be relatively consistent among years, each new board needs to become familiar with it and develop their own understanding of it, rather than develop a new mission statement.
3. Develop a common vision¾sense of purpose¾for the coming year.
4. Develop these two lists:
1. "Must dos;" things your members are expecting you to do. For example, your members might expect you to publish a monthly newsletter and host monthly meetings.
2. "Stretch" activities: things your members would like you to do but are not expecting. Successfully completing these stretch activities means the difference between meeting members' expectations and "delighting" them.
5. Present the list of benchmark measures, so new Board members understand the measures against which their performance will be based.

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Step Six: Ask Each Officer and Committee Manager to Write Their Goals for the Year

As a means of furthering the team building that started in the first meeting of the incoming Executive Board and to make their vision more concrete, each officer and committee manager in their efforts should prepare a list of goals for the coming year.

The goals should be results-oriented and include a finished product. Results and finished products are more tangible; the fruits of volunteers efforts are easier to see. For example, rather than have a goal of "better chapter meetings," have a goal of "meetings that, on average, receive a 4.0 rating on a scale of 1-5 (5 high)."

The goals should incorporate the benchmark statistics for the chapter. For example, if the 26 percent of members are currently volunteering, the new membership manager might seek to increase the volunteer rate to 28 percent.

One helpful resource in developing your goals is the chapter profile. The chapter profile is a formal report on your chapter’s activities for a given year that is filed by the chapter president with your Regional Consultant. The profile gives you insight into the plans and objectives of the past few boards of your chapter. This history can help you identify goals and learn from the successess and challenges your chapter has faced.

The chapter president individually meet with members of the Board to develop these lists of goals. The president can provide insights from his or her previous experience on the Board and from an overall perspective. Similarly, new officers can gain support for their plans by informally discussing them with the president.

Board members should present their goals at the second meeting of the board, review the accomplishments with these goals at the end of each quarter.

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(c) Copyright. Saul Carliner. 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. All rights reserved.