May 11, 2016.
While visiting he also observed an Entered Apprentice Degree. Also attached is a copy of the speech given during the evening by the D.D.G.M.
OFFICIAL VISIT – FRIENDSHIP
LODGE
May 11, 2016
Brethren:
Over
the past months I have been talking about lodge membership and its various
related facet they apply to the well being of our lodges and to Masonry in
general.
Tonight
I want to backtrack a little and focus on a related subject I first brought up
during my official visit to Algonquin Lodge in January. I want to focus and expand on the subject of
Succession Planning; that is planning for the future leadership of the lodge.
I want
to be clear here, this does not just refer to being the Master of the lodge;
this being the most obvious and perhaps most important facet of leadership, but
I want to stress that leadership takes many forms and all have importance to
the well being of the lodge.
In my
previous talk I focused predominantly on officer progression… that being the
journey from Junior Steward through to being Worshipful Master and what
prepares the Mason for this journey. But
tonight in addition to touching on this aspect again, I want to also talk about
aspects of succession planning that trend along a slightly different path.
One
definition for Succession Planning is….
a process for
identifying and developing people within the organisation with the potential to
fill key leadership positions.
So to put it in the words that I want
to focus on……the things that are being done correctly today, who will do them correctly
tomorrow?
Brethren, every lodge has stalwarts
that do the good deed, they do ritual to a high level, they lead committees, and
they do the unsung and sometimes underappreciated duties that make the lodge
“work” and thrive.
We can all instantly think of someone,
who if we lost them, the lodge would have difficulty in replacing, but I want
to stress that there are others, “less famous” if you will, whose participation
is also fundamental to the successful operation of the lodge.
We have to plan for the future to
replace all of these brethren because the need for the things they do does not
simply vanish when they are no longer able to deliver.
One of the more obvious situations is
planning for the position of Lodge Secretary.
In this lodge, a dedicated, long-time Secretary just “retired” from the
position. This lodge is lucky to have a
competent replacement on hand. I cannot
comment on the level of planning involved here as I simply do not know the
details, but the replacement of an important position such as Secretary in some
lodges in not planned for in any way whatever, and where it is, it is done to a
level that does not really PLAN for the future.
Some lodges have the position of
Assistant Secretary and they fill it as the junior officer position, with I
guess the idea to increase the knowledge of the new officer. I believe this position should be filled at the
least, by a person either capable of taking over as Secretary of the lodge now
or in the not too distant future. If the
Secretary is expected to be in the position for a number of years there is more
time to train the replacement; but if the transition is to be much sooner, the
replacement must be much closer to being able to take over. I believe the new officer is not the best
possible replacement, lacking the necessary knowledge and Masonic maturity.
The position of Lodge Secretary is
fundamental to the success of the lodge; the person must be competent and
support the Master and his Wardens in the running of the lodge. In the many positions I have held in the
East, I am grateful that on all occasions I had an experienced, competent
Secretary….without him the journey would have been much less enjoyable.
If you ask some lodges if they plan
for the future, they will give a resounding yes. So why is it some find it so hard to secure a
new Secretary, and when one is in place, the next one is nowhere to be seen. I realise it is not quite as simple as I am
portraying it, but the IMPORTANT message here is that we have to PLAN for the
future officer, we cannot just go along without the necessary plan. Succession planning for every position in the
lodge must be initiated …and that plan has to be acted upon. The PLAN must be specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic, tangible and timely.
I believe that whether we are talking
about a piece of significant ritual, a position in the lodge, a chairman of a
committee….we see that in many lodges that the role is done by the same person;
…..either by choice or not, they “own” the position. This is not healthy, we NEED to plan for a
wider exposure and to plan for the future, we need to mentor, and we need to
make sure we extend the participation; we need to have someone to take
over. If we have a plan, if we mentor,
this leads to increased participation, which in turn potentially leads to
increased membership or at the very least, an increase in ACTIVE membership.
Previously I used the position of
Lodge Secretary, this being one of the more obvious examples, as would be the
position of Treasurer. But I want to
touch on those positions/roles that are not as obvious, such as the chairmen of
the various lodge committees. Not all
lodges plan for these positions in the way they should. They tend to fill the chairman positions with
those that they feel “would be good for the job”…..what I mean by this is that
the position is often filled by a Mason who, while he has talent, has little or
no experience in the subject matter.
There is little or no PLANNING in filling the position. I believe that to do it right, every
committee should have a chairman that is talented and experienced in the
subject matter and that the committee members should have talent and be in the
process of learning the subject matter.
Succession Planning applies in that it is the committee members that are
being groomed to take over the chairmanship of the committee; he becoming the
leader of the committee and the champion of the subject matter.
Drawing from my own experience, I have
chaired many committees at the lodge and district level, and initially I was
learning on the job and thus my ability to lead the committee was
diminished. The committee chair should
be knowledgeable on the subject matter…yes I got there but it took time. I believe that before you become the chair of
a committee, you should first be a member of that committee and learn the ropes
first…..this is in part, Succession Planning.
Bottom line my brethren is that we all
tend too often to attempt to fill the position when it becomes open, we fail to
look to the future, to plan and to put actions in place that drive us towards
fulfilling the plan.
One of the questions Grand Lodge asks
of the lodge, is whether a long range plan is in place? The answer is not always yes! I believe that any long range plan should
include succession planning in all aspects of the lodge. Too often we plan on a single-year basis, we
meet most of the short term goals this way, but we tend to lack cohesion in
planning from a multi-year perspective.
Earlier I spoke about any plan being
specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. This is a pretty basic theory of management,
but if your plan does not have these elements, it is incomplete.
Specific, means it must have a
specific goal. This specific goal has a
much greater chance of success than a general goal…..a general goal would be I
want to learn larger pieces of ritual…..the specific would be I will start
learning the ABC lecture and allocate X hours to learning it………to set the
specific goal we need to ask, the “ six W” questions.
1.
Who is involved?
2.
What do we want to accomplish?
3.
Where is this to be done?
4.
When is this to be done by (a time frame)?
5.
Which requirements are needed?
6.
Why are we doing it? (purpose)
The progress of the Plan must be
measurable. How else will you know if
you are behind schedule, if you are succeeding or failing?
The Plan needs to be attainable and
realistic. You have to be able to
attain the target. It cannot be
something that is unrealistic.
Increasing the lodge membership by 100% in 5 years may be attainable but
not really realistic.
Any goal must have a time frame to
achieve it. With no time frame how do
you measure progress, there is no sense of urgency…..tomorrow will do.
A goal should be tangible, that is to
say it should be real, to see it, to experience it. Non-tangible tend to be goals such as “making
us a premier lodge”…..the tangible elements must be measurable and specific,
increasing membership by 10%, increasing attendance at each lodge meeting by
10%.
Planning within the lodge does exist,
to varying degrees for each lodge and to varying extents to each element that
needs planning. What I am saying is that
we do not do this enough and we do not do it in enough of a cohesive way. We talk about 5 year plans, but the elements
tend to be more macro in extent and lack the smaller details that are oh so
very important.
Planning is not something we naturally
adhere to…. it is a skill / concept / action that needs to be developed and
practiced to become good at it. What I
am hoping for here is that my talk will get us THINKING MORE about succession
planning and will serve to focus on the need to plan ahead on all aspects of
member progression to positions of greater responsibility.
As the old saying goes, if we fail to
plan, we plan to fail.
Worshipful
Master....I thank you for your indulgencies this evening and my Brethren I
thank each and every one of you for your kind attention.
R.W.
Bro. Clive D. Stephenson
District
Deputy Grand Master
Sudbury-Manitoulin
District
Wednesday
May 11, 2016
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