Transition season is on. This is
my attempt to contribute to that transition when another school year enters and
so with it, the new set of students who, despite all the demands and pressure,
chose to throw their hat in the ring.
The following are 5 things I’ve
learned in my experience as a student engaged in student governance and
leadership in college. These are statements of experiences and general ideas
which hope would provide some meaningful help for the next generation of movers
in our out of student organizations.
So let us begin.
1. HAVE VERY CLEAR GOALS FROM
THE START. This is the most important thing and the first you must
secure. Knowing what you want to achieve – exactly what you want to achieve. As
we already know, it is the goal that will rally the people and the rest falls
into place. However the challenge now common to most organizations is how these
goals are articulated and mapped out.
Questions rise such as; does this
resonate to the needs of the times? Are these realistic goals? Are these
strategic? These are legitimate questions that student leaders must face and
answer even before they officially take office. The common denominator of the
answer should be the measurability
of the goal. From the beginning, establish
measurable goals and success indicators to know how you are fairing. Having a
lofty vision reduced into manageable and actionable chucks of measurable
indicators of success makes the whole work more grounded and realistic. This is
a more reliable basis for measuring your productivity than by subjectively
surveying the impression of your leadership. Just imagine, by the end of the
semester you can objectively grade your performance by just dividing the number
of achieved goals over all the goals for the semester. Here are some tips on
setting very clear goals:
1.
Do stakeholders consultation first
2. Treat
planning as a project in itself which means INVEST on it.
3. Make the
whole process public.
4. Post the
output in a visible place in the office.
From my archive,
this is an example of an action plan layout:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48730184/New-CSG-Strategic-Planning
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48730184/New-CSG-Strategic-Planning
2. ORGANIZE STRUCTURES AND
SYSTEMS TO SECURE THE GOALS. Once the goals are measurably
articulated and agreed upon by all stakeholders, the logical next step is its
execution. Project implementation is one bulk of work that student leaders
should see more as a work of science. Emphasis has consistently been given to
the individual leadership qualities of project players as the key determining
factor which would spell the difference between a successful project from a
lousy one. Though this is very important, it is also equally important that
organizational leaders should also give emphasis on the structural influences
that also affect the quality of the implementation. That is why structures and
systems should be designed to better facilitate the implementation of outputs.
How does this spell out in actual
actionable terms? First, give emphasis on personal and group autonomy. Research
has revealed that the best incentive for cognitive work (which is substantially the work students leaders do) to be more productive is autonomy –
a sense of ownership and space for personal initiative. Let committee leaders
form their own working group with little interference as to who they select. Give
them the targets and let the means to achieve it be their creative playground. Also
give emphasis to support groups. These are groups who never engage in the
implementation but support the implementers. These are the food committee, the
finance committee, and other logistical support group. By having these groups, front
line implementers just have to focus on the implementation itself. Let the
information dissemination and other incidental work be done by these groups.
3. APPLY THE PARETO PRINCIPLE.
There is an old-aged principle which holds that 80% of occurrences or outputs
come from 20% of the causes. This is also called the 80-20 rule or the vital
few rule. This principle can be best applied when we chart what or who are the
20% of an organization – the people – the assets – the resources. This is most fitting when we understand that
our limited resources limit our reach hence strategic targeting and positioning
of our efforts can maximize the impact of our limited resources. Let us now
translate this into actual student organizational work. For example if you are
in the work of information dissemination, you do not seriously have the
resources to fully blast information to every single student. What is rational
is to create a database of roughly 20% of your constituency who you think is
the most “connected or influential” students. Once they are given the information,
they naturally spread it themselves. Also in terms of systems, by identifying
bottle necks in project implementation and evaluation flow and by simply tweaking
at the margin; this would result to greater efficiency. What does that mean? By
identifying unnecessary signatures and creating a one stop rack where all
project papers can be physically monitored can be of great help in tracking
progress.
Also, this is where core teams
also come into importance. This is so since the bulk of the team normally experience
what economists call the diminishing marginal utility. As the time passes, bit
by bit people disengage from the organization for several reasons we have no
control of. Given this fact, it is essential to identify the 20% most committed
teammates that will become the influencers and leaders of the organization. Identify
these from the very start and hold this together. This spells success or
failure.
4. BUILD TRUST. In
view of the students or the general constituency, it is vital that trust be established.
Without it, projects or services simply fade into infectivity and no one seems
to appreciate the effort. Trust is earned and this can be done when the
leadership truly focuses on accountability
and transparency. Simply put, the
students trust their leaders if they know they are doing the right thing. The first
step here is the structure in which they can know what the leadership is doing
and channels in which they can hold the leadership accountable. Here are some concrete
initiatives that can build trust.
1. Monthly
expense report to the public
2. Monthly
Presidential public report (be it infographic posted online)
3. Minutes of the meeting online publication
4. Absent officers are posted online and reason
for their absence with picture and contact detail.
5. BUILD PARTNERHSIPS.
Synergy increases the impact of your efforts. Early on, start scouting for
possible partnerships for the projects you wish to implement based on your concrete
and measurable goals. One example I can share is how a university-wide tutorial
can bring about greater participation. Recognizing that the most capable and
direct implementers of a tutorial program are the co-curricular organization,
the central government proposed to do all marketing work and it also created an
incentive plan for all tutors such as freebies and snacks plus an added
incentive for scholars by having the tutorials credited as part of their service
duty. With this simple umbrella scheme, the university-wide tutorials produced
one the greater turnout in its history. The
simple recognition of who can best implement and provide proper incentives that
will benefit all brings about greater impact.
This is not necessarily a check
list. This is my simple attempt to capsulate into 5 general ideas the things I
have learned in my student organizational leadership experience in college. This
is intended to give a general framework of thinking which is grounded on the
belief that developing leadership qualities are not enough; these traits should
be transformed into a system that breeds other leaders which eventually will strengthen
the entire organization. The idea of creating structures that influence output
and behaviour is already a well-established science. The challenge really is
how even in our formative years in college, we get to have a grasp of its significance
and apply it in our immediate circle of influence and that does not necessarily
only mean our organization – it may also mean our lifestyle.
