Generic Leadership/management stuff

[James]

I originally posted somewhere else but this stuff might be better in its own topic.

IT would be nice if people shared their leadership experiences, especially educated ones.

[James]

Leaders have Vision part 1:

This means they know where they are going and basically how to get there. Which means they work backwards from their objectives.

This should affect the way you approach planning for the semester:

So first sit down for a few hours and think about the following question, if my chapter were the best and most fun out there what would be doing and how would be doing it.

Divide it up into categories, social, service, leadership . . . etc. And quantify and qualify it. How many projects/events what are their objectives etc.

Work it up into a plan that spans the entire semester in detail and the rest of the year more tentatively.

After you finish the plan, and you should have used resources like this site, manuals, magazines, conversations, other GLO web sites and resources, don't show it to anyone.

Get in touch with your EC officers which are like your cabinet heads, and give them the questions you asked yourself in advance, as well as the categories and resources, and tell them you are going to discuss ideas at an EC retreat. This should be on an agenda.

Before you go mentally review your plan (which is in writing or it doesn't exist) and don't be attached to the specifc idea but rather the concept. If you want a dance a thon for charity break it down to what it really is: A philanthropic event that has particpation and publicity from outside your group and that should be fun while providing a team bulding excercise for your chapter.

Go into your EC meeting and have them work together to formulate a plan, brainstorm ideas, but don't show them your master. And start piecing together the better ideas.

Then contact the chapter and tell them what you told the EC in advance of the EC retreat and that you are going to have a chapter retreat.

Don't show the chapter your master plan or EC plan, let them brainstorm. Divide into groups to brainstorm the varius categories that you set up. Have the EC facilitate with you as the overall facilitator, unless you are a bad public speaker.

Anyway during the second half of the Chapter Retreat start cutting and pasting the best ideas into their respective positions. And come up with firm dates for the larger stuff.

The purpose of this excersize is to make sure you are prepared, both in knowledge and a plan. This gives you a minimum standard to achieve.

The same thing is true of the EC they get more knowledge and help develop a plan, and during this step the plan should get better so that you have a new minimum standard.

Then in stage 3 when you walk into a chapter retreat you can guide the chapter into coming up with ideas even better than realized in the last two stages.

But you are more likely to come up with a better overall plan with the steps, and everyone will feel a part of it.

As an immediate follow-up make sure you print-up the plan and give it to everyone in your chapter, which should be placed in the notebook they bring to EVERY meeting.

EVERYTHING needs to be in writing.

[James]

Leaders Have Vision Part 2

Meeting Structure:

The way you plan your meetings should coincide with your master plans.

After your retreat you know you need to have your people meeting in committees or teams to get things done.

A lot of sororities do this well by having committee meetings on the same day as chapter meetings. A lot of Fraternities do not. We rely on people to meet outside a meeting on their own and there is often problems with this.

If this becomes an issue you can either have committee meetings before the Formal meeting or perhaps alternate work meetings with formal meetings. One every other week.

Every fourth meeting should have a review of the plan in it and a prep for the next three weeks.

Plan a midsemester min-retreat to evalaute stuff and tweak your programs, make it only three or four hours, provide food.

The key here it to try and tighten the ship. And keep problems from blindsiding you that was why it was important to set up the chapter retreat and basic plan before the semester started.

Have a Winter Chapter retreat for evaluation and more planning.

Always try and program a fun component into these things.

[SilverTurtle]

James...

Those are such good ideas! My chapter always has a fall retreat for 2 days. My second year in the chapter, we had a goal-setting session. We broke up into groups and came up with things for the chapter for the whole year. Then, then entire chapter narrowed it down to only three goals, and came up with steps to reach the goals (oh, so important!). Our president made a huge poster with our goals and the steps to reach them outlined on it. It hung in our chapter room, and whenever a step was completed, we crossed it off the list! It really helped to keep everyone focused on the goals.

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SilverTurtle@greekchat.com

Phi Beta Fraternity

Phi chapter

[James]

Yah people always forget the in-writing part and the constant reminders. Its like a good advertising campaign, you need to saturate people with information.

Originally posted by SilverTurtle:
James...

Those are such good ideas! My chapter always has a fall retreat for 2 days. My second year in the chapter, we had a goal-setting session. We broke up into groups and came up with things for the chapter for the whole year. Then, then entire chapter narrowed it down to only three goals, and came up with steps to reach the goals (oh, so important!). Our president made a huge poster with our goals and the steps to reach them outlined on it. It hung in our chapter room, and whenever a step was completed, we crossed it off the list! It really helped to keep everyone focused on the goals.