Officer Transition
STUDENT ORG LEADER RESOURCE LIBRARY
Overview
 Why?
 Benefits of an efficient transition
 How advisors can help organizations
 What does a successful transition look like
 Potential hurdles
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Why should orgs talk about this?
 When organizations spend too little time transitioning, the new officers
are forced to spend too much time acclimating and reinventing the
wheel. This results in a continuous cycle of lost momentum.
 Officer transition is the single most important event in a viable student
organization’s year.
 Want to avoid officers leaving without formally passing along valuable
organizational knowledge
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Benefits to a successful transition
 Capitalize on the knowledge and experience of outgoing
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officers
Minimize confusion of leadership changeover
Provide outgoing officers with closure
Formal process for transfer of knowledge
Allows for a period of learning/partnership between new
officers and old officers – build confidence of new officers
Minimize loss of momentum of the organization as a whole
Ensure strategic and effective fiscal planning
A Successful Transition: Outgoing Officers
 Outgoing officers should work to:
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Coordinate new officer selection
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Refer to constitution and bylaws – update new officers with CSE and
in all documents/websites
Ensure space is reserved for all annual events
Organize all files, compile resources – create a transition binder
Develop an action plan and timeline for new officer transition
Schedule a transition meeting between outgoing and incoming
officers to share information as a group
Allow incoming officers a period of time to shadow outgoing officers
Ensure incoming officers actively participate in registration/budget
requests
Transition
Documents
Each officer should
have a
binder/compilation of
information
The most effective way
is to compile
information as things
happen rather than all
at once at the end
Even if your orgs don’t
hold elections in the ideal
time period, encourage
them to at least provide
transition documents
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 Organizational mission and goals
 Organizational constitution and by-laws
 Position description
 Necessary meetings attended/conducted
 Important tasks
 Collaborative duties
 Financial information
 Position goals
 Positional year-end report
 Organizational calendar
 Budget information
 Important contacts/resources
 Relevant correspondence or notes from
past year
 Unfinished project information
 Do’s and Don’ts, lessons learned
 Contact info for outgoing officers
Transition
Meeting
A transition meeting
can offer formal
change, continuity, and
growth for the
organization while
allowing new officers to
learn from the outgoing
officers.
Meeting should be
causal and open so that
organization can benefit
from an honest
dialogue of the
accomplishments and
challenges of the year.
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 Year in Review
 Goals
 Programs and Activities
 Membership
 Officers and Org Structure
 Org Operations
 Advisor Involvement
 Public Image
 Legacy to New Officer Team
 Current strengths and weaknesses
 Advice to successors
 Major challenges and accomplishments
 Officer Transition (incoming and outgoing
officers meeting 1:1)
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Review transition binder
Talk about unfinished projects
Mistakes that could have been avoided
Advice for new officer
 Transition Ceremony
 Semi-official passing of the gavel/socializing
A Successful Transition: Incoming Officers
 Incoming officers should:
 Be proactive in seeking advice from outgoing officers
 Be actively engaged in the transition process
 Ask questions
 Expect change to be accepted gradually
 Be available
 Let group members have a say in what happens
 Be sure your group has a common purpose
 Encourage brainstorming and creativity
 Manage conflict, don’t ignore it
 Promote group cohesiveness
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How Can Advisors Help
 Advise!
 Facilitate conversations about officer transition
 Encourage orgs to think about transitioning between
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December and February
Regardless of transition time, communicate the how
and why of officer transition
Make updates in SOMA!
Make sure incoming officers are aware of deadlines
(i.e. registration, budget submission)
Encourage new officers to take an active role in
budget planning
How Can Advisors Help
 Encourage officer shadowing
 If transitions take place early in the spring semester, new
officers can shadow outgoing officers to gain a better
understanding of the role
 Work with current officers
 Provide them with the tools and knowledge to lead a successful
officer transition
 Help them understand why it’s important
 Meet with outgoing officers and incoming officers
 Recognize the accomplishments of the outgoing officers; offer
your support to the incoming officers, get them thinking
strategically and planning early
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Potential Challenges
 Outgoing officers that don’t want to move on
 A national organization/advisory board that is too
involved in the election process
 Procrastination
 Non-responsiveness
 Waning interest in continuing the group
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General disinterest, no students interested in becoming
officers, etc.
Facilitating Group Conversations
Look out for group dynamics
• Observe student’s formal and informal roles
• Observe how individuals interact with on another
Active Listening
• Take note when individuals aren’t being heard or are controlling the conversation
• Encouraging, restating, reflecting, summarizing
Provide feedback that has an impact
• Know when to intervene appropriately
• Validate and politely redirect/ask for input from others
Ask questions that drive a discussion
• Use ‘we’ questions that generate discussion and commitment to solutions
• What problems are we trying to solve?
• Stay on track, but be willing to leave it
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Facilitating Group Conversation
Constructive Team
Behaviors
Destructive Team
Behaviors
 Cooperative
 Dominating
 Clarifying
 Rushing
 Inspiring
 Withdrawing
 Harmonizing
 Discounting
 Risk-Taking
 Digressing
 Process checking
 Blocking
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 Never criticize ideas
Brainstorming
Helps a group create
several ideas in a short
period of time
Helps a group expand
its thinking creatively to
include thinking about
all the dimensions of a
problem
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 Write every idea down
somewhere visible (flip chart,
white board, projector)
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Recorder/facilitator should ask
clarifying questions
 Everyone should agree on the
question or issue being
brainstormed
 Do it quickly; 5-15 minutes
Adapted from University of Wisconsin Office of Quality Improvement Facilitator Tool Kit
Recap: The Ideal Transition
Elections
Hold
between
December
and March
Transition
Transition
Binders
Start the
conversation
now
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Officer
Shadowing
Transition
Meeting
Challenges
Facilitate group conversations on issues related to
transition, or group planning for the year ahead