1. Succession Planning For Union Leadership
IAFF 7th District Vice President Ricky J. Walsh
&
WSCFF 4th District Rep Dennis J. Lawson

2. Workshop Objectives The importance of a Strategic Plan
What Is Mentoring?
What’s in it for you?
The union?
Where to begin?

3. Strategic Planning Is:
The process of setting long-term policies for an organization with benchmarks (goals) to measure success

4. History of Strategic Planning
Applied by businesses after WWII
Adopted by parts of Gov’t in 1960’s
First used by labor in 1980’s for Organizing
Clerical Workers at Harvard
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
UAW and the Saturn Automobile
We must plan to survive

5. Involvement? How many of you have been involved in Strategic Planning?
Fire Department
Union
Family

6. Successful Strategic Planning Involves
Adjusting to Changing Environments
Responding to Your Membership
Building a Supportive Structure
Evaluation and Refinement

7. Strategic Planning Should… Be a Formal Process
Result in a Written Document
Include Short-term and Long-term Goals
Pro-active but can be reactive to identified examples of the past or current situations or environments

8. Questions for your strategic planning process
Where do we want to go or what do we want to look like?
Assess our present philosophy
Assess our present reputation
How do we get there?
Set priorities
Goals and Objectives
Assess present resource allocation

9. Can we agree that? The work as a Union Officer is real work.
That Unions are a form of a business.
We, as individuals, will not always be here. Yes we will all go away at some time.

10. Can we agree that? Our profession is changing
How people view us, both internally and externally, may not be what we think.
Our opposition (name a few) view us a formal threat. They have adjusted their business models to reflect our existence and are working to see our extinction

11. Case Study: United Parcel Service
Bloomberg
At so many companies these days, succession has an element of crisis, but it never has at UPS and probably never will.”
Jeff Sonnfiled
Yale School of Managment

12. Case Study: Coca-Cola
Atlanta Journal
“We are fortunate that Coca-Cola system has a talented and diverse senior management team around the world, laying the foundation for strong leadership and management continuity for years to come. These executives are leading our operating businesses across the world and are part of building our longer term leadership pipeline.”

13. Case Study: Microsoft
Tim Brugger (The Motley Fool)
“…..shareholders want someone who will light a fire under what had become a stagnant company.”

14. Case Study: Ford Motor Co.
New York Times
“Ford Motor Company takes succession planning very seriously , and we have succession plans in place for each of our key leadership positions”
Ray Davis (VP of Communications)

15. What is leadership Succession Planning?
Succession planning is about ensuring that the next line of leaders is in place, ready to take the next step when needed.
A few reasons why a vacancy can take place;
Death or serious injury/illness
Voluntary departure (Retirement, does not seek re-election)
Involuntary departure (not re-elected)
New positions within organization

16. Growing Your Future Leaders
Preparing members for future leadership roles consist of two activities;
Planning and Development (Mentoring)

17. Planning includes the following
Identifying members who show potential
Determine their strengths and areas that need improvement
Plan to address needs
Build upon their strengths

18. Development / Mentoring
This is more than training
Stretch experiences
Deal with actual events, hardships, and conflict
Identify goals that are reasonable but challenging
If possible spend time shadowing
Openly discuss lessons learned
(new and old)

19. What is Mentoring? For the individual:
A relationship between a “mentor (teacher) and a mentee (learner, protégé)
Relationship is devoted to developing knowledge and skills for union activism

20. What it’s Not Does not guarantee advancement
Won’t give you “inside information”
Can’t stand alone: needs to be part of a broader union commitment to education, leadership development

21. Why Do Unions Need Mentoring?
Makes union stronger over time
Gives seasoned activists feedback from less seasoned members
A two way street (information often goes in both ways) so more seasoned can get info, too
Increases union solidarity
Creates new activists
What else?

22. What’s in it for the Mentor?
Gain a sense of satisfaction from helping others
Learn from mentees; skills, style etc…
Develop own communication skills
Learn to effectively give and receive feedback
Can learn more about the job/function
Re-energizes work

23. What’s in it for the Mentee?
Helps develop skills
Helps understand how the union works
Hopefully learns not to make the same mistakes
Helps to avoid political pitfalls
Can increase commitment to the union

24. Unions historically tend to have informal mentoring programs
Informal/Formal
Formal: Structured (planned, guidelines, rules)
Informal: Accidental
Unions historically tend to have informal mentoring programs

25. Formal Mentoring
Union sets up and oversees the program with some of these components:
How often mentor and mentee meet
How long mentoring will formally last
Keeps track of program, successes

26. Informal Mentoring
Relationship and process developed by two people involved
Some people do it without even knowing it is taking place
Relationship has little or no guidance from the union
Drawback: Doesn’t reach everybody
Perceived by group as a form of favoritism

27. Formal Mentoring, Limitations
Is the match working?
Establishing trust can be difficult between two people who don’t choose each other
Guidelines can limit flexibility

28. Kinds of Mentoring
Traditional
Peer
Mentoring Circles

29. Traditional Mentoring
More experienced union member serving as mentor and less experienced member as mentee
Knowledge primarily is expected to flow from the top-down, but, in a good mentoring relationship knowledge and communications flow two ways.

30. Peer Mentoring Takes place between members doing similar union jobs
Set up to learn from each other
Can offer a different perspective
Provides a safe space for talking, sharing experiences
Needs to be brutality honest
Progress should be evaluated

31. Group Mentoring Group meets regularly over a period of time
One mentor and a group of mentees
Learning from one or multiple mentors
Problems?

32. Internal/External
Most unions use internal process– mentors and mentees are in the same union, same local
External might be useful for learning particular skills, especially if you cannot identify people internally who can teach a particular skill/s. Mentor might come from another local, another level of the union

33. Before Starting a Program…

34. Important questions to answer:
Does my local need a mentoring program?
Is yes, what would its goals be?

35. Important Questions Who might be the mentees (be specific)?
Who might be the mentors (be specific)?

36. Selection Process Identify which positions will be addressed
Agree on the functions of the position (C&B’s, Policies etc.)
Determine who should be considered.
Does everyone have a chance?
Will involvement carry weight?
What other deciding factors?

37. More Important Questions
Who are the people in the union who need to ok the program?
How can you reach these people?
What do you need to say to win them over?
Which type of mentoring program might be best for your union?

38. Even More Questions Where will mentoring sessions take place?
How long will the program run
Time commitment of mentors/mentees?
How can union free up time?
Budget process

39. Challenges Making time Generational differences Gender differences
Racial/ethnic differences

40. Any Questions?
Thank you for your time.