Explorations in committee organization

I have reflected in the past on how my roles in committees have changed over time – all in line with me rolling off from a leadership position for the first time.

Time flies – that is for sure. It doesn’t feel like I have served my three terms of three years on the committee (most of those years as secretary). Between motherhood, the pandemic, and just Life, these nine years just blew by. But enough about the transience of life.

As I am actively paving the way for the next generation of committee leadership, I am exploring a new committee organization. For the working groups and committees that I chair, I am delegating activities to different task groups with an activity lead.

In the past, I coordinated all the efforts as a chair, but I want to involve more people actively in committee leadership (and also, I have a lot on my plate, so extra hands are always useful).

I’m piloting this approach for two groups. For one group, I did a survey to gauge the interest of members to lead activities and to identify which activities they want to contribute to. For the other group, I made a signup sheet.

Then, once I had the activities, volunteers to lead, and volunteers to contribute, I assigned them into working groups and let them run free. For one of the groups, I am setting up a recurring meeting every 7 weeks with the activity leads to check in and coordinate the overall direction of the committee.

If you are a chair, how much do you delegate?