Blueprint for Action
What are the best practices for building institutional memory for ABC?
Methodology
Data
The data I collected consisted of (1) what institutional memory building practices each interviewed social organization currently has in place, (2) how effective they think they are in building institutional memory, (3) structure of leadership board(s), (4) how they think they can better build institutional memory, and (5) how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their abilities to build institutional memory.
The social organizations interviewed demonstrated three primary ways for building institutional memory: (1) verbal (spoken communication), (2) written (transition documents, living historic document, etc.), (3) material (physical/digital media, historic memorabilia, etc.). There was consensus that if they were to rank these practices in order of most effective to least effective, it would be written, verbal, and material, respectively.
Most (8/10) used two of the three mentioned ways to build institutional memory, while only a few (3/10) used all three. If they could, all social organizations interviewed in the follow-up agreed that they would use all three ways to build institutional memory because doing so would be the most effective and engaging. Indeed, less than a majority (4/10) believed the same amount of institutional memory could be built using only two of the three methods (written and verbal)."The best way we build institutional memory is by having a living historical document. Our document was created 13 years ago and ever since then, each leadership board has added onto it - describing what their experiences were and how they think the organization should be run next year. It contains extremely useful information because we can keep track of all historical changes that happened and determine what is best for our membership moving forward."
"Our club is really special in the way we build institutional memory. We primarily only use historical memorabilia that has been passed down since the founding of [anonymous] and determine what vision we want to take the club to. At the end of each leadership term, they add onto the pile of gizmos already there with an item that is symbolic of their time."
"Most of our institutional memory building happens during retreats. We go to our satellite house with the old and new leadership teams, bond, and prepare them with what to expect through transition documents, pictures, videos - really anything that we think will show them what our club has done in the past so they can get a better grasp of what we are trying to accomplish."
Half of social organizations interviewed had an alumni board, and a majority (9/10) expressed that having one would significantly help in building institutional memory if they were strongly engaged. Those that had an alumni board suggested they had an easier time adjusting their membership practices to the unprecedented circumstances set by the pandemic in comparison to those that did not. All expressed that the COVID-19 pandemic had severely impacted their abilities to build institutional memory."We think our ways to build institutional memory are really effective - but they can definitely be improved. Some areas for that would be engagement from the broader membership to tap into our history, a set period of time dedicated towards reviewing that, and overall just more sharing of stories. Everyone seems to like when older members tell crazy stories from when they first joined, and how the club is slightly different now."
"COVID was especially a hard time for us because our leadership didn't even a proper 'oh, here's what you guys need to do for next year' from our outgoing team. We had to figure it out for ourselves by reaching out to graduated members and seeing what kind of stories they could share from their time. Thank goodness we had an alumni board because without them, God knows what position we would be in now."
"Yeah, the pandemic hit really hard for us. We didn't know whether to even accept new members or not. It's really important that we do - with financials and stuff - but it seemed like there wasn't much interest from students to join anyways. It was COVID, people were understandably scared to have in-person human interactions."
Interviews with Alumni
When I presented my data to several alumni that have stayed strongly engaged with ABC, they were delighted that we were thinking about how to best build institutional memory. While they believed a combination of the three ways would work best, they heavily emphasized how effective a living historical document would be:
"As you've experienced, your form of institutional memory building probably happened by you just sitting down with the outgoing leadership and talking about their experiences in the club. They probably showed you a lot of videos and pictures and sent you some important documents listing the general things you need to know about ABC as a leader. Making this document and reaching out to previous leadership to add to it is a brilliant idea because it accomplishes everything that you could hope for during transition meetings. Everything you hear will be written down in paper and you could always refer back to it. I really wish someone took the initiative to do that early, but glad you're on it now. That's a brilliant idea."
Blueprint for Action
Based on the data given, I believe it is necessary to create this living historical document to complement the verbal and material ways we already use to build institutional memory. This document should consist of two aspects: (1) logistics and (2) reflection (before and after term). The logistics will describe all accomplishments, strategies, and scheduled events of the leadership during their term. The reflection will discuss (1) what visions the leadership had going into their term, (2) to what extent they were able to realize those visions, (3) how they could have done better, and (4) advice for all incoming leadership moving forward.
Accomplishing these will provide a more systemic way to build institutional memory for ABC. This will be completed by the start of the 2022-2023 Spring semester when my term ends as Vice President.
